Suddenly, as Courtland stood in the narrow, dark street alone and in
uncertainty, he was no longer alone. As clearly as if he felt a touch
upon his sleeve he knew that One was there beside him, and that this
errand he was upon had the sanction of that Presence which had met him
once in the fiery way and promised to show him what to do.
"God, show me where to find her!" he ejaculated, and then, as if one had
said, "Come with me!" he turned as certainly as if a passer-by had
directed him where he had seen her, and walked up the street. That is,
_they_ walked up the street.
Always in thinking of that walk afterward he thought of it as "they
walking up the street"--himself and the Presence.
The first thing he remembered about it was that he had lost that sense
of uncertainty and anxiety. How long the route was or where it was to
end did not seem to matter. Every step of the way was companioned by One
who knew what He was about. It came to him that he would like to go
everywhere in such company; that no journey would be too far or arduous,
no duty too unpleasant if all could be as this.
He stepped into the telephone-office and began calling up hospitals.
There were one or two that reported young women brought in, but the
description was not at all like the girl of whom he was in search. He
jotted them down in his note-book, however, with a feeling that they
might be a last resort.
As he turned the pages of the 'phone-book his eye caught the name of the
city's morgue, and a sudden horror froze into his mind. What if
something had happened to her and she had been taken there? What if she
had ended the life which had looked so lonely and impossible to her? No,
she would never do that, not with her faith in the Christ! And yet, if
her vitality was low, and her heart was taxed with sorrow, she would
perhaps scarcely be responsible for what she did.
He rang up the morgue sharply and put tense, eager questions.
Yes, a young woman had been brought in about an hour ago.... Yes,
dressed in black--had long light hair and was slender. "_Some looker!_"
the man who answered the 'phone said.
Courtland shuddered and hung up. He felt that he must go to the morgue.
When they entered the gruesome place of the unknown dead, although the
Presence entered with him, yet he felt that it was there already,
standing close among the dead; had been there when they came in!
Courtland's face was white, and set as he passed between the silent dead
laid out for identification. An inward shudder went through him as he
was led to the spot where lay the latest comer, a slim young girl with
long golden hair, sodden from the river where she had been found, her
pretty face sharpened and coarsened by sin.
He drew a deep breath of relief and turned away quickly from the sight
of her poor drowned eyes, rejoicing that they had not been the eyes of
Bonnie. It was terrible to think of Bonnie lying so, all drenched and
her spirit put out. He was glad he might still think of her alive, and
go on searching for her. But a dart of pain went through his heart as he
looked again at this little wreck of womanhood, going out of a life that
had dealt hardly with her; where she had reached for brightness and
pleasure, and had found ashes and bitterness instead. Going into a
beyond of darkness, hoping, perhaps, for no kindlier hands to greet her
than those that had been withheld from her in this world! What would the
resurrection mean to a poor little soul like that? What could it mean?
Ah! Perhaps it had not all been her fault! Perhaps there were others who
had helped push her down, smug in self-righteousness, to whom the
resurrection would be more of a horror than to the pretty, ignorant
child whose untaught feet had strayed into forbidden paths! Who knew? He
was glad to look up and feel the Presence there! Who knew what might
have passed between the soul and God? It was safe to leave that little
sinful soul with Him who had died to save. It was good to go out from
there knowing that the pretty, sinful girl, the hardened, grizzled sot,
the poor old toothless crone, the little hunchback newsboy who lay in
the same row, were guarded alike and beloved by the same Presence that
would go with him.
Around the little newsboy huddled a group of street gamins, counting out
their few pennies, and talking excitedly of how they would buy him some
flowers. There were tear-stains down their grimy cheeks and it was plain
they were pitying him, they who had perhaps yet to tread the paths of
sin and deprivation and sorrow for many long years. And the Presence
there! So near them, with the pitying eyes! The young man knew the eyes
were pitying! If the children could only see! He felt an impulse to turn
back and tell them as he passed out into the street, yet how could he
make them understand--he who understood so feebly and intermittently
himself? He felt a great ache in himself to go out and shout to all the
world to look up and see the Presence that was in their midst, and they
saw Him not!
He was entirely aware that his present mental state would have seemed to
him little short of insanity twenty-four hours before; that it might
pass again as it had done before; and a kind of mental frenzy seized him
lest it would. He did not want to lose this assurance of One guiding
through a world that was so full of sorrow as this one had recently
revealed itself to him to be. And with the world-old anguished "Give me
a sign!" the cry of the soul reaching out to the unknown, he spoke aloud
once more: "God, if You are really there, let me find her!"
And yet if any had asked him just then if he ever prayed he would have
told them no. Prayer was to him a thing utterly apart from this cry of
his soul, this longing for an understanding with God.
He walked on through streets he did not know, passing men and women with
worn and haggard faces, tattered garments, and discouraged mien; and
always that cry came in his soul, "Oh, if they only knew!" There was the
Presence by his side, and men passed by and saw Him not!
He was walking in the general direction of the Good Samaritan Hospital,
just as any one would walk with a friend through a strange place and
accommodate his going to the man who was guiding him. All the way there
seemed to be a sort of intercourse between himself and his Companion.
His soul was putting forth great questions that he would some day take
up in detail and go over little by little, as one will verify a problem
that one has worked out. But now he was working it out, becoming
satisfied in his soul that this was the only way to solve the great
otherwise unanswerable problems of the universe.
They had gone for perhaps three miles or more from the morgue, traveling
for the most part through narrow streets crowded full of small
dwelling-houses interspersed by cheap stores and saloons. The night
lowered! the stars were not on duty. A cold wind from the river swept
around corners, reminding him of the dripping yellow hair of the girl in
the morgue. It cut like a knife through Courtland's heavy overcoat and
made him wish he had brought his muffler. He stuffed his gloved hands
into his pockets. Even in their fur linings they were stiff and cold. He
thought of the girl's little light serge jacket and shivered visibly as
they turned into another street where vacant lots on one side left a
wide sweep for the wind and sent it tempesting along freighted with dust
and stinging bits of sand. The clouds were heavy as with snow, only that
it was too cold to snow. One fancied only biting steel could fall from
clouds like that on a night so bitter. And any moment he might have
turned back, gone a block to one side, and caught the trolley across to
the university, where light and warmth and friends were waiting. And
what was this one little lost girl to him? A stranger? No, she was no
longer a stranger! She had become something infinitely precious to the
whole universe. God cared, and that was enough! He could not be a friend
of God unless he cared as God cared! He was demonstrating facts that he
had never apprehended before.
The lights were out in most of the houses that they passed, for it was
growing late. There were not quite so many saloons. The streets loomed
wide ahead, the line of houses dark on the left, and the stretch of
vacant lots, with the river beyond on the right. Across the river a
line of dark buildings with occasional blink of lights blended into the
dark of the sky, and the wind merciless over all.
On ahead a couple of blocks the light flung out on the pavement and
marked another saloon. Bright doors swung back and forth. The
intermittent throb of a piano and twang of a violin, making merry with
the misery of the world; voices brokenly above it all came at intervals,
loudly as the way drew nearer.
The saloon doors swung again and four or five dark figures jostled
noisily out and came haltingly down the street. They walked crazily,
like ships without a rudder, veering from one side of the walk to the
other, shouting and singing uncouth, ribald songs, hoarse laughter
interspersed with scattered oaths.
"O! Jesus Christ!" came distinctly through the quiet night. The young
man felt a distinct pain for the Christ by his side, like the pressing
of a thorn into the brow. He seemed to know the prick himself. For these
were some of those for whom He died!
It occurred to Courtland that he was seeing everything on this walk
through the eyes of the Christ. He remembered Scrooge and his journey
with the Ghost of Christmas Past in Dickens's _Christmas Carol_. It was
like that. He was seeing the real soul of everybody! He was with the
architect of the universe, noting where the work had gone wrong from the
mighty plans. He suddenly knew that these creatures coming giddily
toward him were planned to mighty things!
The figures paused before one of the dark houses, pointed and laughed;
went nearer to the steps and stooped. He could not hear what they were
saying; the voices were hushed in ugly whispers, broken by harsh
laughter. Only now and then he caught a syllable.
"Wake up!" floated out into the silence once. And again, "No, you don't,
my pretty little chicken!"
Then a girl's scream pierced the night and something darted out from the
darkness of the door-step, eluding the drunken men, but slipped and
fell!
Courtland broke into a noiseless run.
The men had scrambled tipsily after the girl and clutched her. They
lifted her unsteadily and surrounded her. She screamed again, and dashed
this way and that blindly, but they met her every time and held her.
Courtland knew, as by a flash, that he had been brought here for this
crisis. It was as if he had heard the words spoken to him, "Now go!" He,
lowering his head and crouching, came swiftly forward, watching
carefully where he steered, and coming straight at two of the men with
his powerful shoulders. It was an old trick of the football field and it
bowled the two assailants on the right straight out into the gutter. The
other three made a dash at him, but he side-stepped one and tripped him;
a blow on the point of the chin sent another sprawling on the sidewalk;
but the last one, who was perhaps the most sober of them all, showed
fight and called to his comrades to come on and get this stranger who
was trying to steal their girl. The language he used made Courtland's
blood boil. He struck the fellow across his foul mouth, and then
clenching with him, went down upon the sidewalk. His antagonist was a
heavier man than he was, but the steady brain and the trained muscles
had the better of it from the first, and in a moment more the drunken
man was choking and limp.
Courtland rose and looked about. The two fellows in the gutter were
struggling to their feet with loud threats, and the fellow on the
sidewalk was staggering toward him. They would be upon the girl again in
a moment. He looked toward her, as she stood trembling a few feet away
from him, too frightened to try to run, not daring to leave her
protector. A street light fell directly upon her white face. It was
Bonnie Brentwood!
With a kick at the man on the ground who was trying to rise, and a lurch
at the man on the sidewalk who was coming toward him that sent him
spinning again, Courtland dived under the clutching hands of the two in
the gutter who couldn't quite make it to get upon the curb again.
Snatching up the girl like a baby, he fled up the street and around the
first corner, and all that cursing, drunken, reeling five came howling
after!