PLAIN AS A PIKESTAFF
Robert Black was dressing for a dinner--a men’s dinner, to which Samuel
Lockhart had invited him, and Tom Lockhart had commanded him.
“You see, I’ve got to be there,” Tom had explained. “And Dad always
asks a lot of ponderous old personages who bore you to death--or
else make you red with rage at some of their fossil ideas. The only
thing that saves the case for me to-night is that you’re coming. I’ve
stipulated that I sit near you--see? Mother wouldn’t hear of my being
next you--that honour is reserved for one of your trustees.”
“I assure you I’m immensely flattered,” Black had replied, with a real
sense of warmth about the heart. He had grown steadily fonder of this
interesting boy who was all but a man. “But isn’t your good friend
Doctor Burns to be there? Surely he’d save anybody from boredom.”
“There!” Tom’s tone was mocking. “Yes, he’ll be there--after he
comes--and before he goes. He’ll come in just in time for the salad--no
evening dress, just good old homespun, because he’s had no time to
change. Then he’ll be called out before the coffee and the smokes--but
he’ll ask for a cup, just the same, and swallow it standing. Then he’ll
go out--and all the lights’ll go out for me with him--except, that
you’re there to keep the brain fires burning.”
Black had laughed at this dismal picture and had told the youngster
that he would endeavour to save his life in the crisis. But now, as he
dressed, he was not looking forward to the event. To tell the truth,
although he had been present at many college and fraternity banquets,
this was actually his first experience at a formal dinner in a private
home. He was even experiencing a few doubts as to how to dress.
Good judgment, however, assured him that the one safe decision for
a clerical diner-out was clerical dress. Having satisfied himself
that every hair was in place, but having found one of his accessories
missing, he went in search of Mrs. Hodder.
“I don’t seem to find a handkerchief in my drawer, Mrs. Hodder,”
he announced, standing in the doorway of the kitchen and glancing
suggestively toward a basketful of unironed clothes below the table at
which his housekeeper sat.
“You don’t, Mr. Black?” Mrs. Hodder exclaimed. “Mercy me--I’ll iron
you one in a jiffy. If I may make so bold as to say so, sir, it’s not
my fault. You use handkerchiefs rather lavish for one who--who owns so
few.”
“Haven’t I enough? I’ll get some more at once. Do I--do you mind
telling me if I look as if I were going out to dinner?”
The housekeeper turned and surveyed him. Approval lighted her
previously sombre eye. “You look as if you were just going to get
married,” she observed.
An explosion of unclerical-like laughter answered her. “But I’m dressed
no differently from the way I am on Sundays,” he reminded her.
“You have your gown on in the pulpit. And the minute you come home
you’re out of that long coat and into the short one. I’ve never seen
you stay looking the way you do now five minutes, Mr. Black.”
“That must be why I’m so unhappy now. I’ve got to stay in this coat for
an entire evening. Pity me, Mrs. Hodder! And don’t wait up, please. I
may be rather late.”
He marched away, followed by the adoring gaze of his housekeeper. Mrs.
Hodder’s austerity of countenance belied her softness of heart. If the
minister had guessed how like a mother she felt toward him he might
have been both touched and alarmed.
Arrived at the Lockharts’, he found himself welcomed first by Tom, who
met him, as if accidentally, at the very door.
“The heavy-weights are all here,” announced the boy under his breath,
his arm linked in Black’s, as he led his friend upstairs. “Bald--half
of ’em are bald! And the rest look as solemn as if this were a funeral
instead of a dinner. Maybe they feel that way. I’m sure I do. I
say--don’t you wish we could jump into my car and burn it down the road
about fifty miles into the moonlight? There’s a gorgeous moon to-night.”
“Ask me after the dinner is over, and I’ll go.”
“What? Will you? You won’t--no such luck!”
“Try me and see.”
“You bet I will. See here--you promise? It’ll be late, I warn you.
Father’s dinners drag on till kingdom come.”
“Any time before morning.” And Black looked into the laughing,
incredulous eyes of the youth before him.
“You’re no minister,” Tom chuckled. “You’re a dead game sport.” Then he
drew back suddenly at the flash in the black eyes.
“Don’t make a mistake about that,” suggested Black, quietly.
“Oh--I guess you are a minister, all right,” admitted Tom,
respectfully. “And I guess perhaps I want you to be.”
“I’m very sure you do.” Black smiled again. “Did you think I couldn’t
take a late spin in your car without compromising my profession?”
“I just thought--for a minute,” whispered the boy, “I saw a bit of a
reckless devil look out of your eyes. I thought--you wanted to get
away, like me, from this heavy dinner business--and go to--just any old
place!”
“Perhaps I do. But I don’t intend to think about moonlight drives till
I’ve done my part here. Come on, Tom--let’s be ‘dead game sports’
and help make things go. Afterward--we’ll take the trail with good
consciences.”
“Anything to please you. I was going to bolt whenever R. P. Burns got
called out; but I’ll wait for you.”
“You seem to be sure he’ll be called out. Perhaps he won’t, for once.”
“Not a chance. Wait and see,” prophesied Tom; and together they
descended the stairs.
Tom stood off at one side, after that, with the apparent deference
of youth. His eyes were sharp with interest in Black, whose presence
relieved for him the tedium of the affair. He saw the minister
shaking hands, making acquaintances, joining groups, with a certain
straightforwardness of manner which pleased the critical youth
immensely. Like most young men, he despised what is easily recognized
in any company as that peculiar clerical atmosphere which surrounds
so many men of Black’s profession. He didn’t want a minister to bow
a little lower, hold the proffered hand a little longer, speak in a
little more unctuous tone than other men. He wanted his minister to
hold his head high, to make no attempts to ingratiate himself into
his companions’ good graces by saying things too patently calculated
to please them; he didn’t want him to agree with everybody--he wanted
him to differ with them healthily often. As he watched Black’s way
of looking a new acquaintance straight in the eye, as if to discover
what manner of man he was, and then of letting the other man take the
lead in conversation instead of instantly and skillfully assuming the
lead, as if he considered himself a born dictator of the thoughts
and words of others--well--Tom said to himself once more that he was
jolly glad Robert McPherson Black had come to this parish. Since it
always devolved upon the Lockhart family to show first friendliness to
new incumbents of that parish, it mattered much to Tom that he could
heartily like this man. He was even beginning to think of him as his
friend--his special friend. And as, from time to time, his eyes met
Black’s across the room, he had a warm consciousness that Black had not
forgotten but was looking forward to the hour that should release them
both for that fast drive down the empty, moonlit road. Reward enough
for a dull evening, that would be, to take the black-eyed Scotsman for
such a whirl across country as he probably had never known!
But first--the dinner! And Red hadn’t come--of course he hadn’t--when
the party moved out to the dining-room and took their places at the
big table with its impressive centrepiece of lights and flowers, its
rather gorgeous layout of silver and glass, and its waiting attendants.
Red hadn’t arrived when the soup and fish had come and gone; when the
roast fowl was served; it wasn’t till Tom had begun to give him up that
the big doctor suddenly put his red head in at the door and stood
there looking silently in upon the company. Tom sprang up joyfully, and
rushed across the room. Red came forward, shook hands with his host,
and took his place--opposite Black, as it happened.
And instantly--to two people at least--the room was another place.
It’s Stevenson, isn’t it?--who mentions that phenomenon we have all so
many times observed--that the entrance of some certain person into a
room makes it seem “as if another candle had been lighted!” Wonderful
phrase that--and blessed people of whom it can be said! Of such people,
certainly R. P. Burns, M.D., was a remarkable type. Nobody like him for
turning on not only one but fifty candlepower.
Yet all he did was to sit down--in his customary gray suit, quite as
Tom had said he would, having had no time to change--grin round the
table, and say, “Going to feed me up from the beginning, Lockhart?
Oh, never mind. A good plateful of whatever fowl you’ve had, and a
cup of coffee will suit me down to the ground. Coffee not served yet,
Parker?” He turned to the manservant at his elbow. “But you see”--with
an appealing glance at his host--“I’ve had no lunch to-day--and it’s
nearly ten. I’m just about ready for that coffee.” Then he surveyed
again the hitherto serious gentlemen about him, who were now looking
suddenly genial, and remarked, “You fellows don’t know what it is to be
hungry. No one here but me has done an honest day’s work.”
“Do you mind telling us what time yours began, Doctor Burns?” asked
Black, across the table.
The hazel eyes encountered the black ones for the second time. Black
had been the first man Red looked at as he sat down--his greeting grin
had therefore started with Black.
“Twelve-five A. M. No thanks to me. I gave the fellow blue blazes for
calling me, but he was one of those persistent chaps, and rang me up
every ten minutes till I gave in and went.... Excuse the shop.... What
were you all talking about? Keep it up, please, while I employ myself.”
Somebody told him they had been talking about the Great War in
Europe--and received a quick, rather cynical glance from the hazel
eyes. Somebody else observed that it was to be hoped we’d keep our
heads and not get into it--and had a fiery glance shot at him,
decidedly disdainful. Then a third man said sadly that he had a son who
was giving him trouble, wanting to go and enlist with the Canadians,
and he wished he knew how to talk sense into the boy.
“Better thank the Lord you’ve bred such a lad!” ejaculated Red, between
two gulps of coffee.
“Of course I am proud of his spirit,” admitted the unhappy father. “But
there’s no possible reason why he should do such a wild thing. His
mother is nearly out of her mind with fear that if we keep on opposing
him he’ll run away.”
“If he does, you’ll wish you had sent him willingly, won’t you?”
suggested Black. “Why not let him go?”
William Jennings, treasurer of Black’s church, turned on his minister
an astonished eye. “You don’t mean to say _you_ say that?”
“Why not? I have three young nephews over there, in the Scottish ranks.
They need all the help they can have from us. If we don’t get in as a
country pretty soon now--more than your boy will run away. Look at the
fellows who’ve already gone from our colleges, and more going all the
time.”
“Mr. Black,”--a solemn voice spoke from down the table--“I’ve been
given to understand you are in sympathy with war. I can hardly believe
it.”
Black looked at the speaker, and his eyes sparkled with a sudden fire.
“That’s rather a strange way of putting it,” he said. “Perhaps you
might rather say I am in sympathy with those who have had war thrust
upon them. What else is there to do but to make war back--to end it?”
“There are other ways--there must be. A great Christian nation must use
those ways--not throw itself blindly into the horrible carnage. Our
part is to teach the world the lesson of peace as Christ did.”
“How did He teach it?” The question came back, like a shot.
The man who had spoken delayed a little, finding it difficult to
formulate his answer. “Why, by His life, His example, His precepts--”
he said. “He was the Man of Peace--He told us to turn the other
cheek----”
Red’s keen eyes were on Black now. He had opened his own lips, in his
own impulsive way--and had closed them as quickly. “What’s in you?” his
eyes said to Black. “Have you got it in you to down this fool? Or must
I?” And he forgot how hungry he was.
When Black spoke, every other eye was on him as well. He spoke quietly
enough, yet his words rang with conviction. “My Christ,” he said, “if
He were on earth now, and the enemy were threatening Mary, His mother,
or the other Mary, or the little children He had called to Him, would
seize the sword in His own hand, to defend them.”
Red sat back. Over his face swept a flame of relief. Tom breathed
quickly. Samuel Lockhart glanced about him, and saw on some faces
startled approval and on others astonishment and anger.
Then the talk raged--of course. This was in those days, already
difficult to recall, when men differed about the part America should
take in the conflict; when dread of involvement called forth strange
arguments, unsound logic; when personal fear for their sons made
fathers stultify themselves by advocating a course which should keep
the boys out of danger. Several of the guests at Mr. Lockhart’s table
were fathers of sons in college--substantial business or professional
men alive with fear that the war sentiment flaming at the great
centres of education would catch the tow and tinder of the young men’s
imagination, and that before long, whether America should declare
war or not, instead of isolated enlistments the whole flower of the
country’s youth would be off for the scene of the great disaster.
Suddenly Red brought his fist down on the table.
“You’re afraid,” he cried, “of the personal issue, you fellows! Forget
that you have sons--let the sons forget that they have fathers. What’s
America’s plain duty? Good God--it’s as plain as a pikestaff! She’s got
to get in--to keep her own self-respect.”
“And to save her own soul,” added Black; and again the eyes of the two
men met across the table.
It was at this instant that Tom Lockhart took fire. Up to these last
words of Red and Black he had been merely intensely interested and
excited; now, suddenly, he was aglow with eagerness to show where he
stood, he of the class who in all wars are first to offer themselves.
Almost before he knew it he had spoken, breaking the silence which had
succeeded upon Black’s grave words.
“I’m ready to go,” he said, and a great flush spread over his fair
young face to the roots of his thick, sandy hair.
Then, indeed, the table was in an uproar--a subdued uproar, to be
sure, but none the less throbbing with contrary opinion. As for Samuel
Lockhart himself, he could only stare incredulously at his boy, but
the other men, with the exception of the doctor and the minister, were
instantly upon Tom with hurried words of disapproval. William Jennings,
who sat next him, turned and laid a remonstrating hand on Tom’s arm.
“My boy,” he said, fiercely--it was he whose son was likely to enlist
with Canada--“you don’t know what you’re talking about. For Heaven’s
sake, don’t lose your head like my George! There isn’t any call for you
youngsters to take this thing seriously--leave it to the ones who are
of military age, at least. They’ve got enough men over there, anyway,
to see this war through; if we send money and munitions, the way we are
doing, that’s our part, and a big part it is, too.”
Well, Tom found himself wishing in a way that he hadn’t spoken up,
since it had brought all the heavy-weights down on his undeniably
boyish self. And yet, somehow, when he had glanced just once at Red
and Black, he couldn’t be entirely sorry. Both had given him a look
which he would have done much to earn, and neither had said a word of
remonstrance.
Yet, after the dinner, his impression that they were both eager to have
him carry his expression of willingness into that of a fixed purpose,
suffered an unexpected change. As they rose from the table, at a late
hour, Red--who had not been called out yet after all--slipped his arm
through Tom’s, and spoke in his ear.
“I’m proud of you, lad,” he said, “but I want you to think this
thing through to the end. Duty sometimes takes one form and sometimes
another. I’ve been watching your father, and--you see--you dealt him
a pretty heavy blow to-night, and he hasn’t been quite the same man
since. Go slow--that’s only fair to him. You’re not twenty-one yet, are
you?”
“Pretty near. Next January.”
“Keep cool till then. We may be in it as a country by then--I hope so.
If we are--perhaps you and I----”
Tom thrilled. “Will you go, Doctor?”
“You bet I will! I’d have been off long ago if---- But I can’t tell you
the reason just now. Some day, perhaps. Meanwhile----”
He looked at Tom, and Tom looked at him. Then, both of them, for some
unexplainable reason, turned and looked toward Black, whose eyes were
following them.
“Do you suppose he’ll go if we do declare war?” whispered Tom.
A queer expression crossed Red’s face. “They mostly don’t--his class,”
he said, rather contemptuously.
“Do you think--” Tom hesitated--“he’s--just like his class?”
“Not--just like those I’ve known,” admitted Red, grudgingly. “That
is--on the surface. Can’t tell how deep the difference goes, yet.”
“I _like_ him!” avowed Tom, honestly.
Red laughed. “Good for you!” he commented. “I’m--trying rather hard not
to like him.”
Tom stared. “Oh--why not?” he questioned, eagerly.
But he didn’t hear the explanation of this extraordinary statement, for
one of the older men came up and hauled him away by the arm, and he
had a bad time of it, mostly, for the rest of the evening. He was only
restrained from making a bolt and getting away from the house by the
remembrance of Black’s promise.
The time came, however, when for a moment he feared it was all up with
that moonlight spin. He had just slipped out upon the porch and assured
himself that the night was continuing to be the finest ever, when he
heard Red inside taking leave. He hurried back, and discovered that the
other men were evidently about to take the cue and go also. He came
around to Black’s elbow in time to hear Red address the minister.
“Happen to be in the mood for a run of a few miles in my car?” Red
invited, in his careless way which left a man free to accept or refuse
as he chose. “I have to see a patient yet to-night. It was a pretty
fine night when I came in.”
Tom couldn’t know--how could he?--what, in the circumstances, it cost
Black to reply as he promptly did:
“Thank you--I’d like nothing better--except what I’m going to have: the
same thing with Tom Lockhart.”
Now Tom was a gentleman, and he hastened to release Black from his
promise, though his face plainly showed his disappointment.
“Please go with the Doctor, if you like, Mr. Black. His car can put it
all over mine--and he doesn’t ask anybody very often--as I happen to
know.”
Black smiled. “I’m engaged to you, Tom,” he said, “and I’m going with
you, if you’ll take me. Mighty sorry I can’t be in two places at the
same time, Doctor Burns.”
“All right,” answered Red--and wouldn’t have admitted for a farm that
he was disappointed. “As for Tom’s car--it’s a whale,” he added, “and
can show my old Faithful the dust any time. Good-night, then!”
Whichever was the better car, certain it was that Black, in Tom’s, had
his first sensation of tremendous speed during the hour which followed.
The boy was excited by the events of the evening, he was a skillful
and daring driver, and he was conscious of being able to give an older
man a perfectly new experience. Black had frankly told him that he had
never before taken a night drive in a powerful roadster, with the speed
limit whatever the driver chose to make it. Under this stimulus Tom
chose to make it pretty nearly the extreme of his expensive motor’s
power. The result was that very soon the minister’s hat was in his
hand, and his close-cut black hair taking the stiff breeze, like Tom’s,
as the car gathered herself afresh to fly down each new stretch of
clear road.
“Like it?” shouted Tom, suddenly, as he slowed down for a sharp curve.
“It’s great!”
“Don’t mind how fast we go?”
“Not while I trust you--as I do.”
“You do trust me, eh?” The boy’s voice was exultant.
“To the limit.”
“Why do you?”
“Because you know my life is in your hands. You wouldn’t risk cutting
it short.”
The motor slackened perceptibly. “There’s not the least danger of that.”
“Of course not--with your hands on the wheel. Go ahead--don’t slow
down. You haven’t shown me yet quite what the car can do, have you?”
“Well--not quite. Pretty near, though. I knew you were a good sport.
Lots of older men get nervous when we hit--what we were hitting. Not
even R. P. B. drives in quite that notch--and he’s no coward. He says
it’s all right, if you don’t happen to throw a tire. I never expect to
throw one--not at that pace. Never have. Maybe I better not take any
chances with the minister in, though.”
“Take any that you’d take for yourself,” commanded Black. Tom,
diminishing his pace of necessity for a one-way bridge, glanced quickly
round at his companion, to see what Black’s face might reveal that his
cool speech did not. He saw no trace of fear in the clean-cut profile
outlined against the almost daylight of the vivid night; instead he saw
a man seemingly at ease under conditions which usually, Tom reflected,
rather strung most fellows up, old or young.
Suddenly Tom spoke his mind: “You _are_ a good sport,” he said, in his
ardent young way. “They mostly aren’t, though, in your business, are
they?--honestly now? _You_ would go to war, though, wouldn’t you?”
Then he saw a change of expression indeed. Black’s lips tightened, his
chin seemed to protrude more than usual--and, as we have stated before,
it was a frankly aggressive chin at any time. Black’s head came round,
and his eyes seemed to look straight through Tom’s into his cynical
young thoughts.
“Tom,” he said--waited a bit, and then went on, slowly and with
peculiar emphasis--“there’s just one thing I can never take peaceably
from any man--and I don’t think I have to take it. I have the honour
to belong to a profession which includes thousands of the finest men
in the world--just as your friend Doctor Burns’ profession includes
thousands of fine men. You--and others--never think of hitting at the
profession of medicine and surgery just because you may happen to know
a man here and there who isn’t a particularly worthy member of it.
There are quacks and charlatans in medicine--but the profession isn’t
judged by them. Is it quite fair to judge the ministry by some man you
have known who didn’t seem to measure up?”
“Why--no, of course not,” admitted Tom. “It’s just that--I
suppose--well--I don’t think there are so many of ’em who--who----”
“Want to drive seventy miles an hour--at midnight?”
Tom laughed boyishly. “I don’t expect that, of course. But I don’t like
long prayers, to tell the truth; and most of the sermons find fault
with folks because they don’t happen to come up to the preacher’s mark,
and I get fed up on ’em.”
“Do you like Doctor Burns’ medicine? He set your leg once, you told me.
Did you like that--especially?”
“Oh, well--if you want to call sermons medicine----” began Tom, slyly.
“That’s exactly what many of them are--or should be--and pretty bitter
medicine, too, at that, sometimes. Shouldn’t a man have your respect
who dares to risk your dislike by giving you the medicine he thinks you
need? Is the man who ventures to stand up and tell you the plain truth
about yourself, whether you like it or not, exactly a coward?”
“You’re certainly no coward,” said Tom, with emphasis.
“Did you ever happen to know a minister who you thought was a coward?”
“Not exactly. But--if you want the truth--I don’t think, if this
country should get into war, you’d see an awful lot of preachers going
into it. Why--they don’t believe in it. They----”
“Wait and see. We shall get into it--sooner or later--I hope sooner.
And when we do--I don’t think the regiments will be lacking chaplains.”
“Oh!--chaplains!”
“You think that’s a soft job, do you? Do you happen to have been
reading much about the English and French chaplains over there, since
the war began? And the priests?”
“Can’t say I have,” admitted Tom.
“The only difference that I can find,” said Black, in a peculiar
quiet tone which when he knew him better Tom discovered to mean
deadly earnestness--with a bite in it--“between a chaplain’s job and
a fighting man’s, is that the right sort of chaplain goes unarmed
where the soldier goes armed--and takes about as many chances, first
and last. And when it comes to bracing the men’s courage before the
fight--and after--well, I think I covet the chaplain’s chance even more
than I do the captain’s.”
They drove in silence after that for exactly three and three quarter
miles, which, at Tom’s now modified pace, took about five minutes. Then
Black said:
“I didn’t answer the other part of your question, did I, Tom?”
“About whether you’d go to war?” Tom turned, with a satisfied smile on
his lips. “I’ve been thinking about that. But I guess you answered it,
all right.”
At one o’clock in the morning Tom set Black down before the manse. For
the last half-hour they had had a jolly talk which had ranged from
guns to girls--and back again to guns. Black seemed to know more about
the guns than the girls, though he had listened with interest to Tom’s
remarks upon both subjects, and had contributed an anecdote or two
which had made Tom shout with glee. When Black stood upon the sidewalk,
a tall, straight figure in the moonlight, he held out his hand, which
Tom gripped eagerly.
“Thank you for the best hour I’ve had in a month. That blew all the fog
out of my brain, and put a wonderful new idea into my head.”
“Mind telling me what it is?” Tom asked.
“If you’ll keep it quiet till I have it under way. Do you think we
can get a group of fellows, friends of yours and others, to come to
my house once a week--say on Monday evenings--to talk over this war
situation--study it up--discuss it freely--and plan what we can do
about it, over here--before we get over there?”
“Do I think so?” Tom’s tone spoke his pleasure as well as the chuckling
laugh he gave. “Do I think so? Why, the fellows will be crazy to
come--after I tell ’em about this drive and chin of ours. When they
know you burned the road with me at such a clip and never turned a
hair, they’ll fall over one another to get to your house.”
He enjoyed to the full the laugh he got back from Black at that--a
deep-keyed, whole-souled, delightful laugh, which told of the richness
of the man’s nature. Then--
“I’d drive at a hundred, hours on end,” declared Black, “to have you
fall in with my schemes like that. Good-night, Tom, and we’ll organize
that club to-morrow.”
“To-day, you mean.” Tom reluctantly gave his motor the signal.
“To-day. At eight o’clock to-night. Be on hand early, will you, Tom--to
help me make things go from the start?”
“I’ll be sitting on your doorstep at seven thirty.”
“Good. I’ll open the door at seven twenty-nine. Good-night, Tom.”
“Good-night, Mr. Black.”
But so slowly did Tom drive away that he was not out of sight of the
manse when the door closed on his friend the minister.