THE TOWN WAS EMPTY BEFORE
“Of _course_ I’m going down to New York to see him in!” shouted Dr.
Redfield Pepper Burns. He waved a cable message in his good right hand.
“What did I wire Leaver to wire me the date for, if not so I could be
on the pier yelling when that darn chaplain of the ----nth gets in?
Why, if Cary Ray’s word is to be trusted, Black’s come through hell,
same as the rest of ’em. Be there? You _bet_ I’ll be there.”
He was there. Nothing could have stopped him. He wanted to see
instantly for himself that those shoulder and thigh injuries of which
Leaver had written were not going to leave any serious or permanent
results. Besides--oh, yes, he wanted to see the man himself, his
friend,--who had faced death for him, as every soldier who went had
faced it, for those who were left behind. He wanted to see Robert
McPherson Black, and look into those keen, dark eyes of his, and see
break over the well-remembered clean-cut face that smile which Red knew
the first wave of his arm would bring.
People on that pier had to make way when a certain chaplain came down
the gangway. A big man with a red head politely but irresistibly put
them aside from his path, and they saw him grasp the chaplain’s hand.
They didn’t hear much, but they saw that two friends had met. The very
silence of that first instant told the story of a glad reunion.
Later, the words came fast enough. When Red could get Black to himself
his first questions were pointedly professional. Satisfied upon the
items he had wished made clear, he turned his attention to making his
welcome manifest.
“I don’t want you to think I’ve lost my head,” he said, in the taxicab
which was taking the two men to their train. Black was on furlough;
the way had been made clear for him to go at once, though he was to
rejoin his regiment when it came home later, pending his and his men’s
discharge. “But I’m just so plain glad to have you back I’ve got to say
it, and say it out loud. I knew well enough when you went you wouldn’t
play safe, over there--and you haven’t.”
“Just how much use,” inquired Black, looking him straight in the eye,
“would you have had for me if I had?”
“Not much.”
“Well, then----”
The two laughed, as men do when there is real emotion behind the
laughter. Red let his welcome go at that for the present, and plunged
into talk about the armistice and the present condition of things. But
late that night, when Black having reached the haven of Red’s home,
after a quick journey by the fastest train over the shortest route, was
sent to his room at what Red considered a proper hour--midnight--he
had wanted to sit up until morning, but he considered Black still
a convalescent, and now in his charge--Red gave his friend his
real welcome. To this day Black preserves a scrawl upon a certain
professional prescription blank, which was pushed under his door that
night just before he switched off his light.
All the evening he had been made to feel how they all cared. Mrs. Burns
had given him the most satisfying of greetings; the Macauleys had
rushed in to see him; Samuel Lockhart had called him upon the telephone
to make an appointment for the morning. His whole parish would have
been in to wring his hand if Red had not kept his actual arrival a
secret for that night except to these chosen few. But nothing that
anybody said or did gave him half the joy that he found in those few
words written slantwise across the little white slip with R. P. Burns’
name and address printed at the top and no signature at all at the
bottom. Considering that day, now almost three years back, when Robert
Black had first looked across the space between pulpit and pew and
coveted the red-headed doctor for his friend, and taking into account
all the difficulties he had found in getting past the barriers Red had
set up against him, it was not strange that his heart gave one big,
glad throb of exultation as he read these words:--
“_The town was empty before--it’s full now, though not another blamed
beggar comes into it to-night._”
Two months later Jane came home, to find Cary there before her, with
Fanny as his bride. They had been married in Paris, “with all the
thrills,” as Cary said, beaming proudly upon the slender figure in the
French frock beside him, as he described the wedding to his sister.
A few days later Robert Black and Jane Ray themselves were quietly
married at the home of Dr. Redfield Pepper Burns and went at once to
the manse, which had been made ready for them by the united efforts of
Mrs. Burns, Miss Lockhart and Mrs. Hodder, Black’s former housekeeper.
At the wedding breakfast, Cary, self-appointed master of ceremonies,
rose in his place. He looked around at the little company, his eyes
resting first on one and then another, till he had swept the circle.
Then he made a speech, which he always afterward asserted to be his
masterpiece in the way of rhetorical effort, struck off, as it was, on
the inspiration of the hour.
Getting up in the correspondent’s uniform which it had pleased him to
put on once more for the occasion, since Black, as yet undischarged,
was obliged still to wear the olive-drab with the cross upon the
collar, Cary began:--
“In view of the fact that the bridegroom is still in O. D., it seems to
me that it ought to be known to you people what it looks as if he never
meant to tell you for himself. It’s only by chance that I found it out,
but, by George! I’m going to tell you, since he won’t.”
He walked around to Black, and laid hand upon the topmost button of
his new brother-in-law’s tunic. Black put up a hand and attempted to
restrain him, but it could not be done, without a fight. He therefore
submitted, the colour rising in his cheek, while Cary unfastened the
tunic and threw back its left side, whereupon a certain famous war
medal for distinguished service became visible.
“My faith!” burst from Red’s lips. “I knew it! But I never dared ask.”
“The wearer of this,” Cary went on, while Black’s eyes fell before the
glow of joy he had caught in Jane’s, “went over the top with his men
every blooming time they went, till Fritz finally got him. But before
the shrapnel that put him out at last left the guns he had brought in
wounded under every sort of hot fire, had taken every chance there was,
and that last day--turned the trick that brought him this,----” and
Cary laid a reverent hand upon the medal. “It happened this way----”
“No--please!----” began Black quickly, turning in protest. “Not
now--nor here----”
But Cary wouldn’t be restrained. “Now--and here, by your leave, Bob,
or without it. I won’t go into details, if you don’t like me to, but I
will say this much: The story concerns a machine-gun on our side which
had lost its last gunner, trying to put out a machine-gun nest of the
enemy’s which was enfilading our men and mowing them down. This Bob
Black of ours comes up, jumps in, and keeps things going all by himself
till--the spit-fire over there was silenced. It may not have been the
proper deed for the chaplain--I don’t know--but I do know that he saved
ten times more lives than he took--and I say--here’s to him--and God
bless him!”
The toast to which all had risen was drunk in a quivering silence, with
Jane’s hand upon her husband’s shoulder, and her proud and beautiful
eyes meeting his with a glance which said it all.
Then Black rose. “Sometime, Cary,” he said, with a glance, “I’ll be
even with you for this. Sometime I shall have found out all the chances
_you_ took, and I’ll recite them on some public occasion and make
you wince as you never winced under shot and shell. But while we are
drinking toasts--in this crystal clear water of our wedding feast which
is better than any wine for such an hour--I want to propose one which
is very near my heart. Not all the war medals that ever were struck
would be big enough or fine enough to pin upon some of the breasts that
most deserved them. One man I know, who desperately wanted to go across
and take his part in the salvaging of life from the wreck, but couldn’t
go, nevertheless contributed one of the most efficient means to saving
life that has been used by some of the best surgeons there. And I want
to say--‘here and now’--as Cary says--that I consider it took more
gallantry on the part of this same red-headed--and red-blooded--fellow
to stay here and carry on, as he did, with speeches and loan-raising,
and all the rest of the unthanked tasks that he put through at heavy
cost to his own endurance, than to have gone across, as he longed to
do, and won medals by spectacular work that would have made his name
famous on both sides of the water. So here’s to Dr. Redfield Pepper
Burns, bearer of a heavier cross than I have ever borne,--and winner of
one more shining. And I, too, say--God bless him!”
They looked into each others’ eyes, these two, across the table, and
Red’s eyes fell before the light that was in Black’s. It was not only
the light that his wedding day had brought there, it was the light of
a friendship which should last throughout these two men’s lives, and
bless both, all the way.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.