"The wraith of my departed priestly calling forbids me to phrase my
answer just as I'd like best to do," he said.
Reed nodded.
"So bad as that? What is the matter now?"
"It's hard to specify. I seem to have run myself aground."
"Pull off, then," Reed advised.
"No craft in sight to tow me."
Reed shut his teeth.
"Brenton, that has been your trouble from the start. You've always been
drifting, anchor up, ready for a tow. Now hoist your sails and, for the
Lord's sake, go ahead."
"Where?"
"Where! Wherever the chart takes you. What chart? The chart of plain
duty, man, the duty of an honest citizen to make the most of himself
and be a little good to humanity at large. No; wait. You've had your
chances; you can't cry off on that. You had your chance, 'way back in
college, and you chucked it over. How much more would it have hurt your
mother to have seen you once for all take up a secular profession, than
it would to have watched you setting out to preach all the things her
own religion didn't stand for? You had another chance in Saint Peter's.
It wasn't a small chance, either. You could have held that church
together, solid; you could have brought its people to a working assent
to a practical exposition of their creed that would have kept them busy
and loyal to their Creator, in doing their duty to their co-created
fellow men. Instead, you ignored your chance to keep them busy on
things that would help on the world we live in, and spent all your
energies in tangling up your notions of the world we came out of, and
the world we, some day, are going into. As mental gymnastics, it was
very pretty to watch; as a useful employment for a man who calls
himself a pastor of souls, it wasn't worth a rush."
"But a man can't help his thoughts," Brenton expostulated suddenly.
"Can't he?" Reed whitened. "Brenton," he asked gravely; "don't you
suppose that there have been times on times, since they lugged me up
these stairs, that, if I had let myself go, I wouldn't have turned my
face to the wall and cursed, not only the whole plan of creation, but
the Creator himself? Times on times that, if I hadn't held tight to a
few rudimentary notions that I took in with my mother's milk, notions
about the decent and square thing to do for the God that made you, I
wouldn't have tested the logic of your doubtings with a dose of
cyanide? I tell you a man can help his thoughts. I tell you a man can
hold to his beliefs. He can wonder about the petty things as much as he
chooses, and it never does him one bit of harm. But the final great
belief of all, that there is a wise Creator back of things, and that we
owe Him at least as much loyal courtesy as we give to the best of our
brother men: that is something it is in the hands of any man to hold on
to, if he chooses. Brenton, I hate to lecture you," and, with a sudden
gesture brimful of appealing for forgiveness, for loyal comprehension,
Reed stretched out his hand; "but you have got to bring yourself up
with a round turn. In some way or other, you have missed your chances.
You have gone rushing off for shiny butterflies, when you ought to have
stopped at home and milked the cows. Something," he smiled; "Whittenden
says it was my downfall, set you to asking questions that you were too
nearsighted to answer. Instead of sticking to a few fundamental bits of
faith, you made yourself a ladder out of theological catchwords,
clambered up it and kicked out all the rungs, one after another, as you
climbed. Then you turned dizzy, and lost your grip, and fell all in a
heap. Brenton, we've had about the same experience, one way or another,
out of life."
"But you have braced up again and gone ahead," Brenton said slowly.
"So will you, man. That's why I am harrying you now, to start you up
again. We neither one of us are half through our allotted term of
years. In simple decency, we've got to play out the game."
"If we can," Brenton interrupted.
"No _if_ about it. We've got it to do. Of course, we can't do it in
quite the same old way. Be plucky as we can, it's impossible for us to
deny that we've been scarred--badly; that the scars, some of them, can
never really heal. Still, as long as we've a year ahead of us and a
drop of fighting blood inside us--Brenton, it isn't easy; but it's our
one way to prove we're game."
Then, for a while, the room was very still. At last, Reed spoke once
more.
"Scott," he said slowly, and the old name held a note of great love;
"once on a time, you didn't resent it when I told you that old
Mansfield asked me to take you in hand and show you a few things out of
my own experience. Don't resent it now. We've been too good friends
for too many years for that."
Ramsdell's steady step came up the stairs, and Reed went on quite
simply.
"Then you've heard from Whittenden?"
Brenton, pulling himself back to the present, looked up sharply at the
question.
"How did you know?"
"He wrote me. What does he suggest?"
"Didn't he tell you that? He wants me to go down to him, and take over
some of his settlement work."
"Shall you go?"
Brenton shook his head.
"It's out of the question, Opdyke. I only wish I could, for I am not of
much use to your father, I'm afraid. Still, hereafter--Well, perhaps
you've put new force into me by your admonitions." But his voice broke
a little over the intentionally careless words.
Opdyke ignored the allusion.
"Then why not go to Whittenden?" he inquired, as carelessly as he was
able.
Brenton arose and stood, erect, looking down at his old friend
intently, as if anxious that Opdyke should lose no fragment of his
meaning.
"Because, now more than ever," he said, a little bit insistently; "I
feel it would be impossible for me to go away from the college. To
change now would be a confession of another failure. If I am to make
good at all, it must be here and soon. Besides," and now his accent
changed; "I must stay on here and keep my house open, Opdyke. The time
may come, when Mrs. Brenton wishes to come back to me. If it does come,
she must find everything ready, waiting for her to make her realize
that, at last, she is once more at home."
And then, as Ramsdell came inside the room, he turned and went away
down the stairs. Watching him, Reed Opdyke could not but feel reassured
on his account. Whatever his anxieties for himself and Olive, he could
not fail to realize that, unknown to any of them, looking on, the
steadying processes in Brenton had begun.