great things. Why should you leave now?”
Barney waited a few moments in silence as if pondering an answer.
“Margaret, I must go,” he finally burst forth. “You know I must go. I
can't live within touch of him and forget!”
“Forgive, you mean, Barney.”
“Well, forgive, if you like,” he replied sullenly.
“Barney,” replied Margaret earnestly, “this is unworthy of you, and
in the face of God's mercy to-day how can you hold resentment in your
heart?”
“How can I? God knows, or the Devil. For three years I have fought it,
but it is there. It is there!” He struck his hand hard upon his breast.
“I can't forget that he ruined my life! But for him I believe in my
soul I should have won--her to me! At a critical moment he came in and
ruined--”
“Barney! Barney, listen to me!” cried Margaret impetuously.
Barney sprang to his feet.
“No, you must listen to me. Sit down.” Barney obeyed her word and sat
down. “Now, hear me, and hear me fairly. I am not going to say that Dick
was free from blame, nor was Iola either. Whose was the greater I can't
tell. They were both young and, to a certain extent, inexperienced in
the ways of life. Circumstances threw them much together and on terms of
almost brotherly and sisterly intimacy. That was a mistake. They ignored
conventions that can never be safely ignored. Just at that time Dick's
life was made hard for him. His Church had rejected him.”
“Rejected him?”
“Yes, rejected him. He was refused license by the Presbytery, was
branded as a heretic and outcast from work.” Margaret's voice grew
bitter. “Do you wonder that he grew hard? Perhaps they could not help
it--I can't say--but he grew hard. Yes, and worse than that, grew away
from his faith, from his friends, and from those things that keep men
straight and strong. He grew weak. The hour of temptation came upon him.
You and I have seen enough of that side of life to know what that means.
He broke faith with you--no, not with you. He was loyal to you, but he
broke faith with himself and with her. For a single moment, that moment
at which you appeared, he yielded to passion, and bitterly, terribly,
has he suffered since that moment. How terribly no one knows. He has
tried to find you, but you would not be found. He wronged you, Barney,
but you have made him and all of us suffer much.” The voice that had
gone on so bravely and so firmly here suddenly trembled and broke.
“Made you suffer!” cried Barney, with bitter scorn. “How can you speak
of suffering? You have everything! I have lost all!”
“Everything?” echoed Margaret faintly. “Ah, Barney, how little you know!
But, no matter, God has brought you together and you must not do this
wicked thing. You must not continue to break our hearts.”
“Break your hearts? Margaret, what's the use of words? I had a heart,
too, and a brother whom I loved and trusted as myself, yes, more than
myself, and--I had--Iola. All I have lost. My work satisfies me for a
few months, but try as I can this awful thing hunts me down and drives
me mad. There is nothing in life left for me. And there might have been
much but for--”
“Stop, Barney!” cried Margaret impulsively. “There is much still left
for you. God is good. How much better than we. You can't forgive a
fellow-sinner. Oh, shame! But He forgives and forgets, and surely you
ought to try--”
“Try! Try! Heavens above, Margaret! Try! Do you think I haven't tried?
That thing is there! there!” smiting on his breast again. “Can you tell
me how to rid myself of it?”
“Yes, Barney, I think I can tell you. God's great goodness will do this
for you. Listen,” she said, putting up her hand to stay his words, “God
is bringing a great joy to you to shame you and to soften you. Here,
read this.” She handed him Iola's letter, went to the window, and stood
with her back to him, looking out upon the great sweeping valley below.
“Margaret!” The hoarse voice called her back to him. His hard, proud,
sullen reserve was shattered, gone. His lips were quivering, his hands
trembling. The girl was touched to the heart. “Margaret,” he cried
brokenly, “what does this mean?” He was terribly shaken.
“It means that she wants you, that she needs you. Dick was going
to-morrow to bring her back to you, Barney. That was his one desire.”
“To bring her to me? To bring her back to me? Dick? Dear old boy! and
I--Oh, Margaret!” He put his trembling hands out to her. “Forgive me!
God forgive me! Poor Dick! I'll see him!” He started toward the door.
“No, not how,” he cried, striving in vain to control himself. “I am mad!
mad! For three long years I have carried this cursed thing in my heart!
It's gone! It's gone, Margaret! Do you hear? It's gone!” He was shouting
aloud. “I feel right toward Dick, my brother!”
“Hush, Barney dear,” said the girl, tears running down her face, “you
will wake him.”
“Yes, yes,” he cried, in an eager whisper, “I'll be careful. Poor old
boy, he has suffered, too. Dear old Dick! And she wants me! I'll go
to-night! Yes, to-night! What's the date?” He tore at the envelope with
trembling hands. The letter dropped to the floor. Margaret caught it up
and opened it for him. “A month ago and more! Yes, I'll go to-night.
Oh, Margaret, what a blasted fool I am! I can't get myself in hand.”
Suddenly he threw himself into his chair. “Here!” he ground out between
his teeth, “get quiet!” He sat for a few moments absolutely still,
gathering strength to command himself. At length he got himself in hand.
“No,” he said in a quiet voice, “I shall not go tonight. I shall wait
till Dick is better. Just now he must be kept quiet. In the morning I
expect to see him very much himself. We can only wait and see.”
Through the night they waited, Barney struggling mightily to hold
himself in perfect control, Margaret quietly doing what was to be done,
her whole spirit breathing of that self-forgetting love which finds its
highest joy in the joy of another. At the break of day the nurse came to
the door and found them still waiting.
“Mr. Boyle is awake and is asking for you, Miss Robertson.”
“Let me go to him,” cried Barney. “Don't fear.” His voice was still
vibrating, but his manner was calm and steady. He was master of himself
again.
“Yes,” said Margaret, “go to him.” Then as the door closed she stood
once more before the Gethsemane scene. “Thank God, thank God,” she said
softly, “for them the pain is over.”
For half an hour she waited and then went up to the sickroom. She opened
the door softly, went in and stood gazing till her eyes grew dim. On
the pillow, face down, Barney's head lay close to Dick's, whose arm
was thrown about his brother's neck, and on Dick's face shone a look of
rapturous peace. As Margaret moved to leave the room Dick called her in
a voice faint, but full of joy.
“Margaret,” he said, a smile breaking like light through a dark cloud,
“my head was broken, but I'd have all the bones in my body broken, just
to have Barney set them. We're all right, eh, boy?”
Slowly Barney raised his face, tear-marked, worn, but radiant with a
peace it had not known for many a day. “Yes, old chap,” he said in a
voice still tremulous in spite of all his self-command, “we're right
again, and, please God, we'll keep so.”
XXI
TO WHOM HE FORGAVE MOST
For three days Dick made steady progress toward health, but his progress
was slow. Any mental effort produced severe pain in his head and
sufficed to raise his temperature several points. As he gained in
strength and became more and more clear in his thinking his anxiety in
regard to his work began to increase. His congregations would be
waiting him on Sunday, and he could not bear to think of their being
disappointed. With no small effort had he gathered them together, and a
single failure on his part he knew would have disastrous effect upon
the attendance. He was especially concerned about the service at Bull
Crossing, which was at once the point where the work was the most
difficult, and, at the present juncture, most encouraging. Under his
instructions Barney sought to secure a substitute for the service at
Bull Crossing, but without result. Preachers were scarce in that country
and every preacher had more work in sight than he could overtake. And so
Dick fretted and wrought himself into a fever, until the doctor took him
sternly to task.
“I don't see that it's your business to worry, Dick,” he said. “I
suppose you consider yourself as working under orders, and it is your
belief, isn't it, that the One who gives the orders is the One who has
laid you down here?”
“That's true,” said Dick wearily, “but there's the people. A lot of
them come a long way. It's been hard to get them together, and I hate to
disappoint them.”
“Well, we'll get someone,” replied Barney. “We're a pretty hard
combination to beat, aren't we, Margaret? There will be a man to take
the service at Bull Crossing if I have to take it myself--a desperate
resort, indeed.”
“Why not, Barney?” asked Dick. “You could do it well.”
“What? Did you ever hear me talk? I can talk a little with my fingers,
but my tongue is unconscionably slow.”
“There was a man once slow of speech,” replied Dick quietly, “but he was
given a message and he led a nation into freedom.”
Barney nodded. “I remember him. But he could do things.”
“No,” answered Dick, “but he believed God could do things.”
“Perhaps so. That was rather long ago.”
“With God,” replied Dick earnestly, “there is no such thing as long
ago.”
“All the same,” said Barney, “I guess these things don't happen now.”
“I believe they happen,” replied his brother, “where God finds a man who
will take his life in his hand and go.”
“Well, I don't know about that,” replied Barney, “but I do know that you
must quit talking and sleep. Now, hear me, drop that meeting out of your
mind. I'll look after it.”
But Saturday came and, in spite of every effort on Barney's part, he
found no one for the service at Bull Crossing next day. There was
still a slight hope that one of the officials of the congregation would
consent to be a stop-gap for the day.
“I guess I'll have to take that service myself, Margaret,” said Barney
laughingly. “Wouldn't the crowd stare? They'd hear the sermon of their
lives.”
“It would be a good sermon, Barney,” replied Margaret quietly. “And why
should you not say something to the men?”
“Nonsense, Margaret!” cried Barney impatiently. “You know the thing is
utterly absurd. What sort of man am I to preach? A gambler, a swearer,
and generally bad. They all know me.”
“They know only a part of you, Barney,” said Margaret gently. “God knows
all of you, and whatever you have been you are no gambler today, and you
are not a bad man.”
“No,” replied Barney slowly, “I am no gambler, nor will I ever be again.
But I have been a hard, bad man. For three years I carried hate in my
heart. I could not forgive and didn't want to be forgiven. And that, I
believe, was the cause of all my badness. But--somehow--I don't deserve
it--but I've been awfully well treated. I deserved hell, but I've got
a promise of heaven. And I'd be glad to do something for--” He paused
abruptly.
“There, you've got your sermon, Barney,” said Margaret.
“What do you mean?”
“'Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.'”
“It's the sermon someone wants to preach to me, but it's not for me to
preach. The thing is preposterous. I'll get one of those fellows at the
Crossing to take the meeting.”
On Saturday evening Dick again reverted to the subject.
“I'm not anxious, Barney,” he said, “but who's going to take the meeting
to-morrow night at Bull Crossing?”
“Now, look here,” said Barney, “Monday morning you'll hear all about it.
Meantime, don't ask questions. Margaret and I are responsible, and that
ought to be enough. You never knew her to fail.”
“No, nor you, Barney,” said Dick, sinking back with a sigh of
satisfaction. “I know it will be all right. Are you going down to-morrow
evening?” he inquired, turning to Margaret.
“I?” exclaimed Margaret. “What would I do?”
“Of course you are going. It will do you a lot of good,” said Barney.
“You may have to preach yourself or hold my coat while I go in.”
A sudden gleam of joy in the eyes, a flush of red upon the cheek, and
the quick following pallor told Dick the thoughts that rushed through
Margaret's heart.
“Yes,” said Dick gravely, “you will go down, too, Margaret. It will do
you good, and I don't need you here.”
Many anxious days had Barney passed in his life, but never had he
found himself so utterly blocked by unmanageable circumstances and
uncompromising facts as he found facing him that Sunday morning. He
confided his difficulty to Tommy Tate, whom he had found in “Mexico's”
saloon toning up his system after his long illness, and whom he had
straightway carried off with him.
“I guess it's either you or me, Tommy.”
“Bedad, it's yersilf that c'd do that same, an' divil a wan av the bhoys
will 'Mexico' git this night, wance the news gits about.”
“Don't talk rot, Tommy,” said Barney angrily, for the chance of his
being forced to take his brother's place, which all along had seemed
to be extremely remote, had come appreciably nearer. With the energy of
desperation he spent the hours of the afternoon visiting, explaining,
urging, cajoling, threatening anyone of the members or adherents of the
congregation at Bull Crossing in whom might be supposed to dwell the
faintest echo of the spirit of the preacher. One after another, however,
those upon whom he had built his hopes failed him. One was out of
town, another he found sick in bed, and a third refused point blank
to consider the request, so that within a few minutes of the hour of
service he found himself without a preacher and wholly desperate, and
for the first time he seriously faced the possibility of having to take
the service himself. He returned to the shack of one of his brother's
parishioners, where Margaret was staying, and abruptly announced to her
his failure.
“Can't get a soul, and of course I can't do it, Margaret. You know, I
can't,” he repeated, in answer to the look upon her face. “Why, it was
only last week I fleeced 'Mexico' out of a couple of hundred. He would
give a good deal more to get even. The crowd would hoot me out of
the building. Not that I care for that”--the long jaws came hard
together--“but it's just too ghastly to think of.”
“It isn't so very terrible, Barney,” said Margaret, her voice and eyes
uniting in earnest persuasion. “You are not the man you were last week.
You know you are not. You are quite different, and you will be different
all your life. A great change has come to you. What made the change? You
know it was God's great mercy that took the bitterness out of your heart
and that changed everything. Can't you tell them this?”
“Tell them that, Margaret? Great Heavens! Could I tell them that? What
would they say?”
“Barney,” asked Margaret, “you are not afraid of them? You are not
ashamed to tell what you owe to God?”
Afraid? It was an ugly word for Barney to swallow. No, he was not
afraid, but his native diffidence, intensified by these recent years of
self-repression and self-absorption, had made all speech difficult to
him, but more especially speech that revealed the deeper movements of
his soul.
“No, Margaret, I'm not afraid,” he said slowly. “But I'd rather have
them take the flesh off that arm bit by bit than get up and speak to
them. I'd have to tell them the truth, don't you see, Margaret? How can
I do that?”
“All that you say must be the truth, Barney, of course,” she replied.
“But you will tell them just what you will.”
With these words she turned away, leaving him silent and fighting a
desperate fight. His word passed to his brother must be kept. But soon
a deeper issue began to emerge. His honour was involved. His sense of
loyalty was touched. He knew himself to be a different man from the man
who, last week, in “Mexico's” saloon, had beaten his old antagonist at
the old game. His consciousness of himself, of his life purposes, of
his outlook, of his deepest emotions, was altogether a different
consciousness. And more than all, that haunting, pursuing restlessness
was gone and, in its place, a deep peace possessed him. The process by
which this had been achieved he could not explain, but the result was
undeniable, and it was due, he knew, to an influence the source of which
he frankly acknowledged to be external to himself. The words of the
beaten and confounded pagan magic-workers came to him, “This is the
finger of God.” He could not deny it. Why should he wish to hide it? It
became clear to him, in these few minutes of intense soul activity, that
there was a demand being made upon him as a man of truth and honour, and
as the struggle deepened in his soul and the possibility of his refusing
the demand presented itself to his mind, there flashed in upon him
the picture of a man standing in the midst of enemies, the flickering
firelight showing his face vacillating, terror-stricken, hunted. From
the trembling lips of the man he heard the words of base denial, “I know
not the man,” and in his heart there rose a cry, “O Christ! shall I do
this?” “No,” came the answer, strong and clear, from his lips, “I will
not do this thing, so help me God.”
Margaret turned quickly around and looked at him in dismay. “You won't?”
she said faintly.
“I'll take the service,” he replied, setting the long jaws firmly
together. And with that they went forth to the hall.
They found the place crowded far beyond its capacity, for through Tommy
Tate it had been noised abroad that Dr. Bailey was to preach. There were
wild rumors, too, that the doctor had “got religion,” although “Mexico”
and his friends scouted the idea as utterly impossible.
“He ain't the kind. He's got too much nerve,” was “Mexico's” verdict,
given with a full accompaniment of finished profanity.
Tommy's evidence, however, was strong enough to create a profound
impression and to awaken an expectation that rose to fever pitch when
Barney and Margaret made their way through the crowds and took their
places, Margaret at the organ, which Dick usually played himself, and
Barney at the table upon which were the Bible and the Hymn-book. His
face wore the impenetrable, death-like mark which had so often baffled
“Mexico” and his gang over the poker table. It fascinated “Mexico” now.
All the years of his wicked manhood “Mexico” had, on principle, avoided
anything in the shape of a religious meeting, but to-day the attraction
of a poker player preaching proved irresistible. It was with no small
surprise that the crowd saw “Mexico,” with two or three of his gang,
make their way toward the front to the only seats left vacant.
When it became evident beyond dispute that his old-time enemy was to
take the preacher's place, “Mexico” leaned over to his pal, “Peachy”
Bud, who sat between him and Tommy Tate, and muttered in an undertone
audible to those in his immediate neighbourhood, “It's his old game.
He's runnin' a blank bluff. He ain't got the cards.”
But painful experience shook “Peachy's” confidence in his friend's
judgment on this particular point, and he only ventured to reply, “He's
got the lead.” “Peachy” preferred to await developments.
The opening hymn was sung with the hearty fervour that marks the musical
part of any religious service in the West. But there was in the voices
that curious thrill that is at once the indication and the quickening of
intense excitement.
“This here'll show what's in his hand,” said “Peachy,” when the moment
for prayer arrived. “Peachy” was not unfamiliar with religious services,
and had, with unusual keenness of observation, noted that when a man
undertook to pray he must, if he be true, reveal the soul within him.
“Mexico” grunted a dubious affirmative. But “Peachy” was disappointed,
for in a voice reverent, but unimpassioned, the preacher for the day led
the people's devotions, using the great words taught those men long ago
who knew not how to pray, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”
“Blanked if he ain't bluffed again! We've got to wait till he begins to
shoot, I guess,” said “Peachy,” mixing his figures.
The lesson was the parable of the unforgiving debtor and the parallel
passage containing the matchless story of the sinful woman and the proud
Pharisee. In the reading of these lessons the voice, which had hitherto
carried the strident note of nervousness, mellowed into rich and
subduing fulness. The men listened with that hushed attention that they
give when words are getting to the heart. The utter simplicity of the
reader's manner, the dignity of his bearing, the quiet strength that
showed itself in every tone, and the undercurrent of emotion that
made the voice vibrate like a stringed instrument, all these, with the
marvellous authoritative tenderness of the great utterance on a theme so
closely touching their daily experience, gripped these men and held them
in complete thrall.
When the reading was done the doctor stood for some moments looking his
audience quietly in the face. He knew them all, men from the camps and
the line, men from the hills and mining claims, men from the saloons
and the gambling hells. Many he had treated professionally, some he
had himself nursed back to health, others he had rescued from those
desperate moods that end in death. Others again--and these not a few--he
had “cleaned out” at poker or “Black Jack.” But to all of them he
was “white.” Not so to himself. It was a very humble man and a very
penitent, that stood looking them in the face. His first words were a
confession.
“I am not worthy to stand here before you,” he began, in a low, clear
tone, “God knows, you know, and I know. I am here for two reasons: one
is that I promised my brother, the Reverend Richard Boyle”--here a gasp
of surprise was audible from one and another in the audience--“a man you
know to be a good man, better than ever I can hope to be.”
“Durned if he is!” grunted “Peachy” to “Mexico.” “Ain't in the same
bunch!”
“An' that's thrue fer ye,” answered Tommy. But “Mexico” paid no heed
to these remarks. He was staring at the speaker with the look of a man
wholly bewildered.
“And the other reason is,” continued, the doctor, “that I have something
which I think it fair to tell you men. Like a lot of you, I have
carried a name that is not my own.” Here significant looks were gravely
exchanged. “They gave it to me by mistake when I reached the Pass. I
didn't care much at that time about names or anything else, so I let it
go. There are times in a fellow's life when he's not unwilling to forget
his name. My name is Boyle.” And then, in sentences simple, clean-cut,
and terse, he told of his boyhood days, the Old Mill, the two boys
growing up together, their love for and their loyalty to each other,
their struggles and their success. Then came a pause. The speaker had
obviously come to a difficult spot in his story. The men waited in
earnest, grave, and deeply moved expectation. “At that time a great
calamity came to me--no matter what--and it threw me clear off my
balance. I lost my head and lost my nerve, and just then--” again the
speaker paused, as if to gather strength to continue--“and just then
my brother did me a wrong. Not being in a condition to judge fairly, I
magnified the wrong a thousand-fold and I tried to tear my brother out
of my heart. I could not and I would not forgive him, and I couldn't
cease to love him. I lived a life of misery, misery so great that it
drove me from everything in earth that I held dear, and for three years
I went steadily down from bad to worse. I came to the Crow's Nest a year
and a half ago. My life since then most of you know well.”
“Bedad we do! An' Hivin bliss ye!” burst forth Tommy Tate, who had found
the greatest difficulty in controlling his emotions of indignation and
grief during the doctor's self-condemnatory tale. At Tommy's words a
quiet thrill ran through the crowd, for few men of those present
but held the doctor in affectionate esteem. The sins of which he
was conscious and which humiliated him before them were, in their
estimation, but trivial.