but, recovering himself, he went on. “It would be wrong to say that my
life here has been all bad. I have been able to serve many of you,
but my work has done far more for me than it has for you. But for it I
should have long ago gone down out of sight. I confess that it has been
a hard fight for me, an awful fight, to stay at my work, but the day
that I heard that my brother was your missionary brought me the hardest
fight I had had for many a day. I wanted to get away from the past. For
nearly four years I had been carrying round a heart with hell in it. I
had begun to forget a little, but that day it all came back. This week
I met my brother. I found him dying, almost dead, up in the Big Horn
Valley. That morning my heart carried hell in it. To-day it is like what
I think heaven must be.” As he spoke these words a light broke over
his face, and again he stood silent, striving to regain control of his
voice.
“Blanked if he don't hold the cards!” said “Mexico” in a thick voice to
“Peachy” Budd.
“Full flush,” answered “Peachy.”
“Mexico” was in the grasp of the elemental emotions of his untutored
nature. His swarthy face was twisted like the face of a man in torture.
His black eyes were gleaming like two fires from under his shaggy
eyebrows.
“How it came about,” continued the doctor, in a quiet, even tone, “I am
not going to tell. But this I am going to say, I know it was God's great
mercy, His great kindness it was that took the hate out of my heart. I
forgave my brother that day--and--God forgave me. That's all there is
to it. It's the biggest thing that has ever come to me. I have got
my brother back just as when we were little chaps at the Old Mill.” A
sudden choke caught the speaker's voice. The firm lips quivered and
the strong hands writhed themselves in a mighty effort to master the
emotions surging through his soul.
Tommy Tate was openly sniffling and wiping his eyes. “Peachy” Budd was
swearing audibly his emotions, but, most of all, “Mexico's” swarthy face
betrayed the intensity of his feelings. He had grasped the back of the
seat before him and was leaning toward the speaker as if held under an
hypnotic spell.
Again the doctor, getting his voice steady, went on. “I have just a word
more to say. I would like to give credit for this that happened to me to
the One we have been reading about this afternoon, and I do so with all
my heart. I came near being coward enough and mean enough to go away
without owning this up before you. How He did it, I do not pretend
to know. I'm not a preacher. But He did it, and that's what chiefly
concerns me. And what He did for me I guess He can do for any of you.
And now I've got to square up some things. 'Mexico'--” At the sound of
his name “Mexico” started violently and, involuntarily, his hand went,
with a quick motion, toward his hip--“I've taken a lot from you. I'd
like to pay it back.” The voice was humble, earnest, kind.
“Mexico,” taken by surprise, shifted his tobacco to the other side of
his mouth, stood up and drawled out, “Haow? Me? Pay me back? Blanked if
you do! It was a squar' deal, wa'n't it?”
“Yes, I played fair, 'Mexico,' but--”
“Then go to hell!” “Mexico's” tone was not at all unfriendly, but his
vocabulary was limited, and he was evidently deeply stirred. “We're
squar' an'--an' blanked if I don't believe ye're white! Put it thar!”
With a single stride “Mexico” was over the seat that separated him from
the platform and reached out his hand. The doctor took it in a hard
grip.
“Look here, men,” he said, when “Mexico” had resumed his seat, “I've got
to do something with this money. I've got at least five thousand that
don't belong to me.”
“'Tain't ours,” called a voice.
“Men,” continued the doctor, “I'm starting out on a new track. I want
to straighten out the past all I can. I can't keep this money. I'd feel
like a thief.”
But such an ethical code was beyond the men, and one and all protested
to each other, in tones that were quite audible over the hall and with
anathemas of more or less terrible import, that the money was not theirs
and that they would not touch it. The doctor listened for a minute or
more and then, with the manner of one closing a discussion, he said,
“All right. If you won't help me I'll have to find some way, myself, of
straightening this up. This is all I have to say. I'm no preacher and
I'm not any better than the rest of you, but I'd like to be a great deal
better man than I am, and, with God's help, I'm going to try. That's my
religion.”
And with these words he sat down, leaving the people still staring at
him and waiting for something in the way of closing exercises to what
must have been the most extraordinary religious service in all their
experience. Softly, Margaret began to play the old hymn, “Nearer, My
God, to Thee!” The men, accepting it as a signal, rose to their feet and
began to sing, and with these great words of aspiration ringing through
their hearts they passed out into the night.
Among the many who lingered to speak to the doctor were “Mexico,”
“Peachy,” and, of course, his faithful follower, Tommy Tate. “Mexico”
drew him off to one corner.
“Say, pard,” he began, “you've done me up many a time before, but
blanked if yeh haven't hit me this time the worst yet! When you was
talkin' about them two little chaps--” here “Mexico's” hard face began
to work and his voice to quiver--“you put the knife right in here. I had
a brother once,” he continued in a husky voice. “I wish to God someone
had choked the blank nonsense out of me, for I done him a wrong an' I
wasn't man enough to own up. An' that's what started me in all this hell
business I've been chasin' ever since.”
The doctor took him by the arm and walked him out of the room. “Take
Miss Robertson home,” he said to Tommy as he passed.
An hour later he appeared, pale and as nearly exhausted as his iron
nerve and muscle would allow him to be. “I say, Margaret, this thing is
wonderful! There's no explaining it by any physical or mental law that
I know.” Then, after a pause, he added, with an odd thrill of tenderness
in his voice, “I believe we shall hear good things of 'Mexico' yet.”
And so they did, but that is another tale.
XXII
THE HEART'S REST
There is no sweeter spot in all the west Highlands of Scotland than the
valley that runs back from that far penetrating arm of the sea, Loch
Fyne, to Craigraven. There, after a succession of wild and gloomy glens,
one comes upon a sweet little valley, sheltered from the east and north
winds and open to the warm western sea and to the long sunny days of
summer. It is a valley full of balmy airs, fragrant with the scents of
sea and heather, and shut in from the roar and rush of the great world,
just over the ragged rim of the craggy hills that guard it. A veritable
heaven on earth for the nerve-racked and brain-wearied, for the
heart-sick and soul-burdened; for it was the pleasure of the lady of
Ruthven Hall, a kindly, homely mansion house that stood at the valley's
head, to bring hither such of her friends or her friends' friends as
needed the healing that soft airs and sunny days, with long quiet hours
filled with love that understands, can give.
To this spot Lady Ruthven herself had been brought, a girl fresh from
the shelter of her English home, the bride of Sir Hector Ruthven; and
here for five happy summers they had come from the strenuous life of
Diplomatic Service to find rest. Here, too, came Sir Hector, when his
work was done, still a young man, to rest under the yews in the little
churchyard near the Hall, leaving his lady with her little daughter and
her infant son to administer his vast estates. After the first sharp
grief had passed, Lady Ruthven took up her burden and, with patient
courage, bore it for the sake of the dead first, and then for the sake
of the living. Round her son, growing into sturdy young manhood, her
heart's roots wound themselves, striking deep into his life, till one
day he, too, was laid beneath the yew trees in the churchyard. From that
deep shadow she came forth, bearing her cross of service to her kind,
to live a life fragrant with the airs of Heaven, in fellowship with Him
who, for love of man, daily gave Himself to die.
It was through her nephew, Alan Ruthven, artist and poet, pure of heart
and clean of life, that Jack Charrington came to know Ruthven Hall and
its dwellers. The young men first met in London, and later in Edinburgh,
where both were pursuing their professions with a devotion that did not
forbid attention to sundry social duties, or prevent them from taking
long walks over the Lammermuirs on Saturday afternoons. To Ruthven
Hall, Alan was permitted to bring his young Canadian friend, who, he was
secretly convinced, stood sorely in need of just such benediction as
his saintly aunt could bestow. The day of Jack Charrington's coming to
Ruthven Hall was the birthday of his better life, when he had a vision
of his profession in the light of that great ministry to the world's
sick and wounded and weary by Him who came to the world “to heal.” In
another sense, too, it was for him the beginning of days, for it was
the day on which his eyes first fell upon sunny, saucy Maisie Ruthven.
Thenceforth the orbit of Jack's life swung round Ruthven Hall, and thus
it fell that when, on one of his visits to the great metropolis, he
found Iola exhausted after her season's triumphs and forbidden to sing
again for a year, and so well-nigh heart-broken, he bethought him of
the little valley of rest in the far western Highlands. Straightway
he confided to Lady Ruthven his concern for his co-patriot and friend,
giving as much of her story as he thought it well that both Lady Ruthven
and her daughter should know. Hence, when they went north to their
Highland valley again, they carried with them Iola, to be rested and
nursed, and to be healed in heart, too, if that could be. For Lady
Ruthven, with her eyes made keen by grief and love, had not been long
in discovering that, with Iola, the deeper sickness was that which no
physician's medicine can reach.
Through the early summer they waited for signs of returning health to
their guest, but neither the most watchful care nor the most tender
nursing could keep the strength from gradually waning.
“She is fretting her heart out. That's the chief cause of this terrible
restlessness,” said Alan Ruthven to his friend, who was visiting at the
Hall.
“Partly,” replied Charrington gloomily, “but not altogether, I fear.
This restlessness is symptomatic. We must have Bruce Fraser out again.
But if we only could get track of Boyle it would greatly help. She wrote
yesterday to her great friend, Miss Robertson, who, more than anyone,
has kept in touch with him.”
“Charrington,” inquired Alan hesitatingly, “would you advise that he
should be looked up? Of course, you credit me with being perfectly
disinterested. I gave up my dream some time ago, you know.”
“Oh, certainly, Ruthven, I know, but--”
“You fear I'm prejudiced. Well, I confess I am. I hate to think of a
girl like that having anything to do with a man unworthy of her, as from
what you have told me of him he must be.”
“Unworthy!” cried Jack. “Did I ever call him unworthy? It depends upon
what you mean. He gambles. He has terrific passions; but he's a man
through and through, and he's clean and honourable.”
“Ah,” said Ruthven, drawing a deep breath, “then would to Heaven she
could find him! For this fretting is like a fever in her bones.”
“At present, we can only wait for an answer to her letter.”
And so they waited, each one of the little group vying with the other in
providing interest and amusement for the weary, restless, fevered girl.
Often, at the first, the old impatience would break out, mostly in her
talk with Charrington, at rare times to her hostess, too, but at such
times followed by quick penitence.
“Dear Lady Ruthven,” she said one day after one of her little outbreaks,
“I wish I were like you. You are so sweetly good and so perfectly
self-controlled. Even I cannot wear out your patience. You must have
been born good and sweet.”
For a few moments Lady Ruthven was silent, her mind going back swiftly
to long gone years. “No, dear,” she said gently; “I have much to be
thankful for. It was a hard lesson and slowly learned, but He was
patient and bore long with me. And He is still bearing.”
“Tell me how you learned,” asked Iola timidly, and then Lady Ruthven
told her life story, without tears, without repinings, while Iola
wondered. That story Iola never forgot, and the influence of it never
departed from her. Never were the days quite so bad again, but every day
while she struggled to subdue her impatience even in thought, she kept
looking for word from across the sea with a longing so intense that all
in the house came to share it with her.
“Oh! if we only knew where to get him!” groaned Jack Charrington to her
one day, for to Jack, who was the only link with her happy past, she had
opened her heart. “Why does he keep away?” he added bitterly.
“It is my fault, Jack,” she replied. “He is not to blame. No one is to
blame but me. But he will come some day. I feel sure he will come, I
only hope he may be in time. He would greatly grieve if--”
“Hush, Iola. Don't say it. I can't bear to have you say it. You are
getting better. Why, you walked out yesterday quite smartly.”
“Some days I am so well,” she replied, unwilling to grieve him. “I would
like him to see me first on one of my good days. I am sure to hear soon
now.”
They had hardly turned to enter the house when they saw a messenger
wearing the uniform of the Telegraph Department approaching.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried, “there it is!”
“Come, Iola,” said Jack, almost sternly, “come in and sit down.” So
saying, he brought her into the library and made her recline upon the
couch, in that sunny room near the window where many of her waking hours
were spent.
It was Alan who took the message. They all followed him into the
library. “Shall I open it?” he asked, with an anxious look at Iola.
“Yes,” she said faintly, laying both hands upon her heart.
Lady Ruthven came to her side. “Iola, darling,” she said, taking both
her hands in hers, “it is good to feel that God's arms are about us
always.”
“Yes, dear Lady Ruthven,” replied the girl, regaining her composure;
“I'm learning. I'm not afraid.”
Opening, Alan read the message, smiled, and handed it to her. She read
the slip, handed it to Jack, closed her eyes, and, smiling, lay back
upon her couch. “God is good,” she whispered, as Lady Ruthven bent over
her. “You were right. Teach me how to trust Him better.”
“Are you all right, Iola?” said Jack, anxiously feeling her pulse.
“Quite right, Jack, dear,” she said.
“Then hooray!” cried Jack, starting up. “Let's see, 'Coming Silurian
seventh. Barney.'” he read aloud. “The seventh was yesterday. Six days.
She'll be in on the thirteenth. Ought to be here by Monday at latest.”
“Saturday, Jack,” said Iola, opening her eyes.
“Well, we'll plan for Monday. We're not going to be disappointed.
Meantime, you're not to fret.” And he frowned sternly down upon her.
“Fret?” she cried, looking up brightly. “Never more, Jack. I shall never
fret again in all my life. I'm going to build up for these five days,
every hour, every minute. I want Barney to see me well.”
It was a marvel to all the house how she kept her word. Every hour,
every minute, she appeared to gain strength. She ate with relish and
slept like a child. The old feverish restlessness left her, and she laid
aside many of her invalid ways.
“You are going down to Glasgow to-morrow, I suppose, Charrington?” said
Alan on Thursday, after the Silurian had been reported.
“I've just been thinking,” replied Jack, with careful deliberation,
“that it would be almost better you should go, Ruthven. You see you're
the man of the house, and it would be easier for a stranger to tell
him.”
“Come, Charrington,” replied his friend, “you don't often play the
coward. You've simply got to go. But why should you tell?”
“Tell? He'll see it in my face. That last report of Bruce Fraser's he
would read in my eyes. I see the ghastly words yet, 'Quite hopeless.
Heart seriously involved. Cannot be long delayed.' I say, old man, I
suppose I ought to go, but you've got to come along and make talk. I'll
simply blubber right out when I see him. You know I'm awfully fond of
the old boy.”
“I say, Charrington, I've got it! Take my aunt with you.”
Jack gasped. “By Jove! The very thing! It's rough on her, but she's the
saintly kind that delights to bear other people's burdens.”
And so it was arranged that Jack and Lady Ruthven should meet the boat
and bring Barney, with all speed, to Ruthven Hall.
At the Silurian's gangway Jack received his friend with outstretched
hands, crying, “Barney, old boy, we're glad to see you! Here, let me
present you to Lady Ruthven, at whose house Iola is staying.” With
feverish haste he hurried Barney through the crowds, bustling hither
and thither about his luggage and giving himself not a moment for
conversation till they were seated in the first-class apartment carriage
that was to carry them to Craigraven. But they had hardly got settled
in their places when the conversation, in spite of all Jack's efforts,
dropped to silence.
“You have bad news for me,” said Barney, looking Lady Ruthven steadily
in the face. “Has anything happened?”
“No, Dr. Boyle,” replied Lady Ruthven, a little more quickly than was
her wont, “but--” and here she paused, shrinking from delivering the
mortal stab, “but we are anxious about our dear Iola.”
“Tell me the worst, Lady Ruthven,” said Barney.
“That is all. We are very anxious. It is her lungs chiefly and her
heart. But she is very bright and very hopeful. It is better she should
be kept so.”
Barney listened with face growing grey, his eyes looking out of their
deep sockets with the piteous, mute appeal of an animal stricken to
death. He moistened his lips and tried to speak, but, failing, kept
his eyes fixed on Lady Ruthven's face as if seeking relief. Charrington
turned his head away.
“We feel thankful for her great courage,” said Lady Ruthven, in her
sweet, calm voice, “and for her peace of mind.”
At last Barney found his voice. “Does she suspect anything?” he asked
hoarsely.
“I think she must, but she has said nothing. She has been eager all
summer to get back to her home--to you--to those she loved. She will
rejoice to see you.”
Suddenly Barney dropped his face into his hands with a low, long moan.
Jack looked out upon the fleeting landscape dimmed by the tears he dared
not wipe away. A long silence followed while, drop by drop, Barney drank
his cup to the bitter dregs.
“We try to think of the bright side,” at length said Lady Ruthven
gently.
Barney lifted his face from his hands, looked at her in dumb misery.
“There is the bright side,” she continued, “the side of the immortal
hope. We like to think of the better country. That is our real home.
There, only, are our treasures safe.” She was giving him time to get
hold of himself after the first deadly stab. But Barney made no reply
except to gravely bow. “It is, indeed, a better country,” she added
softly as if to herself, “the only place we immortals can call home.”
Then she rose. “Come, Jack,” she said, “I think Dr. Boyle would like to
be alone.” Before she turned away to another section of the carriage,
she offered him her hand with a grave, pitying smile.
Barney bowed reverently over her hand. “I am grateful to you,” he said
brokenly, “believe me.” His face was contorted with the agony that
filled his soul. A quick rush of tears rendered her speechless and in
silence they turned away from him, and for the long hour that followed
they left him with his grief.
When they came back they found him with face grave and steady, carrying
the air of one who has fought his fight and has not been altogether
beaten. And with that same steady face he reached the great door of
Ruthven Hall.
“Jack, you will take Dr. Boyle to his room,” said Lady Ruthven; “I shall
see Iola and send for him.” But just then her daughter came down the
stairs. “Mamma,” she said in a low, quick tone, “she wants him at once.”
“Yes, dear, I know,” replied her mother, “but it will be better that
I--”
But there was a light cry, “Barney!” and, looking up, they all saw,
standing at the head of the great staircase, a figure slight and frail,
but radiant. It was Iola.
“Pardon me, Lady Ruthven,” said Barney, and was off three steps at a
time.
“Come, children.” Swiftly Lady Ruthven motioned them into the library
that opened off the hall, where they stood gazing at each other, awed
and silent.
“Heaven help them!” at length gasped Jack.
“Let go my arm, Dr. Charrington,” said Miss Ruthven. “You are hurting
me.”
“Your pardon, a thousand times. I didn't know. This is more than I can
well stand.”
“It will be well to leave them for a time, Dr. Charrington,” said Lady
Ruthven, with a quiet dignity that subdued all emotion and recalled them
to self-control. “You will see that Dr. Boyle gets to his room?”
“I shall go up with you, Lady Ruthven, a little later,” replied Jack.
“Yes, I confess,” he continued, answering Miss Ruthven's look, “I am
a coward. I am afraid to see him. He takes things tremendously. He was
quite mad about her years ago, fiercely mad about her, and when the
break came it almost ruined him. How he will stand this, I don't know,
but I am afraid to see him.”
“This will be a terrible strain for her, Lady Ruthven,” said Alan. “It
should not be prolonged, do you think?”
“It is well that they should be alone for a time,” she replied, her own
experience making her wise in the ways of the breaking heart.
When with that quick rush Barney reached the head of the stairs Iola
moved toward him with arms upraised. “Barney! Barney! Have you come to
me at last?” she cried.
A single, searching glance into her face told him the dread truth. He
took her gently into his arms and, restraining his passionate longing
to crush her to him, lifted her and held her carefully, tenderly, gazing
into her glowing, glorious eyes the while. “Where?” he murmured.
“This door, Barney.”
He entered the little boudoir off her bedroom and laid her upon a couch
he found there. Then, without a word, he put his cheek close to hers
upon the pillow, murmuring over and over, “Iola--Iola--my love--my
love!”
“Why, Barney,” she cried, with a little happy laugh, “don't tremble so.
Let me look at you. See, you silly boy, I am quite strong and calm. Look
at me, Barney,” she pleaded, “I am hungry to look at your face. I've
only seen it in my dreams for so long.” She raised herself on her arm
and lifted his face from the pillow. “Now let me sit up. I shall never
see enough of you. Never! Never! Oh, how wicked and how foolish I was!”
“It was I who was wicked,” said Barney bitterly, “wicked and selfish and
cruel to you and to others.”
“Hush!” She laid her hand on his lips. “Sit here beside me. Now, Barney,
don't spoil this one hour. Not one word of the past. You were a little
hard, you know, dear, but you were right, and I knew you were right. I
was wrong. But I thought there would be more in that other life. Even at
its best it was spoiled. I wanted you. The great 'Lohengrin' night when
they brought me out so many times--”
“I was there,” interrupted Barney, his voice still full of bitter pain.
“I know. I saw you. Oh! wasn't that a night? Didn't I sing? It was
for you, Barney. My soul, my heart, my body, went all into Ortrud that
night.”
“It was a great, a truly great thing, Iola.”
“Yes,” said Iola, with a proud little laugh, “I think the dear old
Spectator was right when it said it was a truly great performance, but I
waited for you, and waited and waited, and when you didn't come I found
that all the rest was nothing to me without you. Oh, how I wanted you,
Barney, then--and ever since!”
“If I had only known!” groaned Barney.
“Now, Barney, we are not to go back. We are to take all the joy out
of this hour. Promise me, Barney, you will not blame yourself--now or
ever--promise me, promise me!” she cried, eagerly insistent.
“But I do, Iola.”
“Oh, Barney! promise me this, we will look forward, not back, will you,
Barney?” The pleading in her voice swept away all feeling but the desire
to gratify her.
“I promise you, Iola, and I keep my word.”
“Yes, you do, Barney. Oh, thank you, darling.” She wreathed her arms
about his neck and laid her head upon his breast. “Oh!” she said with a
deep sigh, “I shall rest now--rest--rest. That's what I've been longing
for. I could not rest, Barney.”
Barney shuddered. Only too well he knew the meaning of that fateful
restlessness, but he only held her closer to him, his heart filled with
a fierce refusal of his lot.
“There is no one like you, Barney, after all,” she murmured, nestling
down with a delicious sigh of content. “You are so strong. You will make
me strong, I know. I feel stronger already, stronger than for months.”
Again Barney shuddered at that cruel deception, so characteristic of the
treacherous disease.