The next morning, Saunders having left home on some business pertaining
to the building of his new cotton-factory, Mostyn started out on one of
his all-day rambles in the mountains. As he was passing the store
Wartrace called out to him cordially.
"You ought to come around about one o'clock, Mr. Mostyn," he said. "A
big crowd will be here to listen to John Leach, the tramp preacher.
He's billed for my store, an' he never fails to be on time."
Mostyn passed on after exchanging a few labored platitudes with the
storekeeper. He shrank from the thought of meeting a crowd even of
simple mountain people. The high open spaces above silently beckoned to
him. Never before had solitude in the breast of Nature had such appeal
for him. He found growing interest in plants, flowers, insects, and
birds. He wondered if they, too, suffered from grief and pain. At noon,
when the day was warmest, he reclined on the mossy bank of a clear
brook. He took off his shoes and bathed his feet in the cool,
swift-running water, feeling the chill course through his veins. What
was it that kept whispering within him that here and here alone was the
balm for such wounds as his? Contrasting the mystic quiet of his
surroundings with the snarling jangle of the life he had led in town, a
faint hope of eventual peace began to spring up within him. Once he
raised his hands to the infinite blue above him, and his thought, if
not his words, was all but a prayer for mercy.
He was descending the mountain road near sunset. The valley into which
he was going was already in shadow. Suddenly he heard a mellow
masculine voice singing a hymn, and, turning a bend in the road, his
body bent downward and swinging his hat in his hand, was Leach, the
preacher.
"Well, well, well!" Leach exclaimed, gladly, when he was near enough to
recognize him. "I heard you were in these diggings, and was sorry not
to see you out at my meeting."
Leach took his hand, pressing his fingers in a tense and sincere clasp
while he looked into his eyes tenderly. His strong face filled with
emotion; his big lower lip actually shook.
"You needn't tell me about it, brother," he said, huskily. "I've heard
it all, and I never was so sorry for a man in my life. You have been
sorely stricken--you've had as much as you can stand up under and live.
As soon as I heard it I said to myself: 'Here is a man that has to
suffer as much as I went through.' Brother"--Leach still hung on to his
hand--"you can't see it as I do now, and you will think I am crazy for
saying it, I reckon, but if things work out right, you will see the
time that you will thank God for giving you the load that's on you.
Everything that happens under the Lord's sun is according to law, and
is right--so right that average human beings can't see it. You've heard
me tell about what I went through in prison, and I thank God for every
minute of it. The backbone of my pride had to be broken, and it took
that to do it. Are you in a big hurry?"
"No," Mostyn faltered. "I have plenty of time."
"Well, if you don't mind, let's sit here on the rocks," Leach
suggested. "I want to see the sun set. I never miss a sunset on a
mountain if I can help it. That's why I walked up here. A fellow asked
me to spend the night with him on his farm in the valley, but I
refused. The longer I live the more I want to get away from houses,
tables, beds, and chairs. They are just babies' rag dolls and
playing-blocks. I'll rake up a pile of pine-needles at the highest
point I can reach on this mountain to-night and lie with my eyes on the
stars-pin-hole windows to God's glory. Sometimes I can't sleep--I get
so full of worship. I was reading the other day that it would take a
fast train forty million years to get to the nearest fixed star. Isn't
that awful? And think of it, when you got there, a billion times more
would lie beyond--so much more that you wouldn't even then have touched
the fringe of the wonderful scheme. It is too big for the mind of man
to grasp, and so is the other, the realm of spirit, which is, after
all, the main thing--in fact, the _only_ thing."
They sat in silence for several minutes. The sun was now a great
bleeding ball of crimson. Leach's big hands were locked over his knee.
Now and then his lips moved as if in prayer. He smiled; he laughed; he
chuckled. The sun sank lower and finally went out of sight. The sky
along the horizon was an ocean of pink and purple, with shores of
shimmering opal.
"Forgive me, brother." Leach turned his soft glance on his companion.
"You don't want to talk, I reckon, but the Lord has given me the power
to sort o' feel human trouble. I can see it in your face and feel it
ooze out of your body like a sad, murky stream. I don't want to part
with you to-night without helping you if I can. I wouldn't talk this
way if I hadn't helped hundreds. I never have failed where they would
open their hearts plumb wide. All I'd want to know would be what
particular thing was standing in your way. Something must be in the
way. You may think it strange, but I can almost feel it hanging over
you, like a thing that ought to be jerked off."
Mostyn was tempted to reply, but he said nothing. Half an hour passed.
It was growing cool, damp, and darker. He rose to go. The preacher
stood up with him, and grasped his hand.
"I may never see you again, brother," he said, "and I'm sorry, for I
feel drawn powerful close to you somehow. I'd like nothing better than
to have you along with me. I'm going to leave this part of the country
pretty soon. I want to see more of God's beautiful world. I've always
wanted to go to California, and I'm going to do it now."
"That will be fine," Mostyn remarked. "I am going somewhere soon
myself. I don't know where, but somewhere."
"You'd better come along with me," the preacher said, eagerly. "We
could pull together all right. I'd do my best to make you happy. I'd
hammer at you till you saw the truth that has lifted me out o' the
mire. God loves you, brother--He really does, and you will find it out
some day. The worst sin in the world is simply not knowing God's
goodness. It is as plentiful as rain and air. What do you say? Couldn't
we go together?"
Mostyn was fairly thrilled by the idea. It was a strange suggestion,
and appealed to him strongly. There was a soothing quality about the
man that attracted him beyond anything else. "When do you leave?" he
asked.
"In a couple of weeks. I wish you would go--by Jacks, I do! I know when
I like a man, and I like you. I don't want to part from you like this.
What do you say?"
"I'll think over it," Mostyn promised. "Shall you be in Atlanta again
this summer?"
"I'll leave from there," Leach answered. "I have to go there to draw a
little money that is coming to me."
"Well, look me up down there," Mostyn said. "I shall want to see you
again, anyway."
They parted. Mostyn trudged down into the deeper shadows. He heard
Leach singing along the rocky way as he ascended higher. How odd! But
the going of the man left him more deeply depressed than ever. He felt
like running back and calling on him to wait a moment. There was
something he wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him about a certain
haunting circumstance and ask his advice. He wanted to reveal the whole
story of Henderson's loss and his gain--of the old man's fall and his
rise on the ruins of that wrecked life. But what was the use? He knew
what Leach would say. He would say: "Make restitution, and make it
quick, for God's eye is on you--God's wide ear is bending down from
that sky up there to hear the words you speak."
Mostyn stood still in the lonely road. "Yes, he'd advise that," he
muttered, "but I can't do it. It would take almost all I have left, and
I must live. Leach can talk, but I am not in his shoes. I might be
better off if I were. I know I ought to do it. I ought to have done it
years ago. How can I refrain now when I have no one depending on me and
Henderson has that helpless family of his? I robbed them--law or no law
to back me, I robbed them. A higher law than man's holds me guilty. I
wonder what--" He stumbled along through the thickening shadows beneath
the trees, the boughs of which were locked and interlaced overhead. "I
wonder what Dolly would say. I needn't wonder--I know. Many women would
tell me not to bother, but she wouldn't. She would be like Leach--so
would Saunders. Great God! I really _am_ vile. I know what I ought to
do, but can't. Then there is my child. If I have a hope left it is that
he is safe with--God. Yes, that's it--_with_ God. There must be a
God--so many say so, and He must love my little boy, and both of them
would want me to do my duty.
"Oh, Dick, Dick! my son, my son!" he cried aloud, "are you close to me
now? Tell me, tell me what to do. Take my hand, little boy. Lead me. I
need you. I am your father, and you are only a child, but you can take
me out of this, for you are stronger than I am now."
The echo of his voice came back from the rocky heights. A cricket
snarled in a tree. A nightingale's song came up from the valley. He
heard sheep-bells, the mooing of a cow, the bleating of a calf, a
farmer calling up his hogs. Groaning, and bowed closer to the earth, he
continued his way.