A MAN'S JOB FOR A MINISTER
Having thus received a sad jolt through the medium of his affections,
Mr. Thompson, like countless numbers of human beings before him, set
about gathering himself together. He did a tremendous lot of thinking
about things in general, about himself and Sophie Carr in particular.
Moping in that isolated cabin his mind took on a sort of abnormal
activity. He could not even stop thinking when he wanted to stop. He
would lie awake in the silent darkness long after he should have been
asleep, going over his narrow and uneventful existence, the unwelcome
and anguished present, the future that was nothing but a series of blank
pages which he had yet to turn in God only knew what bitterness and
sorrow. That was the way he gloomily put it to himself. He had still to
learn what an adaptable, resilient organism man is. This, his first
tentative brush with life, with the realities of pain and passion, had
left him exceedingly cast down, more than a little inclined to
pessimism.
He experienced gusts of unreasoning anger at Sophie Carr, forgetting, as
a man wounded in his egotism and disappointed in his first passionate
yearning for a mate is likely to forget, that he had brought it on
himself, that Sophie had not encouraged him, nor lured him to his
undoing, nor given him aught to nourish the illusion that she was his
for the asking.
Sometimes he would have a vivid flash of jealousy when he thought about
her and Tommy Ashe, when he recalled her admissions. And he would soften
from that mood, twisting his lips wryly, when he remembered the pitying
tenderness of her good-by.
He could not in the least understand the girl nor her motives, any more
than he could understand the transformation that he felt vaguely was
taking place in himself. She was too wise for her years and her
experience. There was a stinging truth in some of the things she said.
And it was his fault, not hers, that they were unpalatable truths. What
did a man like himself have to offer a girl like her? Nothing. She had
his measure in everything but sheer brute strength, most of all in the
stoutness of her resolution. For Mr. Thompson, pondering soberly,
realized that if he gave free play to the feelings Sophie Carr had
stirred up in him, there was no folly he was not capable of committing.
He, whose official creed it was to expound self-denial, would have
followed his impulses blindly. He would have married out of hand.
And after that, what?
He could not see clearly, when he tried to see. He was no longer filled
with the sublime faith that a beneficent Providence kept watch and ward
over him, and all men. He was in fact now almost of the opinion that
both sparrows and preachers might fall and the Great Intelligence
remain unperturbed. It seemed necessary that a man should do more than
have faith. He must imperatively make some conscious, intelligent effort
on his own behalf. He was especially of this opinion since the Board of
Home Missions had overlooked the matter of forwarding his quarterly
salary on time. The faith that moveth mountains was powerless to conjure
flour and sugar and tea out of those dusky woods and silent
waterways--at least not without a canoe and labor and a certain
requisite medium of exchange.
No, he did not blame Sophie Carr for refusing to allow her judgment to
be fogged with sentiment. He only marvelled that she could do it where
he had failed. He could not blame her--not if his speech and activities
since he came to Lone Moose were the measure of his possible
achievement.
He was taking grim, unsparing stock of himself, of what he had, of what
he had accomplished altogether, by this time. It was not much. It was
not even promising. A theological education, which, compared to the sort
of culture Sam Carr and his daughter had managed to acquire, seemed
rather inadequate and one-sided. They knew more about the principles he
was supposed to teach than he knew himself. And their knowledge extended
to fields where he could not follow. When he compared himself with Tommy
Ashe--well, Tommy was an Oxford man, and although Oxford had not
indelibly stamped him, still it had left its mark.
These people had covered all his ground--and they had gone exploring
further in fields of general knowledge while he sat gazing smugly at
his own reflection in a theological mirror. Upon that score certainly
the count was badly against him.
As for his worldly possessions, when Mr. Thompson sardonically
considered them as a means of supporting a wife he was forced to admit
that the provision would be intolerably meager. His prospects included a
salary that barely sufficed for one. It was apparent, he concluded, that
the Board of Home Missions, like the Army and Navy, calculated its rank
and file to remain in single blessedness and subsist frugally to boot.
As to his late accomplishments in the field of labor, Mr. Thompson
looked out of his cabin door to where he could see dimly through the
trees the uncompleted bulk of his church--and he set down a mental
cipher against that account. It was waste effort. He felt in his heart
that he would never finish it. What was the use?
He tried to whip up the old sense of duty to his calling, to the Church,
to the great good which he had been taught he should accomplish. And he
could muster up nothing but an irritating sense of hollow wordiness in
many of his former dictums and utterances, a vast futility of effort.
Whereupon he at once found himself face to face with a fresh problem, in
which the question of squaring his material needs and queer half-formed
desires with his actions loomed paramount. In other words Mr. Thompson
began, in a fashion scarcely apprehended, upon the painful process of
formulating a philosophy of life that would apply to life as it was
forcing itself upon his consciousness--not as he had hitherto conceived
life to be.
But he was unable to pin himself down to any definite plan. He could not
evolve a clear idea of what to do, nor even of what he wanted to do. And
in the interim he did little save sit about his cabin, deep in
introspection, chop firewood as needed and cook his plain fare--that was
gradually growing plainer, more restricted. Sometimes he varied this by
long solitary tramps through the woods along the brushy bank of Lone
Moose Creek.
This hermit existence he kept up for over a fortnight. He had fought
with Tommy Ashe and he felt diffident about inflicting his company on
Tommy, considering the _casus belli_. Nor could he bring himself to a
casual dropping in on Sam Carr. He shrank from meeting Sophie, from
hearing the sound of her voice, from feeling the tumult of desire her
nearness always stirred up in him. And there was nowhere else to go, no
one with whom he could talk. He could not hold converse with the Crees.
The Lachlan family relapsed into painful stiffness when he entered their
house. There was no common ground between him and them.
He was really marking time until the next mail should arrive at Fort
Pachugan. The days were growing shorter, the nights edged with sharp
frosts. There came a flurry of snow that lay a day and faded slowly in
the eye of the weakening sun.
Mr. Thompson, watching his daily diminishing food supply with sedulous
consideration, knew that the winter was drawing near, a season merciless
in its rigor. He knew that one of these days the northerly wind would
bring down a storm which would blanket the land with snow that only the
sun of the next May would banish. He was ill-prepared to face such an
iron-jawed season.
If he stayed there it would just about take his quarterly salary to
supply him with plain food and the heavier clothing he needed. But--he
drew a long breath and asked himself one day why he should stay there.
Why should he? He could not forbear a wry grimace when he tried to see
himself carrying out his appointed task faithfully to the end--preaching
vainly to uncomprehending ears month after month, year after year,
stagnating mentally and suffocating spiritually in those silent forests
where God and godly living was not a factor at all; where food,
clothing, and shelter loomed bigger than anything else, because until
these primary needs were satisfied a man could not rise above the status
of a hungry animal.
Yet he shrank from giving up the ministry. He had been bred to it, his
destiny sedulously shaped toward that end by the maiden aunts and the
theological schools. It was, in effect, his trade. He could scarcely
look equably upon a future apart from prayer meetings, from Bible
classes, from carefully thought out and eloquently delivered sermons. He
felt like a renegade when he considered quitting that chosen field. But
he felt also that it was a field in which he had no business now.
He was still in this uncertain frame of mind a few days later when he
borrowed a canoe from Lachlan and set out for the Fort. He had kept
away from Carr's for nearly five weeks. Neither Sophie nor her father
had come to his cabin again. Once or twice he had hailed Carr from a
distance. In the height of his loneliness he had traversed the half-mile
to Tommy Ashe's shack up Lone Moose, only to find it deserted. He
learned later that Lachlan's oldest son and Ashe had gone partners to
run a line of traps away to the north of the village. It occurred to
Thompson that he might do the same--if--well, he would see about that
when he got home from Pachugan.
The birch bark Lachlan let him have occasioned him many a rare tussle
before he finally beached it at the Fort. The fall winds were roughening
the lake. It was his first single-handed essay with the paddle. But he
derived a certain satisfaction from winning alone against wind and
water, and also gained food for thought in the odd circumstance of his
growing tendency to get a glow out of purely physical achievements. It
did not irk nor worry him now to sweat and strain for hours on end.
Instead, he found in that continued, concentrated muscular effort a
happy release from troublesome reflection.
His cheque was waiting. As he fingered the green slip whose face value
was one hundred and twenty dollars, one fourth of his yearly stipend, he
felt relieved, and at the same time oddly reluctant. Not until late in
the evening did he get at the root of that reluctance. MacLeod had
hospitably insisted on putting him up. They sat in the factor's living
room before a great roaring fireplace. Their talk had lapsed into
silence. MacLeod leaned back in his chair, pipe in hand, frowning
abstractedly.
"Man," he said at length, his bearded face wrinkled with a smile, "I
wish ye were no a preacher wi' labors i' the vineyard of the Lord tae
occupy yer time. I'd have ye do a job for me."
"A job?" Thompson came out of his preoccupation.
"Aye," MacLeod grunted. "A job. A reg'lar man's job. There'd be a
reasonable compensation in't. It's a pity," he continued dryly, "that a
parson has a mind sae far above purely mateerial conseederation."
"It may surprise you," Mr. Thompson returned almost as dryly, "to know
that I have--to a certain extent--modified my views upon what you term
material considerations. They are, I have found, more important than I
realized."
The factor took his pipe out of his mouth and regarded Thompson with
frank curiosity.
"Well," he remarked finally. "Yer a young man. It's no surprisin'." He
paused a second.
"Would it interest ye--would ye consider givin' a month or two of yer
time to a legitimate enterprise if it was made worth yer while?" he
asked bluntly.
"Yes," Thompson answered with equal directness. "If I knew what it
was--if it's something I can do."
"I'm just marking time at Lone Moose," he went on after a pause. There
was a note of discouragement in his voice. "I'm--well, completely
superfluous there. I'd be tempted--"
He did not go farther. Nor did MacLeod inquire into the nature of the
suggested temptation. He merely nodded understandingly at the first
part of Thompson's reply.
"Ye could do it fine, I think," he said thoughtfully, "wi' the use of
yer head an' the bit coachin' and help I'd provide. It's like this.
Pachugan's no so good a deestrict as it used tae be. The fur trade's
slowin' down, an' the Company's no so keen as it was in the old days
when it was lord o' the North. I mind when a factor was a power--but
that time's past. The Company's got ither fish tae fry. Consequently
there's times when we're i' the pickle of them that had tae make bricks
wi'oot straw. I mean there's times when they dinna gie us the support
needful to make the best of what trade there is. Difficulties of
transportation for one thing, an' a dyin' interest in a decayin' branch
of Company business. Forbye a' that they expect results, just the same.
"Now, I'm short of three verra necessary things, flour, tea, and steel
traps. I canna get them frae Edmonton. They didna fully honor my fall
requisitions, an' it's too late i' the season now. Yet they'll ask why I
dinna get the skins next spring, ye understand. If the Indians dinna get
fully supplied here, they'll go elsewhere; they can do that since
there's a French firm strung a line o' posts to compete i' the region,
ye see.
"Now I havena got the goods I need an' I canna get them frae Company
sources. But there's a free trader set himsel' up tae the north o' here
last season. The North's no a monopoly for the Company these days, ye
ken. They canna run a free trader out i' the old high-handed fashion.
But there's a bit of the old spirit left--an' this laddie's met wi'
difficulties, in a way o' speakin'. He's discouraged tae the point where
he'll sell cheap; an' he's a fair stock o' the verra goods I want. I'd
tak' over his stock to-morrow--but he's ninety-odd miles away. I canna
leave here i' the height o' the outfittin' season. I ha' naebody I can
leave in charge.
"The job for ye wad be tae go up there, inventory his stock, take it
over, an' stay there tae distribute it tae such folk as I'd send tae be
supplied in that section. Wi' that completed, transfer the tag-ends doon
here. I'd furnish ye a breed tae guide ye there an' interpret for ye,
an' tae pass on the quality o' such furs as might offer. He'd grade
them, an' ye'd purchase accordin'. Do ye see? It's no a job I can put on
anny half-breed. There's none here can write and figure."
"As it sounds," Thompson replied, "I daresay I could manage. You said it
would be worth my while. What do I gather from that?"
"Ye'd gather two dollars a day an' everything supplied," MacLeod
returned dryly. "Will ye tak' it on?"
Thompson stared into the fire for a minute. Then he looked up at the
Factor of Fort Pachugan.
"I'm your man," he said briefly.
"Good," MacLeod grunted. "An' when ye go back tae the preachin' ye'll
find the experience has done ye no harm. Now, we'll go over the
seetuation in detail to-morrow, an' the next day ye'll start north, wi'
Joe Lamont. The freeze-up's due, an' it's quicker an' easier travelin'
by canoe than wi' dogs."
They talked desultorily for half an hour, until MacLeod, growing drowsy
before the big fire, yawned and went off to bed, after pointing out a
room for his guest and employee-to-be.
Thompson shut the door of his bedroom and sat down on a stool. He was
warm, comfortable, well-fed. But he was not happy, unless the look of
him belied his real feelings. He raised his eyes and stared curiously at
his reflection in a small mirror on the wall. The scars of Tommy Ashe's
fists had long since faded. His skin was a ruddy, healthy hue, the
freckles across the bridge of his nose almost wholly absorbed in a coat
of tan. But the change that marked him most was a change of expression.
His eyes had lost the old, mild look. They were hard and alert, blue
mirrors of an unquiet spirit. There was a different set to his lips.
"I don't look like a minister," he muttered. "I look like a man who has
been drunk. I feel like that. There must be a devil in me."
He had brought with him from Lone Moose a small bag. Out of this he now
took paper, envelopes, a fountain pen, changed his seat to the edge of
the bed, and using the stool for a desk began to write. When he had
covered two sheets he folded them over the green slip he had that day
received, and slid the whole into an envelope which he addressed:
Mr. A.H. Markham,
Sec. M.E. Board of Home Missions,
412 Echo St.,
Toronto, Ont.
He laid the letter on the bed and regarded it with an expression in
which regret and relief were equally mingled.
"They'll say--they'll think," he muttered disconnectedly.
He got up, paced across the small room, swung about to look at the
letter again.
"I've got to do it," he said aloud defiantly. "It's the only thing I can
do. Burn all my bridges behind me. If I can't honestly be a minister, I
can at least be a man."