"Mista God," he went on in the same speculative tone, "Mista God know
allee bad things, allee same like Mista Yen Sin, yes?"
"Where is the minister?" I demanded in desperation.
"Mista Yen Sin likee see Mista Minista." When he added, with a
transparent hand fluttering over his heart: "Like see pletty quick now,"
I seemed to fathom for the first time what was happening to him.
"Wait," I cried, too full of awe to know what I said. "Wait, wait, Yen
Sin. I'll fetch 'im."
It was dark outside, the sky overcast, and the wind beginning to moan a
high note across the roofs as it swept in from the moors and out again
over the graying waters. In the shore street my eyes chanced upon the
light of Center Church, and I remembered that it was meeting-night.
* * *
There was only a handful of worshippers that evening, but a thousand
could have had no more eyes it seemed to me as I tiptoed down the aisle
with the scandalized pad-pad of Emsy Nickerson's pursuing soles behind
my back. Confusion seized me; I started to run, and had come almost up
to Mister Malden before I had wit enough to discover that it wasn't
Minister Malden at all, but Mate Snow in the pulpit, standing with an
open hymn-book in one hand and staring down at me with grim, inquiring
eyes. After a time I managed to stammer:
"The Chinaman, you know--he's goin' to die--the minister--"
Then I fled, dodging Emsy's legs. Confused voices followed me; Aunt
Nickerson's full of a nameless horror; Mate Snow's, thundering: "Brother
Hemans, you will please continue the meeting. I will go and see what I
can do. But your prayers are needed here."
Poor Minister Malden! His hour had struck--the hour so long awaited--and
now it was Mate Snow who should go to answer it. Perhaps the night had
something to do with it, and the melancholy disaster of the wind.
Perhaps it was the look of Mate Snow's back as he passed me, panting on
the steps, his head bowed with his solemn and triumphant stewardship.
But all of a sudden I hated him, this righteous man. He had so many
things, and Minister Malden had nothing--nothing but the Chinaman's
soul--and he was going to try and get that too.
I had to find Minister Malden, and right away. But where _was_ he, and
on prayer-meeting night too? My mind skipped back. The "Wilderness."
I was already ducking along the Court to reconnoiter the Pillar House,
black and silent beyond the box-trees. And then I put my hands in my
pockets, my ardor dimmed by the look of that vacant, staring face. What
was I, a boy of thirteen, against that house? I could knock at the door,
to be sure, as the minister had done that other night. Yes; but when I
stood, soft-footed, on the porch, the thought that Sympathy Gibbs might
open it suddenly and find me there sent the hands back again into the
sanctuary of my pockets. What did I know of her? What did any one know
of her? To be confronted by her, suddenly, in the dark behind a green
door--I tiptoed down the steps.
If only there were a cranny of light somewhere in the dead place! I
began to prowl around the yard, feeling adventurous enough, you may
believe, for no boy had ever scouted that bit of Urkey land before. And
I did find a light, beneath a drawn shade in the rear. Approaching as
stealthily as a red Indian, I put one large, round eye to the aperture.
If I had expected a melodramatic tableau, I was disappointed. I had
always figured the inside of the Pillar House as full of treasures, for
they told tales of the old whaler's wealth. My prying eyes found it
bare, like a deserted house gutted by seasons of tramps. A little fire
of twigs and a broken butter-box on the hearth made a pathetic shift at
domestic cheer. Minister Malden sat at one side of it, his back to me,
his face half-buried in his hands. Little Hope Gibbs played quietly on
the floor, building pig-pens with a box of matches, a sober, fire-lined
shade. Sympathy Gibbs was not in the picture, but I heard her voice
after a moment, coming out from an invisible corner.
"How much do you want this time, Will?"
"Want?" There was an anguished protest in the man's cry.
"Need, then." The voice was softer.
The minister's face dropped back in his hands, and after a moment the
words came out between his tight fingers, hardly to be heard.
"Five hundred dollars, Sympathy."
I thought there was a gasp from the corner, suppressed. I caught the
sound of a drawer pulled open and the vague rustling of skirts as the
woman moved about. Her voice was as even as death itself.
"Here it is, Will. It brings us to the end, Will. God knows where it
will come from next time."
"It--it--you mean--" An indefinable horror ran though the minister's
voice, and I could see the cords shining on the hands which gripped the
chair-arms. "Next time--next year--" His eyes were fixed on the child at
his feet. "God knows where it will come from. Perhaps--before another
time--something will happen. Dear little Hope--little girl!"
The child's eyes turned with a preoccupied wonder as the man's hand
touched her hair; then went back to the alluring pattern of the matches.
Sympathy Gibbs spoke once more.
"I've found out who holds the mortgage, Will. Mr. Dow told me."
His hand slid from Hope's hair and hung in the air. During the momentary
hush his head, half-turned, seemed to wait in a praying suspense.
"It's Mate Snow," the voice went on. The man covered his face.
"Thank God!" he said. I thought he shivered. "Then it's all--all right,"
he sighed after a moment. "I was afraid it might be somebody who
would--who might make trouble." He took out a handkerchief and touched
his forehead with it. "Thank--God!"
"Why do you thank God?" A weariness, like anger, touched her words.
"Why? Why do I thank God?" He faced her, wondering. "Because he has
given me a strong man to be my friend and stand behind me. Because Mate
Snow, who might have hated me, has--"
"Has sucked the life out of you!" It came out of the corner like a
blade. "Yes, yes, he has sucked the life out of you in his hate, and
thrown the dry shell of you to me; and that makes him feel good on his
hill there. No, no, no; I'm going to say it now. Has he ever tried to
find out what was wrong with us? No. He didn't need to. Why? Because no
matter what it was, we were given over into his hands, body and soul.
And now it's Mate Snow who is the big man of this island, and it's the
minister that eats the crumbs that fall from his table, and folks pity
you and honor him because he's so good to you, and--"
_And this was Urkey village, and night, and Yen Sin was dying._
"And he's down to the Chinaman's _now_!" I screamed, walking out of my
dream. "An' the Chinaman's dyin' an' wants the minister, an' Mate Snow
he got there first."
The light went out in the room; I heard a chair knocked over, and then
Minister Malden's voice: "God forgive me! God forgive me!"