A fiery July was followed by a scorching August. There was a long
drought, and simooms of fine, irritating dust. The gasping town and
inland country flocked to the coast in more than the usual force.
The hotels brimmed over. Even Windover fanned herself, and lay in
hammocks lazily, watching for the two o’clock east wind to stir the
topsails of the schooners trying under full canvas to crawl around
the Point. In Angel Alley the heat was something unprecedented; and
the devil shook hands with discomfort as he is fain to, and made
new comrades.
Bayard was heavily overworked. He gave himself few pleasures,
after the fashion of the man; and the summer people at the Point
knew him not. He was not of them, nor of their world. Afterwards,
he recalled, with a kind of pain lacking little of anguish, how
few in number had been his evenings in the cool parlor of the
cottage, where the lace curtains blew in and out through the
purple twilight, or on the impearled harbor, in the dory, when
the sun went down, and he drifted with her between earth and
heaven, between light and reflection, in a glamour of color, in
alternations of quiet, dangerous talk, and of more dangerous
silence; brief, stolen hours when duty seemed a dimming dream, and
human joy the only reality, the sole value, the decreed and eternal
end of life. Upon this rare and scanty substitute for happiness he
fed; and from it he fled.
Between his devotions and his desertions the woman stood mute and
inscrutable. And while they still moved apart, saying, “The summer
is before us,” lo, the petals of the Cape roses had flown on the
hot winds, the goldenrod was lifting its sword of flame on the
undulating gray downs, and the summer was spent.
And yet, at every march and countermarch in the drill of duty, he
was aware of her. It could not be said that she ever overstepped
the invisible line which he had elected to draw between them;
though it might be said that she had the fine pride which did not
seem to see it. Helen had the quiet, maidenly reserve of an elder
and more delicate day than ours. To throw her young enthusiasm
into his work without obtruding herself upon his attention, was a
difficult procedure, for which she had at once the decorum and the
wit.
At unexpected crises and in unthought-of ways he came upon her
footprints or her sleight-of-hand. Helen’s methods were purely her
own. She followed neither law nor gospel; no rules or precedents
controlled her. She relieved what suffering she chose, and omitted
where she did elect; and he was sometimes astonished at the common
sense of her apparent willfulness. She had no more training in
sociological problems than the goldenrod upon the bosom of her
white gown; yet she seldom made a serious mistake. In a word, this
summer girl, playing at charity for a season’s amusement, poured
a refreshing amount of novelty, vigor, ingenuity, and feminine
defiance of routine into the labors of the lonely man. His too
serious and anxious people found her as diverting as a pretty
parlor play. A laugh ran around like a light flame whenever she
came upon the sombre scene. She took a bevy of idle girls with her,
and gave entertainments on which Angel Alley hung, a breathless
and admiring crowd. She played, she sang, she read, she decorated.
Pictures sprang on barren walls; books stood on empty shelves;
games crowded the smoking-room; a piano replaced the painstaking
melodeon; life and light leaped where she trod, into the poor and
unpopular place. The people took to her one of the strong, loyal
fancies of the coast. Unsuspected by her, or by himself, she began,
even then, to be known among them as “the minister’s girl.” But
this hurt nobody, neither herself nor him, and their deference to
her never defaulted. In the indulgence of that summer’s serious
mood, Helen seldom met, he was forced to suspect that she purposely
avoided, the preacher. Often he entered a laughing home from which
she had just vanished. Sometimes--but less often--he found that
she had preceded him where death and trouble were. Their personal
interviews were rare, and of her seeking, never.
“She is amusing herself with a novelty,” he thought. Then came the
swift, unbidden question, If this is her beautiful whim, what would
her dedication be?
Since, to play at helping a man’s work, though at the tip of the
sceptre by which he held her back, meant sense and sympathy, fervor
and courage like this, what would it be to the great and solemn
purpose of his life, if she shared it, crowned queen?
It was an August evening, sultry and smoky. Forest fires had been
burning for a week on the wooded side of the harbor, and the air
was thick. It was Sunday, and the streets and wharves and beaches
of Windover surged with vacuous eyes and irritable passions. The
lock-ups were full, the saloons overflowed. The ribald song and
excessive oath of the coast swept up and down like air currents.
There had been several accidents and some fights. Rum ran in
streams. It was one of the stifling evenings when the most decent
tenement retains only the sick or the helpless, and when the
occupants of questionable sailors’ boarding-houses and nameless
dens crawl out like vermin fleeing from fire. It was one of the
nights when the souls of women go to perdition, and when men do
not argue with their vices. It was one of the nights when ease and
cool, luxury and delicacy, forget the gehenna that they escape; and
when only the strong few remember the weakness of the many.
Upon the long beach of fine white sand which spanned the space
between the docks and the cliffs of the wooded coast, there
gathered that evening a large and unusual crowd. Angel Alley was
there en masse. The wharves poured out a mighty delegation. Dories
put out from anchored vessels whose prows nodded in the inner
harbor, and their crews swarmed to the beach in schools, like fish
to a net.
A few citizens of another sort, moved, one might say, from
curiosity, innocent or malicious, joined themselves to the
fishermen and sailors. Their numbers were increased by certain of
the summer people from the Point, drawn from their piazzas and
their hammocks by rumors of a sensation. An out-of-door service,
said to be the first of its kind conducted by the remarkable young
preacher of such excellent family and such eccentric career, was
not without its attractions even on the hottest evening of the
season. There might have been easily eight hundred or a thousand
people facing the light temporary desk or pulpit which had been
erected at the head of the beach for the speaker’s use.
The hour was early, and it would have been very light but for
the smoke in the air, through which the sun hung, quivering and
sinister, with the malevolent blood-red color of drought and
blasting heat.
“Statira,” in a low tone said the puzzled voice of the Professor
of Theology, “this is--I must say--really, a most extraordinary
gathering. It quite impresses me.”
“I have read something somewhere it reminds me of,” mused Mrs.
Carruth, with a knot between her placid brows. “Where was it,
Haggai?--Helen! Helen! What have I read that is like this? I can’t
think whether it is George Eliot, or Fox’s Book of Martyrs. Perhaps
it is the Memoirs of Whitefield; but certainly”--
“Possibly,” suggested Helen, “it may have been the New Testament.”
“That’s it! You have it!” cried Mrs. Carruth, with mild relief.
“That’s the very thing. How extraordinary! It _is_ the New
Testament I have got into my head.”
The Professor of Theology changed color slightly, but he made no
answer to his wife. He was absorbed in watching the scene before
him. There were many women in the crowd, but men predominated in
proportion significant to the eye familiar with the painfully
feminine character of New England religious audiences. Of these
men, four fifths were toilers of the sea, red of face, uncertain of
step, rough of hand, keen of eye, and open of heart,--
“Fearing no God but wind and wet.”
The scent of bad liquor was strong upon the heavy, windless air;
oaths rippled to and fro as easily as the waves upon the beach, and
(it seemed) quite as much according to the laws of Nature. Yet the
men bore a decent look of personal respect for the situation. All
wore their best clothes, and most were clean for the occasion. They
chatted among themselves freely, paying small heed to the presence
of strangers, these being regarded as inferior aliens who did not
know how to man a boat in a gale.
The fisherman’s sense of his own superior position is, in any
event, something delightful. In this case there was added the
special aristocracy recognized in Angel Alley as belonging to
Bayard’s people. Right under the ears of the Professor of Theology
uprose these awful words:--
“D---- them swells. He don’t care a ---- for them. We get along
up to Christlove without ’em, don’t we, Bob? The parson’s ourn,
anyhow. He can’t be bothered with the likes o’ them.”
“Look a’ Job Slip yonder! See the face of him, shaved like a dude.
That’s him, a-passin’ round hymn-books. Who’d believe it? _Job!_
Why, he ain’t teched a ---- drop sence he swore off! Look a’ that
young one of his taggin’ to his finger! That’s his wife, that
bleached-out creetur in a new bunnet. See the look of her now!”
“It’s a way women have,--lookin’ like that when a man swears off,”
replied a young fellow, wriggling uncomfortably. “It kinder puts my
eyes out--like it was a lamp turned up too high.”
He winked hard and turned away.
“Ben Trawl! Hello, Trawl! _You_ here? So fond of the minister as
this?”
“I like to keep my eye on him,” replied Ben Trawl grimly.
Captain Hap, distributing camp-chairs for the women of the
audience, turned and eyed Ben over his shoulder. The Captain’s
small, keen eyes held the dignity and the scorn of age and
character.
“Shut up there!” he said authoritatively. “The minister’s comin’.
Trot back to your grogshop, Ben. This ain’t no place for Judases,
nor yet for rummies.”
“Gorry,” laughed a young skipper; “he ain’t got customers enough to
okkepy him. They’re all here.”
Now there sifted through the crowd an eager, affectionate whisper.
“There! There’s the preacher. Look that way--See? That tall, thin
fellar--him with the eyes.”
“That’s him! That’s him. That long-sparred fellar. Three cheers for
him!” shouted the mate of a collier, flinging up his hat.
A billow of applause started along the beach. Then a woman’s voice
called out:--
“Boys, he don’t like it!” and the wave of sound dropped as suddenly
as it rose.
“He comes!” cried an Italian.
“So he does, Tony, so he does!” echoed the woman. “God bless him!”
“He comes,” repeated Tony. “Hush you, boys--the Christman comes!”
The Professor of Theology pressed the tips of his scholarly fingers
upon his aging eyes.
It was some moments before he commanded himself, and looked up.
Bayard stood bareheaded in the color of the red sun. He was pale,
notwithstanding the warmth of the evening, and had a look so worn
that those who loved him most felt unspoken fear like the grip
of a hand at their hearts. The transparence, the delicacy of his
appearance,--bathed in the scarlet of the murky sunset, as he
was,--gave him an aspect half unreal. He seemed for the moment to
be a beautiful phantom rising from a mist of blood. A hush, half of
reverence, half of awe, fell upon all the people; it grew so still
that the lazy breath of the shallow wave at that moment spent upon
the beach, could be heard stirring through the calm.
Suddenly, and before the preacher had spoken any word, the
impressive silence was marred by a rude sound. It was a girl’s
coarse laugh.
Then there was seen upon the beach, and quite apart from the
throng, a little group of nameless women, standing with their
backs to the sacred scene. Some one--Job Slip, perhaps, or Captain
Hap--started with an exclamation of horror to suppress the
disturbance, when the preacher’s lifted hand withstood him. To
the consternation of his church officers, and to the astonishment
of his audience, Bayard deliberately left the desk, and, passing
through the throng, which respectfully divided before him to left
and right, himself approached the women.
“Lena!... _Magdalena!_”
He said but that word. The girl looked up--and down. She felt as if
an archangel from the heavens, commissioned with the rebuke of God,
had smitten her with something far more terrible--the mercy of man.
“You disturb us, Lena,” said the preacher gently. “Come.”
She followed him; and the girls behind her. They hung their heads.
Lena scrawled she knew not what with the tip of her gaudy parasol
upon the beach. Her heavy eyes traced the little pebbles in the
sand. For her life, she thought, she could not have lifted her
smarting lids. Till that moment, perhaps, Lena had never known what
shame meant. It overwhelmed her, like the deluge which one dreams
may foretell the end of the world.
The street girls followed the preacher silently. He conducted them
gently through the throng, and seated them quite near the desk or
table which served him as a pulpit. Some of his people frowned. The
girls looked abashed at this courtesy.
Bayard ignored both evidences of attention to his unexpected act,
passing it by as a matter of course, and without further delay made
signs to his singers, and the service began.
* * * * *
Was it magic or miracle? Was it holiness or eloquence? Did he speak
with the tongue of man or of angel? Where was the secret? What was
the charm? Not a man or woman of them could have answered, but not
a soul of them could have gainsaid the power of the preacher; the
Professor of Theology least of all. This learned man stood the
service out, upon the beach, behind the camp-chairs of his wife and
daughter, and knew neither fatigue nor the critical faculty, till
the beautiful worship drew to its end.
Bayard’s manner was quiet, finished, and persuasive; it must have
appealed to the most fastidious oratorical taste; any instructor
in homiletics might have seen in it a remarkable illustration of
the power of consecrated education over ignorance and vice. But
Bayard’s thought threw off ecclesiastical form as naturally as the
gulls, arising from the harbor in the reddening sunset, tossed off
the spray from their wings. No class of men are more responsive to
originality than sea-going men. Of the humdrum, the commonplace,
they will naught. Cant they scorn, and at religious snobbery they
laugh.
It would be difficult to say what it was in Emanuel Bayard that
most attracted them: whether his sincerity or his intellect, his
spirituality or his manliness; or that mystical charm which comes
not of striving, or of prayer, or of education--the power of an
elect personality. Perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say that
the fishermen loved him because he loved them. The idea is older
than the time of this biography, but it will bear repeating.
The red sun dipped, and the hot night cooled. Dusk purpled on
the breathless water, and on the long beach. A thousand restless
people grew as gentle as one. The outlines of the preacher’s form
softened into the surrounding shadow; the features of his high face
melted and wavered. Only his appealing voice remained distinct.
It seemed to be the cry of a spirit more than the eloquence of a
man. It pleaded as no man pleads who has not forgotten himself,
as no man can plead who is not remembered of God. Fishermen stood
with one foot on the beach, and one on their stranded dories, like
men afraid to stir. Rude, uncomfortable men in the heart of the
crowd thrust their heads forwards with breath held in, as still as
figure-heads upon a wreck. The uplifted eyes of the throng took on
an expression of awe. It grew dimmer, and almost dark. And then,
when no one could see the pathos of his face, they knew that he was
praying for their souls. Some of the men fell upon their knees; but
the heads of others got no lower than their guilty breasts, where
they hung like children’s. The sound of stifled sobbing mingled
with the sigh of the waves.
The unseen singers, breathing upon the last words of the prayer,
chanted a solemn benediction. The tide was rising slowly, and the
eternal Amen of the sea responded. Suddenly a lantern flashed--and
another--and light and motion broke upon the scene.
Rough men looked into one another’s wet faces, and were not
ashamed. But some held their hats before their eyes. The girls in
the front chairs moved away quietly, speaking to no person. But
Lena separated herself from them, and disappeared in the dark.
Job Slip had not arisen from his knees, and Mari, his wife, knelt
by him. The woman’s expression was something touching to see, and
impossible to forget. Captain Hap held a lantern up, and Bayard’s
face shone out, rapt and pale.
“Behold the Christman!” said the Italian, repeating his favorite
phrase in a reverent whisper.
The Professor of Theology heard it again; and repetition did not
weaken its effect upon the Orthodox scholar. He removed his hat
from his gray head. His wife held her delicate handkerchief to her
eyes. Helen, struggling with herself, was pale with emotion. The
Professor tried to speak.
“It is not,” he said, “precisely a doctrinal discourse, and his
theology”--
The Professor checked himself. “It is written,” he said, “that the
common people heard HIM gladly. And it must be admitted that our
dear young friend, His servant, seems to command that which--men
older and--sounder than he, would give their lives--and fame--to--”
But there he choked, and tried to say no more.
* * * * *
There ought to have been a moon that night, and the electric jets
at the crest of the beach had not been lighted. By the special
request of the preacher, or by the forethought of the police, in
view, perhaps, of the unusual size of the crowd, the lights now
sprang out.
The throng dispersed slowly. The dark sea formed a sober background
to the mass of quietly moving figures. The fishermen, with one
foot on their dories, leaped in, and pushed off; scattered crews
gathered gently, and rowed soberly back to their schooners. Groups
collected around the preacher, waiting their turns for a word from
his lips, or a touch from his hand. It was evident that he was very
tired, but he refused himself to no one.
The summer people walked away softly. They passed through Angel
Alley on their way to take the electric car. They looked up
thoughtfully at the illuminated words swinging over their heads in
fire of scarlet and white:--
“THE LOVE OF CHRIST.”
As she passed by the door of the mission, Helen was recognized by
some of the women and children, who surrounded her affectionately,
begging for some little service at her hands. It seemed to be
desired that she should play or sing to them. While she stood,
hesitating, between her father and her mother, Bayard himself, with
a group of fishermen around him, came up Angel Alley.
“I will see that she is safely taken home, Professor, if you care
to let her stay,” he said. “We won’t keep her--perhaps half an
hour? Will that do? The people like to hear her sing; it helps to
keep them out of the street.”
“Mr. Bayard will look after her, Haggai,” replied Mrs. Carruth
wearily. “I see no objections, do you?”
Mrs. Carruth was very tired. Not to give a sober Monday to all the
drunkards of Angel Alley would she have felt that she could stay
another hour in that mob. She never saw such sights in Cesarea;
where charity took a mild, ladylike form, consisting chiefly of
missionary barrels, and Dorcas societies for the families of poor
students who had no business to have married.
The Professor took her away. He wanted to tell his heretic graduate
what he had thought about that service on the beach; indeed, he
made one effort to do so, beginning slowly:--
“My dear Bayard, your discourse this evening”--
“To h---- with ’em!” cried Captain Hap in a thunderous sea-voice,
at that moment. “Mr. Bayard! Mr. Bayard, sir! Come here! Here’s
them two Trawlses a-tryin’ to toll Job Slip into their place! Mr.
Bayard! Mr. Bayard!”
Mr. Bayard held out his hand to his Professor, and, smiling, shook
his head. Then he vanished down the Alley. He had lingered only to
say these words in Helen’s ear:--
“Go into the chapel and stay there till I come for you. Look after
Lena--will you? I want her kept inside. Get her to singing with
you, if you can.”