When Fate is fighting with all her might against a human soul, the
greatest victory that the soul can win is to reconcile itself to the
unpleasant, which is never quite so unpleasant afterwards. Upon this
principle Frederick Brent acted instinctively. What with work and study
and contact with his fellow-students, he found the seminary not so bad a
place, after all. Indeed, he began to take a sort of pleasure in his
pursuits. The spirit of healthy competition in the school whetted his
mind and made him forgetful of many annoyances from without. When some
fellow-salesman at the store gibed at him for being a parson, it hurt
him; but the wound was healed and he was compensated when in debate he
triumphed over the crack speaker of his class. It was a part of his
training to do earnestly and thoroughly what he had to do, even though
it was distasteful, and it was not long before he was spoken of as one
of the most promising members of the school.
Notwithstanding its steady growth toward citydom, Dexter retained many
of the traditions of its earlier and smaller days. Among them was that
of making the church the centre of its social and public life. For this
reason the young student came in for much attention on account of his
standing in the religious college. Another cause which elicited the
praise and congratulations of his friends was his extreme youth. That
community which could send out a "boy preacher" always deemed itself
particularly favoured by Providence. Dexter was no exception, and it had
already begun to bestow the appellation upon young Brent, much to his
disgust. He knew the species and detested it. It was mostly composed of
ignorant and hypocritical young prigs, in whom their friends had seemed
to see some especial merit and had forthwith hoisted them into a
position that was as foolish as it was distasteful. They were hailed as
youthful prodigies and exploited around the country like a patent
medicine or a side-show. What is remarkable at eighteen is not so
striking at twenty-eight. So when their extreme youth was no longer a
cause for surprise, the boy preachers settled down into every-day
dulness, with nothing except the memory of a flimsy fame to compensate
the congregations they bored.
Against this Frederick Brent fought with all his strength. He refused
invitation after invitation to "talk" or "exhort," on the plea that he
wished to be fully prepared for his work before entering upon it.
But his success at school militated against him, for the fame of his
oratorical powers was gradually but surely leaking out. The faculty
recognised and commended it, so he could not hope long to hide behind
his plea, although he dreaded the day when it would no longer serve his
purpose.
Some of the "older heads" accused him of an unwarranted fear, of
cowardice even, and an attempt to shirk his evident duty. The truth of
it was that these same people wanted to hear him and then attack his
manner or his doctrine. They could not, would not forget that he was the
son of old Tom Brent, the drunkard, and of the terrible, the unspeakable
Margaret, his wife. They could not forget that he was born and lived the
first years of his life on the "mean" street, when it was a mean
street; and when any obstinate old fossil was told of the youth's
promise, he would shake his head, as who should say, "What good can come
out of that Nazareth?"
But the young man went his way and heeded them not. He knew what they
were saying. He knew what they were thinking, even when they held his
hand and smiled upon him, and it filled him with a spirit of distrust
and resentment, though it put him bravely on his mettle. While he was a
man, and in the main manly, sometimes he was roused to an anger almost
childish; then, although he did not want to be a preacher at all, he
wished and even prayed to become a great one, just to convince the old
fools who shook their heads over him. To his ears had crept, as such
tales will creep, some of the stories of his parents' lives, and, while
he pitied his mother, there was a great fierceness in his heart against
his father.
But as in the old days when Miss Prime's discipline would have turned
all within him to hardness and bitterness Eliphalet Hodges stood between
him and despair, so now in this crucial time Elizabeth was a softening
influence in his life.
As the days came and went, he had continued to go to see her ever since
the night when he had stood with her at the gate and felt the bitterness
of her lack of sympathy; but all that had passed now, and unconsciously
they had grown nearer to each other. There had been a tacit
understanding between them until just a few weeks before. It was on a
warm spring evening: he had just passed through her gate and started
towards the house, when the opening chords of the piano struck on his
ear through the opened window and arrested him. Elizabeth had a pleasant
little voice, with a good deal of natural pathos in it. As the
minister's daughter, the scope of her songs was properly, according to
Dexter, rather limited, but that evening she was singing softly to
herself a love-song. The words were these:
If Death should claim me for her own to-day,
And softly I should falter from your side,
Oh, tell me, loved one, would my memory stay,
And would my image in your heart abide?
Or should I be as some forgotten dream,
That lives its little space, then fades entire?
Should Time send o'er you its relentless stream,
To cool your heart, and quench for aye love's fire?
I would not for the world, love, give you pain,
Or ever compass what would cause you grief;
And oh, how well I know that tears are vain!
But love is sweet, my dear, and life is brief;
So, if some day before you I should go
Beyond the sound and sight of song and sea,
'T would give my spirit stronger wings to know
That you remembered still and wept for me.
She was alone in the room. The song was hardly finished when Brent
stepped through the window and laid his hand over hers where they rested
on the keys.
"Why do you sing like that, Elizabeth?" he said, tremulously.
She blushed and lowered her eyes beneath his gaze, as if she already
knew the words that were on his lips, or feared that her soul lay too
bare before him.
"Why do you think of death?" he asked again, imprisoning her hands.
"It was only my mood," she faltered. "I was thinking, and I thought of
the song, and I just sang it."
"Were you thinking of any one in particular, Lizzie?"
Her head drooped lower until her face was hidden, but she did not
answer. A strange boldness had come to him. He went on: "I listened as
you were singing, and it seemed as if every word was meant for me,
Lizzie. It may sound foolish, but I--I love you. Won't you look at me
and tell me that I am right in thinking you love me?" She half raised
her face to his and murmured one word. In it were volumes; he bent down
and kissed her. It was the first time he had ever kissed a girl. He did
it almost fearfully. It was a kiss in which reverence struggled with
passion.
"You are to be my little sweetheart now, and I am to be in your thoughts
hereafter when you sing; only we don't want any more such songs as this
one. I don't want to 'remember still and weep for you,' I want to have
you always by me and work for you. Won't you let me?"
Elizabeth found her tongue for a moment only, but that was enough for
her lover. A happy light gleamed in his eyes: his face glowed. He was
transfigured. Love does so much for a man.
From that time forward, when he was harassed by cares and trouble, he
sought out Elizabeth, and, even though he could seldom tell her all that
was in his heart, he found relief in her presence. He did not often
speak of his trials to her, for, in spite of his love for her, he felt
that she could not understand; but the pleasure he found in her company
put sweetness into his life and made his burdens easier to bear.
Only once had a little shadow come between them, and the fact that so
little a thing could have made a shadow shows in what a narrow,
constrained atmosphere the two young people lived. Young Brent still had
his half-day position in the store, and when the employees of a rival
establishment challenged Daniels's clerks to a game of baseball, he was
duly chosen as one of the men to uphold the honour of their house upon
the diamond.
The young man was not fossilised. He had strength and the capacity for
enjoyment, so he accepted without a thought of wrong. The Saturday came,
the game was played. Fred Brent took part, and thereby brought a
hornets' nest about his ears. It would scarcely have been so bad, but
the young man entered the game with all the zest and earnestness of his
intense nature, and several times by brilliant playing saved his side
from defeat. In consequence, his name was in the mouth of every one who
had seen or heard of the contest. He was going home that evening,
feeling pleased and satisfied with himself, when he thought he would
drop in a moment on the way and see Elizabeth. He had hardly got into
the house before he saw from her manner that something was wrong, and he
wondered what it could be. He soon learned. It is only praise that is
slow.
"Oh, Fred," said the girl, reproachfully, "is it true that you have been
playing baseball?"
"Baseball, yes; what of it? What are you looking so horrified about?"
"Did you think it was right for you, in your position, to play?"
"If I had thought it was wrong I assuredly should not have played," the
young man returned.
"Everybody is talking about it, and father says he thinks you have
disgraced your calling."
"Disgraced my calling by playing an innocent game?"
"But father thinks it is a shame for a man who is preparing to do such
work as yours to have people talking about him as a mere ball-player."
The blood mounted in hot surges to the young man's face. He felt like
saying, "Your father be hanged," but he controlled his anger, and said,
quietly, "Elizabeth, don't you ever think for yourself?"
"I suppose I do, Fred, but I have been brought up to respect what my
elders think and say."
"Don't you think that they, as well as we, can be narrow and mistaken?"
"It is not for me to judge them. My part is to obey."
"You have learned an excellent lesson," he returned, bitterly. "That is
just the thing: 'obey, obey.' Well, I will. I will be a stick, a dolt. I
will be as unlike what God intended me to be as possible. I will be just
what your father and Aunt Hester and you want me to be. I will let them
think for me and save my soul. I am too much an imbecile to attempt to
work out my own salvation. No, Elizabeth, I will not play ball any more.
I can imagine the horrified commotion it caused among the angels when
they looked down and saw me pitching. When I get back to school I shall
look up the four Gospels' views on ball-playing."
"Fred, I don't like you when you talk that way."
"I won't do that any more, either." He rose abruptly. "Good-bye,
Elizabeth. I am off." He was afraid to stay, lest more bitter words
should come to his lips.
"Good-bye, Fred," she said. "I hope you understand."
The young man wondered as he walked homeward if the girl he had chosen
was not a little bit prim. Then he thought of her father, and said to
himself, even as people would have said of himself, "How can she help
it, with such a father?"
All his brightness had been dashed. He was irritated because the thing
was so small, so utterly absurd. It was like the sting of a miserable
little insect,--just enough to smart, and not enough to need a strong
remedy. The news of the game had also preceded him home, and his
guardian's opinion of the propriety of his action did not tend to soothe
his mind. Mrs. Hodges forcibly expressed herself as follows: "I put
baseball-playin' right down with dancin' and sich like. It ain't no
fittin' occupation for any one that 's a-goin' into the ministry. It 's
idleness, to begin with; it 's a-wastin' the precious time that 's been
given us for a better use. A young man that 's goin' to minister to
people's souls ought to be consecrated to the work before he begins it.
Who ever heerd tell of Jesus playin' baseball?"
Among a certain class of debaters such an argument is always supposed to
be clinching, unanswerable, final. But Mr. Hodges raised his voice in
protest. "I ain't a-goin' to keep still no longer. I don't believe the
boy 's done a bit o' harm. There 's lots of things the Lord did n't do
that He did n't forbid human bein's to do. We ain't none of us divine,
but you mark my words, Freddie, an' I say it right here so 's yore aunt
Hester can hear me too, you mark my words: ef you never do nothin' worse
than what you 've been a-doin' to-day, it 'll be mighty easy for you to
read yore title clear to mansions in the skies."
"Omph huh, 'Liphalet, there ain't nothin' so easy as talkin' when Satin
's a-promptin' you."
"There you go, Hester, there you go ag'in, a-pattin' the devil on the
back. I 'low the Old Boy must be tickled to death with all the
compliments Christian people give him."
"A body 'd about as well be complimentin' the devil as to be
a-countenancin' his works, as you air."
The old man stopped with a piece half-way to his mouth. "Now jest listen
at that! Hester Prime, ain't you ashamed of yoreself? Me a-countenancin'
wrong! Sayin' that to me, an' me ol' enough to be--to be--well, I 'm
your husband, anyway."
In times of excitement he was apt to forget this fact for the instant
and give his wife her maiden name, as if all that was sharp in her
belonged to that prenuptial period. But this storm relieved the
atmosphere of its tension. Mrs. Hodges felt better for having spoken her
mind, and Mr. Hodges for having answered, while the young man was
relieved by the championship of his elder, and so the storm blew over.
It was several days before Brent saw Elizabeth again; but, thanks to
favouring winds, the sky had also cleared in that direction.
It was through such petty calms and storms that Fred passed the days and
weeks of his first year at the seminary. Some of them were small
annoyances, to be sure, but he felt them deeply, and the sting of them
rankled. It is not to be supposed, because there was no specific
outburst, that he was entirely at rest. Vesuvius had slumbered long
before Pompeii's direful day. His mind was often in revolt, but he kept
it to himself or confided it to only one friend. This friend was a
fellow-student at the seminary, a man older than Fred by some years. He
had first begun a literary career, but had renounced it for the
ministry. Even to him Fred would not commit himself until, near the end
of the year, Taylor declared his intention of now renouncing the study
of theology for his old pursuits. Then Brent's longing to be free
likewise drew his story from his lips.
Taylor listened to him with the air of one who had been through it all
and could sympathise. Then he surprised his friend by saying, "Don't be
a fool, Brent. It 's all very nice and easy to talk about striking out
for one's self, and all that. I 've been through it all myself. My
advice to you is, stay here, go through the academic discipline, and be
a parson. Get into a rut if you will, for some ruts are safe. When we
are buried deep, they keep us from toppling over. This may be a sort of
weak philosophy I am trying to teach you, but it is the happiest. If I
can save any man from self-delusion, I want to do it. I 'll tell you
why. When I was at school some fool put it into my head that I could
write. I hardly know how it came about. I began scribbling of my own
accord and for my own amusement. Sometimes I showed the things to my
friend, who was a fool: he bade me keep on, saying that I had talent. I
did n't believe it at first. But when a fellow keeps dinging at another
with one remark, after a while he grows to believe it, especially when
it is pleasant. It is vastly easy to believe what we want to believe. So
I came to think that I could write, and my soul was fired with the
ambition to make a name for myself in literature. When I should have
been turning Virgil into English for class-room, I was turning out more
or less deformed verse of my own, or rapt in the contemplation of some
plot for story or play. But somehow I got through school without a
decided flunk. In the mean time some of my lines had found their way
into print, and the little cheques I received for them had set my head
buzzing with dreams of wealth to be made by my pen. If we could only
pass the pitfalls of that dreaming age of youth, most of us would get
along fairly well in this matter-of-fact old world. But we are likely to
follow blindly the leadings of our dreams until we run our heads smack
into a corner-post of reality. Then we awaken, but in most cases too
late.
"I am glad to say that my father had the good sense to discourage my
aspirations. He wanted me to take a profession. But, elated by the
applause of my friends, I scorned the idea. What, mew my talents up in a
courtroom or a hospital? Never! It makes me sick when I look back upon
it and see what a fool I was. I settled down at home and began writing.
Lots of things came back from periodicals to which I sent them; but I
had been told that this was the common lot of all writers, and I plodded
on. A few things sold, just enough to keep my hopes in a state of
unstable equilibrium.
"Well, it 's no use to tell you how I went on in that way for four
years, clinging and losing hold, standing and slipping, seeing the prize
recede just as I seemed to grasp it. Then came the awakening. I saw that
it would have been better just to go on and do the conventional thing. I
found this out too late, and I came here to try to remedy it, but I
can't. No one can. You get your mind into a condition where the
ordinary routine of study is an impossibility, and you cannot go back
and take up the train you have laid, so you keep struggling on wasting
your energy, hoping against hope. Then suddenly you find out that you
are and can be only third- or at best second-rate. God, what a discovery
it is! How you try to fight it off until the last moment! But it comes
upon you surely and crushingly, and, cut, bruised, wounded, you slip
away from the face of the world. If you are a brave man, you say boldly
to yourself, 'I will eke out an existence in some humble way,' and you
go away to a life of longing and regret. If you are a coward, you either
leap over the parapets of life to hell, or go creeping back and fall at
the feet of the thing that has damned you, willing to be third-rate,
anything; for you are stung with the poison that never leaves your
blood. So it has been with me: even when I found that I must choose a
calling, I chose the one that gave me most time to nurse the serpent
that had stung me."
Taylor ceased speaking, and looked a little ashamed of his vehemence.
"This is your story," said Brent; "but men differ and conditions
differ. I will accept all the misery, all the pain and defeat you have
suffered, to be free to choose my own course."
Taylor threw up his hands with a deprecatory gesture. "There," he said;
"it is always so. I might as well have talked to the wind."
So the fitful calms and Elizabeth's love had not cured Frederick Brent's
heart of its one eating disease, the desire for freedom.