"THE MASTER WHISPERED"
When Roderick stepped on board the night train for Montreal he was
surprised and pleased to find Doctor Archie Blair bustling into the
opposite compartment. That delightful person, with a suit-case, a pile
of medical journals, a copy of Burns, and a new book of poems, had left
Algonquin the day before, and was now setting out on a tremendous
journey all the way to Halifax, to attend a great medical congress. He
welcomed his young fellow-townsman hilariously, pulled him into his
seat, jammed him into a corner, and scowling fiercely, with his fists
brandished in the young man's face and his eyes flashing, he spent an
hour demonstrating to Roderick that he had just discovered a young
Canadian singer of the spirit if not the power of his great Scottish
bard. The other occupants of the sleeping-car watched the violent big
man with the terrible eye, nervously expecting him every moment to
spring upon his young victim and throttle him. But to those who were
within earshot, the sternest thing he said was,
"_Then gently scan thy brother man,
Still gentler sister woman,
Though they may gang a keenin' wrang,
To step aside is human._"
The charm of the doctor's conversation, drove away much of Roderick's
homesickness and despondency, but it could not make him forget the pain
in his arm, which was hourly growing more insistent.
"And so you're leaving Algonquin for good," said Archie Blair at last,
when the black porter sent them to the smoker while he made up their
berths. "Well, there's a great future ahead of you in that firm. Not
many young fellows have such a chance as that. I wish Ed could have
gone away before you left, though, to Jericho, or Sodom and Gomorrah,
or wherever it is he and J. P. Thornton are heading for."
Archie Blair, as every one in Algonquin knew, lived as near to the
rules of life set forth in the Bible as any man in the town. But he
delighted in being known as a wicked and irreligious person, and always
made a fine pretence at being at sea when speaking of anything
Scriptural.
"Yes, sir, it's rather hard on old Ed; and there's J. P. too. He's
been waiting for Ed ever since the Holy Land was discovered, as
faithfully as Ruth waited for Jacob or whoever it was. I can't
remember when those two chaps weren't planning to take that trip, and
it looks as if they'd get to the New Jerusalem first. Cracky, now, I
believe you were the one that stopped their first trip and here you're
interrupting another one!" He laughed delightedly.
"I?" inquired Roderick. "How was that?"
"Oh, Ed wouldn't say so. He'd be sure it was the hand of Providence.
It was the time you went off hunting the rainbow and got lost, don't
you remember? and your father got sick on the head of it. Ed stayed
home that time."
"But it was Jock McPherson who came to poor father's rescue that time,"
said Roderick. "Lawyer Ed told me himself."
Doctor Blair made a grimace.
"Roderick McRae," he said, after a moment, "I have a fatal weakness. I
suppose it's the poet in me. I like to think it is. I'm forever
pouring out the thoughts of my inmost heart which I really ought to
keep to myself. That was the way with Bobby ye mind:
'_Is there a whim-inspired fool
Owre fast for thought, owe hot for rule._'
And here I've been telling tales I should keep tae ma'sel!"
"Well, you've got to finish, now that you've started," cried Roderick.
"Do you mean to tell me that Lawyer Ed--"
"No, I don't mean to tell you anything, but I've done it, and I might
as well make a full confession. Of course it was Lawyer Ed did it. He
always does things like that, he's got them scattered all over the
country."
"But--why didn't I know?" cried Roderick sharply. "And what did he do?"
"Because he didn't want it. I'm the only person in Algonquin that
knows, except J. P., of course. J. P. knows the innermost thoughts
that pass through Ed's mind. There's another secret between us three."
He smiled half-sadly. "I suppose, though, your father knows this
one--that Ed was to have married J. P.'s only sister. She was tall and
willowy and just like a flower, and she died a week before the wedding
day. They buried her in her white satin wedding dress with her veil
and orange blossoms." Archie Blair's voice had sunk to a tender
whisper. "I saw her in her coffin, with a white lily in her hand."
He was silent so long that Roderick brought him back to the starting
point. "But you haven't told me yet how he helped Father."
So Archie Blair began at the beginning and told him all, happily
unconscious of how he was harrowing Roderick's feelings in the telling.
It was the old story of his father's mortgage, his own hunt for the
rainbow, which, the doctor declared, argued that he should have been a
poet, his father's illness, and Lawyer Ed's postponement of his trip,
and greatest of all, his setting aside of the chance to leave Algonquin
as partner with his old chum, William Graham, now millionaire.
"Your father sort of brought Ed up, you know, Rod, made him walk the
straight and narrow way as he has done with many a man. I want to take
my hat off every time I see that father of yours." He saw the distress
in Roderick's face and was rather disconcerted. "Your father paid him
every cent with interest, of course, Lad, you know that," he added
hurriedly. "But there are some things can't be paid in money. Well,
well--where did I start? Oh, at Jerusalem, and I've wandered from Dan
to Beersheba and haven't got anywhere yet. Well, that was how Ed got
started on the habit of staying home from the Holy Land, and he doesn't
seem to be able to get out of it. You know it's a good thing. I'm
always sorry Wordsworth ever went to Yarrow. It's a hundred times
better to keep your dream-country a dream.
'_Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown!
It must, or we shall rue it._'
And if he ever goes, it'll never be what he thinks. His dreams of
Galilee and the Rose of Sharon and Mount Carmel will vanish when he
sees the poor reality. You see, in his Palestine, the Lord is always
there." He dropped his voice--
"_'And in those little lanes of Nazareth
Each morn His holy feet would come and go.'_"
Roderick was not listening. He sat with downcast eyes and burning
cheek. Lawyer Ed had done all this for his father, for him,--and this
was his reward! The man had given up his chance in life for his father
and then the son had come and done this abominable thing. Surely the
gleam of the rainbow-gold was beginning to mock him already. And yet,
as he sat there, overcome with humiliation, his mind was busy arranging
swift compromises, as it had always done. He would pay Lawyer Ed, oh,
five fold, and send him away for a year's travel. And yet when all his
generous schemes had been exhausted, he knew they were not what Lawyer
Ed wanted. It was the love and devotion of his friend's son he
preferred above all worldly gain.
He came to a knowledge of his surroundings, called back by a sudden
exclamation from the doctor.
"I believe you're sick, Rod! You look like an advanced and violent
case of sea-sickness."
Roderick became conscious that his arm was paining him severely and
said so. He could have said quite truthfully that the pain in his
heart was quite as bad.
"That old arm," cried Archie Blair in distress. "I tell you, Lad,
you've got to have that thing looked after. Here, get to bed and I'll
have a look at it when you're undressed."
He came into Roderick's berth later and with rough kindness handled the
swollen, aching limb. "I always told you something would come of
this," he grumbled. "And like everybody, you won't listen till it's
too late. There's some serious trouble there, Rod, or I'm very badly
mistaken. Now, look here, you promise me on your word and honour
you'll go straight to a doctor when you get to Montreal--to Doctor
Nicholls. Here, I'll give you his address. Now, will you promise to
go to-morrow morning, or must I stop off and miss my train to Halifax
to see you do it?"
Roderick promised and lay down in his berth, but not to sleep. The
pain in his arm was severe enough to keep him awake, but it was no
worse than his heartache. It was a tender heart, not yet calloused by
constant pursuit of selfish aims. That state would certainly be
arrived at, on the road he was travelling, but he was still young and
his very soul was longing to go back to his father and Lawyer Ed.
Again and again he tried to comfort himself with the promise that he
would make up to them for all they had done, oh, many times over, and
in the end, they would both realise that the course he had pursued was
for the best.
As he made this firm resolution, for the tenth time, the train drew up
at a little station in the woods. Roderick looked out at the steam
hissing from beneath his window and the dim light in the little
station. He recognised it as the junction, where a branch line ran
from the main road, across the country, through forest and by lake
shore, straight to Algonquin. The home train was approaching now. He
could hear its rumbling wheels and its clanging bell far down the
curving track, and the next moment, with a flare of light upon the
snow, it came tearing up out of the forest and roared into the little
station. Its brilliant windows flashed past his dazzled eyes. It
stopped with a great exhaled breath of relief and stood panting and
puffing after its long run. Roderick knew that if he chose he could
slip out, leap on that train and go speeding away up through the forest
and be in Algonquin before morning. He felt for a moment an almost
irresistible impulse to do it, to fling away everything and go back.
But he would look like a fool, and the people would laugh at him, and
quite rightly. He could not go back now.
There was a gentle movement, and slowly and smoothly he began to glide
past those home-going lights. In a moment more he was speeding
eastward into the white night.
When he reached Montreal he went immediately to the hotel. He was to
meet Mr. Graham and the head of the firm there that evening, when
everything regarding his immediate duties was to be settled. He
registered, and found a room awaiting him, a luxurious room, finer than
any he could afford. It was the beginning of his new life. He went
down to breakfast, but could eat nothing, for the pain in his arm. He
was not at all averse to obeying Dr. Blair's injunction, and as soon as
he went back to his room, he telephoned the doctor whose address he had
been given. He felt a strange dizziness and, fearing to go out, he
asked if the doctor would call. When Roderick gave the name of the
firm he represented, there was an immediate rise in the temperature at
the other end of the telephone. Evidently the young lady in charge of
Doctor Nicholls's office knew her business. All uncertainty as to the
physician's movements immediately vanished.
Doctor Nicholls would call in the course of half an hour if convenient
to Mr. McRae, he was just about to visit the Bellevue House in any case.
Roderick felt again the advantages of his new position. The sensation
of power was very pleasant, but it could not keep his arm from aching.
The pain grew steadily worse, until at last he lay on the bed waiting
impatiently.
In a short time there came a tap on the door. Thinking it was the
doctor, Roderick sprang up relieved. But it was only the boy in
buttons with a telegram. He signed the paper indifferently. Even the
most urgent business of Elliot & Kent could not arouse his interest, he
was feeling so sick and miserable and down-hearted. He opened the
yellow paper slowly, and then sprang up with a cry that made the boy
stop in the hall and listen. Roderick stood in the middle of the room
reading the terse message again and again:
"Father ill. Come at once." E. L. Brians.
He leaped to the telephone, then dropped the receiver at the sight of a
railway guide he had left upon the table. The first train he could
take for home left at fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon. And
it was not yet ten o'clock! He sat down on the bed, a dread fear
possessing his soul. Wild surmises rushed through his mind. What
could have happened? It was not twenty-four hours since he had seen
his father standing in the doorway waving him farewell, the sunlight on
his face and that gallant, anguished attempt at a smile! Roderick
groaned aloud as he remembered. He took up the telegram again,
striving to extract from its cruelly brief words some inkling of what
had preceded it, some hope for the future.
A second tap at the door sent him to open it with a bound. Before him
stood a professional looking man, well-dressed and well-groomed, with a
small leather bag.
"Are you my patient?" he asked briskly.
"Patient?" Roderick stared at him stupidly.
"Yes; Mr. McRae, I believe? I am Doctor Nicholls."
"Oh," said Roderick. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes, come in."
He stepped back and the physician eyed him curiously. He looked
desperately ill, sure enough.
Roderick answered briefly and absently all the doctor's questions.
Beside this awful thing which threatened him, his arm seemed so
trivial, that he was impatient at the attention he was compelled to
give it. Evidently the physician was of another opinion as to its
importance. His face was imperturbable, but after a careful
examination he said very gravely:
"You'll have to have this attended to immediately, Mr. McRae.
Immediately. It's a case, if my judgment is correct, that has been
delayed much too long already. Could you come to the hospital--this
morning?"'
"I have to leave here on the three-fifteen this afternoon," said
Roderick. "I have just received a telegram that my father is very
ill--I can't have anything done to-day."
"Ah, quite sad indeed. Not serious I hope?"
"I don't know," said Roderick dully.
"I must urge you especially to come to-day. We have Dr. Berger here,
from New York. He is going to the congress at Halifax. You have heard
of him, of course. He is coming to see some patients of mine this
morning, and I should like him to see you too. Indeed, I feel I must
urge you, Mr. McRae. You are trifling with your health, perhaps your
life," he went on, puzzled by Roderick's indifference. "It is
imperative that something be done at once. How about coming with me
now? It leaves plenty of time for your train."
Roderick considered a moment. He could not meet Mr. Graham now in any
case. He must leave a message for him that he had been called back to
Algonquin and telegraph home for more specific news. That was all he
could do until train time, so he decided he might as well obey the
doctor.
When he had despatched a telegram and written a message for Mr. Graham
he followed the doctor to his car. The professional man seemed eagerly
delighted, as though Roderick were merely a wonderful new specimen he
had found and upon which he intended to experiment. He chattered away
happily on the way to the hospital.
"Yes, Berger will be very much interested. Yours is really a rare
case, from a medical standpoint, Mr. McRae. Quite unique. You said
you believed it was injured when you were only six years old?"
He seemed almost pleased, but Roderick did not care. The pain in his
arm and that fiercer pain raging in his heart made him indifferent.
"My father! My father!" he was repeating to himself in anguished
inquiry. What had happened to his father? Perhaps he was dying, while
his son lingered far away from him. And what an age he had to wait for
that train, and what another age to wait till it crawled back to
Algonquin! He remembered with wonder the strange wild impulse he had
had the night before to leap across into the home-bound train and go
back. He speculated upon what might have happened, until his brain
reeled. And when would he get another telegram? And why had not
Lawyer Ed told him more? He asked himself these futile questions over
and over in wild impatience. The fever of the night before had
returned, his head was hot, and ached as if it would burst.
He obeyed the doctor's orders mechanically. His mind was focussed on
the time for the train to leave and in the interval he did not care
what they did with him. So he let himself be put into a bare little
white room, heavy with the smell of disinfectants, while a nurse in a
blue uniform and a young house surgeon in white and a silent footed
orderly moved about him.
The nurse's blue dress reminded him of another blue gown, one for which
he used to watch at the office window on summer mornings. He followed
it with his eyes, as the great surgeon took him in hand and examined
and questioned him. He answered mechanically, his parched lips
uttering things with which his fevered brain seemed to have no interest.
He listened in a detached way, as though the doctor were speaking of
some one else as, with many technical terms, he diagnosed the case.
Doctor Nicholls was there, and two young house surgeons, all eagerly
listening, but the patient's mind was away in the old farm house on the
shore of Lake Algonquin desperately seeking relief from its suspense.
He scarcely noticed when they left the room, but he came to himself
completely when they returned, and Dr. Nicholls announced to him
briskly and almost joyfully that Dr. Berger's ultimatum was an
immediate operation.
"No, you won't," said the patient with sudden vigour. "I have to leave
this afternoon for home on the three-fifteen."
The great man looked down at him. "Young man," he said quietly, and
there was a still strength in his manner that carried conviction, "you
will do as you please of course, but if you don't take my advice and
have that limb attended to immediately, you'll go to your long home,
and not much later than 3.15 either. Yours is a most critical case.
If you refuse you are committing suicide. Now, Doctor Nicholls, I have
just half-an-hour to see your other patients."
He walked out of the room. And Roderick sat up in the bed and stared
after them stupefied. A young house-surgeon, who had been regarding
the patient with eyes holding more than professional interest, came to
his side. He tried to speak cheerfully.
"It's a most unusual thing to operate in such a hurry, but it's better
for a patient, I think. It's all over quickly you know, and no long
weary waiting."
"But my father!" cried Roderick. "My father is critically ill. I've
got to go home! I've got to, I tell you! I can have this
done--later--at home."
The fever flush deepened to a hot crimson. He got to his feet, then
staggered back, dizzy with pain. The young physician laid him on the
bed. "Look here, now, you mustn't get worked up like that, Roderick,"
he said.
Roderick looked up at him. The young man had come into the room with
Dr. Berger, but not till this moment had he noticed him. He stared,
and a light, brighter even than the fever had brought, leaped into his
eyes.
"Wells!" he cried. "Is it Dick Wells?"
"Dick Wells, it is," said the other, smiling, pleased that he had
created such a complete diversion. He took the patient's left hand and
shook it with a cordiality that was not returned.
"I haven't seen you since old 'Varsity days, Rod. And 'pon my word I
didn't know you for a minute. We'll see you through this all right;
don't worry."
Roderick was staring at him in a disconcerting way.
"Where have you been since you graduated?" he asked.
That harsh unsmiling manner was not at all like the Roderick McRae he
had known in college, but the young man laid the change to his fevered
condition.
"Here, in Montreal. Next year I hope to go to Europe." He made a sign
to the nurse who entered, and quietly began preparing the arm for its
operation. Roderick did not pay any attention to even her blue uniform
this time, his eyes were fixed with a fierce intentness upon the young
doctor's face. Wells had always been known as a very handsome fellow,
but his appearance had not improved; he had grown stouter and coarser.
He was still good-looking, however, and his manner had the old easy
kindness Roderick remembered. He was just going to ask him another
abrupt question, when the young doctor slipped his finger over the
patient's pulse, and began talking quietly and soothingly.
"And you went back to your old home town, didn't you? Let me see--"
his casual air did not deceive his alert listener--"Algonquin's your
home, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You've been practising law there, haven't you?" He took out his watch
and looked at it.
"Yes,--in Algonquin."
A smile passed over the young physician's face, as of pleasant
reminiscence. "Algonquin," he repeated--"pretty name. You don't
happen to know--er--a Miss Murray there, do you? A teacher."
"Yes," said Roderick, "I've met her," and held his breath for the next
words.
"I've met her too--several times." He laughed, glancing at Roderick in
a shamefaced manner. "I think when you go home, if you'll take me,
I'll go along as travelling physician. I'd like most awfully well to
see that town of yours."
Roderick involuntarily jerked his wrist from the other's grasp. Had he
not done so, the doctor would have been amazed at the leap of the
already bounding pulse.
"I thought--rumour had it at college--that your affections were in
process of transition when you graduated." Roderick looked straight at
him. It was impossible to keep from his voice something of the
bitterness rising in his heart. He was risking his own secret. But he
felt he must know.
Dick Wells' eyes dropped to his watch again. He was silent for a
moment. The nurse left the room and he immediately spoke in a low tone.
"It a fellow plays the fool once in life," he said, "that's no reason
why he should take it up as a steady profession. I've dropped it for
good and all. And if you behave yourself and have this operation right
away I'll come and take Christmas dinner--no, that's holiday time--I'll
come and prescribe for you shortly after New Year's!" He laughed
joyfully. "I hope you'll welcome me," he said, half-shyly. "For I've
reason to believe I'm going to be welcomed in other quarters."
"Dr. Wells, you are wanted in the corridor," said the nurse, returning.
He left the room, and Roderick lay back and stared at the ceiling. He
caught the word amputation, and he knew they were talking about his
arm. They were going to cut it off, then. The knowledge did not seem
to add anything to the overwhelming weight which had fallen upon him,
and was crushing him. The whole structure of his life was tumbling
about him, and he lay caught helpless in its fall. His new position
was gone, for well he knew the company could not wait--indeed, would
not wait--for so insignificant a servant as he. His father--perhaps
his father was gone. And now the rosy hope that had steadily and
surely arisen in his heart, since the day he had seen Helen Murray on
board the _Inverness_, until it had lighted up his whole life, had
suddenly vanished in darkness. His fighting spirit rose against these
odds. He shoved the deft hands of the nurse aside and sat up.
"I'm going home," he said hoarsely. Then the nurse, and the little
white table by the bedside with the bottles on it, and the white
uniformed man standing outside the doorway, swung up to the ceiling and
became an indistinct blur. He recovered almost immediately. The nurse
slipped a little thermometer under his tongue, and put a cool finger on
his pulse.
"I must go home," mumbled Roderick. "Where's Dr. Wells?"
"Dr. Wells is wanted in the operating room," she said soothingly. "You
will be glad to know he is going to assist. I understand you are old
friends." She looked at him anxiously. He was in the worst possible
condition mentally for an operation.
"If you'd just brace up, you know," she said encouragingly. "If you
would get hold of yourself." She had prepared many a patient for the
operating table, and had seen few so exercised as this one. "You must
be courageous," she said. "The operation may not be serious. And it
will be over soon."
Roderick looked at her uncomprehendingly. He cared not at all for the
operation itself, but it was the trap that had caught him, and he was
writhing to be free.
Her next words put a new face on it.
"If you have any message to send to your friends," she said gently, "I
should be glad to have it attended to. Have you any--property or
anything that should be settled. We hope this operation will be
simple; but if not--you should be prepared, Mr. McRae."
"There's nothing," said Roderick. "Nothing."
Everything in the world was slipping from him. The props of life had
given way one by one, and now perhaps life itself was going. He lay
there on the small cot-bed, watching the nurse and orderly hurry to and
fro, and looked squarely at the situation. It was desperate. Always
he had taken hold of difficulties and wrenched them out of his path and
gone proudly on his way. But here he was helpless. For the first time
in his strong, successful youth he realised that which his father had
striven all his years to teach him, man's utter impotence before God.
He was bound hand and foot, helpless, just as the door of success had
flung open at his touch. He had paddled out bravely into the open sea
of life after the rainbow gold, only to find it vanish and leave him
lost in a world of mists and shadows. He remembered Dr. Leslie's
words: "If His love cannot draw us into the way, it meets us on the
Damascus road and blinds us with its light."
He lay there for what seemed an interminable time. He was clinging to
one faint hope. Lawyer Ed would surely answer his telegram. But the
nurse returned with the word that there had been no message, and that
the doctors were preparing. He was to go down to the operating room in
ten minutes.
It seemed as if with that word the last feeble support gave way, and
then Roderick McRae's soul went down to the black brink of despair. He
was utterly alone, without help or friend. Everything, his success,
his health, his father, his love, had been snatched from him in one
moment.
There was even no God for him. He had been so long dependent entirely
upon himself, that God had become a meaningless word. And now, if God
were real, His cruel Hand was behind that fearful black mist that was
closing about him shutting him off from hope. He lay like a log,
staring at the white ceiling of the little hospital room. The nurse
and the orderly were bidding him brace up and were shaking their heads
over him. He paid no more attention to them than to the strong odour
of drugs or the soft click-click of heels on the hardwood floor of the
corridor. Some subtle trick of memory had taken him back to the one
other time of despair in his experience. He was back again in that
night, years ago, when he was lost on the lake, drifting away in the
darkness to unknown terrors; and just as he had cried out that night,
his whole soul rose in one desperate demand upon his Father for help.
"Oh, God!" he groaned, starting up, "oh, God, help me!"
And then it happened; the great wonder. The light from his Father's
boat! The sound of his Father's voice! Just as, long ago, lost in
mists and darkness, a prey to every terror, his father's voice, calling
down the shaft of light, had caught him up from despair to the heights
of joy, so it was now. Suddenly, without reason, there fell upon the
young man's writhing soul a great calm. He lay back on his pillow,
perfectly still, his whole being held in awe of what had happened. For
there, in the common light of day, within the bare walls of the
hospital room, not visible to the human eye, but plain to the eye of
the soul, staring beyond the things that are seen for a gleam of hope,
a Presence was quietly standing. Serene, omnipotent, all-calming, the
gracious One stood, close to his side, and fear and pain fled before
Him.
Roderick was conscious of no feeling of surprise or wonder. He felt
only a great serenity, and an absolute safety. He asked no questions,
felt no desire to ask any. There had been another young man once, who
had met this same One in a like headlong career, planned by his own
strong right hand, and he had cried out in fear, "Who art thou, Lord?"
But Roderick knew just as well as he had known his father's voice that
night coming out of the mists and darkness. His Eternal Father was at
his side. That was all he knew now. It was all he cared to know. He
lay there in perfect peace and, close to his side, silent and strong,
stood the Presence.
The orderly pushed up the little wheeled conveyance to the bedside, the
nurse took his wrist in her hand again. She beamed happily. "Good for
you," she said, as she placed her hand upon his forehead. "Why, you're
splendid. You've got your nerve all right," and she stared in
amazement when Roderick smiled at her. He did not answer, though, he
was listening to something. All the old promises he had learned at his
father's knee and that had meant nothing to him for so long, were
flooding over his peaceful soul, coming serenely and softly from the
Presence standing by his pillow.
"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee and through
the rivers they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon
thee... Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the
arrow that flieth by day, nor for the pestilence that walketh in
darkness."
"Now, sir," said the orderly, "we'll just move you onto this truck."
But Roderick rose up strongly. "Why can't I walk down?" he asked. The
nurse stared and again felt the patient's pulse for some explanation of
this transformation. The quiet steady beat in the wrist was the
strangest part of it all.
"Well," she cried admiringly, "I never saw anything like you. You're
perfectly able to walk; but you'd better save your strength. Just lie
down on this. You'll be all over your operation in no time!" Roderick
obeyed, and the orderly wheeled him away to the elevator; and along the
bare hospital corridor moved with him that strong Presence. And he
went with a perfect faith and as little fear as if he had been going
along the Pine Road to his home. What did it matter as to the result,
or what did it matter that his father back in Algonquin did not know?
He and his father were safe, upheld by the everlasting arms. It was
well, no matter what the outcome. When he reached the operating room
the Presence was there, just as real as the muffled doctors standing
ready to do their work, and when he was stretched upon the table taking
the anaesthetic, he felt as peaceful as on that night when he sank
asleep in his father's arms and was borne safely homeward.
It seemed that the next moment he awoke in the room he had so recently
left. Dr. Nicholls was at his side. "A normal pulse," he said,
smiling into Rod's enquiring face. "You're a wonder. What do you
think of that, nurse?"
"I expected that," she said, smiling.
"You've behaved so well," continued the doctor, "that I believe you're
able to receive two pieces of good news."
"My father," whispered Roderick. The doctor nodded happily. "A
telegram came half-an-hour ago. It reads, 'Out of danger, no need to
come, will write. E. Brians.'" Roderick felt the tears slipping over
his cheek. The nurse wiped them away. He was remembering it all now.
The Presence had been with his father too.
"You haven't asked about my other news," said the doctor.
Roderick looked at him enquiringly. He was thinking of Helen, and had
forgotten all about the operation.
"Berger saved your arm. And it will be as fit as ever in a few months.
It was the most delicate kind of operation, and one of the finest he
ever did. I shall tell you more about it later, you must be quiet now.
But I must give you Dr. Berger's message. He had to leave for Halifax,
but he said he wished he could congratulate you on your nerve. I don't
know what you did to get hold of yourself in such a hurry, but you
saved your own life. Now, I've told you enough. You must neither
speak nor be spoken to until I see you again."
He smiled again, radiant with the true scientist's joy over such a
triumph of skill as Roderick's arm presented, and left the room.
And Roderick, who knew so much more about it all than mere science
could ever teach, closed his eyes and lay still, his whole soul raising
to its new-found God one inarticulate note of thanksgiving.