purple necktie, and his wife in a purple silk; the girls, as usual,
attired with taste and at considerable expense. Mistress Amanda and her
mother were in their pew, with Nellie between them, charming as the
spirit of October, in a carefully turned claret-colored poplin and a
toque trimmed with autumn leaves. And Peter Weaver was there; with a
dubious expression, and very sore in mind; wishing to believe the best
of people under adverse circumstances, and nobly ready to put himself
out of the question if he must do so to make little Nellie happy.
There was a peculiar stillness as Armstrong arose after the hymn
that heralded the sermon. The young man's pale, tense look produced
a general sensation of anxiety. Some good mothers in Israel were for
handing him up their smelling salts. Girls scrutinized his features
with their mouths falling apart, wondering what dreadful thing had
happened to him to make his lips so set and his eyes so deep and
black. But all turned their faces toward him with the sure response of
sympathy toward unaffected feeling.
"My people!"----
The words were those of an old minister, grown gray in service among
loved friends; but they came earnest and unstudied from the heart of
the young preacher. Hearts thrilled to him, answering the strangely
sweet appeal that breathed through the notes of that fine voice, always
beautiful in its modulations, but to-day with a new quality that won
without his hearers knowing why.
"You have come for a sermon," Armstrong went on. "I have no sermon to
give you. When you elected me to serve as the minister of this church
I had joy in taking the place you gave me. I love the work. At this
instant, when I am about to give it up, every fibre of my nature clings
to it, my heart and my mind as well. Yet I must give it up. I am not
worthy to be your minister; nor _now_, to be a minister at all. And
the reason is this. Some time ago, before I was ordained, I was for a
season given over to ungodliness. I fell into one sin that by heaven's
grace did not lead to worse, as it might have done. It was not a thing
most of you would call very bad"--the proud Armstrong blood made the
speaker's head rear slightly. He felt his father's angry eyes upon him
and even imagined he heard the word "fool"; but he sternly went on:
"We southerners are too apt to look with indulgence upon social sins.
Horse-racing and gambling are things you might consider excusable
in a young man, even in one meaning to be a minister. These were my
failings. I don't exaggerate them so much as to say that because I did
these things I am unfit to serve as your minister. No; it is not that."
A deep breath labored through his lungs, and the many staring eyes in
front of him all seemed to swim together and take on the form of a
question. What was it, then? What was to come?
"The first duty of any soul is to be thoroughly honest," continued the
young preacher. "He who glosses over his own faults and acts as if he
had a guiltless past behind him helps to spread the fell disease of
deceit and hypocrisy; the great pest of our times. And of this baseness
I have been guilty. I let it be supposed that I had experienced
sanctification. I came before you unconfessed and with a semblance of
uprightness it was not my privilege to claim. All men are sinners, and
it is the nature of some not to feel their sins acutely; they can go
about with light hearts, never aware of the yoke a Christian should
bear. But others are different. Every man according to his nature. We
can only be guided by the light within. But wo to that man who wilfully
shuts his eyes to the revelation of his own conscience! St. Paul felt
the weight of his sins upon his soul and bravely cried out, 'I am
the chief of sinners!' He made the world see him just as he was, not
pretending goodness that did not belong to him. This is the right thing
to do; above all, the right and only thing for a teacher of men to do.
I have always felt this, and have acted contrary to my convictions. I
have lived a lie before you. Now, for the first time you see me as I am
and know that I am not what you thought me. It is the just punishment
of one who 'knows the right and chooses the wrong,' to lose all he
has sought to gain. I lose what I value most in giving up my privilege
of usefulness among you. But it is my duty to do this, and I dare not
shrink from it because it is hard."
Soldiers know that valor is born in the heat of strife, called out
by the sight of waving banners, the note of bugles, and the feeling
of a great mass rushing all together against a foe. A far greater
effort of courage is made by the man who deliberately stands up before
his friends and makes a confession that may in an instant turn their
esteem to contempt, and leave him alone and defenseless among a host
of accusers. In making his supreme effort Armstrong had not been blind
to this probable result. His imagination had vividly pictured the
moment of his humiliation. Nerved to carry the thing through, his voice
uttered the final word without a falter. Then, stepping back, he sat
down.
Every sort of confusion prevailed. The general feeling was that of
excitement and astonishment, especially among the younger set.
Very few were able to appreciate the strange manifestation of moral
greatness that had been made before them; and with these the uppermost
sensation was that of awkwardness. Bluff old farmers had grown red
and uneasy, aware that their young preacher had climbed to a height
where they could not approach him. They shuffled their feet and looked
down. The women whispered; some tittered hysterically. One got up and
crossed the church to say something to a friend. It was the signal for
a general movement, and in a few moments nearly everybody had changed
their places. Armstrong, with his fingers over his closed eyes, saw
nothing, but he felt terrible vibrations in his brain. He was alone;
deserted. In a single moment of suffering years can be compressed, and
a sensitive nature grows old fast.
There was a light touch upon his arm, a touch that thrilled him through
and through. He looked, and standing beside him was beautiful Nellie;
shy, shrinking Nellie, always dreading any conspicuous position,
and wont to hide behind her mother's ample shadow. She was upon the
platform, holding out her small, ungloved hand, her eyes shining
through tears, her cheeks flushed rosy red; forgetful of shyness, all
thought of self lost in the outburst of sympathy and reverence that had
led her feet straight to him her heart called lover, leader and highest
among men.
The young preacher's sunken eyes gleamed with a new, wonderful hope.
They devoured the sweet face. Her hand was caught and held, pressed
hard while he whispered, "Nellie, love!" and then, mindful of the
staring people, Armstrong would have swept her quickly back, but the
young girl felt to her very finger-tips the sense of that great stare.
Her head dropped, her form trembled, the roses in her cheeks turned to
fire, and shrinking, faltering, on the verge of a burst of weeping, she
turned and hid her face on the young preacher's breast!
Scarcely a second was given to the people to take this sight in before
Peter Weaver's huge form towered on the platform in front of the
young pair. He had hastened, almost leaped up the steps, and behind
him Nellie fled to the little door at the side of the platform and so
out from the church. One great throb of pain had Peter's heart given
at sight of Nellie on Armstrong's breast, one strong, silent effort
of renunciation of a lifetime's hopes he made, and then self was put
behind him, for good and all. He had a duty to perform, and he did it
with his might.
"I want to say a word or two!" his great voice sang out, silencing the
clamor and confusion in another thrill of curiosity.
"I ain't a speaker, as you all know----"
A comment from the rear chimed in, "You're a poet!" It was Penny
Haywood, and Violet Armstrong, hanging upon his arm, quickly forced him
to be silent.
"But there air facts in nature that speak for themselves, and don't
require eloquent speech-making to get people to understand 'em. One of
these facts is a good man. There are lots of good women--God bless
'em!--and some pretty good men in an all 'round way. But the rarest
thing on all of God's earth is a thoroughly good, honest man; one whose
acts air as transparent as daylight, that stands up before his fellows
clean and sound, and dares to father everything he has ever done in his
life, without shamming or palliating anything. You know it was this
kind of an honest man that old Diogenes went 'round seeking with a
lantern and couldn't find. Well, if he'd come seeking him in Fauquier
County, Virginia, he'd have found him right here in the Second Baptist
church, and his name's Miles Armstrong!"
"Good!" pronounced a woman's voice; Miss Lavinia Powell, not afraid to
speak her mind, and esteeming it a rare privilege to assent to a man's
common-sense.
"I consider, ladies and gentlemen, that we've had here before us to-day
an exhibition of high and fine moral feeling that ought to be a lesson
to us all our lives. And as for the modesty of the man that's given it,
and his idea of being unworthy to go on preaching to us and all that,
why, I say--I say that there ain't another as worthy one to be found
anywhere, and if you're of my mind, we'll go right on having Mr. Miles
Armstrong preach to us as long as he lives! And what's more," shouted
Peter, while he unnecessarily reared himself a-tip-toe, "I'm darned if
I think it'll hurt the church a bit if, to crown this occasion, you all
join in a cheer of good-will to our preacher, Mr. Miles Armstrong and
Miss Nellie Thomas, his wife--that's-to-be!"
Then there was laughing and acclamation, and crowding toward the
platform, and the young preacher's hand was seized and wrung until his
fingers ached, and his bewildered brain ceased to think at all, but
left him altogether at the mercy of his friends, who nearly tore him to
pieces in their zeal.
Peter Weaver for once asserted himself and claimed the privilege of
driving the young preacher to Benvenew--where he was panting to go
after Nellie--in his own high top buggy. He had something to say in
private.
"It's this," said Peter, laying his broad hand earnestly on the young
man's knee, when they were well along on the road and no one was near.
"I knew about the thing you've been taking so hard, before you told of
it to-day. Beesly told me. Now, my dear sir, you want money. You don't
want to ask your father for it. No need. You've done enough. Let me
help you out o' this leetle scrape. I've more money than I know what to
do with. I've got five hundred dollars right here, in this little roll,
and I want you to take it. Not as a loan; as a gift. Do, now!"
Armstrong protested, thanked him with no lack of warmest gratitude,
but absolutely refused. His father was rich, he said, and would help
him. His road was easy before him now, easier than he deserved. All
Peter could think of to console himself was that he would buy Nellie a
wedding present with the money.
Shame-faced little Nellie, hiding behind the parlor curtains, longing
for Armstrong, and fearing to have him come! How quickly he found her
and carried her triumphantly to that distant corner where a great black
horse-hair sofa swallowed them up; the worn horse-hair so slippery that
he had to put his arm around her to hold her on.
Mistress Amanda was a dumfounded woman. So swiftly and suddenly had
come the surprises of that morning that all she could do was to
contemplate her daughter from a distance, and say "Well!" in a tone
that meant resignation to circumstances.
But she had had her proud moment. Her heart--warm and true yet after
bitter life-experiences--had leaped with delight when Peter Weaver made
the little speech that with her knowledge of him, showed him a hero,
capable of the most generous sacrifice it is within the power of a man
to make. "Hero," she called him, to honest Peter's immense confusion,
as they sat sedately in two armchairs before the fire, with their backs
to the young couple in the far corner of the spacious room; talking
over the details of the great occurrence.
"For such a sensible woman you air given to making too much of the
little things men do that air right to do," said Peter, smiling.
"So few men do the little things that are right," sighed Mistress
Amanda, looking at her own past in the bed of fire. "You are the only
man I know, Peter, that I would put a heavy stake on to take the
straight course every time."
"What, leave out Armstrong?" remonstrated Peter, with a jerk of his
head backward toward the corner.
"Armstrong has come upon me too suddenly," complained Mistress Amanda.
Then, with the generosity of a candid nature she paid rightful tribute
to what commanded her admiration.
"He is certainly an excellent young man," she said. "A noble fellow.
I've thought of him more than once as you spoke of him in that speech
of yours,--'the man Diogenes sought!' I trust he will make my little
Nellie happy."
"She has that within her that ensures happiness," said Peter steadily.
"The sweetest, soundest heart ever a woman had. Heaven bless her!"
Mistress Amanda softly stretched out her firm, shapely hand, and laid
it on his own as it rested on the arm of the chair. It was a friendly,
sympathetic touch. Perhaps unawares, something more went into it than
she intended.
Peter looked at her with great kindness.
"You and me air getting to be middle-aged people, Amanda," he said.
"The chief thing now is for us to make the young people happy."
But old lady Powell, apparently dozing in her chair on the opposite
side of the fire was building a double air-castle. She said to herself
that Peter's little green cottage would suit the young preacher and his
bride very well, if its master should come to Benvenew to live. Nothing
was more likely. And Amanda and Peter would just hit it off together.
Everybody could see that. It was perfectly plain.
A HALT AT DAWN[3]
MARGARET DANVERS stepped aboard the southern-bound sleeper at Chicago
one stormy March evening, and as she walked composedly to her berth in
the middle of the car, the eyes of every person present were riveted
upon her. She wore a closely fitting garment of Russian sable, which
enveloped her completely, and a large beaver hat with drooping plumes,
and from the single fine diamond flashing at her throat to the tips of
her dainty Suéde boots she looked the model of a fashionable beauty.
She was the only woman on the car, and before she had fairly settled
herself comfortably, all the men had mentally pronounced their opinion
of her looks and style, and hazarded a conjecture as to her age. Her
attendant, a florid man of middle age, received the slight degree of
attention justified by his seeming only an adjunct of the moment. As
he left her, he put into her hands a bunch of costly roses, which she
received with a smile and laid upon the opposite seat the instant he
was gone.
Of the score of passengers, two or three knew her by sight, for
she was, in a way, a public character, but, as it happened, none
were really acquainted with her, and before long even those most
deeply interested in her appearance yielded to the apathy peculiar
to sleeping-cars, and subsided into their newspapers or their rugs,
preparing to wear out the evening until bedtime.
Margaret amused herself in watching the flying snow and in reverie.
Too used to traveling to even care to look about her, she yielded to
the prevailing somnambulistic influence just enough to dream without
sleeping. At first there was in her mind a confusion of events
past, present, and to come. Incidents of no importance mingled with
greater ones, and her reflections became mixed with little fanciful
suggestions of things long since forgotten, or, rather, voluntarily
put out of mind. She tried to think of her career, to recall her
triumphs, and to dwell upon the possibilities of the future. She told
herself that music was her life, that all she had to do with was the
beautiful and the divine in art, and that the everyday existence
she had struggled to rise above was henceforth nothing more than an
unpleasant memory.
At twenty-eight she was her own mistress, earning an independent
income through the use of her beautiful voice. The teaching days and
the drudgery of the class-room had passed, and as a concert singer
she was favorably known in more than one western city noted for its
critical taste. After a successful winter in Milwaukee and Chicago,
she was now upon her way to fulfil an engagement in Baltimore, which
promised more than anything in which she had yet engaged. She was in
the heyday of her powers, admired, in radiant health, conscious of her
beauty and talent, and entirely satisfied with life. What did it mean
that, as she looked from the window with a proud smile upon her lips,
some tantalizing thoughts should intrude themselves, and the mind so
entirely self-poised should feel, for the first time in years, the
weakening influence of some emotional fancies? It was her boast that
she was never lonely, never sad, that her whole heart was in the work.
The conductor passed through taking tickets, and brought her back to
the present. And after this came the little stir of the porter making
up the berths, and she moved to the end of the car. In front two men
were talking.
"Never saw a promise of a worse storm," said one. "Shouldn't wonder if
the tracks were blocked a little ahead."
"Comes from the southwest," suggested the other. "If necessary, they'll
put on another locomotive. We're bound to get through at any rate on
this train; that's one comfort."
By nine o'clock Margaret, enveloped in a downy wrapper of dark red,
lay courting sleep in her section. Over her was spread the fur
ulster, none too warm above the blankets, even for her warm blood.
The thermometer outside would have registered zero, and whiffs of icy
air found their way every now and then into the car. Everything was
quiet save her thoughts, which began to utter themselves with loud,
importunate voices, as if answering some call without, independent of
her control. "I have happily been able to say all my life that I didn't
know what nerves were," said Margaret to herself, "but I begin to think
that from some inexplicable cause I am nervous."
"Richard Allen!" She started as if the words had been spoken in her
ear. Swiftly memory flew back ten years, and she saw herself standing
bareheaded at the gate of her father's house in dear old Leesburg,
Virginia, where her childhood had been passed; and beside her, bending
tenderly to catch her lightest word, the form of her first lover, then
a poor, obscure young lieutenant in the army. With an indifference
scarce tinged with pity, since it hardly occurred to her in those days
that men could really feel, she had met his pleading affection with
an enthusiastic outburst of her ambition to lead the artist's life, to
spend her energies in self-development, and show what a woman wholly
devoted to an intellectual and artistic career might become. They had
sung in the choir together, had mingled their voices in moments when,
inspired by devotional ecstasy, it seemed that the two spirits united
into one, in that mysterious fellowship which belongs alike to religion
and to love. And yet she had no feeling for him above regard: no
feeling for any one, for anything, but art.
"You must not think I am deficient in womanly sensibility," she had
said to him, with one of those soft glances of the meaning and effect
of which she was entirely careless and unconscious. "But some women
must remain spinsters, you know, and I think I am meant to be one of
the sisterhood."
"You do not know yourself. The day will come when ambition will seem
nothing to you; when the homely things, the real things, will take
on their true value to your eyes, and a 'career' will seem a mere
artificiality that has nothing to do with what is best and sweetest in
life."
The words had passed her by as an idle phrase, evoked from
disappointment. And she and Richard Allen had parted, he going to
his post on the line in Arizona, and she to Italy to study. And yet
nothing passes from us entirely. Here, without warning, without her
intention, the little scene came up before her eyes; and she saw again
the apple-orchard in blossom, the red brick chimney of the school-house
across the way looming up in the moonlight, the hills in the distance,
the strong, proudly-carried figure at her side. And then scene after
scene came up before her, always with the two figures present: the
manly, devoted lover, the self-absorbed girl.
Yet she had lived for ambition, and the world had been kind to her,
after she had proven her mettle. She had not lacked lovers, but she
had never loved. Her strong will, which had determinedly mapped out
an existence entirely free from sentiment, had carried her through
every affair triumphantly and untouched. Four or five hours ago she had
entered that car as "free from the trammels of passion" as a vestal
virgin. What was in the air, what was in the night, that hurried her
on into imaginative flights? Constantly, like two stars, two meaning
eyes seemed to gleam upon her, and kindle a world of emotion latent
and unsuspected in her nature! She tried to be cynical, to laugh, to
think of something else; she tried her best to get to sleep, but only
her will could sleep, and fancy still rioted. Richard Allen had had the
making of a fine man in him: what had become of him,--why had nothing
been heard of him? The woman whose religion was success had little
patience with patience; it seemed to her that all virtue was embodied
in some sort of action. A man who at forty--he must be forty--was still
obscure, was not worth a thought. And yet he had possessed a certain
sort of strength. She had been forced to admire, in old times, a
suggested moral superiority, a higher point of view than she considered
practical. If he had brought himself to live up to his own standard,
he must have been unable to make necessary concessions. And then, as
Margaret recalled some "concessions" she had herself made to success,
she felt her cheeks burn in the darkness. How often she had traded
upon her own attractions, how often made use of the influence of her
personality to bring about certain ends! If she had not lied in words,
she had in act. Her present status had not been attained without some
sacrifice of scruples.
The woman turned restlessly in her berth, wondering why such ideas
should come to her now to interfere with her peace. She was good;
she was ashamed of nothing in her past; she was living a high, free,
independent life, the life for a woman of intellect and energy to lead.
Thank heaven, she was not an emotional creature! Sentiment had been
trained out of her. Long after midnight she lost consciousness, and
passed a few hours in fitful slumber. It was cruel that she should have
to dream of Richard Allen; dream that they were together in an open
boat, drifting out to sea, and that his arms were around her, his eyes
looking into hers. And she cared for nothing, thought of nothing but
that he held her close--how strangely sweet it was!--
A jar, a shock, a sudden stop, as if the train had run against a
wall of rock, and Margaret started up and drew the curtain aside
instinctively. A fall through space--what was it, oh, where was she!
Had the train fallen down an embankment?
After a minute she realized that she had been thrown from her berth
across the car, that other persons lay about, some groaning, some
hastily picking themselves up. She shut her eyes: there was a sharp
pain in her left arm, and a weight upon her side. A falling lamp had
struck her, and from some cause she could not rise; her leg must be
broken. There was a terrible confusion, much talking, and half-a-dozen
people bending over her pityingly and asking her questions.
"What has happened? Is anybody killed?" she asked.
Several persons answered at once. They had run into a freight. The
engineer on their own train was killed; no one else. Many were hurt.
Could she bear to be moved?
"I must," she returned, setting her lips, for agonizing pains began to
shoot through her foot, and the thought of being touched was suffering.
"Fortunately we are just on the outskirts of Frithville--there are
houses near." It was the conductor who spoke now, and he at once took
charge. She was lifted carefully, wrapped in blankets and carried out.
Their car had sustained less damage than any other, being in the rear,
and there was no difficulty in getting out.
"If she could stand it to be taken over yonder," said some one,
pointing to a house some distance away, "she'd be more comfortable, I
reckon."