A QUESTION OF CONSCIENCE
The Dunbars lived in a cottage on a back street, which had the
distinction of being the only home on the street which possessed the
adornment of a garden. A unique garden it was, too. Indeed, with the
single exception of Judge Hepburn's garden, which was quite an elaborate
affair, and which was said to have cost the Judge a “pile of money,”
there was none to compare with it in the village of Wapiti.
Any garden on that bare, wind-swept prairie meant toil and infinite
pains, but a garden like that of the Dunbars represented in addition
something of genius. In conception, in design, and in execution the
Dunbars' garden was something apart. Visitors were taken 'round to the
back street to get a glimpse of the Dunbars' cottage and garden.
The garden was in two sections. That at the back of the cottage,
sheltered by a high, close board fence covered with Virginia creeper,
was given over to vegetables, and it was quite marvellous how, under
Richard Dunbar's care, a quarter of an acre of ground could grow such
enormous quantities of vegetables of all kinds. Next to the vegetable
garden came the plot for small fruits--strawberries, raspberries,
currants, of rare varieties.
The front garden was devoted to flowers. Here were to be found the old
fashioned flowers dear to our grandmothers, and more particularly the
old fashioned flowers native to English and Scottish soil. Between the
two gardens a thick row of tall, splendid sunflowers made a stately
hedge. Then came larkspur, peonies, stocks, and sweet-williams, verbenas
and mignonette, with borders of lobelia and heliotrope. Along the fence
were sweet peas, for which Alberta is famous.
But it was the part of the garden close about the front porch and
verandah where the particular genius of Richard Dunbar showed itself.
Here the flowers native to the prairie, the coulee, the canyon, were
gathered; the early wind flower, the crowfoot and the buffalo bean, wild
snowdrops and violets. Over trellises ran the tiny morning-glory,
with vetch and trailing arbutus. A bed of wild roses grew to wonderful
perfection. Later in the year would be seen the yellow and crimson
lilies, daisies white and golden, and when other flowers had faded,
golden rod and asters in gorgeous contrast. The approach to the door of
the house was by a gravel walk bordered by these prairie flowers.
The house inside fulfilled the promise of the garden. The living room,
simple in its plan, plain in its furnishing, revealed everywhere that
touch in decorative adornment that spoke of the cultivated mind and
refined taste. A group of rare etchings had their place over the mantel
above a large, open fireplace. On the walls were to be seen really fine
copies of the world's most famous pictures, and on the panels which ran
'round the walls were bits of pottery and china, relics of other days
and of other homes.
But what was most likely to strike the eye of a stranger on entering the
living room was the array of different kinds of musical instruments.
At one end of the room stood a small upright piano, a 'cello held one
corner, a guitar another; upon a table a cornet was deposited, and on
the piano a violin case could be seen, while a banjo hung from a nail on
the wall.
Near the fireplace a curiously carved pipe-rack hung, with some half
dozen pipes of weird design, evidently the collection of years, while
just under it a small table held the utensils sacred to the smoker.
When Barry entered he found the table set and everything in readiness
for tea.
“Awfully sorry I'm too late to help you with tea, dad. I have had a long
walk, and quite a deuce of a time getting home.”
“All right, boy. Glad you are here. The toast is ready, tea waiting to
be infused. But what happened? No, don't begin telling me till you get
yourself ready. But hurry, your meeting hour will be on in no time.”
“Right-o, dad! Shame to make a slavey of you in this way. I'll be out in
a jiffy.”
He threw off his coat and vest, shirt and collar, took a pail of water
to a big block in the little shed at the back, soused his head and
shoulders in it with loud snorting and puffing, and emerged in a few
minutes looking refreshed, clean and wholesome, his handsome face
shining with vigorous health.
Together they stood at the table while the son said a few words of
reverent grace.
“I'm ravenous, dad. What! Fried potatoes! Oh, you are a brick.”
“Tired, boy?”
“No. That reminds me of my thrilling tale, which I shall begin after
my third slice of toast, and not before. You can occupy the precious
minutes, dad, in telling me of your excitements in the office this
afternoon.”
“Don't sniff at me. I had a few, though apparently you think it
impossible in my humdrum grey life.”
“Good!” said Barry, his mouth full of toast. “Go on.”
“Young Neil Fraser is buying, or has just bought, the S.Q.R. ranch.
Filed the transfer to-day.”
“Neil Fraser? He's in my tale, too. Bought the S.Q.R.? Where did he get
the stuff?”
“Stuff?”
“Dough, the dirt, the wherewithal, in short the currency, dad.”
“Barry, you are ruining your English,” said his father.
“Yum-yum. Bully! Did you notice that, dad? I'm coming on, eh? One thing
I almost pray about, that I might become expert in slinging the modern
jaw hash. I'm appallingly correct in my forms of speech. But go on, dad.
I'm throwing too much vocalisation myself. You were telling me about
Neil Fraser. Give us the chorus now.”
“I don't like it, boy,” said his father, shaking his head, “and
especially in a clergyman.”
“But that's where you are off, dad. The trouble is, when I come within
range of any of my flock all my flip vocabulary absolutely vanishes,
and I find myself talking like a professor of English or a maiden lady
school ma'am of very certain age.”
“I don't like it, boy. Correct English is the only English for a
gentleman.”
“I wonder,” said the lad. “But I don't want to worry you, dad.”
“Oh, as for me, that matters nothing at all, but I am thinking of you
and of your profession, your standing.”
“I know that, dad. I sometimes wish you would think a little more about
yourself. But what of Neil Fraser?”
“He has come into some money. He has bought the ranch.”
Barry's tone expressed doubtful approval. “Neil is a good sort, dad,
awfully reckless, but I like him,” said Barry. “He is up and up with it
all.”
“Now, what about your afternoon?” said his father.
“Well, to begin with, I had a dose of my old friend, the enemy.”
“Barry, you don't tell me! Your asthma!” His father sat back from the
table gazing at him in dismay. “And I thought that was all done with.”
“So did I, dad. But it really didn't amount to much. Probably some
stomach derangement, more likely some of that pollen which is floating
around now. I passed through a beaver meadow where they were cutting
hay, and away I went in a gale of sneezing, forty miles an hour. But I'm
all right now, dad. I'm telling you the truth. You know I do.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” said his father, concern and relief mingling in his
voice, “but you don't know how to take care of yourself, Barry. But go
on with your tale.”
“Well, as I was panting along like a 'heavey horse,' as Harry Hobbs
would say,--not really too bad, dad,--along comes that big rancher,
Stewart Duff, driving his team of pinto bronchos, and with him a chap
named Bayne, from Red Pine Creek. He turned out to be an awfully decent
sort. And Duff's dog, Slipper, ranging on ahead, a beautiful setter.”
“Yes, I have seen him.”
They discussed for a few moments the beauties and points of Duff's
Slipper, for both were keen sportsmen, and both were devoted to dogs.
Then Barry went back to his tale and gave an account of what had
happened during the ride home.
“You see Slipper ranging about got 'on point' and beautiful work it was,
too. Out jumped Duff with his gun, ready to shoot, though, of course, he
knew it was out of season and that he was breaking the law. Well, just
as Slipper flushed the birds, I shouted to Duff that he was shooting out
of season. He missed.”
“Oh, he was properly wrathful at my spoiling his shot,” cried the young
man.
“I don't know that I blame him, Barry,” said his father thoughtfully.
“It is an annoying thing to be shouted at with your gun on a bird, you
know, extremely annoying.”
“But he was breaking the law, dad!” cried Barry indignantly.
“I know, I know. But after all--”
“But, dad, you can't sit there and tell me that you don't condemn him
for shooting out of season. You know nothing makes you more furious than
hearing about chaps who pot chicken out of season.”
“I know, I know, my boy.” The father was apparently quite distressed.
“You are quite right, but--”
“Now, dad, I won't have it! You are not to tell me that I had no
business to stop him if I could. Besides, the law is the law, and sport
is sport.”
“I quite agree, Barry. Believe me, I quite agree. Yet all the same, a
chap does hate to have his shot spoiled, and to shout at a fellow with
his gun on a bird,--well, you'll excuse me, Barry, but it is hardly the
sporting thing.”
“Sporting! Sporting!” said Barry. “I know that I hated to do it, but
it was right. Besides talk about 'sporting'--what about shooting out of
season?”
“Yes, yes. Well, we won't discuss it. Go on, Barry.”
“But I don't like it, dad. I don't like to think that you don't approve
of what I do. It was a beastly hard thing to do, anyway. I had to make
myself do it. It was my duty.” The young man sat looking anxiously at
his father.
“Well, my boy,” said his father, “I may be wrong, but do you think you
are always called upon to remonstrate with every law breaker? No, listen
to me,” he continued hurriedly. “What I mean is, must you or any of us
assume responsibility for every criminal in the land?”
Barry sat silent a moment, considering this proposition.
“I wish I knew, dad. You know, I have often said that to excuse myself
after I have funked a thing, and let something go by without speaking up
against it.”
“Funked it!”
“Yes. Funked standing up for the right thing, you know.”
“Funked it!” said his father again. “You wouldn't do that, Barry?”
“Oh, wouldn't I, though? I am afraid you don't know me very well, dad.
However, I rather think I had started him up before that, you know. You
won't like this either. But I may as well go through with it. You know,
he was swearing and cursing most awfully, just in his ordinary talk you
know, and that is a thing I can't stand, so I up and told him he was
using too many 'damns.'”
“You did, eh?” In spite of himself the father could not keep the
surprise out of his voice. “Well, that took some nerve, at any rate.”
“There you are again, dad! You think I had no right to speak. But
somehow I can't help feeling I was right. For don't you see, it would
have seemed a bit like lowering the flag to have kept silent.”
“Then for God's sake speak out, lad! I do not feel quite the same way as
you, but it is what you think yourself that must guide you. But go on,
go on.”
“Well, I assure you he was in a proper rage, and if it hadn't been
for Bayne I believe he would have trimmed me to a peak, administered a
fitting castigation, I mean.”
“He would, eh?” said the father with a grim smile. “I should like to see
him try.”
“So should I, dad, if you were around. I think I see you--feint with
the right, then left, right, left! bing! bang! bung! All over but the
shiver, eh, dad? It would be sweet! But,” he added regretfully, “that's
the very thing a fellow cannot do.”
“Cannot do? And why not, pray? It is what every fellow is in duty bound
to do to a bully of that sort.”
“Yes, but to be quite fair, dad, you could hardly call Duff a bully. At
least, he wasn't bullying me. As a matter of fact, I was bullying him.
Oh, I think he had reason to be angry. When a chap undertakes to pull
another chap up for law breaking, perhaps he should be prepared to take
the consequences. But to go on. Bayne stepped in--awfully decent of
him, too,--when just at that moment, as novelists say, with startling
suddenness occurred an event that averted the impending calamity. Along
came Neil Fraser, no less, in that new car of his, in a whirlwind of
noise and dust, honking like a flock of wild geese. Well, you should
have seen those bronchos. One lurch, and we were on the ground, a
beautiful upset, and the bronchos in an incipient runaway, fortunately
checked by your humble servant. Duff, in a new and real rage this time,
up with his gun and banged off both barrels after the motor car, by this
time honking down the trail.”
“By Jove! he deserved it,” said the father. “Those motor fellows make me
long to do murder at times.”
“That's because you have no car, Dad, of course.”
“Did he hit him, do you think?”
“No. My arm happened to fly up, the gun banged toward the zenith.
Nothing doing!”
“Well, Barry, you do seem to have run foul of Mr. Duff.”
“Three times, dad. But each time prevented him from breaking the law and
doing himself and others injury. Would you have let him off this last
time, dad?”
“No, no, boy. Human life has the first claim upon our care. You did
quite right, quite right. Ungovernable fool he must be! Shouldn't be
allowed to carry a gun.”
“So Bayne declared,” said Barry.
“Well, you have had quite an exciting afternoon. But finish your tea and
get ready for the meeting. I will wash up.”
“Not if I know it, dad. You take your saw-horse and do me a little
Handel or Schubert. Do, please,” entreated his son. “I want that before
meeting more than anything else. I want a change of mood. I confess I am
slightly rattled. My address is all prepared, but I must have atmosphere
before I go into the meeting.”
His father took the 'cello, and after a few moments spent in carefully
tuning up, began with Handel's immortal Largo, then he wandered into
the Adagio Movement in Haydn's third Sonata, from thence to Schubert's
Impromptu in C Minor, after which he began the Serenade, when he was
checked by his son.
“No, not that, dad, that's sickening. I consider that the most morally
relaxing bit of music that I know. It frays the whole moral fibre. Give
us one of Chopin's Ballades, or better still a bit of that posthumous
Fantasie Impromptu, the largo movement. Ah! fine! fine!”
He flung his dish-cloth aside, ran to the piano and began an
accompaniment to his father's playing.
“Now, dad, the Largo once more before we close.” They did the Largo once
and again, then springing from the piano Barry cried: “That Largo is
a means of grace to me. There could be no better preparation for a
religious meeting than that. If you would only come in and play for
them, it would do them much more good than all my preaching.”
“If you would only take your music seriously, Barry,” replied his
father, somewhat sadly, “you would become a good player, perhaps even a
great player.”
“And then what, dad?”
His father waved him aside, putting up his 'cello.
“No use going into that again, boy.”
“Well, I couldn't have been a great player, at any rate, dad.”
“Perhaps not, boy, perhaps not,” said his father. “Great players are
very rare. But it is time for your meeting.”
“So it is, dad. Awfully sorry I didn't finish up those dishes. Let them
go till I return. I wish you would, dad, and come along with me.” His
voice had a wistful note in it.
“Not to-night, boy, I think. We will have some talk after. You will only
be an hour, you know.”
“All right, dad,” said Barry. “Some time you may come.” He could not
hide the wistful regret of his tone.
“Perhaps I shall, boy,” replied his father.
It was the one point upon which there was a lack of perfect harmony
between father and son. When the boy went to college it was with the
intention of entering the profession of law, for which his father had
been reading in his young manhood when the lure of Canada and her broad,
free acres caught him, and he had abandoned the law and with his wife
and baby boy had emigrated to become a land owner in the great Canadian
west.
Alas! death, that rude spoiler of so many plans, broke in upon the
sanctity and perfect peace of that happy ranch home and ravished it of
its treasure, leaving a broken hearted man and a little boy, orphaned
and sickly, to be cared for. The ranch was sold, the rancher moved to
the city of Edmonton, thence in a few years to a little village some
twenty-five miles nearer to the Foothills, where he became the Registrar
and Homestead Inspector for the district.
Here he had lived ever since, training the torn tendrils of his heart
about the lad, till peace came back again, though never the perfect
joy of the earlier days. Every May Day the two were wont to go upon an
expedition many miles into the Foothills, to a little, sunny spot, where
a strong, palisaded enclosure held a little grave. So little it looked,
and so lonely amid the great hills. There, not in an abandonment of
grief, but in loving and grateful remembrance of her whose dust the
little grave now held, of what she had been to them, and had done for
them, they spent the day, returning to take up again with hearts solemn,
tender and chastened, the daily routine of life.
That his son should grow to take up the profession of law had been the
father's dream, but during his university course the boy had come under
the compelling influence of a spiritual awakening that swept him into
a world filled with new impressions and other desires. Obeying what
he felt to be an imperative call, the boy chose the church as his
profession, and after completing his theological course in the city of
Winnipeg, and spending a year in study in Germany, while still a mere
youth he had been appointed as missionary to the district of which his
own village was the centre.
But though widely separate from each other in the matter of religion,
there were many points of contact between them. They were both men of
the great out-of-doors, and under his father's inspiration and direction
the boy had come to love athletic exercises of all kinds. They were
both music-mad, the father having had in early youth a thorough musical
education, the boy possessing musical talent of a high order. Such
training as was his he had received from his father, but it was confined
to one single instrument, the violin. To this instrument, upon which his
father had received the tuition of a really excellent master, the son
devoted long hours of study and practice during his boyhood years, and
his attainments were such as to give promise of something more than
an amateur's mastery of his instrument. His college work, however,
interfered with his music, and to his father's great disappointment and
regret he was forced to lay aside his study of the violin. On the piano,
however, the boy developed an extraordinary power of improvisation and
of sight reading, and while his technique was faulty his insight, his
power of interpretation were far in excess of many artists who were his
superiors in musical knowledge and power of execution. Many were the
hours the father and son spent together through the long evenings of
the western winter, and among the many bonds that held them in close
comradeship, none was stronger than their common devotion to music.
Long after his son had departed to his meeting the father sat dreaming
over his 'cello, wandering among the familiar bits from the old masters
as fancy led him, nor was he aware of the lapse of time till his son
returned.
“Hello! Nine-thirty?” he exclaimed, looking at his watch. “You have
given them an extra dose to-night.”
“Business meeting afterwards, which didn't come off after all,” said
his son. “Postponed till next Sunday.” With this curt announcement, and
without further comment he sat down at his desk.
But after a few moments he rose quickly, saying, “Let us do some real
work, dad.”
He took up his violin. His father, who was used to his moods, without
question or remark proceeded to tune up. An hour's hard practice
followed, without word from either except as regarded the work in hand.
“I feel better now, dad,” said the young man when they had finished.
“And now for a round with you.”
“But what about your wind, boy? I don't like that asthma of yours this
afternoon.”
“I am quite all right. It's quite gone. I feel sure it was the pollen
from the beaver meadow.”
They cleared back the table and chairs from the centre of the room,
stripped to their shirts, put on the gloves and went at each other with
vim. Their style was similar, for the father had taught the son all
he knew, except that the father's was the fighting and the son's the
sparring style. To-night the roles appeared to be reversed, the son
pressing hard at the in-fighting, the father trusting to his foot work
and countering with the light touch of a man making points.
“You ARE boring in, aren't you?” said the father, stopping a fierce
rally.
“You are not playing up, dad,” said his son. “I don't feel like soft
work to-night. Come to me!”
“As you say,” replied the father, and for the next five minutes Barry
had no reason to complain of soft work, for his father went after him
with all the fight that was in him, so that in spite of a vigorous
defence the son was forced to take refuge in a runaway game.
“Now you're going!” shouted the son, making a fierce counter with his
right to a hard driven left, which he side-stepped. It was a fatal
exposure. Like the dart of a snake the right hand hook got him below the
jaw, and he was hurled breathless on the couch at the side of the room.
“Got you now!” said his father.
“Not quite yet,” cried Barry. Like a cat he was on his feet, breathing
deep breaths, dodging about, fighting for time.
“Enough!” cried his father, putting down his hands.
“Play up!” shouted Barry, who was rapidly recovering his wind. “No soft
work. Watch out!”
Again the father was on guard, while Barry, who seemed to have drawn
upon some secret source of strength, came at him with a whirlwind
attack, feinting, jabbing, swinging, hooking, till finally he landed a
short half arm on the jaw, which staggered his father against the wall.
“Pax!” cried the young man. “I have all I want.”
“Great!” said his father. “I believe you could fight, boy, if you were
forced to.”
In the shed they sluiced each other with pails of water, had a rub down
and got into their dressing gowns.
“I feel fine, now, dad, and ready for anything,” said Barry, glowing
with his exercise and his tub. “I was feeling like a quitter. I guess
that asthma got at my nerve. But I believe I will see it through some
way.”
“Yes?” said his father, and waited.
“Yes. They were talking blue ruin in there to-night. Finances are
behind, congregation is running down, therefore the preacher is a
failure.”
“Well, lad, remember this,” said his father, “never let your liver
decide any course of action for you. Some good stiff work, a turn
with the gloves, for instance, is the best preparation I know for any
important decision. A man cannot decide wisely when he feels grubby.
Your asthma this afternoon is a symptom of liver.”
“It is humiliating to a creature endowed with conscience and intellect
to discover how small a part these play at times in his decisions.
The ancients were not far wrong who made the liver the seat of the
emotions.”
“Well,” said his father, “it is a good thing to remember that most of
our bad hours come from our livers. So the preacher is a failure? Who
said so?”
“Oh, a number of them, principally Hayes.”
“Thank God, and go to sleep,” said his father. “If Hayes were pleased
with my preaching I should greatly suspect my call to the ministry.”
“But seriously, I am certainly not a great preacher, and perhaps not
a preacher at all. They say I have no 'pep,' which with some of them
appears to be the distinctive and altogether necessary characteristic of
a popular preacher.”
“What said Innes?” enquired his father.
“Did you ever hear Innes say much? From his silence one would judge that
he must possess the accumulated wisdom of the ages.”
“When he does talk, however, he generally says something. What was his
contribution?”
“'Ah, weel,' said the silent one, 'Ah doot he's no a Spurgeon, not yet a
Billy Sunday, but ye'll hardly be expectin' thae fowk at Wapiti for nine
hundred dollars a year.' Then, bless his old heart, he added, 'But the
bairns tak to him like ducks to water, so you'd better bide a bit.' So
they decided to 'bide a bit' till next Sunday. Dad, at first I wanted
to throw their job in their faces, only I always know that it is the old
Adam in me that feels like that, so I decided to 'bide a bit' too.”
“It is a poor job, after all, my boy,” said his father. “It's no
gentleman's job the way it is carried on in this country. To think of
your being at the bidding of a creature like Hayes!”
He could have said no better word. The boy's face cleared like the
sudden shining of the sun after rain. He lifted his head and said,
“Thank God, not at his bidding, dad. 'One is your Master,'” he quoted.
“But after all, Hayes has something good in him. Do you know, I rather
like him. He's--”
“Oh, come now, we'll drop it right there,” said his father, in a
disgusted tone. “When you come to finding something to like in that rat,
I surrender.”
“Who knows?” said the boy, as if to himself. “Poor Hayes. He may be
quite a wonderful man, considering all things, his heredity and his
environment. What would I have been, dad, but for you?”
His father grunted, pulled hard at his pipe, coughed a bit, then looked
his son straight in the face, saying, “God knows what any of us owe to
our past.” He fell into silence. His mind was far away, following his
heart to the palisaded plot of ground among the Foothills and the little
grave there in which he had covered from his sight her that had been the
inspiration to his best and finest things, and his defence against the
things low and base that had once hounded his soul, howling hard upon
his trail.
The son, knowing his mood, sat in silence with him, then rising suddenly
he sat himself on the arm of his father's chair, threw his arm around
his shoulder and said, “Dear old dad! Good old boy you are, too. Good
stuff! What would I have been but for you? A puny, puling, wretched
little crock, afraid of anything that could spit at me. Do you remember
the old gander? I was near my eternal damnation that day.”
“But you won out, my boy,” said his father in a croaking voice, putting
his arm round his son.
“Yes, because you made me stick it, just as you have often made me stick
it since. May God forget me if I ever forget what you have done for me.
Shall we read now?”
He took the big Bible from its place upon the table, and turning the
leaves read aloud from the teachings of the world's greatest Master. It
was the parable of the talents.
“Rather hard on the failure,” he said as he closed the book.
“No, not the failure,” said his father, “the slacker, the quitter. It is
nature's law. There is no place in God's universe for a quitter.”
“You are right, dad,” said Barry. “Good-night.”
He kissed his father, as he had ever done since his earliest infancy.
Their prayers were said in private, the son, clergyman though he was,
could never bring himself to offer to lead the devotions of him at whose
knee he had kneeled every night of his life, as a boy, for his evening
prayer.
“Good-night, boy,” said his father, holding him by the hand for a moment
or so. “We do not know what is before us, defeat, loss, suffering. That
part is not in our hands altogether, but the shame of the quitter never
need, and never shall be ours.”
The little man stepped into his bedroom with his shoulders squared and
his head erect.
“By Jove! He's no quitter,” said his son to himself, as his eyes
followed him. “When he quits he'll be dead. God keep me from shaming
him!”