"O-o-o! Danny, oho-o-o! five o'clock!"
The clear young voice of Esther North floated across the snowy fields
to the hill where the children of Glendour were coasting. Her brother
Daniel, plodding up the trampled path beside the glairy track with
half a dozen other boys, dragging the bob-sled on which his little
sister Ruth was seated, heard the call with vague sentiments of
dislike and rebellion. His twelve years rose up in arms against being
ordered by a girl, even if she was sixteen and had begun to put up her
hair and lengthen her skirts. She was a nice girl, to be sure--the
prettiest in Glendour. But she might have had more sense than to call
out that way before all the crowd. He had a good mind to pretend not
to hear her.
But his comrades were not so minded. They had no idea of letting him
evade the situation. They wanted him to stay, but he must do it like a
man.
"Listen at your nurse already?" said one of the older lads mockingly;
"she's a-callin' you. Run along home, boy!"
"Aw, no!" pleaded a youngster, not yet master of the art of irony.
"Don't you mind her, Dan! The coast is just gettin' like glass, and
you're the onliest one to steer the bob. You stay!"
"Please, Danny," said Ruth, keeping her seat as the sled stopped at
the top of the hill, "only once more down! I ain't a bit tired."
"Dannee-ee-ee! O _Danny_!" came the sweet vibrant call again. "Five
o'clock--come on--remember!"
Daniel remembered. The rules of the Rev. Nathaniel North's house were
like the law of the Medes and Persians. Daniel had never met a Mede or
a Persian, but in his mind he pictured them as persons with
reddish-gray hair and beards and smooth-shaven upper lips, wearing
white neckcloths and long black broadcloth coats, and requiring
absolute punctuality at meal time, church time, school time, and
family prayers. Esther's voice recalled him from the romance of the
coasting-hill to the reality of life. He considered the consequences
of being late for Saturday evening worship and made up his mind that
they were too much for him.
"Come on, Ruthie," he cried, picking up the cord of her small sled,
which she had forsaken for the greater glory and excitement of riding
behind her brother on the bob. The child put her hand in his, and they
ran together over the creaking snow to the place where their older
sister was waiting, her slender figure in blue jacket and skirt
outlined against the white field, and her golden hair shining like an
aureole around her rosy face in the intense bloom of the winter
sunset.
The three young Norths were the flower of Glendour: a Scotch village
in western Pennsylvania, where the spirits of John Knox and Robert
Burns lived face to face, separated by a great gulf. On one side of
the street, near the river, was the tavern, where the lights burned
late, and the music went to the tune of "Wandering Willie" and "John
Barleycorn." On the other side of the street, toward the hills, was
the Presbyterian church, where the sermons were an hour long, and the
favourite lyric was
"A charge to keep I have."
The Rev. Nathaniel North's "charge to keep" was the spiritual welfare
of the elect, and especially of his own motherless children. To guide
them in the narrow way, unspotted from the world, to train them up in
the faith once delivered to the saints and in the customs which that
faith had developed among the Scotch Covenanters, was the great desire
of his heart. For that desire he would gladly have suffered martyrdom;
and into the fulfilling of his task he threw a strenuous tenderness, a
strong, unfaltering, sincere affection that bound his children to him
by a love which lay far deeper than all their outward symptoms of
restiveness under his strict rule.
This is a thing that seldom gets into stories. People of the world do
not understand it. They are strangers to the intensity of religious
passion, and to the swift instinct by which the heart of a child
surrenders to absolute sincerity. This was what the North children
felt in their father--a devotion that was grave, stern, almost fierce
in its single-hearted attachment to them. He was theirs altogether. He
would not let them dance or play cards. The theatre and even the
circus were tabooed to them. Novel-reading was discouraged and no
books were admitted to the house which had not passed under his
censorship. All this seemed strange to them; they could not comprehend
it; at times they talked together about the hardship of it--the two
older ones--and made little plots to relax or circumvent the paternal
rule. But in their hearts they accepted it, because they knew their
father loved them better than any one else in the world, and they
trusted him because they felt that he was a true man and a good man.
You see they were not "children in fiction"; they were real
children--and beautiful, high-spirited children too. Esther was easily
the "fairest of the village maids," and the head of her class in the
high-school; Daniel, a leader in games among the boys of his age; even
eight-year-old Ruth with her fly-away red hair and her wide brown eyes
had her devoted admirers among the younger lads. It was evident to the
Rev. Nathaniel North that his children were destined to have the
perilous gift of popularity, and with all his natural pride in them
he was tormented with anxiety on their account. How to protect them
from temptation, how to shield them from the vain allurements of
wealth and folly and fashion, how to surround them with an atmosphere
altogether serious and devout and pure, how to keep them out of reach
of the evil that is in the world--that was the tremendous problem upon
which his mind and his heart laboured day and night.
Of course he admitted, or rather he positively affirmed, according to
orthodox doctrine, that there was Original Sin in them. Under every
human exterior, however fair, he postulated a heart "deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked." This he regarded as a well-known
axiom of theology, but it had no bearing at all upon the fact of
experience that none of his children had ever lied to him, and that he
would have been amazed out of measure if one of them should ever do a
mean or a cruel thing. Yet he believed, all the same, that the mass of
depravity must be there, in the nature which they inherited through
him from Adam, like a heap of tinder, waiting for the fire. It was
his duty to keep the fire from touching them, to guard them from the
flame, even the spark, of worldliness. He gave thanks for his poverty
which was like a wall about them. He prayed every night that no
descendant of his might ever be rich. He was grateful for the
seclusion and plainness of the village of Glendour in which vice
certainly did not glitter.
"Separate from the world," he said to himself often; "that is a great
mercy. No doubt there is evil here, as everywhere; but it is not
gilded, it is not attractive. For my children's sake I am glad to live
in obscurity, to keep them separate from the world."
But they were not conscious of any oppressive sense of separation as
they walked homeward, through the saffron after-glow deepening into
crimson and violet. The world looked near to them, and very great and
beautiful, tingling with life even through its winter dress. The keen
air, the crisp snow beneath their feet, the quivering stars that
seemed to hang among the branches of the leafless trees, all gave them
joy. They were healthily tired and heartily hungry; a good supper was
just ahead of them, and beyond that a long life full of wonderful
possibilities; and they were very glad to be alive. The two older
children walked side by side pulling the sled with Ruth, who was
willing to confess that she was "just a little mite tired" now that
the fun was over.
"Esther," said the boy, "what do you suppose makes father so quiet and
solemn lately--more than usual? Has anything happened, or is it just
thinking?"
"Well," said the girl, who had a touch of the gentle tease in her,
"perhaps it is just the left-over sadness from finding out that you'd
been smoking!"
"Huh," murmured Dan, "you drop that, Essie! That was two weeks
ago--besides, he didn't find out; I told him; and I took my medicine,
too--never flinched. That's all over. More likely he remembers the
fuss you made about not being let to go with the Slocums to see the
theatre in Pittsburgh. You cried, baby! I didn't."
The boy rubbed the back of his hand reminiscently against the leg of
his trousers, and Esther was sorry she had reminded him of a painful
subject.
"Anyway," she said, "you had the best of it. I'd rather have gone, and
told him about it, and taken a whipping afterward."
"What stuff! You know dad wouldn't whip a girl--not to save her life.
Besides, when a thing's done, and 'fessed, and paid for, it's all over
with dad. He's perfectly fair, I must say that. He doesn't nag like
girls do."
"Now _you_ drop _that_, Danny, and I'll tell you what I think is the
matter with father. But you must promise not to speak to him about
it."
"All right, I promise. What is it?"
"I guess--now mind, you mustn't tell--but I'm almost sure it is
something about our Uncle Abel. A letter came last month, postmarked
Colorado; and last week there was another letter in the same
handwriting from Harrisburg. Father has been reading them over and
over, and looking sadder each time. I guess perhaps Uncle Abel is in
trouble or else----"
"You mean father's rich brother that lives out West? Billy Slocum
told me about him once--says he's a king-pin out there, owns a mine a
mile deep and full of gold, keeps lots of fast horses, wins races all
over the country. He must be great. You mean him? Why doesn't father
ever speak of him?"
The girl nodded her head and lowered her voice, glancing back to see
that Ruth was not listening.
"You see," she continued, "father and Uncle Abel had a break--not a
quarrel, but a kind of a divide--when they were young men. Lucy Slocum
heard all about it from her grandmother, and told me. They were in a
college scrape together, and father took his punishment, and after
that he was converted, and you know how good he is. But his brother
got mad, and he ran away from college, out West, and I reckon he has
been--well, pretty bad. They say he gambled and drank and did all
sorts of things. He said the world owed him a fortune and a good time.
Now he's got piles of money and a great big place he calls Due North,
with herds of cattle and ponies and a house full of pictures and
things. I guess he's quieted down some, but he isn't married, and
they say he isn't at all religious. He's what they call a
free-thinker, and he just travels around with his horses and spends
money. I suppose that is why father does not speak of him. You know he
thinks that's all wrong, very wicked, and he wants to keep us separate
from it all."
The boy listened to this long, breathless confidence in silence,
kicking the lumps of snow in the road as he trudged along.
"Well," he said, "it seems kind of awful to have two brothers divided
like that, doesn't it, Essie? But I suppose father's right, he 'most
always is. Only I wish they'd make it up, and Uncle Abel would come
here with some of his horses, and perhaps I could go West with him
some time to make a start in life."
"Yes," added the girl, "and wouldn't it be fine to hear him tell about
his adventures. And then perhaps he'd take an interest in us, and make
things easier for father, and if he liked my singing he might give the
money to send me to the Conservatory of Music. That would be great!"
"Yes," piped up the voice of Ruth from the sled, "and I wish he'd take
us all out to Due North with him to see the ponies and the big house.
That would be just lovely!"
Esther looked at Dan and smiled. Then she turned around.
"You little pitcher," she laughed, "what do you have such long ears
for? But you must keep your mouth shut, anyway. Remember, I don't want
you to speak to father about Uncle Abel."
"I didn't promise," said Ruth, shaking her head, "and I want him to
come--it'll be better'n Santa Claus."
By this time the children had arrived at the little red brick
parsonage, with its white wooden porch, on the side street a few doors
back of the church. They stamped the snow off their feet, put the sled
under the porch, hung their coats and hats in the entry, and went into
the parlour on the stroke of half past five.
Over the mantel hung an engraving of "The Death-Bed of John Knox,"
which they never looked at if they could help it; on the opposite wall
a copy of Reynolds's "Infant Samuel," which they adored. The pendent
lamp, with a view of Jerusalem on the shade and glass danglers around
the edge, shed a strong light on the marble-topped centre-table and
the red plush furniture and the pale green paper with gilt roses on
it.
On Saturday evening family worship came before supper. The cook and
the maid-of-all-work were in their places on the smallest chairs,
beside the door. On the sofa, where the children always sat, their
Bibles were laid out. The father was in the big arm-chair by the
centre-table with the book on his knees, already open.
The passage chosen was the last chapter of the Epistle of James. The
deep, even voice of Nathaniel North sounded through that terrible
denunciation of unholy riches with a gravity of conviction far more
impressive than the anger of the modern muck-raker. The hearts of the
children, remembering their conversation, were disturbed and vaguely
troubled. Then came the gentler words about patience and pity and
truthfulness and the healing of the sick. At the end each member of
the house-hold was to read a sentence in turn and try to explain its
meaning in a few words. The portion that fell to little Ruth was this:
"_The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much._"
She stumbled over the two longer words, but she gave her comment
clearly enough in her childish voice.
"That means if we obey Him, God will do anything we ask, I suppose."
The father nodded. "Right, my child. If we keep the commandments our
prayers are sure of an answer. But remember that the people in the
first part of the chapter have no such promise."
There was an unusual fervour in the prayer which closed the worship
that night. Nathaniel North seemed to be putting his arms around the
family to shield them from some unseen danger. The children, whose
thoughts had wandered a little, while he was remembering the Jews and
the heathen and the missionaries, in the customary phrases, felt their
hearts dimly moved when he asked that his house might be kept from the
power of darkness and the ravening wolves of sin, kept in unbroken
purity and peace, holy and undefiled. The potent sincerity of his love
came upon them. They believed with his faith; they consented with his
will.
At the supper-table there was pleasant talk about books and school
work and games and the plan to make a skating-pond in one of the lower
fields that could be flooded after the snow had fallen. Nathaniel
North, with all his strictness, was very near to his children; he
wished to increase and to share their rightful happiness; he wanted
them to be separate from the world but not from him. It was when they
were talking of the coming school exhibition that Ruth dropped her
little surprise into the conversation.
"Father," she said, "will Uncle Abel be here then? Oh, I wish he would
come. I want to see him ever so much!"
He looked at her with astonishment for a moment. Esther and Daniel
exchanged glances of dismay. They did not know what was coming. A
serious rebuke from their father was not an easy thing to face. But
when he spoke there was no rebuke in his voice.
"Children," he said, "it is strange that one of you should speak to me
of my brother Abel when I have never spoken of him to you. But it is
only natural, after all, and I should have foreseen it and been more
frank with you. Have other people told you of him?"
"Oh, yes," they cried, with sparkling looks, but the father's face
grew darker as he noticed their eagerness.
"Let me explain to you about him," he continued gravely. "He was my
older brother--a year older--and as boys we were very fond of each
other. But one day we had to part because our paths went in opposite
directions. He chose the broad and easy way, and I was led into the
straight and narrow path. How can two walk together except they be
agreed? For ten years I tried to win him back, but without success. At
last he told me that he wished me never to address him on the subject
of religion again, for he would rather lose both his hands and his
feet than believe as I did. He went on with his reckless life,
prospering in this world, as I hear, but I have never seen him since
that time."
"But wouldn't you like to see him?" said Esther, dropping her eyes.
"He must be quite a wonderful man. Doesn't he write to you?"
Her father's lip twitched, but he still spoke sadly and gravely.
"I see you have guessed the answer already. Yes, a letter came from
him some time ago, proposing a visit, which I discouraged. Another
came this week, saying that he was on his way, driving his own horses
across the country, and though he had received no reply from me, he
hoped to get here late Saturday--that is, to-night--or Sunday morning.
Of course we must welcome my own brother--if he comes."
"Why, he may get here any minute," cried Daniel eagerly; "he's sure to
change his wagon for a sleigh in Pittsburgh, and he won't have to
drive 'way round by the long bridge, he can cross the river on the
ice. I wonder if he's driving that famous long-distance team that
Slocum told me about. Oh, that'll be simply great."
"I must go upstairs right away," exclaimed Esther, with brightening
face, "to see that the guest room is ready for him when he comes."
"I'll go to help" cried Ruth, clapping her hands. "What fun to have a
real uncle here. I guess he'll bring a present for each of us."
"Wait, my children," said the father, lifting his hand, "before you go
I have something more to say to you. Your uncle is a man of the world,
and you know the world is evil; we have been called to come out of it.
He does not think as we do, nor believe as we do, nor live as we do,
according to the Word. For one thing, he cares nothing for the
sanctity of the Sabbath. Unless he has changed very much, he is not
temperate nor reverent. I fear the effect of his example in Glendour.
I fear his influence upon you, my children. It is my duty to warn you,
to put you on your guard. It will be a hard trial. But we must receive
him--if he comes."
"If he comes?" cried Esther, evidently alarmed; "there's no doubt of
that, is there, since he has written?"
"My dear, when you know your uncle you will understand that there is
always a doubt. He is very irregular and uncertain in all his ways.
He may change his mind or be turned aside. No one can tell. But go to
your tasks now, my children, and to bed early. I have some work to do
in my study."
Each of them kissed him good-night, and he watched them out of the
room with a look of tender sternness in his lined and rugged face,
anxious, troubled, and ready to give his life to safeguard them from
the invisible arrows of sin. Then he went into his long, narrow
book-room, but not to work.
Up and down the worn and dingy carpet, between the walls lined with
dull grey and brown and black books, he paced with heavy feet. The
weight of a dreadful responsibility pressed upon him, the anguish of a
spiritual conflict tore his heart. His old affection for his brother
seemed to revive and leap up within him, like a flame from smothered
embers when the logs are broken open. The memory of their young
comradeship and joys together grew bright and warm. He longed to see
Abel's face once more.
Then came other memories, dark and cold, crowding in upon him with
evil faces to chill and choke his love. The storm of rebellion that
led to the parting, the wild and reckless life in the far country, the
gambling, the drinking, the fighting, the things that he knew and the
things that he guessed--and then, the ways of Abel when he returned,
at times, in the earlier years, with his pockets full of money to
spend it in the worst company and with a high-handed indifference to
all restraint, yet always with a personal charm of generosity and
good-will that drew people to him and gave him a strange power over
them--and then, Abel's final refusal to listen any more to the
pleadings of the true faith, his good-humoured obstinacy in unbelief,
his definite choice of the world as his portion, and after that the
long silence and the growing rumours of his wealth, his extravagance,
his devotion, if not to the lust of the flesh, at least to the lust of
the eyes and the pride of life--all these thoughts and pictures rushed
upon Nathaniel North and overwhelmed him with painful terror and
foreboding. They seemed to loom above him and his children like black
clouds charged with hidden disaster. They shook his sick heart with an
agony of trembling hatred.
He did not hate his brother--no, never that--and there was the
poignant pain of it. The bond of affection rooted in his very flesh,
held firm and taut, stretched to the point of anguish, and vibrating
in shrill notes of sorrow as the hammer of conviction struck it. He
could not cast his brother out of his inmost heart, blot his name from
the book of remembrance, cease to hope that the infinite mercy might
some day lay hold upon him before it was too late.
But the things for which that brother stood in the world--the
ungodliness, the vainglory, the material glitter and the spiritual
darkness--these things the minister was bound to hate; and the more he
hated the more he feared and trembled. The intensity of this fear
seemed for the time to blot out all other feelings. The coming of such
a man, with all his attractions, with the glamour of his success, with
the odours and enchantments of the world about him, was an
incalculable peril. The pastor agonised for his flock, the father for
his little ones. It seemed as if he saw a tiger with glittering eyes
creeping near and crouching for a spring. It seemed as if a serpent,
with bright colours coiled and fatal head poised, were waiting in the
midst of the children for one of them to put out a hand to touch it.
Which would it be? Perhaps all of them would be fascinated. They were
so eager, so innocent, so full of life. How could he guard them in a
peril so subtle and so terrible?
He had done all that he could for them, but perhaps it was not enough.
He felt his weakness, his helpless impotence. They would slip away
from him and be lost--perhaps forever. Already his sick heart saw them
charmed, bewildered, poisoned, perishing in ways where his imagination
shuddered to follow them.
The torture of his love and terror crushed him. He sank to his knees
beside the ink-stained wooden table on the threadbare carpet and
buried his face in his arms. All of his soul was compressed into a
single agony of prayer.
He prayed that this bitter trial might not come upon him, that this
great peril might not approach his children. He prayed that the
visitation which he dreaded might be averted by almighty power. He
prayed that God would prevent his brother from coming, and keep the
home in unbroken purity and peace, holy and undefiled.
From this strange wrestling in spirit he rose benumbed, yet calmed, as
one who feels that he has made his last effort and can do no more. He
opened the door of his study and listened. There was no sound. The
children had all gone to bed. He turned back to the old table to work
until midnight on his sermon for the morrow. The text was: "_As for me
and my house, we will serve the Lord._"