For three days Dick made steady progress toward health, but his progress was slow. Any mental effort produced severe pain in his head and sufficed to raise his temperature several points. As he gained in strength and became more and more clear in his thinking his anxiety in regard to his work began to increase. His congregations would be waiting him on Sunday, and he could not bear to think of their being disappointed. With no small effort had he gathered them together, and a single failure on his part he knew would have disastrous effect upon the attendance. He was especially concerned about the service at Bull Crossing, which was at once the point where the work was the most difficult, and, at the present juncture, most encouraging. Under his instructions Barney sought to secure a substitute for the service at Bull Crossing, but without result. Preachers were scarce in that country and every preacher had more work in sight than he could overtake. And so Dick fretted and wrought himself into a fever, until the doctor took him sternly to task.
“I don't see that it's your business to worry, Dick,” he said. “I suppose you consider yourself as working under orders, and it is your belief, isn't it, that the One who gives the orders is the One who has laid you down here?”
“That's true,” said Dick wearily, “but there's the people. A lot of them come a long way. It's been hard to get them together, and I hate to disappoint them.”
“Well, we'll get someone,” replied Barney. “We're a pretty hard combination to beat, aren't we, Margaret? There will be a man to take the service at Bull Crossing if I have to take it myself—a desperate resort, indeed.”
“Why not, Barney?” asked Dick. “You could do it well.”
“What? Did you ever hear me talk? I can talk a little with my fingers, but my tongue is unconscionably slow.”
“There was a man once slow of speech,” replied Dick quietly, “but he was given a message and he led a nation into freedom.”
Barney nodded. “I remember him. But he could do things.”
“No,” answered Dick, “but he believed God could do things.”
“Perhaps so. That was rather long ago.”
“With God,” replied Dick earnestly, “there is no such thing as long ago.”
“All the same,” said Barney, “I guess these things don't happen now.”
“I believe they happen,” replied his brother, “where God finds a man who will take his life in his hand and go.”
“Well, I don't know about that,” replied Barney, “but I do know that you must quit talking and sleep. Now, hear me, drop that meeting out of your mind. I'll look after it.”
But Saturday came and, in spite of every effort on Barney's part, he found no one for the service at Bull Crossing next day. There was still a slight hope that one of the officials of the congregation would consent to be a stop-gap for the day.
“I guess I'll have to take that service myself, Margaret,” said Barney laughingly. “Wouldn't the crowd stare? They'd hear the sermon of their lives.”
“It would be a good sermon, Barney,” replied Margaret quietly. “And why should you not say something to the men?”
“Nonsense, Margaret!” cried Barney impatiently. “You know the thing is utterly absurd. What sort of man am I to preach? A gambler, a swearer, and generally bad. They all know me.”
“They know only a part of you, Barney,” said Margaret gently. “God knows all of you, and whatever you have been you are no gambler today, and you are not a bad man.”
“No,” replied Barney slowly, “I am no gambler, nor will I ever be again. But I have been a hard, bad man. For three years I carried hate in my heart. I could not forgive and didn't want to be forgiven. And that, I believe, was the cause of all my badness. But—somehow—I don't deserve it—but I've been awfully well treated. I deserved hell, but I've got a promise of heaven. And I'd be glad to do something for—” He paused abruptly.
“There, you've got your sermon, Barney,” said Margaret.
“What do you mean?”
“'Forgive and ye shall be forgiven.'”
“It's the sermon someone wants to preach to me, but it's not for me to preach. The thing is preposterous. I'll get one of those fellows at the Crossing to take the meeting.”
On Saturday evening Dick again reverted to the subject.
“I'm not anxious, Barney,” he said, “but who's going to take the meeting to-morrow night at Bull Crossing?”
“Now, look here,” said Barney, “Monday morning you'll hear all about it. Meantime, don't ask questions. Margaret and I are responsible, and that ought to be enough. You never knew her to fail.”
“No, nor you, Barney,” said Dick, sinking back with a sigh of satisfaction. “I know it will be all right. Are you going down to-morrow evening?” he inquired, turning to Margaret.
“I?” exclaimed Margaret. “What would I do?”
“Of course you are going. It will do you a lot of good,” said Barney. “You may have to preach yourself or hold my coat while I go in.”
A sudden gleam of joy in the eyes, a flush of red upon the cheek, and the quick following pallor told Dick the thoughts that rushed through Margaret's heart.
“Yes,” said Dick gravely, “you will go down, too, Margaret. It will do you good, and I don't need you here.”
Many anxious days had Barney passed in his life, but never had he found himself so utterly blocked by unmanageable circumstances and uncompromising facts as he found facing him that Sunday morning. He confided his difficulty to Tommy Tate, whom he had found in “Mexico's” saloon toning up his system after his long illness, and whom he had straightway carried off with him.
“I guess it's either you or me, Tommy.”
“Bedad, it's yersilf that c'd do that same, an' divil a wan av the bhoys will 'Mexico' git this night, wance the news gits about.”
“Don't talk rot, Tommy,” said Barney angrily, for the chance of his being forced to take his brother's place, which all along had seemed to be extremely remote, had come appreciably nearer. With the energy of desperation he spent the hours of the afternoon visiting, explaining, urging, cajoling, threatening anyone of the members or adherents of the congregation at Bull Crossing in whom might be supposed to dwell the faintest echo of the spirit of the preacher. One after another, however, those upon whom he had built his hopes failed him. One was out of town, another he found sick in bed, and a third refused point blank to consider the request, so that within a few minutes of the hour of service he found himself without a preacher and wholly desperate, and for the first time he seriously faced the possibility of having to take the service himself. He returned to the shack of one of his brother's parishioners, where Margaret was staying, and abruptly announced to her his failure.
“Can't get a soul, and of course I can't do it, Margaret. You know, I can't,” he repeated, in answer to the look upon her face. “Why, it was only last week I fleeced 'Mexico' out of a couple of hundred. He would give a good deal more to get even. The crowd would hoot me out of the building. Not that I care for that”—the long jaws came hard together—“but it's just too ghastly to think of.”
“It isn't so very terrible, Barney,” said Margaret, her voice and eyes uniting in earnest persuasion. “You are not the man you were last week. You know you are not. You are quite different, and you will be different all your life. A great change has come to you. What made the change? You know it was God's great mercy that took the bitterness out of your heart and that changed everything. Can't you tell them this?”
“Tell them that, Margaret? Great Heavens! Could I tell them that? What would they say?”
“Barney,” asked Margaret, “you are not afraid of them? You are not ashamed to tell what you owe to God?”
Afraid? It was an ugly word for Barney to swallow. No, he was not afraid, but his native diffidence, intensified by these recent years of self-repression and self-absorption, had made all speech difficult to him, but more especially speech that revealed the deeper movements of his soul.
“No, Margaret, I'm not afraid,” he said slowly. “But I'd rather have them take the flesh off that arm bit by bit than get up and speak to them. I'd have to tell them the truth, don't you see, Margaret? How can I do that?”
“All that you say must be the truth, Barney, of course,” she replied. “But you will tell them just what you will.”
With these words she turned away, leaving him silent and fighting a desperate fight. His word passed to his brother must be kept. But soon a deeper issue began to emerge. His honour was involved. His sense of loyalty was touched. He knew himself to be a different man from the man who, last week, in “Mexico's” saloon, had beaten his old antagonist at the old game. His consciousness of himself, of his life purposes, of his outlook, of his deepest emotions, was altogether a different consciousness. And more than all, that haunting, pursuing restlessness was gone and, in its place, a deep peace possessed him. The process by which this had been achieved he could not explain, but the result was undeniable, and it was due, he knew, to an influence the source of which he frankly acknowledged to be external to himself. The words of the beaten and confounded pagan magic-workers came to him, “This is the finger of God.” He could not deny it. Why should he wish to hide it? It became clear to him, in these few minutes of intense soul activity, that there was a demand being made upon him as a man of truth and honour, and as the struggle deepened in his soul and the possibility of his refusing the demand presented itself to his mind, there flashed in upon him the picture of a man standing in the midst of enemies, the flickering firelight showing his face vacillating, terror-stricken, hunted. From the trembling lips of the man he heard the words of base denial, “I know not the man,” and in his heart there rose a cry, “O Christ! shall I do this?” “No,” came the answer, strong and clear, from his lips, “I will not do this thing, so help me God.”
Margaret turned quickly around and looked at him in dismay. “You won't?” she said faintly.
“I'll take the service,” he replied, setting the long jaws firmly together. And with that they went forth to the hall.
They found the place crowded far beyond its capacity, for through Tommy Tate it had been noised abroad that Dr. Bailey was to preach. There were wild rumors, too, that the doctor had “got religion,” although “Mexico” and his friends scouted the idea as utterly impossible.
“He ain't the kind. He's got too much nerve,” was “Mexico's” verdict, given with a full accompaniment of finished profanity.
Tommy's evidence, however, was strong enough to create a profound impression and to awaken an expectation that rose to fever pitch when Barney and Margaret made their way through the crowds and took their places, Margaret at the organ, which Dick usually played himself, and Barney at the table upon which were the Bible and the Hymn-book. His face wore the impenetrable, death-like mark which had so often baffled “Mexico” and his gang over the poker table. It fascinated “Mexico” now. All the years of his wicked manhood “Mexico” had, on principle, avoided anything in the shape of a religious meeting, but to-day the attraction of a poker player preaching proved irresistible. It was with no small surprise that the crowd saw “Mexico,” with two or three of his gang, make their way toward the front to the only seats left vacant.
When it became evident beyond dispute that his old-time enemy was to take the preacher's place, “Mexico” leaned over to his pal, “Peachy” Bud, who sat between him and Tommy Tate, and muttered in an undertone audible to those in his immediate neighbourhood, “It's his old game. He's runnin' a blank bluff. He ain't got the cards.”
But painful experience shook “Peachy's” confidence in his friend's judgment on this particular point, and he only ventured to reply, “He's got the lead.” “Peachy” preferred to await developments.
The opening hymn was sung with the hearty fervour that marks the musical part of any religious service in the West. But there was in the voices that curious thrill that is at once the indication and the quickening of intense excitement.
“This here'll show what's in his hand,” said “Peachy,” when the moment for prayer arrived. “Peachy” was not unfamiliar with religious services, and had, with unusual keenness of observation, noted that when a man undertook to pray he must, if he be true, reveal the soul within him.
“Mexico” grunted a dubious affirmative. But “Peachy” was disappointed, for in a voice reverent, but unimpassioned, the preacher for the day led the people's devotions, using the great words taught those men long ago who knew not how to pray, “Our Father who art in Heaven.”
“Blanked if he ain't bluffed again! We've got to wait till he begins to shoot, I guess,” said “Peachy,” mixing his figures.
The lesson was the parable of the unforgiving debtor and the parallel passage containing the matchless story of the sinful woman and the proud Pharisee. In the reading of these lessons the voice, which had hitherto carried the strident note of nervousness, mellowed into rich and subduing fulness. The men listened with that hushed attention that they give when words are getting to the heart. The utter simplicity of the reader's manner, the dignity of his bearing, the quiet strength that showed itself in every tone, and the undercurrent of emotion that made the voice vibrate like a stringed instrument, all these, with the marvellous authoritative tenderness of the great utterance on a theme so closely touching their daily experience, gripped these men and held them in complete thrall.
When the reading was done the doctor stood for some moments looking his audience quietly in the face. He knew them all, men from the camps and the line, men from the hills and mining claims, men from the saloons and the gambling hells. Many he had treated professionally, some he had himself nursed back to health, others he had rescued from those desperate moods that end in death. Others again—and these not a few—he had “cleaned out” at poker or “Black Jack.” But to all of them he was “white.” Not so to himself. It was a very humble man and a very penitent, that stood looking them in the face. His first words were a confession.
“I am not worthy to stand here before you,” he began, in a low, clear tone, “God knows, you know, and I know. I am here for two reasons: one is that I promised my brother, the Reverend Richard Boyle”—here a gasp of surprise was audible from one and another in the audience—“a man you know to be a good man, better than ever I can hope to be.”
“Durned if he is!” grunted “Peachy” to “Mexico.” “Ain't in the same bunch!”
“An' that's thrue fer ye,” answered Tommy. But “Mexico” paid no heed to these remarks. He was staring at the speaker with the look of a man wholly bewildered.
“And the other reason is,” continued, the doctor, “that I have something which I think it fair to tell you men. Like a lot of you, I have carried a name that is not my own.” Here significant looks were gravely exchanged. “They gave it to me by mistake when I reached the Pass. I didn't care much at that time about names or anything else, so I let it go. There are times in a fellow's life when he's not unwilling to forget his name. My name is Boyle.” And then, in sentences simple, clean-cut, and terse, he told of his boyhood days, the Old Mill, the two boys growing up together, their love for and their loyalty to each other, their struggles and their success. Then came a pause. The speaker had obviously come to a difficult spot in his story. The men waited in earnest, grave, and deeply moved expectation. “At that time a great calamity came to me—no matter what—and it threw me clear off my balance. I lost my head and lost my nerve, and just then—” again the speaker paused, as if to gather strength to continue—“and just then my brother did me a wrong. Not being in a condition to judge fairly, I magnified the wrong a thousand-fold and I tried to tear my brother out of my heart. I could not and I would not forgive him, and I couldn't cease to love him. I lived a life of misery, misery so great that it drove me from everything in earth that I held dear, and for three years I went steadily down from bad to worse. I came to the Crow's Nest a year and a half ago. My life since then most of you know well.”
“Bedad we do! An' Hivin bliss ye!” burst forth Tommy Tate, who had found the greatest difficulty in controlling his emotions of indignation and grief during the doctor's self-condemnatory tale. At Tommy's words a quiet thrill ran through the crowd, for few men of those present but held the doctor in affectionate esteem. The sins of which he was conscious and which humiliated him before them were, in their estimation, but trivial.
For a moment the speaker was thrown off his track by Tommy's outburst, but, recovering himself, he went on. “It would be wrong to say that my life here has been all bad. I have been able to serve many of you, but my work has done far more for me than it has for you. But for it I should have long ago gone down out of sight. I confess that it has been a hard fight for me, an awful fight, to stay at my work, but the day that I heard that my brother was your missionary brought me the hardest fight I had had for many a day. I wanted to get away from the past. For nearly four years I had been carrying round a heart with hell in it. I had begun to forget a little, but that day it all came back. This week I met my brother. I found him dying, almost dead, up in the Big Horn Valley. That morning my heart carried hell in it. To-day it is like what I think heaven must be.” As he spoke these words a light broke over his face, and again he stood silent, striving to regain control of his voice.
“Blanked if he don't hold the cards!” said “Mexico” in a thick voice to “Peachy” Budd.
“Full flush,” answered “Peachy.”
“Mexico” was in the grasp of the elemental emotions of his untutored nature. His swarthy face was twisted like the face of a man in torture. His black eyes were gleaming like two fires from under his shaggy eyebrows.
“How it came about,” continued the doctor, in a quiet, even tone, “I am not going to tell. But this I am going to say, I know it was God's great mercy, His great kindness it was that took the hate out of my heart. I forgave my brother that day—and—God forgave me. That's all there is to it. It's the biggest thing that has ever come to me. I have got my brother back just as when we were little chaps at the Old Mill.” A sudden choke caught the speaker's voice. The firm lips quivered and the strong hands writhed themselves in a mighty effort to master the emotions surging through his soul.
Tommy Tate was openly sniffling and wiping his eyes. “Peachy” Budd was swearing audibly his emotions, but, most of all, “Mexico's” swarthy face betrayed the intensity of his feelings. He had grasped the back of the seat before him and was leaning toward the speaker as if held under an hypnotic spell.
Again the doctor, getting his voice steady, went on. “I have just a word more to say. I would like to give credit for this that happened to me to the One we have been reading about this afternoon, and I do so with all my heart. I came near being coward enough and mean enough to go away without owning this up before you. How He did it, I do not pretend to know. I'm not a preacher. But He did it, and that's what chiefly concerns me. And what He did for me I guess He can do for any of you. And now I've got to square up some things. 'Mexico'—” At the sound of his name “Mexico” started violently and, involuntarily, his hand went, with a quick motion, toward his hip—“I've taken a lot from you. I'd like to pay it back.” The voice was humble, earnest, kind.
“Mexico,” taken by surprise, shifted his tobacco to the other side of his mouth, stood up and drawled out, “Haow? Me? Pay me back? Blanked if you do! It was a squar' deal, wa'n't it?”
“Yes, I played fair, 'Mexico,' but—”
“Then go to hell!” “Mexico's” tone was not at all unfriendly, but his vocabulary was limited, and he was evidently deeply stirred. “We're squar' an'—an' blanked if I don't believe ye're white! Put it thar!” With a single stride “Mexico” was over the seat that separated him from the platform and reached out his hand. The doctor took it in a hard grip.
“Look here, men,” he said, when “Mexico” had resumed his seat, “I've got to do something with this money. I've got at least five thousand that don't belong to me.”
“'Tain't ours,” called a voice.
“Men,” continued the doctor, “I'm starting out on a new track. I want to straighten out the past all I can. I can't keep this money. I'd feel like a thief.”
But such an ethical code was beyond the men, and one and all protested to each other, in tones that were quite audible over the hall and with anathemas of more or less terrible import, that the money was not theirs and that they would not touch it. The doctor listened for a minute or more and then, with the manner of one closing a discussion, he said, “All right. If you won't help me I'll have to find some way, myself, of straightening this up. This is all I have to say. I'm no preacher and I'm not any better than the rest of you, but I'd like to be a great deal better man than I am, and, with God's help, I'm going to try. That's my religion.”
And with these words he sat down, leaving the people still staring at him and waiting for something in the way of closing exercises to what must have been the most extraordinary religious service in all their experience. Softly, Margaret began to play the old hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee!” The men, accepting it as a signal, rose to their feet and began to sing, and with these great words of aspiration ringing through their hearts they passed out into the night.
Among the many who lingered to speak to the doctor were “Mexico,” “Peachy,” and, of course, his faithful follower, Tommy Tate. “Mexico” drew him off to one corner.
“Say, pard,” he began, “you've done me up many a time before, but blanked if yeh haven't hit me this time the worst yet! When you was talkin' about them two little chaps—” here “Mexico's” hard face began to work and his voice to quiver—“you put the knife right in here. I had a brother once,” he continued in a husky voice. “I wish to God someone had choked the blank nonsense out of me, for I done him a wrong an' I wasn't man enough to own up. An' that's what started me in all this hell business I've been chasin' ever since.”
The doctor took him by the arm and walked him out of the room. “Take Miss Robertson home,” he said to Tommy as he passed.
An hour later he appeared, pale and as nearly exhausted as his iron nerve and muscle would allow him to be. “I say, Margaret, this thing is wonderful! There's no explaining it by any physical or mental law that I know.” Then, after a pause, he added, with an odd thrill of tenderness in his voice, “I believe we shall hear good things of 'Mexico' yet.”
And so they did, but that is another tale.
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