Oh, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength, but tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
—SHAKESPEARE
OF course, there came a day of reckoning for Victor Burleigh, now the idol of the Walnut Valley football fans, the pride of Lagonda Ledge, the hero of Sunrise. But the reckoning was not brought to him; he brought himself deliberately to it.
The jollification following the game threatened to wreck the chapel and crack the limestone ledge beneath it.
“Dust off your halo and wrap it up in cotton till next fall, Vic,” Trench whispered in the closing minutes. “We've got to face the real thing now. We're civilians in citizens' clothes, amenable to law henceforth; not a lot of athletic brigands, privileged outlaws, whose glory dazzles all common sense. Quit bumping your head against the Kansas motto up in the dome, get your hob-nailers down on the sod, and trot off and tackle your Greek verbs awhile. And say, Vic, tackle yourself first and forget the pretty girl who covered you with roses down yonder five days ago. It was n't you, it was just the day's hero. She'd have decorated old Bond Saxon just the same if he had waddled across the last goal line then. You're a plug and she's a lady born, and as good as engaged to Burgess besides. I had that straight from Dennie Saxon, and you know Dennie's no gossip. They were far gone before they came West—the Wream-Burgess folk were—stiffen up, Burleigh. You look like a dead man.”
“I was never more alive in my life.” Vic's voice and eyes were alive enough.
“By heck! I believe it,” Trench exclaimed. “Say, you got away with Burgess about the game. If you want the girl, go after her, too. But gently, Sweet Afton, go gently. Most girls want to do the pursuing themselves, I believe. I'll block the interference, if necessary, and you'll be the sought-after yet, not the seeking, dear child.”
A circular stairway winds from the Sunrise chapel down the south turret to Dean Fenneben's study, intended originally as a sort of fire escape. Some enterprising janitor later fixed a spring lock on the upper door to this stairway (surprises had been sprung through this door upon the chapel stage by prankish students at inopportune moments), so that now it was only an exit, and was called by the students “the road to perdition,” easy to descend but barred from retreat.
In the confusion following the chapel exercises Vic slipped into the south turret, and the lock clicked behind him as he hurried down “the road to perdition.”
The door to Dean Fenneben's study was slightly open and Vic heard his own name spoken as he reached it. He hesitated, for a group of girls was surrounding Elinor Wream, discussing him. There was no escape. The upper door was locked, and he would rather have met that unknown villainous face in the dark cave than to face this group of pretty girls. So he waited.
“Oh, Elinor, you mercenary creature!”
“What if he is a bit crude?”
“I don't blame you. I'm daffy about Professor Burgess myself.”
“He's got the grandest voice, Vic has!”
“I just adore Greek!”
“I think Vic is splendid!”
So the exclamations ran.
“Now, Norrie Wream, cross your heart, hope you may die, if big, handsome Victor Burleigh had his corners knocked off, and he was sandpapered down a little, and had money, wouldn't you feel a whole lot different about him, Norrie?”
“I certainly would. I couldn't help it.”
Norrie's eyes were shining and her cheeks were pink as peach blossoms. To Vic she seemed exquisitely beautiful.
“But now?” somebody queried.
“Oh, now, she'll be sensible, and the Professor will take advantage of 'now.' He won't wait till it's too late. Great hat! there goes the bell.”
And the girls scuttled away.
Vic came in and sat down by the window through which one may find an empire for the looking.
“Burgess was right,” he said to himself.
“I'm not only ill-bred on the outside, I'm that way clear through. A disreputable eavesdropper! That's my size. But I didn't mean it. Fine excuse!” He frowned in disgust, and turned to the window.
The Thanksgiving weather was still blessing the Walnut Valley. Wide away beyond Lagonda Ledge rolled the free open prairies, swept by the free air of heaven under a beneficent sky.
As Vic gazed his stern face softened, and the bulldog look, that he had worn since the night of the storm, relaxed before some gentler mood. The brown eyes held a strange glow under the long black lashes, as if a new purpose were growing up in the soul behind them.
“No limit out there. It's a FREE LAND,” he murmured. “There shall be no limit in here.” Unconsciously he struck his breast with his fist. “There's freedom for such as I am somewhere.”
“Hello, Burleigh, what can I do for you?” As Dr. Fenneben came into the study he recalled how awkwardly the same boy had filled the same chair only a few months before.
“I've come in to be sentenced,” Vic replied.
“Well, plead your case first.”
If ever a father-heart beat in a bachelor's breast, Lloyd Fenneben had such a heart.
“I want to settle about Thanksgiving Day,” Vic said. “I had a moral right to play on the team in that game, but I had to get the legal right by force. Professor Burgess refused to permit me to play until I MADE him do it.”
Fenneben's eyes were smiling. “Why didn't you knock him down and fight it out with him?”
“Because he's not in my class. When I fight I fight men. And, besides, I was in a hurry. If I'm expected to apologize to Professor Burgess or be expelled, I want to know it,” Vic added, hotly.
He knew he would not apologize, and he wanted the sentence of expulsion to come quickly if it must come.
“We never expel boys from Sunrise. They have done it themselves sometimes. Nor do we ever exact an apology. They offer it themselves sometimes. In either case, the choice lies with the boy.”
“What do you do with a fellow like me?” Vic looked curiously at the Dean.
“If a boy of your build wants to meet only men when he fights, we take it he is something of a man himself, and therefore worth too much for Sunrise to lose.”
Oh! blessed power of the college man to lead the half-tamed boy into the stronger places of life; nor shove him to the dangerous ground where his feet must sink in the quicksand or the mire!
Vic sat looking thoughtfully at the man before him.
“Your confession here is all right. Your claim to a place on the team in Thursday's game was just.” The simple fairness of Fenneben's words made their appeal, yet, it was so unlike what Vic had counted on he could hardly accept it as genuine.
“You have made a great name for yourself as an athlete. I paid for the roses. I know something of the degree of that greatness.” Dr. Fenneben smiled genially. “You played a marvelous game and I am proud of you.”
Vic did not look proud of himself just then, and Lloyd Fenneben knew it was one of life's crucial moments for the boy.
“The big letter S cut over the doorway out there stands for more than Sunrise, you remember I told you.” Fenneben spoke earnestly. “It means also the strife which you have already met and must expect to meet all along the way. But, Burleigh”—Lloyd Fenneben stood up to his full height, an ideal of grace and power—“if you expect to make your way through college with your fists, come to me.”
“You?” Vic's eyes widened.
“Yes, I'll meet you on any grounds. And if you ever try to coerce a professor here again, I'll meet you anyhow, and we'll have it out.” Fenneben was stern now.
“I wouldn't want to scrap with you, Dr. Fenneben,” Vic stammered.
“Why not?”
“I am too much of a gentleman for that.”
“When I fight, I fight men. You are in my class,” Fenneben quoted with a smile in his eyes, which faded away with the next words.
“You are right, Burleigh. A gentleman does n't want to use his strength like a beast to destroy. The only legitimate battle is when a man must fight with a man as he would fight with a beast, to save himself, or something dearer to him than himself, from beastly destruction. Get into the bigger game, my boy, where the strife is for larger scores, and add to a proud athletic record, the prouder record of self-control. The prairies have given you a noble heritage, but culture comes most from contact with cultured men. Don't take on airs because you have more red blood than our Harvard man. The influence of the great universities, directly or indirectly, on a life like yours is essential to your usefulness and power. You may educate your conscience to choose the right before the wrong, but, remember, an educated conscience does not always save a man from being a fool now and then. He needs an educated brain sometimes by which to save his soul. Meantime, settle with your conscience, if you owe it anything. It is a troublesome creditor. I'll leave you now to square yourself with that fellow you must live with every day—Victor Burleigh. We'll drop everything else henceforth and face toward tomorrow, not yesterday.”
Lloyd Fenneben grasped the boy's hand in a firm, assuring grip and left him.
“If Sunrise means Strife, I'll face it,” Vic said to himself. “As to money, I have only my two hands and that old mortgaged quadrangle of prairie sod out West. But if culture like Fenneben's might win Elinor Wream, God help me to win it.”
Up in the library a week later Professor Burgess came in while Dennie Saxon was putting the books in order. Burgess was often to be found where Dennie was, but Burgess himself had not noted it, and nobody else knew it, except Trench. Trench was a lazy fellow, who always lived in the middle of his pasture, where the feeding was good. That gave him time to study mankind as it worried about the outer edges.
“Don't you get tired sometimes, Miss Dennie?” the Professor asked. He was not happy himself for many reasons, and two of them were Elinor and Vic, who separately, and differently, seemed to wear out his energy. Dennie Saxon never wore on anybody's nerves.
“Yes, I do, often,” Dennie answered.
“Why do you do this?” he queried.
“To get my college education.” Dennie smiled, hopefully. “I like the nice things and nice ways of life. So I'm working for them.”
“Elinor has all these without working for them,” Vincent thought.
Then for no reason at all his mind leaped to Dennie's father and his own vow on the stormy night in October.
“What would you do if your father were taken from you, Miss Dennie?” he asked.
“I've always had to depend on myself somewhat. I would keep on, I suppose.” Dennie looked up bravely. Her father was her joy and her shame.
Well, what had Burgess expected? That she would depend on him? He was in love with Elinor Wream. Why should he feel disappointed? And why should his eye follow the soft little ripples of her sunny hair, giving a pretty outline to her face and neck.
“Could you really take care of yourself? He was talking at random.
“I might do like that woman out at Pigeon Place.” Burgess did n't catch the pathos in Dennie's tone. He was only a man.
“How's that?” he asked.
“Oh, live alone and keep a big dog, and sell chickens. That's what Mrs. Marian does. By the way, she looks just a little bit like you.”
“Thank you!”
“She was at the game on Thanksgiving Day, strange to say, for she seldom leaves home. Did you see a pretty white-haired woman, right south of where we were?”
“Is that how I look? No, I didn't see her. I was n't at the game.”
“You weren't? Why not? You missed a wonderful thing.”
And Burgess told her the whole story from his viewpoint, of course. What he was too proud to mention to Dr. Fenneben or Elinor he spoke of freely to Dennie, and he felt as if the weight of the limestone ledge was lifted from him with the telling.
“Don't you think the young ruffian was pretty hard on me?” he asked.
“No, I don't,” Dennie said, frankly. “I think you were pretty hard on him.”
A sudden resolve seized Burgess. He came around to Dennie's side of the table.
“Miss Dennie, I want to tell you something, unimportant in itself, but better shared than kept. On the night of our picnic in October your father, who was not quite himself—”
“Yes, I understand,” Dennie said, with downcast eyes.
“Pardon me, Dennie, I would not hurt your feelings.” His voice was very gentle, and Dennie looked up gratefully. “On that night your father made me promise—made me hold up my hand and swear—I'm easily forced, you will think—to look after you if he were taken away. I did it to pacify him, not to ever embarrass you. He also told me enough about young Burleigh to make me wish, in the office of protector, to warn you.”
“Was my father quite himself then?” Dennie asked.
“Not quite,” Burgess replied.
“Listen to him some day when he is. He is another man then. But,” she added, “I know you mean well.”
In spite of her courage her eyes were full of tears, and for the first time in his sheltered pleasant life the real spirit of sympathy woke in the soul of Vincent Burgess.
“You are a brave, good girl, Dennie. If I can ever serve you in any way, it will be a privilege to me to do it.”
Ten minutes after they had left the library Trench, who had been stationary in the north alcove, slowly came to life. He had been posing as a statue, Winged Victory with a head on, he declared afterward to Vic Burleigh, to whom he told the whole story.
“Let me sing my swan song,” he declared. “Then me for Lagonda's whirlpool. I'm not fit to live in a decent community, a blithering idiot and rascally villain, who lies in wait to hear and see like a fool. I thought Dennie knew I was there and would be in to dust me out in a minute. And when it was too late I turned to a pillar of salt and waited. But I believe I'll change my mind, after all. I'll live; and if Professor Burgess, A.B. of Cambridge-by-the-bean-patch, dares to make love to Dennie Saxon—on the side—he'll go head foremost into the whirlpool to feed Lagonda's rapacious spirit. I've said it.”
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