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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18054-h.zip b/18054-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae2bcde --- /dev/null +++ b/18054-h.zip diff --git a/18054-h/18054-h.htm b/18054-h/18054-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad2e08f --- /dev/null +++ b/18054-h/18054-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4369 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Zeit-Geist, by L. Dougall + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + hr.smler { width: 10%; } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .tbrk { margin-top: 2.75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem div.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem div.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + + + + /* index */ + + div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: center; } + + div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; } + + div.index ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; } + + div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; } + + div.index .subitem { display: block; padding-left: 2em; } + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Zeit-Geist, by Lily Dougall + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Zeit-Geist + +Author: Lily Dougall + +Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18054] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEIT-GEIST *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>The Zeit-Geist</h1> + +<p class="center"><a name="zeit1.png" id="zeit1.png"></a><img src="images/zeit1.png" width='161' height='200' alt="Zeit-Geist library logo" /></p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#THE_ZEIT-GEISTLIB">THE ZEIT-GEIST LIBRARY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#Oxford_January_1895">PREFACE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> + +<h3><a name="THE_ZEIT-GEISTLIB" id="THE_ZEIT-GEISTLIB"></a>THE</h3> + +<h2>Zeit-Geist<br />Library</h2> + +<p class='center'>of</p> + +<h3><i>COMPLETE NOVELS</i><br />in One Volume.<br /><i>Paper, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s.</i></h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<h3>Early Volumes.<br />By <span class="smcap">L. Dougall.</span></h3> + +<h2>THE ZEIT-GEIST.</h2> + +<h3>With Frontispiece.</h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h3>By <span class="smcap">Gyp</span>.</h3> + +<h2>CHIFFON'S MARRIAGE.</h2> + +<h3>With Portrait of Author.</h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h3>By <span class="smcap">Frankfort Moore.</span></h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h2>THE SALE OF A SOUL.</h2> + +<h3>With Frontispiece.</h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h3>By the Author of "A Yellow Aster."</h3> + +<h2>A NEW NOVEL.</h2> + +<h3>With Frontispiece.</h3> + +<h3><i>Other volumes to follow.</i></h3> + +<h3>Each volume with designed<br />Title-page.</h3> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h3><span class="smcap">London</span>: HUTCHINSON & CO.,<br /> +<span class="smcap">Paternoster Row.</span></h3> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><a name="zeit2.png" id="zeit2.png"></a><img src="images/zeit2.png" width='100' height='119' alt="bust" /></p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="center"><a name="zeit3.png" id="zeit3.png"></a><img src="images/zeit3.png" width='308' height='600' alt="Zeit-Geist library" /></p> + +<h2>The</h2> + +<h1>Zeit-Geist</h1> + +<h2>L. DOUGALL</h2> + +<h3><i>Author of<br />Beggars All, What<br />Necessity Knows.<br />etc.</i></h3> + +<h3><i>LONDON</i><br />HUTCHINSON & CO<br /><i>PATERNOSTER ROW</i></h3> + +<hr /> +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"I . . . create evil. I am the Lord."</div> +<div class='i6'><i>Isa. xlv. 6, 7.</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"Where will God be absent? In His face</div> +<div>Is light, but in His shadow there is healing too:</div> +<div>Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!"</div> +<div class='i6'><i>The Ring and the Book.</i></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="poem"> +<div class='stanza'><div>"If Nature is the garment of God, it is woven without seam throughout."</div> +<div class='i6'><i>The Ascent of Man.</i></div></div> +</div> + +<hr /> +<h2 class='right'><a name="Oxford_January_1895" id="Oxford_January_1895"></a><span class="smcap">Oxford</span>, <i>January 1895</i>.</h2> + +<p><i>When travelling in Canada, in the region north of Lake Ontario, I came +upon traces of the somewhat remarkable life which is the subject of the +following sketch.</i></p> + +<p><i>Having applied to the school-master in the town where Bartholomew Toyner +lived, I received an account the graphic detail and imaginative insight +of which attest the writer's personal affection. This account, with only +such condensation as is necessary, I now give to the world. I do not +believe that it belongs to the novel to teach theology; but I do believe +that religious sentiments and opinions are a legitimate subject of its +art, and that perhaps its highest function is to promote understanding +by bringing into contact minds that habitually misinterpret one +another.</i></p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE ZEIT-GEIST.</h2> + +<hr class='smler' /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>PROLOGUE.</h3> + +<p>To-day I am at home in the little town of the fens, where the Ahwewee +River falls some thirty feet from one level of land to another. Both +broad levels were covered with forest of ash and maple, spruce and +tamarack; but long ago, some time in the thirties, impious hands built +dams on the impetuous Ahwewee, and wide marshes and drowned wood-lands +are the result. Yet just immediately at Fentown there is neither marsh +nor dead tree; the river dashes over its ledge of rock in a foaming +flood, runs shallow and rapid be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>tween green woods, and all about the +town there are breezy pastures where the stumps are still standing, and +arable lands well cleared. The little town itself has a thriving look. +Its public buildings and its villas have risen, as by the sweep of an +enchanter's wand, in these backwoods to the south of the Ottawa valley.</p> + +<p>There was a day when I came a stranger to Fentown. The occasion of my +coming was a meeting concerning the opening of new schools for the +town—schools on a large and ambitious plan for so small a place. When +the meeting was over, I came out into the street on a mild September +afternoon. The other members of the School Council were with me. There +were two clergymen of the party. One of them, a young man with thin, +eager face, happened to be at my side.</p> + +<p>"This Mr. Toyner, whose opinion has been so much con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>sulted, was not +here to-day?" I said this interrogatively.</p> + +<p>"No, ah—but you'll see him now. He has invited you all to a garden +party, or something of that sort. He's in delicate health. Ah—of +course, you know, it is natural for me to wish his influence with the +Council were much less than it is."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! He was spoken of as a philanthropist."</p> + +<p>"It's a very poor love to one's fellow-man that gives him all that his +vanity desires in the way of knowledge without leading him into the +Church, where he would be taught to set the value of everything in its +right proportion."</p> + +<p>I was rather struck with this view of the function of the Church. +"Certainly," I replied, "to see all things in right proportion is +wisdom; but I heard this Toyner mentioned as a religious man."</p> + +<p>"He has some imaginations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> of his own, I believe, which he mistakes for +religion. I do not know him intimately; I do not wish to. I believe he +has some sort of desire to do what is right; but that, you know, is a +house built upon the sand, unless it is founded upon the desire for +instruction as to what <i>is</i> right. Every one cries up his generosity; +for instance, one of my church-wardens tells him that we need a new +organ in the church and the people won't give a penny-piece towards it, +so Toyner says, with his benevolent smile, 'They must be taught to give. +Tell them I will give half if they will give the other half.' But if the +Roman Catholic priest or a Methodist goes to him the next day for a +subscription, he gives just as willingly if, as is likely, he thinks the +object good. What can you do with a man like that, who has no principle? +It's impossible to have much respect for him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now I myself am a school-master, versed in the lore of certain books +ancient and modern, but knowing very little about such a practical +matter as applied theology; nor did I know very much then concerning the +classification of Christians among themselves: but I think that I am not +wrong in saying that this young man belonged to that movement in the +Anglican Church which fights strongly for a visible unity and for Church +tradition. I am so made that I always tend to agree with the man who is +speaking, so my companion was encouraged by my sympathy.</p> + +<p>He went on: "I can do with a man that is out-and-out anything. I can +work with a Papist; I can work with a Methodist, as far as I can +conscientiously meet him on common ground, and I can respect him if he +conscientiously holds that he is right and I am<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> wrong: but these +fellows that are neither one thing nor the other—they are as dangerous +as rocks and shoals that are just hidden under the water. You never know +when you have them."</p> + +<p>We were upon the broad wooden side-walk of an avenue leading from the +central street of the town to a region of outstanding gardens and +pleasure-grounds, in which the wooden villas of the citizens stood among +luxuriant trees. It is a characteristic of Fentown that the old trees +about the place have been left standing.</p> + +<p>A new companion came to my side, and he, as fate would have it, was +another clergyman. He was an older man, with a genial, bearded face. I +think he belonged to that party which takes its name from the Evangel of +whose purity it professes itself the guardian.</p> + +<p>"You are going to this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> entertainment which Mr. and Mrs. Toyner are +giving?" The cordiality of his common-place remark had a certain +restraint in it.</p> + +<p>"You are going also?"</p> + +<p>"No; it is not a house at which I visit. I have lived here for +twenty-five years, and of course I have known Mr. Toyner more or less +all that time. I do not know how I shall be able to work on the same +Council with him; but we shall see. We, who believe in the truth of +religion, must hold our own if we can."</p> + +<p>I was to be the master of the new schools. I pleased him with my assent.</p> + +<p>"I am rather sorry," he continued, "to tell the truth, that you should +begin your social life in Fentown by visiting Mr. Toyner; but of course +this afternoon it is merely a public reception, and after a time you +will be able to judge for yourself. I do not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> hesitate to say that I +consider his influence, especially with the young people, of a most +dangerous kind. For a long time, you know, he and his wife were quite +ostracised—not so much because of their low origin as because of their +religious opinions. But of late years even good Christians appear +disposed to be friendly with them. Money, you know—money carries all +things before it."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is too often the case."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't say that Toyner doesn't hold up a certain standard of +morality among the young men of the place, but it's a pretty low one; +and he has them all under his influence. There isn't a young fellow that +walks these streets, whether the son of clergyman or beggar, who is not +free to go to that man's house every evening and have the run of his +rooms and his books. And Toyner and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> his wife will sit down and play +cards with them; or they'll get in a lot of girls, and have a dance, or +theatricals,—the thin end of the wedge, you know, the thin end of the +wedge! And all the young men go to his house, except a few that we've +got in our Christian Association."</p> + +<p>The speaker was stricter in his views than I saw cause to be; but then, +I knew something of his life; he was giving it day by day to save the +men of whom he was talking. He had a better right than I to know what +was best for them.</p> + +<p>"When you have a thorough-going man of the world," he said, "every one +knows what that means, and there's not so much harm done. But this Mr. +Toyner is always talking about God, and using his influence to make +people pray to God. Such men are not ready to pray until they are +prepared to give up the world!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> The God that he tells them of is a +fiction of his imagination; indeed, I might say a mere creature of his +fancy, who is going to save all men in the end, whatever they do!"</p> + +<p>"A Universalist!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, worse than that—at least, I have read the books of Universalists +who, though their error was great, did not appear to me so far astray. I +cannot understand it! I cannot understand it!" he went on; "I cannot +understand the influence that he has obtained over our more educated +class; for twenty years ago he was himself a low, besotted drunkard, and +his wife is the daughter of a murderer! Still less do I understand how +such people can claim to be religious at all, and yet not see to what +awful evil the small beginnings of vice must lead. I tell you, if a man +is allowed by Providence to lead an easy life, and remains unfaithful, +he may still have some good metal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> in him which adversity might refine; +but when people have gone through all that Toyner and his wife have been +through—not a child that has been born to them but has died at the +breast—I say, when they have been through all that, and still lead a +worldly, unsatisfactory life, you may be sure that there is nothing in +them that has the true ring of manhood or womanhood."</p> + +<p>I was left alone to enter Mr. Toyner's gates. I found myself in a large +pleasure-ground, where Nature had been guided, not curtailed, in her +work. I was walking upon a winding drive, walled on either side by a +wild irregular line of shrubs, where the delicate forms of acacias and +crab-apples lifted themselves high in comparison to the lower lilac and +elderberry-bushes. I watched the sunlit acacias as they fluttered, +spreading their delicate leaves and golden pods against the blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> above +me. I made my way leisurely in the direction of music which I heard at +some distance. I had not advanced far before another person came into my +path.</p> + +<p>He was a slight, delicate man of middle size. His hair and moustache +were almost quite white. Something in the air of neatness and perfection +about his dress, in the extreme gravity and clearness of his grey eyes, +even in the fine texture of that long, thin, drooping moustache, made it +evident to me that this new companion was not what we call an ordinary +person.</p> + +<p>"Your friend did not come in with you." The voice spoke disappointment; +the speaker looked wistfully at the form of the retreating clergyman +which he could just see through a gap in the shrubs.</p> + +<p>"You wished him to come?"</p> + +<p>"I saw you coming. I came toward the gate in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> hope that he might +come in." Then he added a word of cordial greeting. I perceived that I +was walking with my host.</p> + +<p>There are some men to whom one instinctively pays the compliment of +direct speech. "I have been walking with two clergymen. I understand +that you differ from both with regard to religious opinion."</p> + +<p>It appeared to me that after this speech of mine he took my measure +quietly. He did not say in so many words he did not see that this +difference of opinion was a sufficient reason for their absence, but by +some word or sign he gave me to understand that, adding:</p> + +<p>"I feel myself deprived of a great benefit in being without their +society. They are the two best and noblest men I know."</p> + +<p>"It is rare for men to take pleasure in the society of their +opponents."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yet you will admit that to be willing to learn from those from whom we +differ is the only path to wisdom."</p> + +<p>"It is difficult to tread that path without letting go what we already +have, and that produces chaos."</p> + +<p>With intensity both of thought and feeling he took up the words that I +had dropped half idly, and showed me what he thought to be the truth and +untruth of them. There was a grave earnestness in his speech which made +his opinion on this subject suddenly become of moment to me, and his +intensity did not produce any of that sensation of irritation or +opposition which the intensity of most men produces as soon as it is +felt.</p> + +<p>"You think that the chief obstacle which is hindering the progress of +true religion in the world at present is that while we will not learn +from those who disagree with us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> we can obtain no new light, and that +when we are willing to reach after their light we become also willing to +let go what we have had, so that the world does not gain but loses by +the transaction. This is, I admit, an obstacle to thought; but it is not +the essential difficulty of our age."</p> + +<p>"Let us consider," I said, in my pedantic way, "how my difficulty may be +overcome, and then let us discuss that one you consider to be +essential."</p> + +<p>Toyner's choice of words, like his appearance, betrayed a strong, yet +finely chiselled personality.</p> + +<p>"We are truly accustomed now to the idea that whatever has life cannot +possibly remain unchanged, but must always develop by leaving some part +behind and producing some part that is new. It is God's will that the +religious thought of the world, which is made up of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> the thought of +individuals, shall proceed in this way, whether we will or not, but it +must always help progress when we can make our wills at one with God's +in this matter; we go faster and safer so. Now to say that to submit +willingly to God's law of growth is to produce chaos must certainly be a +fallacy. It must then be a fallacy to argue that to keep a mind open to +all influences is antagonistic to the truest religious life; we +cannot—whether we wish or not, we <i>cannot</i>—let go any truth that has +been assimilated into our lives; and what truth we have not assimilated +it is no advantage to hold without agitation. We know better where we +are when we are forced to sift it. It is the very great apparent +advantage of recognised order that deceives us! When we lose that +<i>apparent</i> advantage, when we lose, too, the familiar names and +symbols,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> and think, like children, that we have lost the reality they +have expressed to us, a very low state of things <i>appears</i> to result. +The strain and stress of life become much greater. Ah! but, my friend, +it is that strain and stress that shape us into the image of God."</p> + +<p>"You hinted, I think, that to your mind there was a more real obstacle, +one peculiar to our age."</p> + +<p>Ever since I first met him I have been puzzled to know how it was that I +often knew so nearly what Toyner meant when he only partially expressed +his thought; he had this power over my understanding. He was my master +from the first.</p> + +<p>He laid his hand now slightly upon my arm, as though to emphasise what +he said.</p> + +<p>"It is a little hard to explain it reverently," he said, "and still +harder to understand why the difficulty should have come about, but in +our day it would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> seem that the nights of prayer and the fresh intuition +into the laws of God's working, which we see united in the life of our +great Example, have become divorced. It is their union again that we +must have—that we shall have; but at present there is the difficulty +for every man of us—the men who lead us in either path are different +men and lead different ways. Our law-givers are not the men who meet God +upon the mount. Our scientists are not the teachers who are pre-eminent +for fasting and prayer. We who to be true to ourselves must follow in +both paths find our souls perplexed."</p> + +<p>In front of us, as we turned a curve in the drive, a bed of scarlet +lilies stood stately in the sun, and a pair of bickering sparrows rose +from the fountain near which they grew. Toyner made a slight gesture of +his hand. With the eagerness of a child he asked:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Is it not hard to believe that we may ask and expect forgiveness and +gifts from the God who by slow inevitable laws of growth clothes the +lilies, who ordains the fall of every one of these sparrows, foresees +the fall and ordains it—the God whose character is expressed in +physical law? The texts of Jesus have become so trite that we forget +that they contain the same vision of 'God's mind in all things' that +makes it so hard to believe in a personality in God, that makes prayer +seem to us so futile."</p> + +<p>We came out of the shrubbery upon a bank that dropped before us to a +level lawn. I found myself in the midst of a company of people among +whom were the other members of the new School Council. Below, upon the +lawn, there was a little spectacle going on for our entertainment—a +morris-dance, simply and gracefully performed by young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> people dressed +in quaintly fashioned frocks of calico; there was good music too—one or +two instruments, to which they danced. Round the other side of the grass +an avenue of stately Canadian maples shut in the view, except where the +river or the pale blue of the eastern horizon was seen in glimpses +through their branches. Behind us the sun's declining rays fell upon an +old-fashioned garden of holly-hocks and asters, so that the effect, as +one caught it turning sideways, was like light upon a stained-glass +window, so rich were the dyes. I saw all this only as one sees the +surroundings of some object that interests supremely.</p> + +<p>The man who had been walking with me said simply, "This is my wife."</p> + +<p>Before me stood a woman who had the power that some few women have of +making all those whom they gather round them speak out clearly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> and +freshly the best that is in them.</p> + +<p>Ah! we live in a new country. Its streets are not paved with gold, nor +is prosperity to be attained without toil; but it gives this one +advantage—room for growth; whatever virtue a soul contains may reach +its full height and fragrance and colour, if it will.</p> + +<p>I did not know then that the beginning of this provincial <i>salon</i>, which +Toyner's wife had kept about her for so many years, and to which she +gave a genuine brilliance, however raw the material, had been a wooden +shanty, in which a small income was made by the sale of home-brewed +beer.</p> + +<p>I always remember Ann Toyner as I saw her that first time. Her eyes were +black and still bright; but when I looked at them I remembered the +little children that had died in her arms, and I knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> that her hopes +had not died with them, but by that suffering had been transformed. As I +heard her talk, my own hopes lifted themselves above their ordinary +level.</p> + +<p>Husband and wife stood together, and I noticed that the white shawl that +was crossed Quakerwise over her thin shoulders seemed like a counterpart +of his careful dress, that the white tresses that were beginning to show +among her black ones were almost like a reflection of his white hair. I +felt that in some curious way, although each had so distinct and strong +a personality, they were only perfect as a part of the character which +in their union formed a perfect whole. They stood erect and looked at us +with frank, kindly eyes; we all found to our surprise that we were +saying what we thought and felt, and not what we supposed we ought to +say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>As I talked and looked at them, the words that I had heard came back to +my mind. "His wife is the daughter of a murderer, and he has come up +from the lowest, vilest life." Some indistinct thought worked through my +mind whose only expression was a disconnected phrase: "I saw a new +heaven and a new earth."</p> + +<p>In the years since then I have learned to know the story of Toyner and +his wife. Now that they are gone away from us, I will tell what I know. +His was a life which shows that a man cut off from all contact with his +brother-thinkers may still be worked upon by the great over-soul of +thought: his is the story of a weak man who lived a strong life in a +strength greater than his own.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p>In the days when there were not many people in Fentown Falls, and when +much money was made by the lumber trade, Bartholomew Toyner's father +grew rich. He was a Scotchman, not without some education, and was +ambitious for his son; but he was a hard, ill-tempered man, and +consequently neither his example nor his precepts carried any weight +whatever with the son when he was grown. The mother, who had begun life +cheerfully and sensibly, showed the weakness of her character in that +she became habitually peevish. She had enough to make her so. All her +pleasure in life was centred in her son Bart. Bart came out of school to +lounge upon the streets, to smoke immoderately, and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> drink such large +quantities of what went into the country by the name of "Jamaica," that +in a few years it came to pass that he was nearly always drunk.</p> + +<p>Poor Bart! the rum habit worked its heavy chains upon him before he was +well aware that his life had begun in earnest; and when he realised that +he was in possession of his full manhood, and that the prime of life was +not far off, he found himself chained hand and foot, toiling heavily in +the most degrading servitude. A few more years and he realised also +that, do what he would, he could not set himself free. No one in the +world had any knowledge of the struggle he made. Some—his mother among +them—gave him credit for trying now and then, and that was a charitable +view of his case. How could any man know? He was not born with the +nature that reveals itself in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> many words, or that gets rid of its +intolerable burdens of grief and shame by passing them off upon others. +All that any one could see was the inevitable failure.</p> + +<p>The failure was the chief of what Bart himself saw. That unquenchable +instinct in a man's heart that if he had only tried a little harder he +would certainly have attained to righteousness gave the lie to his sense +of agonising struggle, with its desperate, rallies of courage and +sinkings of discouragement, gleams of self-confidence, and foul +suspicion of self, suspicion even as to the reality of his own effort. +All this was in the region of unseen spirit, almost as much unseen to +those about him as are the spirits of the dead men and angels, often a +mere matter of faith to himself, so apart did it seem from the outward +realities of life.</p> + +<p>Outwardly the years went<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> easily enough. The father railed and stormed, +then relapsed into a manner of silent contempt; but he did not drive his +son from the plain, comfortable home which he kept. Bart would not work, +but he took some interest in reading. Paper-covered infidel books, and +popular books on modern science, were his choice rather than fiction. +The choice might have been worse, for the fiction to which he had access +was more enervating. Outside his father's house he neglected the better +class of his neighbours, and fraternised with the men and women that +lived by the lowest bank of the river; but his life there was still one +into which the fresh air and the sunshine of the Canadian climate +entered largely. If he lounged all day, it was on the benches in the +open air; if he played cards all night, he was not given much money to +waste; and there were few women to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> lend their companionship to the many +drunkards of whom he was only one. Then, also, Bart did not do even all +the evil that he might. What was the result of that long struggle of his +which always ended in failure? The failure was only apparent; the +success was this mighty one—that he did not go lower, he did not leave +Fentown Falls for the next town upon the river, a place called The +Mills, where his life could have been much worse. He fell in love with +Ann Markham; and although she was the daughter of the wickedest man in +Fentown, she was—according to the phraseology of the place—"a lady." +She kept a small beer-shop that was neat and clean; she lived so that no +man dared to say an uncivil word to her or to the sister whom she +protected. She did for her father very much what Bart's father did for +him: she kept a decent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> house over his head and decent clothes upon his +back, and threw a mantle of thrifty respectability over him.</p> + +<p>Ann was no prude, and she certainly was no saint. Twice a week there was +the sound of fiddling and dancing feet in a certain wooden hall that +stood near the river; and there, with the men and women of the worldly +sort, Ann and her sister danced. It was their amusement; they had no +other except the idle talking and laughing that went on over the table +at which Ann sold her home-brewed beer. Ann's end in life was just the +ordinary one—respectability, or a moderate righteousness, first, and +after that, pleasure. She was a strong, vigorous, sunbrowned maiden; she +worked hard to brew her beer and to sell it. She ruled her sister with +an inflexible will. She had much to say to men whom she liked and +admired. She neither liked nor admired<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Bart Toyner, never threw him a +word unless in scorn; yet he loved her. She was the star by which he +steered his ship in those intervals in which his eyes were clear enough +to steer at all; and the ship did not go so far out of the track as it +would otherwise have gone. When a man is in the right course, with a +good hope of the port, rowing and steering, however toilsome, is a +cheerful thing; but when the track is so far lost that the sailor +scarcely hopes to regain it—then perhaps (God only knows) it requires +more virtue to row and steer at all, even though it be done fitfully.</p> + +<p>This belief that he could never come to any desired haven was the one +force above all others that went to the ruining of Toyner's life.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p>Bart Toyner was more than thirty years old when the period of his +reformation came. His father had grown old and foolish. It was the +breaking down of his father's clear mind that first started and shocked +Bart into some strong emotion of filial respect and love; then came +another agonising struggle on his part to free himself from his evil +habits. In this fit of sobriety he went a journey to the nearest city +upon his father's business, and there, after a few days, he took to +drinking harder than ever, ceased to write home, lost all the +possessions that he had taken with him, and sank deep down into the mire +of the place.</p> + +<p>The first thing that he remembered in the awakening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> that followed was +the face of another man. It stood out in the nebulous gathering of his +returning self-consciousness like the face of an angel; there was the +flame of enthusiasm in the eyes, a force of will had chiselled handsome +features into tense lines; but in spite of that, or rather perhaps +because of it, it was a gentle, happy face.</p> + +<p>It is happiness that is the culmination of sainthood. You may look +through the pictures of the saints of all ages and find enthusiasm and +righteousness in many and the degree of faith that these imply; but +where you find joy too, there has been the greatest faith, the greatest +saintliness.</p> + +<p>Bart found himself clothed and fed; he felt the warm clasp of a human +hand in his, and some self-respect came back to him by the contact. The +face and the hand belonged to a mission preacher, and Bart arose and +followed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> his friend to a place where there was the sound of many feet +hurrying and a great concourse of people was gathered in a wood without +the town.</p> + +<p>It was only with curiosity that Bart looked about him at the high trees +that stretched their green canopy above, at the people who ranged +themselves in a hollow of the wood—one of nature's theatres. Curiosity +passed into strong emotion of maudlin sentiment when the great +congregation sang a hymn. He sat upon a bench at the back and wept tears +that even to himself had neither sense nor truth. Yet there was in them +the stirring of something inarticulate, incomprehensible, like the +stirring that comes at spring-time in the heart of the seed that lies +below the ground. After that the voice of the preacher began to make its +way slowly through the dull, dark mind of the drunkard.</p> + +<p>The preacher spoke of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> wonderful love of God manifested in a certain +definite offer of salvation, a certain bargain, which, if closed with, +would bring heaven to the soul of every man.</p> + +<p>The preacher belonged to that period of this century when the religious +world first threw off its contempt for the present earthly life and +began to preach, not a salvation from sin's punishment so much as a +salvation from sin.</p> + +<p>It was the old cry: "Repent, believe; for the kingdom of heaven is at +hand." The doctrine that was set forth had not only the vital growth of +ages in it, but it had accreted the misunderstanding of the ages also; +yet this doctrine did not hide, it only limited, the saving power of +God. "Believe," cried the preacher, "in a just God and a Saviour." So he +preached Christ unto them, just as he supposed St. Paul to have done, +wotting nothing of the fact that every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> word and every symbol stand for +a different thought in the minds of men with every revolution of that +glass by which Time marks centuries.</p> + +<p>It mattered nothing to Bart just now all this about the centuries and +the doctrines; the heart of the preaching was the eternal truth that has +been growing brighter and brighter since the world began—God, a living +Power, the Power of Salvation. The salvation was conditioned, truly; but +what did conditions matter to Bart! He would have cast himself into sea +or fire to obtain the strength that he coveted. He eagerly cast aside +the unbelief he had imbibed from books. He accepted all that he was told +to accept, with the eager swallowing of a man who is dying for the +strength of a drug that is given to him in dilution.</p> + +<p>At the end of the sermon there was a great call made upon all who +desired to give<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> up their sins and to walk in God's strength and +righteousness, to go forward and kneel in token of their penitence and +pray for the grace which they would assuredly receive.</p> + +<p>This public penance was a very little thing, like the dipping in Jordan. +It did not seem little to Toyner. He was thoroughly awake now, roused +for the hour to the power of seeking God with all his mind, all his +thought, all his soul. The high tide of life in him made the ordeal +terrible; he tottered forward and knelt where, in front of the rostrum, +sweet hay had been strewn upon the ground. A hundred penitents were +kneeling upon this carpet.</p> + +<p>There was now no more loud talking or singing. Silence was allowed to +spread her wings within the woodland temple. Toyner, kneeling, felt the +influence of other human spirits deeply vivified in the intensity of +prayer. He heard whispered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> cries and the sound of tears, the prayer of +the publican, the tears of the Magdalene, and now and then there came a +glad thanksgiving of overflowing joy. Toyner tried to repeat what he +heard, hoping thereby to give some expression to the need within him; +but all that he could think of was the craving for strong drink that he +knew would return and that he knew he could not resist.</p> + +<p>He heard light footsteps, and felt a strong arm embracing his own +trembling frame. The preacher had come to kneel where he knelt, and to +pray, not for him, but with him.</p> + +<p>"I cannot," said Bart Toyner, "I can't, I can't."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" whispered the preacher.</p> + +<p>"Because I know I shall take to drink again."</p> + +<p>"Which do you love best, God or the drink?" asked the preacher. "If you +love<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> the drink best, you ought not to be here; if you love God best, +you need have no fear."</p> + +<p>"God." The word embodied the great new idea which had entered Toyner's +soul, the idea of the love that had power to help him.</p> + +<p>"I want to get hold of God," he said; "but it isn't any use, for I shall +just go and get drunk again."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear fellow," said the young preacher, his arm drawing closer +round Bart, "He is able and willing to keep you; all you have to do is +to take Him for your Master, and He will come to you and make a new man +of you. He will take the drink crave away. He knows as well as you do +that you can't fight it."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Toyner.</p> + +<p>Then the young preacher turned his beautiful face toward the blue above +the trees and whispered a prayer: "Open the eyes of our souls that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +may see Thee, and then we shall know that Thou canst not lie. Thy honour +is pledged to give Thy servants all they need, and this man needs to +have the craving for drink taken out of his body. He has come at Thy +call, willing to be Thy slave; Thou canst not go back on Thy promises. +We know Thou hast accepted him, because he has come to Thee. We know +that Thou wilt give him what he needs,"—so the short sentences of the +whispered prayer went on in quick transition from entreaty to +thanksgiving for a gift received. Suddenly, before the conclusion had +come, Bart stood up upon his feet.</p> + +<p>"What is it, my brother?" asked the preacher. He too had risen and stood +with his hand on Toyner's shoulder.</p> + +<p>They were alone together, these two. The great crowd of the congregation +had already gone away; those that re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>mained were each one so intensely +occupied with prayer or adoration that they paid no heed to others.</p> + +<p>"I feel—light," said Toyner.</p> + +<p>"Dear fellow," said the preacher, "the devil has gone out of you. You +are free now because you are the slave of Christ. Begin your service to +him by praising God!"</p> + +<p>Toyner stayed a week longer in the place, lodging with the young +preacher. Day and night they were close together. A change had come to +Toyner. It was a miracle. The young preacher believed in such miracles, +and because he believed he saw them often.</p> + +<p>Toyner trembled and hoped, and at length he too believed. He believed +that as long as he willingly obeyed God his old habits would not triumph +over him. The physical health which so often comes like a flood and +replaces disease at the shrines of idol temples, of Romish saints,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> or, +at the many Protestant homes for faith-healing, had undoubtedly come to +Bart Toyner. The stomach that had been inflamed and almost useless, now +produced in him a regular appetite for simple nourishing food. The +craving for strong drink had passed away, and with his whole mind and +heart he threw himself into such service as he believed to be acceptable +to God and the condition upon which he held his health and his freedom. +At the end of the week Toyner went home to face the old life again with +no safe-guard but the new inward strength. No one there believed in his +reformation. He had lost money for his father in his last debauch; the +man who was virtually a partner would not trust him again. He had a +nominal business of his own, an agency which he had heretofore +neglected, and now he worked hard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> living frugally, and for the first +time in his life earned his own living. The rules of conduct which the +preacher had laid down for him were simple and broad. He was to see God +in everything, accepting all events joyfully from His hand; he was so to +preach Him in life and word that others would love Him; he was to do all +his work as unto a God who beheld and cared for the minutest things of +earth; he was to abstain, not only from all sin, but from all things +that might lead to evil. At first he saw no contradiction in this rule +of life; it seemed a plain path, and he walked, nay ran, upon it for a +long distance.</p> + +<p>Between Toyner and his old friends the change of his life and thoughts +had made the widest breach. That outward show of companionship remained +was due only to patient persistence on his part and the endurance of the +pain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> and shame of being in society where he was not wanted and where he +felt nothing congenial. There was a Scotch minister who, with the people +of his congregation, had received and befriended the reformed man; but +because of Toyner's desire to follow the most divine example, and also +because of his love to Ann Markham, he chose the other companionship. It +was a high ideal; something warred against it which he could not +understand, and his patience brought forth no mutual love.</p> + +<p>When six months had passed away, Toyner had gained with his neighbours a +character for austerity in his personal habits and constant +companionship with the rough and the poor. The post of constable fell +vacant; Toyner's father had been constable in his youth; Toyner was +offered the post now, and he took it.</p> + +<p>The constable in such villages as Fentown was merely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> a respectable man +who could be called upon on rare occasions to arrest a criminal. Crime +was seldom perpetrated in Fentown, except when it was of a nature that +could be winked at. Toyner had no uniform; he was put in possession of a +pair of hand-cuffs, which no one expected him to use; he was given a +nominal income; and the name of "constable" was a public recognition +that he was reformed.</p> + +<p>Toyner had had many scruples of mind before he took this office. The +considerations which induced him to accept it were various. The austere +demand of law and the service of God were very near together in his +mind; nor are they in any strong mind ever separated except in parable.</p> + +<p>Bart Toyner, who had for years appeared so weak and witless, possessed +in reality that fine quality of brain and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> heart which is so often a +prey to the temptation of intoxicants. He was now working out all the +theory of the new life in a mind that would not flinch before, or shirk +the gleams of truth struck from, sharp contact of fact with fact as the +days and hours knocked them together. For this reason it could not be +that his path would remain that plain path in which a man could run +seeing far before him. Soon he only saw his way step by step, around +there was darkness; but through that darkness, except in one black hour, +he always saw the mount of transfiguration and the light of heaven.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p>Another six months passed, and an event occurred which gave a great +shock to the little community and gave Toyner a pain of heart such as +almost nothing else could have given. Ann's father, John Markham, had a +deadly dispute with a man by the name of Walker. Walker was a +comparatively new comer to the town, or he would have known better than +to gamble with Markham as he did and arouse his enmity. The feud lasted +for a week, and then Markham shot his enemy with a borrowed fire-arm. +Walker was discovered wounded, and cared for, but with little hope of +his recovery. From all around the men assembled to seize Markham, but +half a night had elapsed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> and it was found that he had made good his +escape. When the others had gone, Toyner stood alone before Ann Markham.</p> + +<p>I have often heard what Toyner looked like in those days. Slight as his +theological knowledge might be, he was quite convinced that if religion +was anything it must be everything, personal appearance included. As he +stood before Ann, he appeared to be a dapper, rather dandified man, for +he had dressed himself just as well as he could. Everything that he did +was done just as well as he could in those days; that was the reason he +did not shirk the inexpressibly painful duty which now devolved on him.</p> + +<p>You may picture him. His clothes were black, his linen good. He wore a +large white tie, which was the fashionable thing in that time and place. +His long moustache, which was fine rather than heavy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> hung down to his +chin on either side of his mouth. He did not look like a man who would +chance upon any strong situation in life, for the strength of +circumstances is the strength of the soul that opposes them, and we are +childishly given to estimating the strength of souls by certain outward +tests, although they fail us daily.</p> + +<p>"I have always been your friend, Ann," said Toyner sadly.</p> + +<p>Ann tossed her head. "Not with my leave."</p> + +<p>"No," he assented; "but I want to tell you now that if we can't get on +Markham's track I shall have to spy on you. You'll help him if you can, +of course."</p> + +<p>"I don't know where he is," said Ann sullenly.</p> + +<p>"I do not believe you are telling the truth" (sadly); "but you may +believe <i>me</i>, I have warned you."</p> + +<p>People in Fentown went to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> sleep early. At about eleven that night all +was still and lonely about the weather-stained, unpainted wooden house +in which Ann lived.</p> + +<p>Ann closed her house for the night. The work was a simple one: she set +her knee against the door to shut it more firmly, and worked an old nail +into the latch. Then she shook down the scant cotton curtains that were +twisted aside from the windows. There were three windows, two in the +living-room (which was also kitchen and beer-saloon) and one in the +bedroom; that was the whole of the house. There was not an article of +furniture in the place that was not absolutely necessary; what there was +was clean. The girl herself was clean, middle-sized, and dressed in +garments that were old and worn; there was about her appearance a +certain brightness and quickness, which is the best part of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> beauty and +grace. The very hair itself, turning black and curly, from the temples, +seemed to lie glossy and smooth by reason of character that willed that +it should lie so.</p> + +<p>One small coal-oil lamp was the light of the house. When Ann had closed +doors and windows she took it up and went into the bedroom. Neither room +was small; there was a shadowy part round their edges which the lamp did +not brighten. In the dimmer part of this inner room was a bed, on which +a fair young girl was sleeping.</p> + +<p>A curious thing now occurred. Ann, placing herself between the lamp and +the window, deliberately went through a pantomime of putting herself to +bed. She took care that the shadow of the brushing of her hair should be +seen upon the window-curtain. She measured the distance, and threw her +silhouette clearly upon it while she took off one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> or two of her outer +garments. Her face had resolution and nervous eagerness written in it, +but there was nothing of inward disquiet there; she was wholly satisfied +in her own mind as to what she was doing. It was not a very profound +mind, perhaps, but it was like a weapon burnished by constant and proper +use.</p> + +<p>She removed her shadow from the window-curtain when she removed her lamp +to the bedside. She employed herself there for a minute or two in +putting on the clothes she had taken off, and in tightly fastening up +the hair that she had loosened; then she put out the lamp and got into +bed. The wooden bedstead creaked, and rubbed against the side of the +house as she turned herself upon it. The creaking and rubbing could be +heard on the other side of the wall.</p> + +<p>There was a man walking like a sentry outside who did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> hear. It was Bart +Toyner, the constable.</p> + +<p>After he heard the bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly +round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side +where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, +repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a woman's +breast.</p> + +<p>After a while Toyner retreated with noiseless steps, standing still when +he had moved away about fifty paces, looking at the house again with +careful, suspicious eyes; then, as if satisfied, he slid back the iron +shade that covered his lantern and, lighting his own steps, he walked +away.</p> + +<p>He had moved so quietly that the girl who lay upon the bed did not hear +him. She did not, in fact, know for certain whether he had been there or +not, much less that he had gone, so that she toilsomely kept up the +pretence of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> gentle snore for half an hour or more. It was very +tiresome. Her bright black eyes were wide open as she lay performing +this exercise. Her face never lost its look of strong resolution. At +length, true to her acting, she moved her head sleepily, sighed heavily, +and relapsed into silent breathing as a sleeper might. It was the acting +of a true artist.</p> + +<p>Half an hour more of silence upon her bed, and she crept off +noiselessly; she lifted the corner of the window-curtain and looked out. +There was not a light to be seen in any of the houses within sight, +there was not a sound to be heard except the foam at the foot of the +falls, the lapping of the nearer river, and the voice of a myriad +crickets in the grass. She opened the window silently.</p> + +<p>"Bart," she whispered. Then a little louder, "Bart—Bart Toyner."</p> + +<p>The one thing that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> wanted just then was to be alone, and of all +people in the world Toyner was the man whom she least wanted to meet. +Yet she called him. She got out of the window and took a few paces on +one side and on the other in the darkness, still calling his name in a +voice of soft entreaty. In his old drunken days she had scorned him. She +scorned him now more than ever, but she still believed that her call +would never reach his ear in vain. In this hour of her extremity she +must make sure of his absence by running the risk of having to endure +his nearer presence. When she knew that he was not there, she took a +bundle from inside the room, shut down the window through which she had +escaped, and wrapping her head and hands in a thin black shawl such as +Indian women drape themselves with, she sped off over the dark grass to +the river.</p> + +<p>Overhead, the stars sparkled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> in a sky that seemed almost black. The +houses and trees, the thick scrubby bushes and long grass, were just +visible in all the shades of monochrome that night produces.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes she was beyond all the houses, gliding through a wood +by the river. The trees were high and black, and there was a faint +musical sound of wind in them. She heard it as she heard everything. +More than once she stopped, not fearful, but watching. She must have +looked like the spirit of primeval silence as she stood at such moments, +lifting her shawl from her head to listen; then she went on. She knew +where a boat had by chance been left that day; it was a small rough +boat, lying close under the roots of a pine tree, and tied to its trunk. +In this she bestowed her bundle, and untying the string, pushed from the +shore. She could hardly see the opposite side<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> of the little Ahwewee in +the darkness; she rowed at once into the midst of its rapid current; +once there, she dipped her oars to steer rather than to propel. She +travelled swiftly with the black stream.</p> + +<p>For half an hour or more she was only intent upon steering her boat. +Then, when she had come about three miles from the falls, she was in +still water, and began rowing with all her strength to make the boat +shoot forward as rapidly as before.</p> + +<p>The water was as still now as if the river had widened and deepened into +an inland sea; yet in the darkness to all appearance the river was as +narrow, the outline of the trees on either side appearing black and high +just within sight. When the moon rose this mystery of nature was +revealed, for the river was a lake, spreading far and wide on either +side. The lake was caused by dams built farther<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> down the stream, and +the forest that had covered the ground before still reared itself above +the water, the bare dead trees standing thick, except in the narrow, +winding passage of the original stream.</p> + +<p>The moon rose large, very large indeed, and very yellow. There was smoke +of distant forest fires in the dry hot air, which turned the moon as +golden as a pane of amber glass. There was no fear of fire in the forest +through which the boat was passing other than that cold pretence of +yellow flames, the broken reflections of the moon on the wet mirror in +which the trees were growing. These trees would not burn; they had been +drowned long ago! They stood up now like corpses or ghosts, rising from +the deathly flood, lifeless and smooth; ghastly, in that they retained +the naked shape that they had had when alive. To the east the reflection +of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> moon was seen for a mile or more under their grey outstretched +branches, and on all sides its light penetrated, showing through what a +strange dead wilderness the one small fragile boat was travelling.</p> + +<p>Very little of the feeling of the place entered the mind of the girl who +was working at her oars with such strong, swift strokes. Every day +through the ten or fifteen miles of the dead forest a little snorting +steamboat passed, bearing market produce and passengers. The smoke of +its funnel had blasted all sense of the weird picturesqueness of the +place in the minds of the inhabitants, that is, they were accustomed to +it, and sentiment in most hearts is slowly killed by use and wont, as +this forest had been killed by the encroaching water. Ann Markham's was +not a mind which harboured very much sentiment at that period of her +life; it was a keen, quick-witted, practical mind. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> was not afraid +of the solitude of the night, or of the strange shapes and lights and +shadows about her. Now that she knew for certain that she was alone and +unpursued, she was for the time quite satisfied.</p> + +<p>A mile more down the windings of the lake, and Ann began counting the +trees between certain landmarks. Then into an opening between the trees +which could not have been observed by a casual glance she steered her +boat, and worked it on into a little open passage-way among their +trunks. The way widened as she followed it, and then closed again. Where +the passage ended, one great tree had fallen, and its trunk with +upturned branches was lying, wedged between two standing trunks, in an +almost horizontal position. On it a man was sitting, a wild, miserable +figure of a man, who looked as if he might have been some savage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> being +who was at home there, but who spoke in a language too vicious and +profane for any savage.</p> + +<p>He leaned out from his branch as far as he dared, and welcomed the girl +with curses because she had not come sooner, because it was now the +small hours of the night and he had expected her in the evening.</p> + +<p>"Be quiet, father," said the girl; "what's the use of talking like +that!" Then she held the boat under the tree and helped him to slip down +into it, where, in spite of his rage, he stretched his legs with an +evident animal satisfaction. He wallowed in the straitened liberty that +the boat gave, lying down in the bottom and gently kicking out his +cramped limbs, while the girl held tight to the trees, steadying the +boat with her feet.</p> + +<p>It was this power of taking an evident sensual satisfaction in such +small luxuries as he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> was able to obtain that had alone attached Markham +to his daughter. His character belonged to a type found both among men +and women; it was a nature entirely selfish and endowed with an +instinctive art in working upon the unselfish sentiments of others—an +art which even creates unselfishness in other selfish beings.</p> + +<p>"I came as soon as I could," she said. "I suppose you did not want me to +put Toyner on your track."</p> + +<p>"Yee owe," said the wretched man, stretching himself luxuriously. "I've +been a-standin' up and a-sittin' down and a-standin' up since last +night, an'——" Here he suddenly remembered something. He sat up and +looked round fearfully.</p> + +<p>"When it got dark before the moon came I saw the devil! One! I think +there was half a dozen of them! I saw them comin' at me in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> the air. I'd +have gone mad if they hadn't gone off when the moon rose."</p> + +<p>"Lie still, father, until I give you something to eat," she said.</p> + +<p>While she was unfastening her bundle, she looked about her, and saw how +the spaces of shadow between the grey branches might easily seem to take +solid form and weird shape to a brain that was fevered with excitement +of crime and of flight and enforced vigil. She had a painful thing to +tell this man—that she could not, as she had hoped, release him from +his desperate prison that night; but she did not tell him until she had +fed him first and given him drink too. She insisted upon his taking the +food first. It was highly seasoned, beef with mustard upon it, and +pickles. All the while he watched her hand with thirsty eye. When he had +gulped his food to please her, she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> produced a small bottle. He cursed +her when he saw its size, but all the same he held out his hand for it +eagerly and drank its contents, shutting his eyes with satisfaction and +licking his lips.</p> + +<p>All this time she was steadying the boat by holding on to a tree with a +strong arm.</p> + +<p>"Now it's hard on you, father, but you'll have to stay here another +night. Down at The Mills they're watching for you, and it would be sure +death for you to try and get through the swamp, even if I could take you +in the boat to the edge anywhere."</p> + +<p>The man, who had been entirely absorbed with eating and drinking and +stretching himself, now gave a low howl of anguish; then he struggled to +his knees and shook his fist in her face. "By —— I'll throw you out of +this 'ere boat, I will; what do yer come tellin' me such a thing as that +for? Don't yer<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> know I'd liefer die—don't yer know that?" He brought +his fist nearer and nearer to her eyes. "Don't yer know that?"</p> + +<p>It appeared that he would have struck her, but by a dexterous twist of +her body and a pull upon the tree she jerked the boat so that he lost +his balance, not entirely, but enough to make him right himself with +care and sit down again, realising for the time being that it was she +who was mistress of this question—who should be thrown out of the boat +and drowned.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'll row you to The Mills, if it's to jail you want to go; +but Walker is pretty bad, they say. I think it'll be murder they'll +bring you up for; and it ain't no sort of use trying to prove that you +didn't do it!"</p> + +<p>The miserable man put his dirty knotted hands before his face and howled +again. But even that involuntary sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> was furtive lest any one should +hear. He might have shrieked and roared with all the strength that was +in him—there was no human ear within reach—but the instinct of +cowardice kept him from making any more noise than was necessary to rend +and break the heart of the woman beside him,—that, although he was only +half conscious of it, was his purpose in crying. He had a fiendish +desire to make her suffer for bringing him such news.</p> + +<p>Ann was not given to feeling for others, yet now it was intense +suffering to her to see him shaking, writhing, moving like a beast in +pain. She did not think of it as her suffering; she transferred it all +to him, and supposed that it was the realisation of his misery that she +experienced.</p> + +<p>At last she said: "There's one fellow up to the falls that knows a track +through the north of the marsh to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> sound ground; I heard him tell it one +day how he'd found it out. It's that David Brown that's been coming +round to see Christa. Christa can get the chart he made from him by +to-morrow night—I know she can. I'll try to be here earlier than I was +to-night. And I brought you strips of stuff, father, so that you could +tie yourself on to the tree and have a sort of a sleep; and I brought a +few drops of morphia, just enough to make you feel sleepy and stupid, +and make the time pass a bit quicker."</p> + +<p>For a long while he writhed and cried, telling her that it took all the +wits that he had to keep awake enough to keep the devils off him without +taking stuff to make him sleep, and that he was sure she'd never come +back, and that he would very likely be left on the tree to rot or to +fall into the water.</p> + +<p>All that he said came so near to being true that it caused<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> her the +utmost pain to hear it. He was clever enough by instinct, not by +thought, to know that mere idle cries could not torture her as did the +true picture of the fears and dangers that encompassed him in his wild +hiding-place. The endurance of this torture exhausted her as nothing had +ever exhausted her before; yet all the time she never doubted but that +the pain was his, and that she was merely a spectator.</p> + +<p>She soothed him at last, not by gentleness and caresses—no such +communication ever passed between them—but by plain, practical, hopeful +suggestions spoken out clearly in the intervals of his whining. At +length she esteemed it time to use the spur instead of stroking him any +longer. "Get up on the tree, father, and I will give you the rest of the +things when you are fixed on the branch. If Toyner's stirring again +before I get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> home, he'll find means to keep me from coming to-morrow +night. Climb up now. I'll give you the things. There—there isn't enough +of the morphia drops to get you to sleep, only to make you feel easy; +and here's the strips of blanket I've sewed together to tie yourself on +with. It's nice and soft—climb up now and fix yourself. It's Toyner +that will catch me, and you too, if I don't get back. Look at the +moon—near the middle of the sky."</p> + +<p>She established him upon the branch again with the comforts that she had +promised, and then she gave him one thing more, of which she had not +spoken before. It was a bag of food that would last, if need be, for +several days.</p> + +<p>He took it as evidence that she had lied to him in her assurance that +she could return the next night. As she moved her boat out of the secret +openings among the dead trees,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> she heard him whining with fear and +calling a volley of curses after her.</p> + +<p>That her father's words were all profane did not trouble Ann in the +least. It was a meaningless trick of speech. Markham meant no more at +this time by his most shocking oaths than does any man by his habitual +expletive. Ann knew this perfectly. God knew it too.</p> + +<p>Yet if his profanity was mechanical, the man himself was without trace +of good. There was much reason that Ann's heart should be wrung with +pity. It is the divine quality of kinship that it produces pity even for +what is purely evil. Ann rowed her boat homeward with a hard +determination in her heart to save her father at any cost.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p>An hour later the small solitary boat crept up the current of the +moonlit river. The weary girl plied her oars, looking carefully for the +nook under the roots of the old pine whence she had taken the boat.</p> + +<p>She saw the place. She even glanced anxiously about the ground +immediately around it, thinking that in the glamour of light she could +see everything; and yet in that rapid glance, deluded, no doubt, into +supposing the light greater than it was, she failed to see a man who was +standing ready to help her to moor the boat.</p> + +<p>Bart Toyner watched her with a look of haggard anxiety as she came +nearer.</p> + +<p>A uniform is a useful thing. It is almost natural to an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> actor to play +his part when he has assumed its dress. A man in any official capacity +is often just an actor, and the best thing that he can do at times is to +act without a thought as to how his inner self accords with the action, +at least till we have attained to a higher level of civilisation. Toyner +had no uniform, nor had he mastered the philosophy that underlies this +instinct for playing a part; he had an idea that the whole mind and soul +of him should be in conscientious accord with all that he did. It was +this ideal that made his fall certain.</p> + +<p>He had no notion that the girl had not seen him. Before she got out, +when she put her hand to tether the boat, she felt his hand gently +taking the rope from her and fell back with a cry of fear.</p> + +<p>In her wearied state she could have sobbed with disappointment. How much +had he discovered? If he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> knew nothing more than merely that she had +returned with the boat, how could it be possible to elude him and come +again the next night? She thought of her father, and her heart was full +of pity; she thought that her own plans were baffled, and she was +enraged. Both sentiments fused into keener hatred of Toyner; but she +remembered—yes, even then she remembered quite clearly and +distinctly—that if the worst came to the worst and she could save her +father in no other way, she had one weapon in reserve, one in which she +had perfect faith.</p> + +<p>It was for this reason that she sat still for a minute in the boat, +looking up at Toyner, trying to pry into his attitude toward her. At the +end of the minute he put out his hand to lift her up, and she leaned +upon it.</p> + +<p>Without hesitation she began to thread her way through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> the wood toward +home, and he walked by her side. He might have been escorting her from a +dance, so quietly they walked together, except that the question of a +man's life or death which lay between them seemed to surround them with +a strange atmosphere.</p> + +<p>At length Bart spoke. "I don't know where you have been," he said. "I +have been patrolling the shore all night." He paused awhile. "I thought +you were safe at home."</p> + +<p>She stopped short and turned upon him. "Look here! what are you going to +do now? It's a pretty mean sort of business this you've taken to, +sneaking round your old friends to do them all the harm you can."</p> + +<p>"It's the first time I knew that you'd ever been a friend of mine, Ann." +He said this in a sort of sad aside, and then: "You've sense enough<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> to +know that when a man shoots another man he's got to be found and shut up +for the good of the country and for his own good too. It's the kindest +thing that can be done to a man sometimes, shutting him up in jail." He +said this last quite as much by way of explanation to himself as to her.</p> + +<p>"Or hanging him," she suggested sarcastically.</p> + +<p>He paused a moment. "I hope he won't come to that."</p> + +<p>"But you'll do all you can to catch him, knowing that it's like to come +to that. What's the good of hoping?"</p> + +<p>He had only said it to soothe her. He had another self-justification.</p> + +<p>"I can only do what I have to do: it is not me that will decide whether +Walker dies or not. At any rate, it ain't no use to justify it to you. +It's natural that you should look upon me as an enemy just now; but all +the police in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> the country are more your enemies than I am. You've got +him off now, I suppose; however you've done it I don't pretend to know. +It'll be some one else that catches him if he's caught."</p> + +<p>She wondered if he was only saying this to try her, or if he really +believed that Markham had gone far; yet there was small chance even then +that he would cease to watch her the next night and the next. He had +shown both resolution and diligence in this business—qualities, as far +as she knew, so foreign to his character that she smiled bitterly.</p> + +<p>"A nice sort of thing religion is, to get out of the mire yourself and +spend your time kicking your old friends further in!"</p> + +<p>Now the fugitive had been never a friend to Toyner, except in the sense +that he had done more than any one else to lead him into low habits and +keep him there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> He had, in fact, been his greatest enemy; but that, +according to Toyner's new notions, was the more reason for counting him +a friend, not the less.</p> + +<p>"Well, I grant 'tain't a very grand sort of business being constable," +he said; "to be a preacher 'ud be finer perhaps; but this came to hand +and seemed the thing for me to do. It ain't kicking men in the mire to +do all you can to stop them making beasts of themselves."</p> + +<p>He stood idling in the moonlight as he justified himself to this woman. +Surely it was only standing by his new colours to try to make his +position seem right to her. He had no hope in it—no hope of persuading +her, least of all of bringing her nearer to him; if he had had that, his +dallying would have seemed sinful, because it would have chimed so +perfectly with all his natural desires.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ann took up her theme again fiercely. "Look here, Bart Toyner; I want to +know one thing, honour bright—that is," scornfully, "if you care about +honour now that you've got religion."</p> + +<p>He gave a silent sarcastic smile, such as one would bestow upon a +naughty, ignorant child. "Well, at least as much as I did before," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I want to know if you're a-going to stop spying on me now +that father has got well off? There ain't no cause nor reason for you to +hang about me any longer. You know what my life has been, and you know +that through it all I've kept myself like a lady. It ain't nice, knowing +as people do that you came courting once, 'tain't nice to have you +hanging round in this way."</p> + +<p>He knew quite well that the reason she gave for objecting to his spying +was not the true one. He had enough insight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> into her character, enough +knowledge of her manner and the modulations in her voice, to have a +pretty true instinct as to when she was lying and when she was not; but +he did not know that the allusion to the time when he used to court her +was thrown out to produce just what it did in him, a tender recollection +of his old hopes.</p> + +<p>"Until Markham is arrested, you know, and every one else at Fentown +knows, that it is my duty to see that you don't communicate with him. +You've fooled me to-night, and I'll have to keep closer watch; but if +you don't want me to do the watching, I can pay another man."</p> + +<p>She had hoped faintly that he would have shown himself less resolute; +now there was only one thing to be done. After all, she had known for +days that she might be obliged to do it.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't take it so hard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> Bart, if it was any one but you," she said +softly. She went on to say other things of this sort which would make it +appear that there was in her heart an inward softness toward him which +she had never yet revealed. With womanly instinct she played her little +part well and did not exaggerate; but she was not speaking now to the +man of drug-weakened mind and over-stimulated sense whom she had known +in former years.</p> + +<p>He spoke with pain and shame in his voice and attitude. "There isn't +anything that I could do for you, Ann, that I wouldn't do as it is, +without you pretending that way."</p> + +<p>She did not quite take it in at first that she could not deceive him.</p> + +<p>"I thought you used to care about me," she said; "I thought perhaps you +did yet; I thought perhaps"—she put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> well-feigned shyness into her +tone—"that you weren't the sort that would turn away from us just +because of what father has done. All the other folks will, of course. +I'm pretty much alone."</p> + +<p>"I won't help you to break the laws, Ann. Law and righteousness is the +same for the most part. Your feeling as a daughter leads you the other +way, of course; but it ain't no good—it won't do any good to him in the +long run, and it would be wrong for me to do anything but just what I +ought to do as constable. When that's done we can talk of being friends +if you like, but don't go acting a lie with the hope of getting the +better of me. It hurts me to see you do it, Ann."</p> + +<p>For the first time there dawned in her mind a new respect for him, but +that did not alter her desperate resolve. She had been standing before +him in the moonlight with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> downcast face; now she suddenly threw up her +head with a gesture that reminded him of the way a drowning man throws +up his hands.</p> + +<p>"You've been wanting to convert me," she said. "You want me to sign the +pledge, and to stop going to dances and playing cards, and to bring up +Christa that way."</p> + +<p>All the thoughts that he had had since his reform of what he could do +for this girl and her sister if she would only let him came before his +heart now, lit through and through with the light of his love that at +that moment renewed its strength with a power which appalled him.</p> + +<p>She took a few steps nearer to him.</p> + +<p>"Father didn't mean to do any harm," she whispered hastily; "he's got no +more sin on his soul than a child that gets angry and fights for what it +wants. He's just like a child, father is; but it's been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> a lesson to +him, and he'll never do it again. Think of the shame to Christa and me +if he was hanged. And I've striven so to keep us respectable—Bart, you +know I have. There's no shame in the world like your father being——" +(there was a nervous gasp in her throat before she could go on)—"and +he'd be awfully frightened. Oh, you don't know how frightened he'd be! +If I thought they were going to do that to him, it would just kill me. +I'll do anything; I wouldn't mind so much if they'd take me and hang me +instead—it wouldn't scare me so much: but father would be just like a +child, crying and crying and crying, if they kept him in jail and were +going to do that in the end. And then no one would expect Christa and me +to have any more fun, and we never would have any. There's a way that +you can get father off, Bart, and give him at least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> one more chance to +run for his life. If you'll do it, I'll do whatever you want,—I'll sign +the pledge; I'll go to church; I'll teach Christa that way. She and I +won't dance any more. You can count on me. You can trust me. You know +that when I say a thing I'll do it."</p> + +<p>He realised now what had happened to him—a thing that of all things he +had learned to dread most,—a desperate temptation. He answered, and his +tone and manner gave her no glimpse of the shock of opposing forces that +had taken place within a heart that for many months had been dwelling in +the calm of victory.</p> + +<p>"I cannot do it, Ann."</p> + +<p>"Bart Toyner," she said, "I'm all alone in this world; there's not a +soul to help me. Every one's against me and against him. Don't turn +against me; I need your help—oh, I need it! I never pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>fessed to care +about you; but if your father was in danger of dying an awful death and +you came to me for help, I wouldn't refuse you, you know I wouldn't."</p> + +<p>He only spoke now with the wish to conceal from her the panic within; +for with the overwhelming desire to yield to her had come a ghastly fear +that he was going to yield, and faith and hope fled from him. He saw +himself standing there face to face with his idea of God, and this +temptation between him and God. The temptation grew in magnitude, and +God withdrew His face.</p> + +<p>"I know, Ann, it sounds hard about your father" (mechanically); "but you +must try and think how it would be if he was lying wounded like Walker +and some other man had done it. Wouldn't you think the law was in the +right then?"</p> + +<p>"No!" (quickly). "If father'd got a simple wound,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> and could be nursed +and taken care of comfortably until he died, I wouldn't want any man to +be hanged for it. It's an awful, awful thing to be hanged."</p> + +<p>She waited a moment, and he did not speak. The lesser light of night is +fraught with illusions. She thought that she saw him there quite plainly +standing quiet and indifferent. She was so accustomed to his +appearance—the carefulness of his dress, the grave eyes, and the thin, +drooping moustache—that her mind by habit filled in these details which +she did not in reality see; nor did she see the look of agonised prayer +that came and went across the habitual reserve of his face.</p> + +<p>"Can't you believe what I say, Bart? I say that I will give up dancing +and selling beer, and sign the pledge, and dress plain, and go to +church. I say I will do it and Christa will do it; and you can teach<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> us +all you've a mind to, day in and day out, and we'll learn if we can. +Isn't it far better to save Christa and me—two souls, than to hunt one +poor man to death? Don't you believe that I'll do what I promise? I'll +go right home now and give it to you in writing, if you like."</p> + +<p>"I do believe you, Ann." He stopped to regain the steadiness of his +voice. He had had training in forcing his voice in the last few months, +for he hated to bear verbal testimony to his religious beliefs, and yet +he had taught himself to do it. He succeeded in speaking steadily now, +in the same strong voice in which he had learnt to pray at meetings. It +was not exactly his natural voice. It sounded sanctimonious and +ostentatious, but that was because he was forced to conceal that his +heart within him was quaking. "I do believe that you would do what you +say, Ann; but it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> isn't right to do evil that good may come."</p> + +<p>He did not appeal to her pity; he did not try to tell her what it cost +him to refuse. If he could have made her understand that, she might have +been turned from her purpose. He realised only the awful weakness and +wickedness of his heart. He seemed to see those appetites which, up to a +few months before, had possessed him like demons, hovering near him in +the air, and he seemed to see God holding them back from him, but only +for so long as he resisted this temptation.</p> + +<p>To her he said aloud: "I cannot do it, Ann. In God's strength I cannot +and will not do it."</p> + +<p>Within his heart he seemed to be shouting aloud to Heaven: "My God, I +will not do it, I will not do it. Oh, my God!" He turned his back upon +her and went quickly to the village, only looking to see that at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> some +distance she followed him, trudging humbly as a squaw walks behind her +Indian, as far as her own door.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p>When one drops one's plummet into life anywhere it falls the whole +length of the line we give it. The man who can give his plummet the +longest line is he who realises most surely that it has not touched the +bottom.</p> + +<p>Bart Toyner betook himself to prayer. He had learned from his friend the +preacher that when a man is tempted he must pray until he is given the +victory, and then, calm and steadfast, go out to face the world again. +If Toyner's had been a smaller soul, the need of his life would have +imperatively demanded then that just what he expected to happen to him +should happen, and in some mysterious way no doubt it would have +happened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> + +<p>When we quietly observe religious life exactly as it is, without the +bias of any theory, there are two constantly recurring facts which, +taken together, excite deep astonishment: the fact that small minds +easily attain to a certainty of faith to which larger minds attain more +slowly and with much greater distress; and also the fact that the +happenings of life do actually come in exact accordance to a man's +faith—faith being not the mere expectation that a thing is going to +take place, but the inner eye that sees into the heart of things, and +knows that its desire must inevitably take place, and why. This sort of +faith, be it in a tiny or great nature, comes triumphantly in actual +fact to what it predicts; but the little heart comes to it easily and +produces trivial prayers, while the big heart, thinking to arrive with +the same ease at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> the same measure of triumph, is beaten back time and +time and again.</p> + +<p>Probably the explanation is that the smaller mind has not the same +germinating power; there is not enough in it to cause the long, slow +growth of root and stem, and therefore it soon puts forth its little +blossom. These things all happen, of course, according to eternal law of +inward development; they are not altered by any force from without, +because nothing is without: the sun that makes the daisy to blossom is +just that amount of sun that it absorbs into itself, and so with the +acorn or the pine-cone. These latter, however, do not produce any bright +immediate blossom, though they ultimately change the face of all that +spot of earth by the spread of their roots and branches.</p> + +<p>After praying a long time Bart Toyner relapsed into meditation, +endeavouring to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> contemplate those attributes of his God which might +bring him the strength which he had not yet attained, and just here came +to him the subtlest and strongest reinforcement to all those arguments +which were chiming together upon what appeared to him the side of evil. +The God in whom he had learned to trust was a God who, moved by pity, +had come out of His natural path to give a chance of salvation to wicked +men by the sacrifice of Himself. To what did he owe his own rescue but +to this special adjustment of law made by God? and how then was it right +for him to adhere to the course the regular law imposed on him and to +hunt down Markham? If he saved Markham, he would answer to the law for +his own breach of duty—this would be at least some sacrifice. Was not +this course a more God-like one?</p> + +<p>There was one part of Toyner that spoke out clearly and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> said that his +duty was exactly what he had esteemed it to be before Ann Markham +appealed to him. He believed this part of him to be his conscience.</p> + +<p>All the rest of him slowly veered round to thoughts of mercy rather than +legal duty; he thought of Ann and Christa with hard, godless hearts, +surrounded by every form of folly and sin, and he believed that Ann +would keep her promise to him, and that different surroundings would +give them different souls. Yet he felt convinced that God and conscience +forbade this act of mercy.</p> + +<p>One thing he was as certain of now as he had been at the beginning—that +if he disobeyed God, God would leave him to the power of all his evil +appetites; he felt already that his heart gave out thoughts of affection +to his old evil life.</p> + +<p>As the hours passed he began to realise that he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> need to disobey +God. He found himself less and less able to face the thought of giving +up this rare opportunity of winning Ann's favour and an influence over +her—<i>moral</i> influence at least; his mind was clear enough to see that +what was gained by disobeying God's law was from a religious point of +view nil. In his mind was the beginning of a contempt for God's way of +saving him. If he was to win his own soul by consigning Ann and her +father to probable perdition, he did not want to win it.</p> + +<p>The August morning came radiant and fresh; the air, sharp with a touch +of frost from neighbouring hills, bore strength and lightness for every +creature. The sunlight was gay on the little wooden town, on its breezy +gardens and wastes of flowering weeds, on the descent of the foaming +fall, on the clear brown river. Even the sober wood of ash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> and maple +glistened in the morning light, and the birds sang songs that in +countries where a longer summer reigns are only heard in spring-time.</p> + +<p>Bart Toyner went out of the house exhausted and almost hopeless. The +source of his strength had failed within him. He looked forward to +defeat.</p> + +<p>As it happened Toyner's official responsibility for Markham's arrest was +to be lightened. The Crown Attorney for the county had already +communicated with the local government, and a detective had been sent, +who arrived that morning by the little steamboat. Before Toyner realised +the situation he found himself in consultation with the new-comer as to +the best means of seeking Markham. Did the perfect righteousness require +that he should betray Ann's confidence and state that Markham was in +hiding somewhere within reach? Bart looked the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> question for a moment in +the face, and trembled before it. Then he set it aside unanswered, +resolved on reticence, whether it was right or wrong.</p> + +<p>The detective, finding that Toyner had no clue to report, soon went to +drink Ann's beer, on business intent. Bart kept sedulously apart from +this interview. When it was over the stranger took Toyner by the arm and +told him privately that he was convinced that the young woman knew +nothing whatever about the prisoner, and as Markham had been gone now +forty-eight hours it was his opinion that it was not near Fentown that +he would be found.</p> + +<p>This communication was made to Toyner in the public-house, where they +had both gone the better to discuss their affairs. Toyner had gone in +labouring under horrible emotion. He believed that he was going to get +drunk, and the result of his fear was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> that he broke his pledge, giving +as an excuse to the by-standers that he felt ill. Yet he did not get +drunk.</p> + +<p>Toyner saw the detective depart by the afternoon boat, and as he walked +back upon the bit of hot dusty road in the sun he reeled, not with the +spirits he had taken, but with the sickening sense that his battle was +lost.</p> + +<p>Nothing seemed fair to him, nothing attractive, but to drink one more +glass of spirits, and to go and make promises to Ann that would be sweet +to her ear. He knew that for him it was the gate of death.</p> + +<p>At this point the minister met him, and jumped at once to the conclusion +that he was drunk. The minister was one of those good men who found +their faith in God upon absolute want of faith in man. His heart was +better than his head, as is the case with all small-minded souls that +have come into conscious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> contact with God, but his opinions ruled his +official conduct. "I am afraid you have been drinking, Toyner," he said +reproachfully.</p> + +<p>The first three words, "I am afraid," were enough for Bart; he was +filled himself with an all-pervading fear—a fear of himself, a fear of +God, a fear of the devil who would possess him again. He was not drunk; +the fact that drunkenness in him appeared so likely to this man, who was +the best friend he had, completed in his heart the work of revolt +against the minister and the minister's God. What right had God to take +him up and clothe him and keep him in his right mind for a little while, +just to let him fall at the first opportunity? It was quite true that he +had deserved it, no doubt; he had done wrong, and he was going to do +wrong; but God, who had gone out of His way to mercifully<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> convert him +and keep him straight for a while, could certainly have gone on keeping +him if He had chosen. His mind was a logical one. He had been taught to +praise God for some extraordinary favour towards him; he had been taught +that the grace which had changed his life for good was in no degree his +own; and why then was he to bear all the disgrace of his return to evil?</p> + +<p>In the next hours he walked the streets of the town, and talked to other +men when need was, and did a little business on his own account in the +agency in which he was engaged, and went home and took supper, watching +the vagaries of his father's senile mania with more than common pity for +the old man. His own wretchedness gave him an aching heart of sympathy +for all the sorrow of others which came across his mind that day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>The whole day was a new revelation to him of what tenderness for others +could be and ought to be.</p> + +<p>He did not hope to attain to any working out of this higher sympathy and +pity himself. The wonderful confidence which his new faith had so long +given him, that he was able in God's strength to perform the higher +rather than the lower law of his nature, had ebbed away. God's strength +was no longer with him; he was going to the devil; he could do nothing +for himself, little for others; but he sympathised as never before with +all poor lost souls. He was a little surprised, as the day wore to a +close, that he had been able to control his craving, that he had not +taken more rum. Still, he knew that he would soon be helpless. It was +his doom, for he could awake in himself no further feeling of repentance +or desire to return to God.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the long day's struggle, half conscious and half unconscious, his +love for Ann—and it was not a bad sort of love either—had triumphed +over what principle he had; it had survived the sudden shock that had +wrecked his faith. The hell which he was experiencing was intolerable +now, because of the heaven which he had seen, and he could not forgive +the God who had ordained it. The unreal notion that an omnipotent God +can permit what He does not ordain could have no weight with him, for he +was grappling with reality. As he brooded bitterly upon his own fate, +his heart became enlarged with tenderness for all other poor helpless +creatures like himself who were under the same misrule.</p> + +<p>His resolution was taken—he would use his sobriety to help Ann. It +would not profit himself, but still he would win from her the promise +concerning her future<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> life and Christa's which she had offered him, and +he would go that night and do all that a man could do to help the poor +wretch to whom his heart went out with ever-increasing pity. It would +not be much, but he would do what he could, and after that he would tell +the authorities what he had done and give up his office. He had a very +vague notion of the penalties he would incur; if they put him in prison, +so much the better—it might save him a little longer from drinking +himself to death.</p> + +<p>Like an honest man he had given up attempting to pull God round to his +own position. He did not now think for a moment that the act of love and +mercy which possessed his soul was a pious one; his motive he believed +to be solely his pity for Markham and his love for Ann, which, being +natural, he supposed to be selfish, and, being selfish, he knew to be +unholy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>It had all come to this, then—his piety, his reformation, his prayers, +his thanksgiving, his faith. His heart within him gave a sneering laugh. +He was terribly to blame, of course—he was a reprobate; but surely God +was to blame too!</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p>Ann Markham's thoughts of Bart that day were chiefly wondering thoughts. +She tried to think scornfully of his refusal to help her; theoretically +she derided the religion that produced the refusal, but in the bottom of +her heart she looked at it with a wonder that was akin to admiration. +Then there was a question whether he would remain fixed in his +resolution. If this man did not love her then Ann's confidence failed +her in respect to her judgment of what was or was not; for though she +had regarded him always as a person of not much strength or importance, +not independent enough to be anything more than the creature of the +woman whom he desired to marry, yet, curiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> enough, she had believed +that his love for her had a strength that would die hard. She did not +stop to ask herself how it could be that a weak man could love her +strongly. Love, in any constant and permanent sense of the word, was an +almost unknown quality among her companions, and yet she had attributed +it to Bart. Well! his refusal of last night proved that she had been +mistaken—that was all. But possibly the leaven of her proposal would +work, and he would repent and come back to her. The fact that he had +evidently not betrayed her to the detective gave her hope of this. Her +thoughts about Toyner were only subordinate to the question, how she was +to rescue her father. With the light and strength of the morning, hope +in other possibilities of eluding Bart, even if he remained firm, came +back to her. She would at least work on; if she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> baffled in the end, +it would be time enough to despair. Her sister was not her confidante, +she was her tool.</p> + +<p>Ann waited until the shadow of the pear tree, which with ripening fruit +overhung the gable of their house, stretched itself far down the bit of +weedy grass that sloped to the river. The grass plot was wholly +untended, but nature had embroidered it with flowers and ferns.</p> + +<p>Ann sat sewing by the table on which she kept her supply of beer. She +could not afford to lose her sales to-day, although she knew bitterly +that most of those who turned in for a drink did so out of prying +curiosity. Even Christa, not very quick of feeling, had felt this, and +had retired to lounge on the bed in the inner room with a paper novel. +Christa usually spent her afternoon in preparing some cheap finery to +wear in the cool of the evening, but she felt the family<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> disgrace and +Ann's severity, and was disheartened. As Ann bided her time and +considered her own occupation and Christa's, she marvelled at the +audacity of the promise which she had offered to give Bart, yet so awful +was the question at stake that her only wish was that he had accepted +it.</p> + +<p>At four o'clock in the afternoon she roused Christa and apportioned a +certain bit of work to her. There was a young man in Fentown called +David Brown, a comely young fellow, belonging to one of the richer +families of the place. He was good-natured, and an athlete; he had of +late fallen into the habit of dropping in frequently to drink Ann's +beer. She felt no doubt that Christa was his attraction. Some weeks +before he had boasted that he had found the bed of a creek which made +its way through the drowned forest, and that by it he had paddled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> his +canoe through the marsh that lay to the north of the lake. He had also +boasted that he had a secret way of finding the creek again. Upon +considering his character Ann believed that although the statement was +given boastfully it was true. Brown had a trace of Indian blood in him, +and possessed the faculties of keen observation and good memory. It was +by the help of this secret that she had hoped to extricate her father +herself. There was still a chance that she might be able to use it.</p> + +<p>"Some men think the world and all of a woman if they can only get into +the notion that she is ill-used. David may be more sweet on you than +ever," said Ann to Christa. "Put on your white frock: it's a little +mussed, so it won't look as if you were trying to be fine; don't put on +any sash, but do your hair neatly."</p> + +<p>She will look taking enough,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> thought Ann to herself; she did not +despise herself for the stratagem. It was part of the hard, practical +game that she had played all her life, for that matter; she was not +conscious of loving Christa any more than she was conscious of loving +her father. It was merely her will that they should have the utmost +advantage in life that she could obtain for them. Nothing short of a +moral revolution could have changed this determination in her.</p> + +<p>When Christa had performed her toilet, obeying Ann from mere habit, Ann +drilled her in the thing she was to do. Brown would of course suspect +what this information was to be used for. Christa was to coax him to +promise secrecy. Ann went over the details of the plan again and again, +until she was quite sure that the shallow forgetful child understood the +importance of her mission.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>Christa sat with her elbows on the table and cried a little. Her fair +hair was curled low over her eyes, the coarse white dress hung limp but +soft, leaving her neck bare. With all her motions her head nodded on her +slender graceful neck, like a flower which bows on its stalk.</p> + +<p>Before this disaster Christa had spent her life laughing; that had been +more becoming to her than sullenness and tears. For all that, Ann was +not sorry that Christa's eyelids should be red when David Brown was seen +slowly lounging toward the window.</p> + +<p>He had not been to see them the day before; it was apparent from his air +that he thought it was not quite the respectable thing to do to-day. He +tried to approach the house with a <i>nonchalant</i>, happen-by-chance air, +so that if any one saw him they would suppose his stopping merely +accidental.</p> + +<p>Ann poured out his beer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> Christa looked at him with eyes full of +reproach. Then she got up and went away to the doorstep, and stood +looking out. To the surprise of both of them, David did not follow her +there. He stood still near Ann.</p> + +<p>"It's hard on Christa," said Ann with a sigh; "she has been crying all +day. Every one will desert us now, and we shall have to live alone +without friends."</p> + +<p>"Oh no" (abruptly); "nobody blames you."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind for myself so much; I don't care so much about what people +think, or how they treat me." She lifted her head proudly as she spoke. +"But" (with pathos) "it's hard on Christa."</p> + +<p>"No; you never think of yourself, do you?" David giggled a little as he +said it, betraying that he felt his words to be unusually personal. Ann +wondered for a minute what could be the cause of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> this giggle, and then +she returned to the subject of Christa's suffering.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he interrupted, "if there's any little thing I can do to +help you, like lending you money if you're left hard up, or anything of +that sort, you know" (he was blushing furiously now), "it's for you I'd +do it," he blurted out. "I don't care about Christa."</p> + +<p>"The silly fellow!" thought Ann. She was six years older than he, and +she felt herself to be twenty years older. She entirely scorned his +admiration in its young folly; but she did not hesitate a moment to make +use of it. All her life had been a long training in that thrift which +utilised everything for family gain. She was a thorough woman of +society, this girl who sat in her backwoods cottage selling beer.</p> + +<p>She looked at the boy, and a sudden glow of sensibility<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> appeared in her +face. "Oh, David!" she said; "I thought it was Christa."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't Christa," he stammered, grinning. He was hugely pleased +with the idea that she had accepted his declaration of courtship.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later and Ann had the secret of the new track through the +north of the drowned forest, and Brown had the wit not to ask her what +she wanted to do with it. He had done more—he had offered to row her +boat for her, but this Ann had refused.</p> + +<p>It was a curious thing, this refusal. It arose purely from principle on +her part; she had come to the limit which the average mind sets to the +evil it will commit. She deceived and cajoled the boy without scruple, +but she did not allow him to break the law. She remembered that he had +parents who valued his good name more than he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> as yet learned to +value it. He was young; he was in her power; and she declined his +further help.</p> + +<p>Christa had wandered down the grass to the river-side and stood there +pouting meanwhile.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p>This incident with David Brown and the getting possession of his chart +was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of +inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for +a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for +all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were +left alone. Christa returned indolently to lounging upon the bed and +reading her novel. If Ann had had less strength, she would have paced +the floor of the outer room in impatience; as it was she sat still by +the table which held the beer and stitched her seam diligently. About +eight o'clock she heard Toyner's step.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>Was he going to haunt the house again in order to keep her from going +out of it?</p> + +<p>He came up to the door and came in.</p> + +<p>She was preparing herself to act just as if she did not know who had +come, and did not take much notice of him; but when he came up and she +looked at his face in the lamp-light, she saw written in it the struggle +that he had gone through. Its exact nature and detail she was incapable +of conceiving, but one glance proved to her its reality. She was struck +by the consciousness of meeting an element in life which was wholly new +to her. When such a thing forces itself upon our attention, however +indefinite and unexpressed may be our thought, it is an experience never +to be forgotten. Ann fought against her conviction. She began at once, +as intelligent humanity always does, to explain away what she did not +understand,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> supposing by that means that she could do away with its +existence.</p> + +<p>"I think you are ill, Bart," she said quickly. "It looks to me as if you +were in for a bout of chills; and enough to give it to you too, hanging +about in the woods all night."</p> + +<p>He drew a chair close to the table and sat down beside her.</p> + +<p>"There isn't any chills in the swamps about here," he said; "they are as +wholesome as dry land is." She saw by this that he had no intention of +upbraiding her with his fall, or of proclaiming the object of his visit. +She wanted to rouse him into telling her something.</p> + +<p>"I heard them saying something about you to-day that I didn't believe a +bit. I heard you were in the saloon drinking."</p> + +<p>He took hold of the end of her seam, passed his finger along it as if +examining the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> fabric and the stitches. "I took one glass," he said, +with the curious quiet gravity which lay to-night like a spell upon all +his words and actions.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said cheerily, "I don't believe in a man making a slave of +himself, not to take a glass when he wants it just because he sometimes +makes a beast of himself by taking more than he ought."</p> + +<p>"If you choose to think black is white, Ann, it will not make it that +way."</p> + +<p>"That's true," she replied compliantly; "and you've got more call to +know than I have, for I've never 'been there.'"</p> + +<p>"God forbid!" he said with sudden intensity. All the habits of thought +of the last year put strength into his words. "If I thought you ever +could be 'there,' Ann, it's nothing to say that I'd die to save you from +it."</p> + +<p>She let her thought dwell for a moment upon the picture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> of herself as a +drunkard which had caused such intense feeling in him. "I am not worth +his caring what becomes of me in that way," she thought to herself. It +was the first time it ever occurred to her to think that she was +unworthy of the love he had for her; but at the same moment she felt a +shadow extinguish the rays of hope she had begun to feel, for she +believed, as Bart did, that his piety was in direct opposition to the +help he might otherwise give her. She had begun to hope that piety had +loosened its grasp upon him for the time.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what's to become of us, Christa and me," she said +despairingly; "if we don't take to drink it will be a wonder, everybody +turning the cold shoulder on us."</p> + +<p>This was not her true thought at all. She knew herself to be quite +incapable of the future she suggested, but the theme was excellently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> +adapted to work upon his feelings.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away to-night, Ann," he said; "perhaps I won't see you again +for a long time; but you know all that you said you would promise last +night——"</p> + +<p>Her heart began to beat so sharply against her side with sudden hope, +and perhaps another feeling to which she gave no name, that her answer +was breathless. "Yes," she said eagerly, "if——"</p> + +<p>He went on gravely: "I am going to start to-night in a row-boat for The +Mills. You can tell me where your father is, and on my way I'll do all I +can to help him to get away. It won't be much use perhaps. It is most +likely that he will only get away from this locality to be arrested in +another, but all that one man can do to help him I will do; but you'll +have to give me the promise first, and I'll trust you to keep it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>Ann said nothing. The immediate weight of agonised care for her father's +life was lifted off her; but she had a strange feeling that the man who +had taken her responsibility had taken upon him its suffering too in a +deeper sense than she could understand. It flashed across her, not +clearly but indistinctly, that the chief element in her suffering had +been the shame of defying law and propriety rather than let her father +undergo a just penalty. In some way or other this had been all +transferred to Bart, and in the glimmering understanding of his +character which was growing within her, she perceived that he had it in +him to suffer under it far more intensely than she had suffered. It was +very strange that just when she obtained the promise she wanted from him +she would have been glad to set him free from it!</p> + +<p>Within certain self-pleasing limits Ann had always been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> a good-natured +and generous person, and she experienced a strong impulse of this good +nature and generosity just now, but it was only for a moment, and she +stifled it as a thing that was quite absurd. Her father must be +relieved, of course, from his horrid situation; and, after all, Bart +could help him quite easily, more easily than any other man in the world +could, and then come back and go on with his life as before. Questions +of conscience had never, so far, clouded Ann's mental horizon. A +moment's effort to regain her habitual standpoint made it quite clear to +her that in this case it was she, she and Christa, who were making the +sacrifice; a minute more, and she could almost have found it in her +heart to grumble at the condition of the vow which she had so liberally +sketched the night before, and only the fact that there was something +about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Bart which she did not at all understand, and a fear that that +something might be a propensity to withdraw from his engagement, made +her submissively adhere to it.</p> + +<p>"Christa and I will sign the pledge. We will give up dancing and wearing +finery. We will stop being friends with worldly people, and we will go +to church and meetings, and try to like them." Ann repeated her vow.</p> + +<p>Bart took the pen and ink with which she chronicled her sales of beer +and wrote the vow twice on two pages of his note-book; at the bottom he +added, "God helping me." Ann signed them both, he keeping one and giving +her the other.</p> + +<p>This contract on Ann's part had many of the elements of faith in it—a +wonderful audacity of faith in her own power to revolutionise her life +and control her sister's, and all the unreasoning child-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>likeness of +faith which could launch itself boldly into an unknown future without +any knowledge of what life would be like there.</p> + +<p>On the part of Toyner the contract showed the power that certain habits +of thought, although exercised only for a few months, had over him. Good +people are fond of talk about the weakness of good habits compared with +the strength of bad ones. But, given the same time to the formation of +each, the habits which a man counts good must be stronger than those +which he counts evil, because the inner belief of his mind is in unity +with them. Toyner believed to-night that he was in open revolt against a +rule of life which he had found himself unable to adhere to, and against +the God who had ordained it; but, all the same, it was this rule, and +faith in the God which he had approached by means of it, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> actuated +him during this conference with Ann. As a man who had given up hope for +himself might desire salvation for his child, so he gravely and gently +set her feet in what he was accustomed to regard as the path of life +before he himself left it.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p>Ann's plan of the way in which Toyner more than any other man could aid +her father was simple enough. He who was known to be in pursuit of +Markham was to take him as a friend through the town at The Mills and +start him on the road at the other side. Markham was little known at The +Mills, and no one would be likely to take the companion of the constable +to be the criminal for whose arrest he had been making so much +agitation; they were to travel at the early hour of dawn when few were +stirring. This plan, with such modifications as his own good sense +suggested, Toyner was willing to adopt.</p> + +<p>He started earlier in the evening than she had done,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> having no +particular desire for secrecy. He told his friends that he was going to +row to The Mills by night, and those who heard him supposed that he had +gained some information concerning Markham that he thought it best to +report. It was a calm night; the smoke of distant burning was still in +the air.</p> + +<p>He dropped down the river in the dark hours before the moonrise, and +began to row with strength, as Ann had done, when he reached the placid +water. His boat was light and well built. He could see few yards of dark +water in advance; he could see the dark outline of the trees. The water +was deep; there were no rocks, no hidden banks; he did not make all the +haste he could, but rowed on meditatively—he was always more or less +attracted by solitude. To-night the mechanical exercise, the darkness, +the absolute loneliness, were greater<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> rest to him than sleep would have +been. In a despairing dull sort of way he was praying all the time; his +mind had contracted a habit of prayer, at least if expressing his +thoughts to the divine Being in the belief that they were heard may be +called prayer.</p> + +<p>Probably no one so old or so wise but that he will behave childishly if +he can but feel himself exactly in the same relation to a superior being +that a child feels to a grown man. Toyner expressed his grievance over +and over again with childlike simplicity; he explained to God that he +could not feel it to be right or fair that, when he had prayed so very +much, and prayers of the sort to which a blessing was promised, he +should be given over to the damning power of circumstance, launched in a +career of back-sliding, and made thereby, not only an object of greater +scorn to all men than if he had never reformed, but actually,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> as it +appeared to him, more worthy of scorn.</p> + +<p>He did not expect his complaints to be approved by the Deity, and gained +therefore no satisfying sense that the prayer had ascended to heaven.</p> + +<p>The moon arose, the night was very warm; into the aromatic haze a mist +was arising from the water on all sides. It was not so thick but that he +could see his path through it in the darkness; but when the light came +he found a thin film of vapour between him and everything at which he +looked. The light upon it was so great that it seemed to be luminous in +itself, and it had a slightly magnifying power, so that distances looked +greater, objects looked larger, and the wild desolate scene with which +he was familiar had an aspect that was awful because so unfamiliar.</p> + +<p>When Toyner realised what the full effect of the moonlight was going to +be, he dropped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> his oars and sat still for a few minutes, wondering if +he would be able to find the landmarks that were necessary, so strange +did the landscape look, so wonderful and gigantic were the shapes which +the dead trees assumed. Then he continued his path, looking for a tree +that was black and blasted by lightning. He was obliged to grope his way +close to the trees; thus his boat bumped once or twice on hidden stumps. +It occurred to him to think what a very lonely place it would be to die +in, and a premonition that he was going to die came across him.</p> + +<p>Having found the blasted tree, he counted four fallen trees; they came +at intervals in the outer row of standing ones; then there was a break +in the forest, and he turned his boat into it and paused to listen.</p> + +<p>The sound that met his ear—almost the strangest sound that could have +been heard in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> that place—was that of human speech; it was still some +distance away, but he heard a voice raised in angry excitement, +supplicating, threatening, defying, and complaining.</p> + +<p>Toyner began to row down the untried water-way which was opened to his +boat. The idea that any one had found Markham in such a place and at +such an hour was too extraordinary to be credited. Toyner looked eagerly +into the mist. He could see nothing but queer-shaped gulfs of light +between trunks and branches. Again his boat rubbed unexpectedly against +a stump, and again the strange premonition of approaching death came +over him. For a moment he thought that his wisest course would be to +return. Then he decided to go forward; but before obeying this command, +his mind gave one of those sudden self-attentive flashes the capacity +for which marks off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> the mind of the reflective type from others. He saw +himself as he sat there, his whole appearance and dress; he took in his +history, and the place to which that hour had brought him, he, Bart +Toyner, a thin, somewhat drooping, middle-aged man, unsuccessful, +because of his self-indulgence, in all that he had attempted, yet having +carried about with him always high desires, which had never had the +slightest realisation except in the one clear shining space of vision +and victory which had been his for a few months and now was gone. The +light had mocked him; now perhaps he was going to die!</p> + +<p>He pushed his boat on, his sensations melting into an excited blank of +thought in which curiosity was alone apparent. He was growing strangely +excited after his long calm despondency; no doubt the excitement of the +other, who was shouting and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> jabbering not far away in the moonlit +night, affected him.</p> + +<p>He found his way through the trees of the opening; evidently the splash +of his oar was caught by the owner of the noisy voice, for before he +could see any one a silence succeeded to the noise, a sudden absolute +silence, in itself shocking.</p> + +<p>"Are you there, Markham?" cried Toyner.</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>Toyner peered into the silver mist on all sides of him; the sensation of +the diffused moonlight was almost dazzling, the trees looked far away, +large and unreal. At length among them he saw the great log that had +fallen almost horizontal with the water; upon it a solitary human figure +stood erect in an attitude of frenzied defiance.</p> + +<p>"I have come from your daughter, Markham." Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> in a moment, by way of +self-explanation, he said, "Toyner."</p> + +<p>The man addressed only flung a clenched fist into the air. The silence +of his pantomime now that there was some one to speak to was made +ghastly by the harangue which he had been pouring out upon the solitude.</p> + +<p>"Have you lost your head?" asked Toyner. "I have come from your +daughter—I'm not going to arrest you, but set you down at The +Mills—you can go where you will then."</p> + +<p>He knew now the answer to his first question. The man before him was in +some stage of delirium. Toyner wondered if any one could secretly have +brought him drink.</p> + +<p>There was nothing to be done but to soothe as best he could the other's +fear and enmity, and to bring the boat close to the tree for him to get +in it. Whether he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> sane or mad, it was clearly necessary to take him +from that place. Markham retained a sullen silence, but seemed to +understand so far that he ceased all threatening gestures. His only +movements were certain turnings and sudden crouchings as if he saw or +felt enemies about him in the air.</p> + +<p>"Now, get in," said Toyner. He had secured the boat. He pulled the other +by the legs, and guided him as he slipped from his low bench. "Sit down; +you can't stand, you know."</p> + +<p>But Markham showed himself able to keep his balance, and alert to help +in pushing off the boat. There was a heavy boat-pole ready for use in +shallow water, and Markham for a minute handled it adroitly, pushing off +from his tree.</p> + +<p>Toyner turned his head perforce to see that the boat was not proceeding +towards<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> some other dangerous obstacle. Then Markham, with the sudden +swift cunning of madness, lifted the butt end of his pole and struck him +on the head.</p> + +<p>Toyner sank beneath the blow as an ox shivers and sinks under the +well-aimed blow of the butcher.</p> + +<p>Markham looked about him for a moment with an air of childish triumph, +looked not alone at the form of the fallen man before him, but all +around in the air, as if he had triumphed not over one, but over many.</p> + +<p>No eye was there to see the look of fiendish revenge that flitted next +over the nervous working of his face. Then he fell quickly to work +changing garments with the limp helpless body lying in the bottom of the +boat. With unnatural strength he lifted Toyner, dressed in his own coat +and hat, to the horizontal log on which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> had lived for so long. He +took the long mesh of woollen sheeting that his daughter had brought to +be a rest and support to his own body, and with it he tied Toyner to the +upright tree against which the log was lying; then, with an additional +touch of fiendish satire, he took a bit of dry bread out of the ample +bag of food which Ann had hung there for his own needs, and laid it on +Toyner's knees. Having done all this he pushed his boat away with +reckless rapidity, and rowed it back into the open water, steering with +that unerring speed by which a somnambulist is often seen to perform a +dangerous feat.</p> + +<p>The moonlit mist and the silence of night closed around this lonely nook +in the dead forest and Toyner's form sitting upon the fallen log. In the +open river, where no line determined the meeting of the placid moonlit +water and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the still, moonlit mist, the boat dashed like a dark streak +up the white winding Ahwewee toward the green forest around Fentown +Falls. The small dark figure of the man within it was working at his +oars with a strength and regularity of some powerful automaton. At every +stroke the prow shot forward, and the sound of the splashing oars made +soft echoes far and wide.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p>When men have visions the impression left upon their minds is that light +from the unseen world of light has in some way broken through into the +sphere of their cognizance. The race in its ages of reflection has upon +the whole come to the conclusion that that which actually takes place is +the gradual growth and the sudden breaking forth of light within the +mysterious depths of the man himself. A new explanation of a fact does +not do away with the fact.</p> + +<p>Toyner was not dead, he was stunned; his head was badly injured. When +his consciousness returned, and through what process of inflammation and +fever his wounded head went in the struggle of nature toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> recovery, +was never clearly known. His body, bound with the soft torn cloths to +the upright tree, sagged more and more until it found a rest upon the +inclined log. The fresh sweet air from pine woods, the cool vapours from +the water beneath him, were nurses of wise and delicate touch. The sun +arose and shone warmly, yet not hotly, through the air in which dry haze +was thickening. The dead trees stood in the calm water, keeping silence +as it were, a hundred stalwart guards with fingers at their lips, lest +any sound should disturb the life that, with beneficent patience, was +little by little restoring the wounded body from within. Even the little +vulgar puffing market-boat that twice a day passed the windings of the +old river channel—the only disturber of solitude—was kept at so great +a distance by this guard of silent trees that no perception of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> +passing, and all the life and perplexity of which she must remind him, +entered into Toyner's half-closed avenues of sense.</p> + +<p>For two days the sun rose on Bart through the mellow, smoke-dimmed +atmosphere. Each night it lay in a red cloud for an hour in the west, +tingeing and dyeing all the mirror below the trees with red. No one was +there in the desolate lake to see the twice-told glory of that rosy +flood and firmament, unless it was this wondrous light that first +penetrated the eyes of the prisoner with soothing brightness.</p> + +<p>It was at some hour of light—sunset or sunrise, or it might have been +in the blending of the mornings and the evenings in that confusion of +mind which takes no heed of time—that Toyner first began to know +himself. Then it was not of himself that he took knowledge; his heart in +its waking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> felt after something else around and beneath and above him, +everywhere, something that meant light and comfort and rest and love, +something that was very strong, that was strength; he himself, Bart +Toyner, was part of this strength, and rested in it with a rest and +refreshing which is impossible to weakness, however much it may crave.</p> + +<p>It came to him as he lay there, not knowing the where or when of his +knowledge—it came to him that he had made a great mistake, as a little +child makes a mistake in laughable ignorance. Indeed, he laughed within +himself as he thought what a strange, childish, grotesque notion he had +had,—he had thought, he had actually thought, that God was only a part +of things; that he, Bart Toyner, could turn away from God; that God's +power was only with him when he supposed himself to be obedient to Him! +Yes, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> had thought this; but now he knew that God was all and in all.</p> + +<p>There came to him, trooping with this new joy of knowledge, the sensuous +sight and sound and smell of many things that he had known, but had not +understood, before. All the spring-times through which he had walked +unconscious of their meaning, came to him. There was a sound in his ears +of delicate flowers springing to light through dewy moss, of buds +bursting, and he saw the glancing of myriad tiny leaves upon the grey +old trees. With precisely the same sense of sweetness came the vision of +days when autumn rain was falling, and the red and sear leaf, the nut, +the pine-cone and the flower-seed were dropping into the cold wet earth. +Was life in the spring, and death in the autumn? Was the power and love +of God not resting in the damp<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> fallen things that lay rotting in the +ground?</p> + +<p>There came before him a troop of the little children of Fentown, all the +rosy-cheeked faces and laughing eyes and lithe little dancing forms that +he had ever taken the trouble to notice; and Ann and Christa came and +stood with them—Christa with her dancing finery, with her beautiful, +thoughtless, unemotional face, her yellow hair, and soft white hands; +and Ann, a thousand times more beautiful to him, with her sun-brown +tints and hazel eyes, so full of energy and forethought, her dark neat +hair and working-dress and hardened hands—this was beauty! Over against +it he saw Markham, blear-eyed, unkempt and dirty; and his own father, a +gaunt, idiotic wreck of respectable manhood; and his mother, faded, +worn, and peevish; with them stood the hunch-backed baker of Fentown +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> all the coarse and ugly sons of toil that frequented its wharfs. +There was not a child or a maiden among those he saw first who did not +owe their life to one of these. With the children and the maidens there +were pleasure and hope; with the older men and women there were effort +and failure, sin and despair. The life that was in all of them, was it +partly of God and partly of themselves? He laughed again at the +question. The life that was in them all was all of God, every impulse, +every act. The energy that thrilled them through, by which they acted, +if only as brutes act, by which they spoke, if only to lie, by which +they thought and felt, even when thought and feeling were false and bad, +the energy which upheld them was all of God. That devil, too, that he +saw standing close by and whispering to them—his form was dim and +fading; he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> not sure whether he was a reality or a thought, but—if +he had life, was it his own? Somewhere, he could not remember where or +when, he had heard the voice of truth saying, "Thou couldst have no +power against me except it were given thee from above."</p> + +<p>The strange complexity of dreams, which seems so foolish, brings them +nearer to reality than we suppose, for there is nothing real which has +not manifold meanings. Before this vision of his townspeople faded, Bart +saw Ann slowly walk over from the group in which she had risen to be a +queen, to that group whose members were worn with disappointment and +age; as she went he saw her perfectly as he had never seen her before, +the hard shallow thoughts that were woven in with her unremitting effort +to do always the thing that she had set herself to do; and he saw, too, +a nature that was beneath this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> outer range of activity, a small +trembling fountain of feeling suppressed and shut from the light. In +some strange way as she stood, having grown older by transition from one +group to the other, he saw that this inner fountain of strength was +increasing and overflowing all that other part which had before made up +almost the entire personality of the woman. This change did not take +place visibly in the other people among whom she stood. It was in Ann he +saw the change. He felt very glad he had seen this; he seemed to think +of nothing else for a long time.</p> + +<p>He forgot then all the detail of that which he had seen and thought, and +it seemed to him that he spent a long time just rejoicing in the divine +life by which all things were, and by which they changed, growing by +transformation into a glory which was still indistinct to him, too far +off to be seen in any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> way except that its light came as the light comes +from stars which we say we see and have never really seen at all.</p> + +<p>Through this joy and light the details of life began to show again. The +two forces which he had always supposed had moulded his life acted his +early scenes over again. His young mother, before the shadow of despair +had come over her, was seen waiting upon all his boyish footsteps with +cheerful love and patience, trying to guide and to help, but trying much +more to comfort and to please; and his father, with a strong body and +the strength of fixed opinion and formed habits, having no desire for +his son except to train and form him as he himself was trained and +formed, was seen darkening all the boy's happiness with unreasonable +severity, which hardened and sharpened with the opposition of years into +selfish cruelty. Toyner had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> often seen these scenes before; all that +was new to him now was that they stood in the vivid light of a new +interpretation. Ah! the father's cruelty, the irritable self-love, the +incapacity to recognise any form of life but his own, it was of +God,—not a high manifestation: the bat is lower than the bird, and yet +it is of God. Bart saw now the one great opportunity of life! He saw +that the whole of the universe goes to develop character, and the one +chief heavenly food set within reach of the growing character for its +nourishment is the opportunity to embrace malice with love, to gather it +in the arms of patience, convert its shame into glory by willing +endurance.</p> + +<p>Had he, Bart Toyner, then really been given the power in that beginning +of life to put out his hand and take this fruit which would have given +him such great strength and stature, or had he only had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> strength just +for what he had done and nothing more?</p> + +<p>The answer seemed to come to him from all that he had read of the growth +of things. He looked into the forests, into the life of the creatures +that now lived in them; he saw the fish in the rivers and the birds in +the air, everywhere now roots were feeling under the dark ground for +just the food that was needed, and the birds flew open-mouthed, and the +fishes darted here and there, and the squirrels hoarded their nuts. +Everywhere in the past the growth of ages had been bringing together +these creatures and their food by slowly developing in them new powers +to assimilate new foods. What then of those that pined and dwindled when +the organism was not quite strong enough and the old food was taken +away? Ah, well! they fell—fell as the sparrows fall, not one of them +without God. And what of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> man rising through ages from beast to +sainthood, rising from the mere dominion of physical law which works out +its own obedience into the moral region, where a perpetual choice is +ordained of God, and the consequences of each choice ordained? Was not +the lower choice often inevitable? Who could tell when or where except +God Himself? And the higher choice the only food by which character can +grow! So men must often fall. Fall to what end? To pass into that +boundless gulf of distant light into which everything is passing, +passing straight by the assimilation of its proper food, circuitously by +weakness and failure, but still coming, growing, reaching out into +infinite light, for all is of God, and God is Love.</p> + +<p>All Toyner's thought and sense seemed to lose hold again of everything +but that first realisation of the surrounding glory and joy and +strength, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> feeling that he himself had to rest for a little +while before any new thing was given him to do.</p> + +<p>His body lay back upon the grey lifeless branch, wrapped in the ragged, +soiled garment that Markham had put upon him; the silence of night came +again over the water and the grey dead trees, and nature went on +steadily and quietly with her work of healing.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p>When Toyner had left Fentown to go and rescue Markham, Ann had stood a +good way off upon the dark shore just to satisfy herself that he had got +into the boat and rowed down the river. This was not an indication that +she doubted him. She followed him unseen because she felt that night +that there were elements in his conduct which she did not in the least +understand. When he was gone, she went back to fulfil her part of the +contract, and she had a strength of purpose in fulfilling it which did +not belong mainly to the obligation of her promise. Something in his +look when he had come in this evening, in his glance as he bade her +farewell, made her eager to fulfil it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>All night, asleep or awake, she was more or less haunted with this new +feeling for Toyner—a feeling which did not in her mind resemble love or +liking, which would have been perhaps best translated by the word +"reverence," but that was not a word in Ann's vocabulary, not even an +idea in her mental horizon.</p> + +<p>Our greatest gains begin to be a fact in the soul before we have any +mental conception of them!</p> + +<p>The next day Ann was up early. She took her beer (it was home-brewed and +not of great value) and deliberately poured it out, bottle after bottle, +into a large puddle in the front road. The men who were passing early +saw her action, and she told them that she had "turned temp'rance." She +washed the bottles, and set them upside down before the house to dry +where all the world might see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> them. The sign by which she had +advertised her beer and its price had been nothing but a sheet of brown +paper with letters painted in irregular brush strokes. Ann had plenty of +paper. This morning she laid a sheet upon her table, and rapidly painted +thereon with her brush such advertisements as these:</p> + +<blockquote><p class='center'><i>Tea and Coffee, 3 Cents a Cup.<br /> +Ginger Bread, Baked Beans,<br />Lemonade.<br /><br />Cooking done to order at any hour<br /> +and in any style.</i></p></blockquote> + +<p>By the time this placard was up, Christa had sauntered out to smell the +morning air, and she looked at it with what was for Christa quite an +exertion of surprise.</p> + +<p>She went in to where Ann was scrubbing the tables. Christa never +scrubbed except when it was necessary from Ann's point of view that she +should, but she never inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>fered either. Now she only said:</p> + +<p>"Ann!"</p> + +<p>"I'm here; I suppose you can see me."</p> + +<p>"Yes; but, Ann——"</p> + +<p>It was so unusual for Christa to feel even a strong emotion of surprise +that she did not know in the least how to express it.</p> + +<p>Ann stopped scrubbing. She had never supposed that Christa would yield +easily to all the terms of the condition; she had not sufficient +confidence in her to explain the truth concerning the secret compact.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Christa, do you know that Walker died last night? Now I'll +tell you what it is; you needn't think that the people who are +respectable but not religious will have anything more to do with us, +even in the off-hand way that they've had to do with us before now. +Father's settled all that for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> us. Now the only thing we've got to do is +to turn religious. We're going to be temp'rance, and never touch a game +of cards. You're going to wear plain black clothes and not dance any +more. It wouldn't be respectable any way, seeing they may catch father +any day, and the least we can do is sort of to go into mourning."</p> + +<p>Christa stood bright and beautiful as a child of the morning, and heard +the sentence of this long night passed upon her; but instead of looking +plaintive, a curiously hard look of necessary acquiescence came about +the lines of her cherry lips. Ann was startled by it; she had expected +Christa to bemoan herself, and in this look she recognised that the +younger sister had an element of character like her own, was perhaps +growing to be what she had become. The quality<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> that she honestly +admired in herself appeared disgusting to her in pretty Christa, yet she +went on to persuade and explain; it was necessary.</p> + +<p>"We can't dance, Christa, for no one would dance with us; we can't wear +flowers in our hats, for no one would admire them. I suppose you have +the sense to see that? The men that come here are a pretty easy-going +rough lot, but they draw a line somewhere. Now I've kept you like a lady +so far, and I'll go on doing that to the end" (This was Ann's paraphrase +for respectability); "so if you don't want to sit at home and mope, +we've got to go in for being religious and go to church and meetings. +The minister will come to see us, and all that sort will take to +speaking to us, and I'll get you into Sunday school. There are several +very good-looking fellows that go there, and there's a class of real +big<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> girls taught by a Young-Men's-Christian-Association chap. He'd come +to see you, you know, if you were in his class."</p> + +<p>Christa was perfectly consoled, perfectly satisfied; she even showed her +sister some of the animation which had hitherto come to her only when +she was flirting with men.</p> + +<p>"Ann," she said earnestly, "you are very splendid. I got up thinking +there weren't no good in living at all."</p> + +<p>Ann eyed her sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as +another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her +father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for +herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke +in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then +appal us with their presence!</p> + +<p>Ann went on with her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> work. She was not in the habit of indulging +herself in moods or reveries; still, within her grew a silent +disapproval of Christa. She felt herself superior to her. After a while +another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive +for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive +was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed +hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance, +been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of +Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself +she felt that a great gulf was fixed.</p> + +<p>Well, she did not know; she did not understand; she was not at all sure +that she wanted to understand anything more about Bart Toyner and all +the complex considerations about life which the thought of him seemed to +arouse in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> her. She felt that the best way of ridding herself of +uncomfortable thoughts about him was to be busy in performing all that +he could reasonably require at her hands. It is just in the same way +that many people rid themselves of thoughts about God.</p> + +<p>All that long day, while the sunlight fell pink through the haze, Ann +worked at renovating her own life and Christa's. She took Christa and +went to some girls of their acquaintance, and presented them with all +the feathers, furbelows, and artificials which she and Christa +possessed. She cooked some of the viands which she had advertised for +sale, and prepared all her small stock of kitchen utensils for the new +avocation. It was a long hard day's work, and before it was over the +village was ringing with the news of all this change. The minister had +already called on Ann and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> Christa, saying suitable things concerning +their father's terrible crime and their own sad position. When he was +gone Christa laughed.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + +<p>The sweet-scented smoke of the distant forest fires had diffused itself +all day in the atmosphere more and more palpably. It was not a gloomy +effect, and familiar to eyes accustomed to the Canadian August. All the +sunbeams were very pink, and they fell flickering among the shadows of +the pear tree upon Markham's grey wooden house, upon the path and the +ragged green in front. Ann had pleasant associations with these pink +beams because they told of fine weather. Smoke will not lie thus in an +atmosphere that is molested with any currents of wind that might bring +cloud or storm. On the whole Ann had spent the day happily, for fair +weather has much to do with happiness; but when that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> unusual flood of +blood-red light came at sunset, giving an unearthly look to a land which +was well enough accustomed to bright sunsets of a more ordinary sort, +Ann's courage and good humour failed her; she yielded to the common +influence of marvels and felt afraid.</p> + +<p>What had she done, and what was she going to do? She was playing with +religion; and religion, if it was nothing more, was something which had +made Bart Toyner look at her with such a strange smile of selfless hope +and desire—hope that she would be something different from what she had +been, desire that the best should come to her whatever was going to +happen to him. That was the explanation of what had seemed inexplicable +in his look (she felt glad to have worked it out at last); and if +anything so strange as that were possible in Bart, what was the force<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> +with which she was playing? Would some judgment befall her?</p> + +<p>The evening closed in. Christa went to bed to finish a yellow-backed +novel. As it was the last she was to read for a long time, she thought +she might as well enjoy it. Ann sat alone in the outer room. The night +was very still. Christa went to sleep, but Ann continued to sit, +stitching at the very plain garb that Christa was to don on the morrow, +not so much because she needed to work as because she felt no need of +sleep. The night being close and warm, her window, a small French +casement, stood open. At a late hour, when passers upon the road were +few, arrested by some sound, she knew not what, she lifted her head and +looked through the open window intently, in the same way as we lift our +eyes and look sometimes just because another, a stranger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> perhaps, has +riveted his gaze upon us.</p> + +<p>A moment more, and Ann saw some one come within the beams of her own +lamp outside of the window; the figure crossed like a dark, silent +shadow, but Ann thought she recognised Toyner. The outline of the +clothes that he had worn when she had seen him last just about this hour +on the previous night was unconsciously impressed upon her mind. A +shudder of fear came over her, and then she was astonished at the fear; +he might easily have done all that she had given him to do and returned +by this time. Yet why did he pass the window in that ghostly fashion and +show no sign of coming to the door? A moment or two that she sat seemed +beaten out into the length and width of minutes by the throbbing of her +nerves, usually so steady. She determined to steel herself against +discomfort. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> Toyner had done his work and come home and did not think +it wise to visit her openly, what was there to alarm in that? Yet she +remembered that Toyner had spoken of being away for some indefinite +length of time. She had not understood why last night, and now it seemed +even more hard to understand.</p> + +<p>As she sewed she found herself looking up moment by moment at the +window. It was not long before she saw the same figure there again, +close now, and in the full light. Her hands dropped nerveless upon her +knee; she sat gazing with strained whitened face. The outline of the +clothes she associated with the thought of Toyner, but from under the +dark hat her father's face looked at her. Not the face of a man she +thought, but the face of a spirit, as white as if it were lifeless, as +haggard as if it were dead, but with blazing life in the eyeballs and a +line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> like red fire round their rims. In a moment it was gone again.</p> + +<p>Ann started up possessed with the desire to prove the ghostly visitant +material; passing through the door, she fled outside with her lamp. +Whatever had been there had withdrawn itself more quickly than she had +come to seek it.</p> + +<p>She felt convinced now that her father was dead; she fell to imagining +all the ways in which the tragic end might have come. No thought that +came to her was satisfactory. What had Bart done? Why had his form +seemed to her so inextricably confused with the form of her father at +the moment of the apparition? The recognition of a man or his garments, +although the result of observation, does not usually carry with it any +consciousness of the details that we have observed; and she did not know +now what it was that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> had made her think of Toyner so strongly.</p> + +<p>The next morning, as the day was beginning to wear on, one of the +Fentown men put his head into Ann's door.</p> + +<p>"Do you happen to know where Toyner is?" he asked.</p> + +<p>She gave a negative, only to be obliged to repeat it to several +questions in quick succession.</p> + +<p>"Seen him this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Seen him last night?"</p> + +<p>"Happen to know where he would likely be?"</p> + +<p>The growing feeling of distress in Ann's mind made the shake of her head +more and more emphatic. She was of course an object of more or less pity +to every one at that time, and the intruder made an explanation that had +some tone of apology.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I didn't know but as you might have happened to have seen him +since he came back. His boat's there at the landing all right, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> his +mother's not seen him up to the house."</p> + +<p>During the day Ann heard the same tale in several different forms. +Toyner was one of those quiet men not often in request by his +neighbours; and as he was known at present to have reason possibly for +hidden movements in search of his quarry, there was not that hue and cry +raised concerning the presence of the boat and the absence of the owner +that would have been aroused in the case of some other; still, the +interest in his whereabouts gradually grew, and Ann heard the talk about +it. Within her own heart an unexpressed terror grew stronger and +stronger. It was founded upon the sense of personal responsibility. She +alone knew the secret mission upon which Toyner had left; she alone knew +of the glimpse of her father which she had caught the night before, and +she doubted now whether she had seen a spirit or visible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> man. What had +happened in the dark hour in which Toyner and Markham had met, and which +of them had brought back the boat? The misery of these questions grew to +be greater than she could endure; but to confide her distress to any one +was impossible. To do so might not only be to put her father's enemies +upon his track, but it would be to confess Bart's unfaithfulness to his +public duty; and in that curious revolution of feeling which so +frequently comes about in hearts where it is least expected, Ann felt +the latter would be the more intolerable woe of the two.</p> + +<p>Then came another of those strange unearthly sunsets. Ann's mind was +made up. Inactivity she could endure no longer. There was one +explanation that appeared to her more reasonable than any other; that +was, that Bart had wavered in his resolution to relieve Markham, that +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> latter had died upon the tree where he was hiding, and that Bart +would not show himself for the present where Ann could see him. Ann did +not believe in this explanation; but because of the apparition which she +thought she had seen, because of the horrible nature of the fear it +entailed, she determined that, come what would, she would go to that +secret place which she alone knew and find out if her father had been +taken from it or if any trace remained there to show what had really +happened. It was when the sisters were again alone for the night that +she first broke the silence of her fears.</p> + +<p>"Christa, father came to the window last night, but went away again +before I could catch him."</p> + +<p>"Sure he would never show his face in this place, Ann. You must have +been dreaming!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I must try to find<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> him. I tell you what I'm going to do. I've +been along all the boats, and there's not one of them I could take +without being heard except David Brown's canoe that is tied at the foot +of his father's field. I could get that, and I expect to be back here +long before it's light. If any one should come to the door asking for +me, you say, like the other night, that I'm ill and can't see them."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christa, without exhibiting much interest. Ann had been the +<i>deus ex machina</i> of the house since Christa's babyhood. It never +occurred to her that any power needed to interfere on behalf of Ann.</p> + +<p>"But if I shouldn't get back by daylight, you'll have to manage to say a +word to David Brown. Tell him that I borrowed his canoe for a very +special purpose. If you just say that, he'll have sense not to make a +fuss."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Christa sleepily.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + +<p>The canoe did not answer to Ann's one slim Indian paddle so lightly as +the boat she had taken before had answered to the oars. Kneeling upright +in the stern, she was obliged to keep her body in perfect balance.</p> + +<p>The moon did not rise now until late, but the smoke that had for two +days hung so still and dim had been lifted on a light breeze that came +with the darkness. The stars were clear above, and Ann's eyes were well +accustomed to the wood and stream.</p> + +<p>Ah! how long it seemed before she came round the bend of the river and +down to the blasted tree. She felt a repulsion for the whole death-like +place to-night that she had not felt before. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> had been sure the +other night of meeting some one at the end of her secret journey, and +now the best she could hope was that the place would be empty; and even +if it were empty, perhaps, for all she knew, one of the men for whom she +was seeking might be lying dead in the water beneath. Certainly the +inexplicable appearance of her father the night before had shaken her +nerves. Ann was doing a braver thing than she had ever done in her life, +because she was a prey to terror. Lonely as the desolate Ahwewee was, to +turn from it into the windings of the secret opening seemed like leaving +the world behind and going alone into a region of death. There was no +sound but the splash of paddle, the ripple of the still water under the +canoe, the occasional voice of a frog from the swampy edges of the lake, +and the shrill murmur of crickets from the dry fields beyond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>When Ann came near she saw the bound figure reclining in the arms of the +fallen tree. Then she believed that her worst fear had been true—that +Bart had been unfaithful, and that her father had died in this wretched +place. He must be dead because she had seen his spirit!</p> + +<p>She came nearer. He had not died of starvation; the bag of food which +she had hung upon the branch hung there yet. She set the canoe close +against the tree, and, holding by the tree, raised herself in it. She +had to be very careful lest the canoe should tip under her even while +she held by the tree. Then she put forth a brave hand, and laid it upon +the breast of the unconscious man.</p> + +<p>He was not dead. The heart was beating, though not strongly; the body +was warm.</p> + +<p>"Father, father." She shook him gently.</p> + +<p>The answer was a groan,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> very feeble. It told her at once that the man +before her was stricken with some physical ill that made him incapable +of responding to her.</p> + +<p>And now what was she to do? It was necessary by some means to get her +father into the canoe. To that she did not give a second thought, but +while he still lived it seemed to her monstrous to take him either back +to Fentown Falls or down to The Mills. Her horror of prison and of +judgment for him had grown to be wholly morbid and unreasonable, just +because his terror of it had been so extreme. Only one course remained. +She had the chart that David Brown had given her. He had told her that +at that northern edge of the swamp, which could be reached by the way he +had marked out, a small farmhouse stood. Possibly the people in this +house might not yet have heard of Markham the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> murderer; or possibly, if +they had heard, they might be won for pity's sake to let him regain +strength there and go in peace. It was her only chance. The moon was +rising now, and she would find the way. She felt strength to do anything +when she had realised that the heart beneath her hand was still beating.</p> + +<p>Ann moved the canoe under the fallen log, and moving down it upon her +knees, she took the rope from the prow, secured it round the log from +which the sick man must descend, and fastened it again to the other end +of the boat. This at least was a guarantee that they could not all sink +together. Even yet the danger of upsetting the canoe sideways was very +great. It was only necessity that enabled her to accomplish her task.</p> + +<p>"Father, rouse yourself a little." She took Markham's old felt hat, upon +which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> insensible head was lying, and set it warmly over his brow. +She unfastened the bands that tied his body to the log. She had not come +without a small phial of the rum that was always necessary for her +father, in the hope that she might find him alive. She soaked some +morsels of bread in this, and put it in the mouth of the man over whom +she was working. It was very dark; the only marvel was, not that she did +not recognise Toyner, but that she and he were not both engulfed in the +black flood beneath them in the struggle which she made to take him in +the canoe.</p> + +<p>Twice that day Toyner had stirred and become conscious; but +consciousness, except that of confused dreams, had again deserted him. +The lack of food, if it had preserved him from fever, had caused the +utmost weakness of all his bodily powers; yet when the small amount of +bread and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> rum which he could swallow gave him a little strength, he was +roused, not to the extent of knowing who he was or where, but enough to +move his muscles, although feebly, under direction. After a long time +she had him safely in the bottom of the canoe, his head lying upon her +jacket which she had folded for a pillow. At first, as she began to +paddle the canoe forward, he groaned again and again, but by degrees the +reaction of weakness after exertion made him lapse into his former state +that seemed like sleep.</p> + +<p>Ann had lost now all her fears of unknown and unseen dangers. All that +she feared was the loss of her way, or the upsetting of her boat. The +strength that she put into the strokes of her paddle was marvellous. She +had just a mile to go before she came to another place where a stretch +of still water opened through the trees. There were several<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> of these +blind channels opening off the bed of the Ahwewee. They were the terror +of those who were travelling in boats, for they were easily mistaken for +the river itself, and they led to nothing but impenetrable marsh. From +this particular inlet David Brown had discovered a passage to the land, +and Ann pursued the new untried way boldly. Somewhere farther on David +had told her a little creek flowed in where the eye could not discern +any wider opening than was constantly the case between the drowned +trees. Its effect upon the current of the water was said to be so slight +that the only way to discover where it ran was by throwing some light +particles upon the water and watching to see whether they drifted +outwards from the wood steadily. She turned the boat gently against a +broken stump from which she could take a decaying fragment. An hour +passed. She wearily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> crossed the water to and fro, casting out her chips +of punk, straining her eyes to see their motion in the moonlight. The +breeze that had moved the smoke had gone again. Above the moon rode +through white fleecy clouds. The water and air lay still and warm, +inter-penetrated with the white light. The trees, without leaf or twigs, +cast no shadow with the moon in the zenith.</p> + +<p>The patient experimenting with the chips was a terrible ordeal to Ann. +The man whom she supposed to be her father lay almost the whole length +of the canoe so close to her, and yet she could not pass his +outstretched feet to give him food or stimulant. At last, at last, to +her great joy, she found the place where the chips floated outward with +steady motion. She then pushed her canoe in among the trees, thankful to +know that it, at least, had been there before, that there would be no +pass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> too narrow for it. The canoe itself was almost like a living +creature to her by this time. Like an intelligent companion in the +search, it responded with gentle motion to her slightest touch.</p> + +<p>It seemed to Ann that the light of the moon was now growing very strong +and clear. Surely no moon had ever before become so bright! Ann looked +about her, almost for a moment dreading some supernatural thing, and +then she realised that the night was gone, that pale dawn was actually +smiling upon her. It gave her a strange sense of lightheartedness. Her +heart warmed with love to the sight of the purple tint in the eastern +sky, that bluish purple which precedes the yellow sunrise. On either +side of her boat now the water was so shallow that sedge and rushes rose +above it.</p> + +<p>The herons flapped across her path to their morning fishing.</p> + +<p>The creek still made a nar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>row channel for the canoe. Pretty soon its +current flowed between wild undulating tracts of bright green moss in +which the trees still stood dead, but bark and lichen now adhered to +their trunks, and a few more strokes brought her to the fringes of young +spruce and balsam that grew upon the drier knolls. She smelt living +trees, dry woods and pastures in front. Then a turn of the narrow creek, +and she saw a log-house standing not twenty paces from the stream. Above +and around it maples and elms held out green branches, and there was +some sort of a clearing farther on.</p> + +<p>Ann felt exultant in her triumph. She had brought her boat to a place of +safety. She seemed to gather life and strength from the sun; although it +still lay below the blue horizon of lake and forest which she had left +behind her, the sky above was a gulf of sunshine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stepped out of the boat and pushed away the hat to look in her +father's face. She saw now who it was that she had rescued. Toyner +stirred a little when she touched him, and opened his eyes, the same +grave grey eyes with which he had looked at her when he bade her +good-bye. There was no fever in them, and, as it seemed to her, no lack +of sense and thought. Yet he only looked at her gravely, and then seemed +to sleep again.</p> + +<p>The girl sprang upright upon the bank and wrung her hands together. It +came to her with sudden clearness what had been done. Had Toyner told +his tale, she could hardly have known it more clearly. Her father, had +tried to murder Bart; her father had tied him in his own place; it was +her father who had escaped alone with the boat. It was he himself, and +no apparition, who had peered in upon her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> through the window. She was +wrought up into a strong glow of indignation against the baseness that +would turn upon a deliverer, against the cruelty of the revenge taken. +No wonder that miserable father had not dared to enter her house again +or to seek further succour from her! All her pity, all the strength of +her generosity, went out to the man who had ventured so much on his +behalf and been betrayed. That unspoken reverence for Toyner, a sense of +the contrast between him and her father and the other men whom she knew, +which had been growing upon her, now culminated in an impulse of +devotion. A new faculty opened within her nature, a new mine of wealth.</p> + +<p>The thin white-faced man that lay half dead in the bottom of the canoe +perhaps experienced some reviving influence from this new energy of love +that had transformed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the woman who stood near him, for he opened his +eyes again and saw her, this time quite distinctly, standing looking +down upon him. There was tenderness in her eyes, and her sunbrowned face +was all aglow with a flush that was brighter than the flush of physical +exercise. About her bending figure grew what seemed to Bart's +half-dazzled sense the flowers of paradise, for wild sunflowers and +sheafs of purple eupatorium brushed her arms, standing in high phalanx +by the edge of the creek. Bart smiled as he looked, but he had no +thoughts, and all that he felt was summed up in a word that he uttered +gently:</p> + +<p>"Ann!"</p> + +<p>She knelt down at once. "What is it, Bart?" and again: "What were you +trying to say?"</p> + +<p>It is probable that her words did not reach him at all. He was only +half-way back from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the region of his vision; but he opened his eyes and +looked at her again.</p> + +<p>The sun rose, and a level golden beam struck through between the trunks +of the trees, touching the flowers and branches here and there with +moving lights, and giving all the air a brighter, mellower tint. There +was something that Bart did feel a desire to say—a great thought that +at another time he might have tried in a multitude of words to have +expressed and failed. He saw Ann, whom he loved, and the paradise about +her; he wanted to bring the new knowledge that had come to him in the +light of his vision to bear upon her who belonged now to the region of +outward not of inward sight and yet was part of what must always be to +him everlasting reality.</p> + +<p>"What were you going to say, Bart?" she asked again tenderly.</p> + +<p>And again he summed up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> all that he thought and felt in one word:</p> + +<p>"God."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Bart," she said, with some sudden intuitive sense of agreement.</p> + +<p>Then, seeming to be satisfied, he closed his eyes and went back into the +state of drowsiness.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + +<p>Ann went up to the house. It was a great relief to her to remember that +the man for whom she was going to ask help was no criminal. She could +hold up her head and speak boldly.</p> + +<p>Another minute and she began to look curiously to see how long the grass +and weeds had grown before the door. It was some months since David +Brown had been here. The doubt which had entered Ann's mind grew +swiftly. She knocked loudly upon the door and upon the wooden shutters +of the windows. The knocks echoed through empty rooms.</p> + +<p>She had no hesitation in house-breaking. In a shed at the back she found +a broken spade which formed a suffi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>ciently strong and sharp lever for +her purpose. She pried open a shutter and climbed in. She found only +such furniture as was necessary for a temporary abode. A small iron +stove, a few utensils of tin, a huge sack which had been used for a +straw bed, and a few articles of wooden furniture, were all that was to +be seen.</p> + +<p>Upon the canvas sack she seized eagerly. Bart might be dying, or he +might be recovering from some injury; in either case she had only one +desire, and that was to procure for him the necessary comforts. Having +no access to hay or straw, she began rapidly to gather the bracken which +was standing two and three feet high in great quantities wherever the +ground was dry under the trees. She worked with a nervous strength that +was extraordinary, even to herself, after the toilsome night. When she +had filled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> the sack, she put it upon the floor of the lower room and +went back to the canoe. She saw that Bart had roused himself and was +sitting up. He was even holding on to the rushes with his hand—an act +which she thought showed the dreamy state of his mind, for she did not +notice that the rope had come undone. She helped Bart out of the canoe, +putting her arm strongly round him so that he was able to walk. She saw +that he had not his mind yet; he said no word about the help she gave +him; he walked as a sleeping man might walk. When she laid him down upon +the bed of bracken and arranged his head upon the thicker part which she +had heaped for a pillow, he seemed to her to fall asleep almost at once; +and yet, for fear that his strange condition was not sleep, she hastily +opened the bag of food and the flask of rum.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>She stripped the twigs from a tiny spruce tree, piling them inside the +old stove. When they had cracked and blazed with a fierce, sudden heat, +Ann could only break bread-crumbs into a cupful of boiling water and put +a few drops of rum in it. She woke Bart and fed him as she might have +fed a baby. When he lay down again exhausted, with that strange moan +which he always gave when he first put back his head, she had the +comfort of believing that a better colour came to his cheek than before. +She resolved that if he rested quietly for a few hours and appeared +better after the next food she gave him, she would think it safe to +cushion the canoe with bracken and take him home. This thought suggested +to her to moor the canoe.</p> + +<p>She went down to the creek again, but it was too late. The water running +gently and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> steadily had done its work, taken the canoe out from among +the rushes, and floated it down between the mosses of the swamp. Making +her feet bare, she sprang from one clump of fern root to another, +sometimes missing her footing and striking to her knees through the +green moss that let her feet easily break into the black wet earth. In a +few minutes she could see the canoe. It had drifted just beyond the +swamp, where all the ground was lying under some feet of water; but +there a tree had turned its course out of the current of the creek, so +that it was now sidling against two ash trees, steady as if at anchor. +So few feet as it was from her, Ann saw at a glance that to reach it was +quite impossible. Realising the helplessness of her position without +this canoe, she might have been ready to brave the dangers of a struggle +in deep water to obtain it, but the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> danger was that of sinking in +bottomless mud. The canoe was wholly beyond her reach. Retracing her +steps, she washed her feet in the running creek, and, as she put on her +shoes, sitting upon the grassy bank in the morning sunlight, she felt +drowsily as if she must rest there for a few minutes. She let her head +fall upon the arm she had outstretched on the warm sod.</p> + +<p>When she stirred again she had that curious feeling of inexplicable +lapse of time that comes to us after unexpected and profound slumber. +The sun had already passed the zenith; the tone in the voices of the +crickets, the whole colouring of earth and sky, told her, before she had +made any exact observation of the shadows, that it was afternoon.</p> + +<p>She prepared more food for the sick man. When she had fed him and put +him to rest again, she went out to discover what means of egress by +land<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> was to be found from this lonely dwelling. She followed the faint +trace of wheel-ruts over the grass, which for a short distance ran +through undergrowth of fir and weeds. She came out upon a cleared space +of some acres, from which a fine crop of hay had clearly been taken, +apparently about a month before. Whoever had mowed the hay had evidently +been engaged also in a further clearing of the land beyond, and there +was a small patch where tomatoes and pea vines lay neglected in the sun; +the peas had been gathered weeks before, but the tomatoes, later in +ripening, hung there turning rich and red. Ann went on across the +cleared space. Following the track, she came to a thick bit of bush +beyond, where a long cutting had been made, just wide enough for a cart +to pass through.</p> + +<p>There was no other way out; Ann must walk through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> this long green +passage. No knight in a fairy tale ever entered path that looked more +remote from the world's thoroughfares. When she had walked a mile she +came to an opening where the ground dipped all round to a bottom which +had evidently at some time held water, for the flame-weed that grew +thick upon it stood even, the tops of its magenta flowers as level as a +lake—it was, in fact, a lake of faded crimson lying between shores of +luxuriant green. The cart-ruts went right down into the flame-flowers, +and she thought she could descry where they rose from them on the other +side. Evidently the blossoming had taken place since the last cart had +passed over, and no doubt many miles intervened between this and the +next dwelling-house. Nothing but the thought of necessities that might +arise for help on Bart's account made her make the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> toilsome passage, +knee-deep among the flowers, to see whether, beyond that, the road was +passable; but she only found that it was not fit for walkers except at a +time of greater drought than the present. The swamp crept round in a +ring, so that she discovered herself to be upon what was actually an +island. Ann turned back, realising that she was a prisoner.</p> + +<p>On her way home again she gathered blood-red tomatoes; and finding a +wild apple tree, she added its green fruit to what she already held +gathered in the skirt of her gown; starvation at least was not a near +enemy.</p> + +<p>She had made her investigation calmly, and with a light heart; she felt +sure that Bart had grown better and stronger during the day, and that +was all that she cared about. She never paused to ask herself why his +recovery was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> merely a humane interest but such a satisfying joy. +The knowledge of her present remoteness from all distresses of her life +as a daughter and sister came to her with a wonderful sense of rest, and +opened her mind to the sweet influences of the summer night and its +stars as that mind had never been opened before.</p> + +<p>She cooked the apples and tomatoes, making quite a good meal for +herself. Then she roused Bart, and gave him part of the cooked fruit.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + +<p>The darkness closed in about eight o'clock. Ann sat on the doorstep +watching the lights in the sky shine out one by one. Last night had been +the only night which had ever possessed terrors for her, and now that +she believed her father to be still alive she thought no longer with any +horror of his apparition. She wondered where he was wandering, but her +heart hardened towards him. She rested and dozed by turns upon the +doorstep until about midnight. Then in the darkness she heard a voice +from the bracken couch that assured her that Bart's mind had come back +to him again.</p> + +<p>"Who is there?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am going to give you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> something to eat," she said, letting her voice +speak her name.</p> + +<p>"Is it very dark?" he asked, "or am I blind?"</p> + +<p>"You can see right enough, Bart," she said gently; "you can watch me +kindle the fire."</p> + +<p>She left the door of the stove open while the spruce twigs were +crackling, and in the red, uncertain, dancing light he caught glimpses +of the room in which he was, and of her figure, but the fire died down +very quickly again.</p> + +<p>"I was thinking, Ann," he said slowly, "that it was a pity for Christa +to be kept from dancing. She is young and light on her feet. God must +have made her to dance."</p> + +<p>"Christa's well enough without it," said Ann, a little shortly.</p> + +<p>She thought more coldly of Christa since she had come up to a higher +level herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, I only meant about Christa that I think I made a mistake," said +Bart slowly.</p> + +<p>"How a mistake?" she asked.</p> + +<p>It was a very hard question to answer. A moment before and he thought he +had seen what the mistake was and how to speak, but when he tried, all +that manifold difficulty of applying that which is eternal to that which +is temporal came between his thought and its expression.</p> + +<p>He could not know clearly wherein his difficulty lay; no one had taught +him about the Pantheism which obliterates moral distinctions, or told +him of the subjective ideal which sweeps aside material delight. He only +felt after the realities expressed by these phrases, and dimly perceived +that truth lies midway between them, and that truth is the mind of God, +and can only be lived, not spoken. For a while he lay there in the +darkness, trying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> to think how he could tell Ann that to his eyes all +things had become new; after a little while he did try to tell her, and +although the words were lame, and apparently contradictory to much that +they both knew was also true, still some small measure of his meaning +passed into her mind.</p> + +<p>"God is different from what I ever thought," he said; "He isn't in some +things and not in others; it's wicked to live so as to make people think +that, for they think they can get outside of Him, and then they don't +mind Him at all."</p> + +<p>"How do you know it?" she asked curiously.</p> + +<p>"I saw it. Perhaps God showed me because I was so hard up. It's God's +truth, Ann, that I am saying."</p> + +<p>The room was quite dark again now; the chirping of the crickets outside +thrilled through and through it, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> there were no walls there but +only the darkness and the chirping. Ann sat upon a wooden chair by the +stove.</p> + +<p>She considered for a minute, and then she said, with the first touch of +repentance in her heart: "Well, I reckon God ain't in me, any way. There +isn't much of God in me that I can see."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you how it is if I can." Toyner's voice had a strange rest +and calm in it. He spoke as a man who looked at some inward source of +peace, trying to describe it. "Supposing you had a child, you wouldn't +care anything about him at all if you could just work him by wires so +that he couldn't do anything but just what you liked; and yet the more +you cared about him, the more it would hurt you dreadfully if he didn't +do the things that you knew were good for him, and love you and talk to +you too. Well now, suppose one day, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> he was a little fellow, say, +he wanted to touch something hot, and you told him not to. Well, if he +gave it up, you'd make it easier for him to be good next time; but +suppose he went on determined to have his own way, can't you think of +yourself taking hold of his hand and just helping him to reach up and +touch the hot thing? I tell you, if you did that it would mean that you +cared a great sight more about him than if you just slapped him and put +it out of his reach; and yet, you see, you'd be helping him to do the +wrong thing just because you wanted to take the naughtiness out of his +heart, not because you were a devil that wanted him to be naughty. Well, +you see, between us and our children" (Toyner was talking as men do who +get hold of truth, not as an individual, but as mankind) "it's not the +same as between God and us. They have our life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> in them, but they're +outside us and we're outside them, and so we get into the way, when we +want them to be good, of giving them a punishment that's outside the +harm they've done, and trying to put the harm they are going to do +outside of their reach; and when they do the right thing, half the time +we don't help them to do it again. But that isn't God's way. Nothing is +ever outside of Him; and what happens after we have done a thing is just +what must happen, nothing more and nothing less, so that we can never +hope to escape the good or the evil of what we have done; for the way +things must happen is just God's character that never changes. You see +the reason we can choose between right and wrong when a tree can't, or a +beast, is just because God's power of choice is in us and not in them. +So we use His power, and when we use it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> right and think about pleasing +Him—for, you see, we know He can be pleased, for our minds are just +bits of His mind (as far as we know anything about Him; but of course we +only know a very little)—He puts a tremendous lot of strength into us, +so that we can go on doing right next time. Of course it's a low sort of +right when we don't think about Him, for that's the most of what He +wants us to do; but I tell you" (a little personal fire and energy here +broke the calm of the recital), "I tell you, when I do look up to God +and say, '<i>Now I am going to do this for Your sake and because You are +in me and will do it</i>,' I tell you, there's <i>tremendous power</i> given us. +<i>That's the law that makes the value of religion</i>; I know it by the way +I gave up drinking. But now, look here; most of the time we don't use +God's will, that He lends us, to do what's right; well, then He doesn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> +slap us and put the harm out of our reach. He does just what the mother +does when she takes the child's hand and puts it against the hot thing, +and the burn hurts her as much as it hurts the child; but He is not weak +like we are to do it only once in a way. I tell you, Ann, every time you +do a wrong thing God is with you; that is what I saw when I was hard up +and God showed me how things really were. Now, look here, there isn't +any end to it that we can see here; it's an awful lot of help we get to +do the wrong thing if that's the thing we choose to do. It gets easier +and easier, and at first there's a lot of pleasure to it, but by-and-by +it gets more and more dreadful, and then comes death, and that's the end +here. But God does not change because we die, and wherever we go He is +with us and gives us energy to do just what we choose to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> do. It's hell +before we die when we live that way, and it's hell after, for ages and +ages and worlds and worlds perhaps, just until the hell-fire of sin has +burned the wrong way of choosing out of us. But remember, God never +leaves us whatever we do; there's nothing we feel that He doesn't feel +with us; we must all come in the end to being like Himself, and there's +always open the short simple way of choosing His help to do right, +instead of the long, long way through hell. But I tell you, Ann, whether +you're good or whether you're wicked, God is in you and you are in Him. +If He left you, you would neither be good nor wicked, you would stop +being; but He loves you in a bigger, closer way than you can think of +loving anybody; and if you choose to go round the longest way you can, +through the hell-fire of sin on earth and all the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> worlds, He will +suffer it all with you, and bring you in the end to be like Himself."</p> + +<p>The calm voice was sustained in physical strength by the strength of the +new faith.</p> + +<p>Ann's reply followed on the track of thoughts that had occurred to her. +"Well now, there's that awful low girl, Nelly Bowes. She's drunk all the +time, and she's got an awful disease. She's as bad as bad can be, and so +is the man she lives with; and that little child of hers was born a +hard-minded, sickly little beast." Her words had a touch of triumphant +opposition as she brought them out slowly. "It's a mean, horrid shame +for the child to be born like that. It wasn't its fault. Do you mean to +say God is with them?"</p> + +<p>"It's a long sight easier to believe that than that He just let them go +to the devil! I tell you it's an awful wicked thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> to teach people +that God can save them and doesn't. God is saving those two and the +child just by the hell they've brought on themselves and it; and He's in +hell with them, and He'll bring them out to something grander than we +can think about. They could come to it without giving Him all that agony +and themselves too; but if they won't, He'll go through it with them +rather than turn them into puppets that He could pull by wires. And as +to the child, I can't see it quite clear; but I see this much that I +know is true: it's God's character to have things so that a good man has +a child with a nice clean soul, and it's just by the same way of things +that the other happens too. It's the working out of the bad man's +salvation to see his child worse than himself, and it's the working out +of the child's salvation to have his bad soul in a bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> body. Look you, +can't you think that in the ages after death the saving of the soul of +that child may be the one thing to make that man and woman divine? +They'll never, never get rid of their child, and the child will come +quicker to the light through the blackness he is born to than if, having +the bad soul that he has, God was to set him in heaven. But, look you, +Ann, there isn't a day or an hour that God is not asking them to choose +the better and the quicker way, and there isn't a day or an hour that He +isn't asking you and me and every one else in the world to do as He does +so as to help them to choose it, and live out the sufferings of their +life with them till they do."</p> + +<p>Ann sat quite still; she had a feeling that if she moved to make any +other sound, however slight, than that of speech some spell would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> +broken. In the darkness Bart had awakened out of the stupor of his +injury; and although Ann could not have expressed it, she felt that his +voice came like the speech of a soul that is not a part of the things we +see and touch. It was so strange to her that he did not ask her where he +was. For a few minutes more at least she did not want to bring the least +rustle of material surroundings into their talk. She was still +incredulous; it is only a very weak mind that does not take time to grow +into a new point of view.</p> + +<p>"Bart, was God with father when he tried to kill you and tied you to the +tree?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"You can't think of God being less than something else. If God was not +in your father, then space is outside God's mind. You can't think that +God wanted to save your father<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> from doing it and didn't, unless you +think that the devil was stronger than God. You can't think that you are +more loving than God; and if He is so loving, He couldn't let any one do +what wasn't just the best thing. I tell you, it's a love that's awful to +think of that will go on giving men strength to do wrong until through +the ages of hell they get sick of it, rather than make them into +machines that would just go when they're wound up and that no one could +love."</p> + +<p>"Do they know all this in church, Bart?" Ann asked. It had never +occurred to her before to test her beliefs by this standard, but now it +seemed necessary; she felt after tradition instinctively. The nakedness +of Bart's statements seemed to want tradition for a garment.</p> + +<p>Bart's words were very simple. "When I was fastened on that log and saw +all this,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> I saw that Jesus knew it all, and that that was what all His +life and dying meant, and that the people that follow Him are learning +to know that that was what it meant; it takes them a long, long time, +and we can't understand it yet, but as the world goes on it will come +clearer. Everybody that knows anything about Him says all this in +church, only they don't quite understand it. There's many churches, Ann, +where the people all get up and say out loud, 'He descended into hell.' +I don't know much, for I've only read the Bible for one year; but if you +think of all that Jesus did and all that happened to Him, you will see +what I mean. People have made little of it by saying it was a miracle +and happened just once, but He knew better. He said that God had been +doing it always, and that He did nothing but what He saw God doing, and +that when men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> saw Him they would know that God was like that always. +Haven't I just been telling you that God bears our sins and carries our +sorrows with us until we become blessed because we are holy? We can +always choose to be that, but He will never <i>make</i> us choose. Jesus +never <i>made</i> anybody do anything; and, Ann, if there are things in the +Bible that we don't understand to mean that, it is because they are a +parable, and a parable, Ann, is putting something people can't +understand in pictures that they can look at and look at, and always +learn something every time they look, till at last they understand what +is meant. People have always learned just as much from the Bible as they +can take in, and made mistakes about the rest; but it is God's character +to make us learn even by mistakes."</p> + +<p>Ann's interest began to waver. They were silent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> awhile, and then, +"Bart, do you know where you are?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't seem to care much where I am, as long as you are here." There +was a touch of shyness in the tone of the last words that made all that +he had said before human to her.</p> + +<p>"If it hadn't been that I thought it was father, I'd have taken you +home." She told him how she had brought him. "If it had been a boat," +she said, "I'd have found out who it was before we got here, but the +canoe was too narrow."</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + +<p>Ann dosed where she sat. Toyner slept again. At length they were both +aware that the level light of the sun was in the room.</p> + +<p>Ann sat up, looking at the door intently. Then her eyes moved as if +following some one across the room.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Toyner.</p> + +<p>Ann started up with one swift look of agonised entreaty, and then it +seemed that what she had seen vanished, for she turned to Bart +trembling, unable to speak at first, sobs struggling with her breath.</p> + +<p>"It was father—I saw him come to the door and come in. He's dead now."</p> + +<p>"What did he look like?" Toyner's voice was very quiet.</p> + +<p>"He looked as if he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> dead, but as if he was mad too—his body as if +it was dead, and himself wild and mad and burning inside of it." She was +crouching on the floor, shaken with the sobs of a new and overwhelming +pity. "O Bart! I never cared—cared anything for him before—except to +have him comfortable and decent; but if I thought he was going to +be—like that—now I think I would die to save him if I could."</p> + +<p>"Would you die to save him? So would God; and you can't believe in God +at all unless you know that He does what He wants to do. And God does +it; dies in him, and is in him now; and He will save him."</p> + +<p>Bart's eyes were full of peace.</p> + +<p>"Can't you trust God, Ann? When He is suffering so much for love of each +of us? He could make us into good machines, but He won't. Can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> you +begin to do what He is doing for yourself and other people? Ann, if He +suffers in your father and in you, He is glad when you are glad. Try to +be glad always in His love and in the glory of it."</p> + +<p>Ann's mind had reverted again to the traditions of which she knew so +little. "I don't want to go to heaven," she said, "if father is in some +place looking like he did just now."</p> + +<p>"Heaven" (Bart repeated the word curiously), "heaven is inside you when +you grow to be like God; and through all ages and worlds heaven will be +to do as He does, to suffer with those that are suffering, and to die +with those that are dying. But remember, Ann, too, it means to rejoice +with those who are rejoicing; and joy is greater than pain and +heaviness. And heaven means always to be in peace and strength and +delight, because it is along the line<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> of God's will where His joy +flows."</p> + +<p>Ann rose and ran out of the house. To be in the sunshine and among the +wild sunflowers was more to her just then than any wisdom. The wave of +pity that had gone over her soul had ebbed in a feeling of exhaustion. +Her body wanted warmth and heat. She felt that she wanted <i>only</i> that. +After she had sat for an hour near the bank of the rippling stream, and +all her veins were warmed through and through with the sunlight, the +apparition of her father seemed like a dream. She had seen him thus once +in life, and supposed him a spirit. She was ready to suppose what she +had now seen to be a repetition of that last meeting, coming before she +was well roused from her sleep. She took comfort because her pulses ran +full and quiet once more. She thought of her love to Bart, and was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +content. As to all that Bart had said—ah well! something she had +gathered from it, which was a seed in her mind, lay quiet now.</p> + +<p>At length Toyner found strength to walk feebly, and sat down on the +doorstep, where he could see Ann. It was his first conscious look upon +this remote autumn bower, and he never forgot its joy. The eyes of men +who have just arisen from the dim region that lies near death are often +curiously full of unreasoning pleasure. Within himself Toyner called the +place the Garden of Eden.</p> + +<p>"If only I had not brought you here!" said Ann. "If only I had not left +the canoe untied!"</p> + +<p>For answer Bart looked around upon the trees and flowers and upon her +with happy eyes that had no hint of past or future in them. Something of +the secret of all peace—the <i>Eternal Now</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>—remained with him as long +as the weakness of this injury remained.</p> + +<p>"Don't fret, Ann" (with a smile).</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid for you; you look awful ill, and ought to have a doctor."</p> + +<p>He had it in his mind to tell her that he was all right and desired only +what he had; but, in the dreamy reflective mood that still held him, +what he said was:</p> + +<p>"If all the trouble in earth and heaven and hell were put together, Ann, +it would be just like clouds passing before the sun of joy. The clouds +are never at an end, but each one passes and melts away. Ann! sorrow and +joy are like the clouds and the sun."</p> + +<p>It is never destined that man should remain long in Eden. About noon +that day Ann heard a shout from the direction of the lake outside among +the dead trees; the shout was repeated yet nearer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> and in a minute or +two she recognised the voice and heard the sound of oars splashing up +the narrow channel made by the running creek. The thought of this +deliverance had not occurred to her; yet when she recognised the voice +it seemed to her natural enough that David Brown should have divined +where his canoe might have been brought. She stood waiting while his +boat came up the creek. The young athlete sprang from it, question and +reproach in his handsome young face. She found no difficulty then in +telling him just what she had done, and why. She felt herself suddenly +freed from all that life of frequent deception which she had so long +practised. She had no desire to dupe any man now into doing any service. +Something in the stress of the last days, in her new reverence for Bart, +had wrought a change in the relative value she set on truth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> and the +gain of untruth. She held up her head with a gesture of new dignity as +she told David that she had sought her father and found Bart.</p> + +<p>"Father has half killed him, and now it hurts me to see him ill. Bart is +a good man. O David, I tell you there is no one in the world I mind +about so much as Bart. Could you take him in your boat now to the +hospital at The Mills? He would have done as much for you, and more, if +you had got hurt in that way."</p> + +<p>So David took the man Ann loved to the hospital at The Mills. He did it +willingly if he did it ruefully. Ann went home, as she had come, in the +canoe, except that she had gone out in the dead of night and she went +home in broad daylight.</p> + +<p>No one blamed Ann when they knew she had gone out to help her father; no +one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> smiled or sneered when they found that she had succeeded in saving +Toyner's life.</p> + +<p>A few days passed, and poor Markham was found drowned in a forest pool. +They brought him home and buried him decently at Fentown for his +daughter's sake.</p> + +<p>Toyner lay ill for weeks in the little wooden hospital at The Mills.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + +<p>When Toyner was well he came home again. His mind was still animated +with the conception of God as suffering in the human struggle, but as +absolute Lord of that struggle, and the consequent belief that nothing +but obedience to the lower motive can be called evil. The new view of +truth his vision had given him had become too really a part of his mind +to be overthrown. It was no doubt a growth from the long years of +desultory browsing upon popular science and the one year that had been +so entirely devoted to the story of the gospel and to prayer. He could +not doubt his new creed; but no sooner had he left the hospital walls +than that burden came upon him of which the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> greatest stress is this, +that in trying to fit new light to common use we are apt to lose the +clearer vision of the light itself.</p> + +<p>In Toyner's former religious experience he had been much upheld by the +knowledge that he was walking in step with a vast army of Christians. +Now he no longer believed himself in the ways of exclusive thought and +practices in which the best men he knew were walking. The only religious +thinkers with whom he had come in contact gave up a large class of human +activities and the majority of human souls to the almost exclusive +dominion of the devil. As far as Toyner knew he was alone in the world +with his new idea. He had none of that vanity and self-confidence which +would have made it easy for him to hold to it. It did not appear to him +reasonable that he could be right and these others wrong. He did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> +know that no man can think alone, that by some strange necessity of +thought he could only think what other men were then thinking. He felt +homesick, sick for the support of those faithful ones which he had been +wont to see in imagination with him: their conscious communion with God +was the only good life, the life which he must seek to attain and from +which he feared above all things to fall short; and that being so, it +would have been easier, far easier, to call his new belief folly, +heresy, nay, blasphemy if that were needful, and to repent of it, if he +could have done so. He could not, do what he would; he saw his vision to +be true.</p> + +<p>The thing had grown with his growth; he believed that a voice from +heaven had spoken it. Is not this the history of all revelation?</p> + +<p>When I say that Toyner could not doubt his new<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> conception of God and of +the human struggle, I mean that he could not in sincerest thought hold +the contrary to be true. I do not mean to say that daily and hourly, +when about his common avocations, his new inspiration did not seem a +mere will-o'-the-wisp of the mind. It took months and years to bring it +into any accustomed relation to every-day matters of thought and act; +and it is this habitual adjustment of our inward belief to our outward +environment that makes any creed <i>appear</i> to be incontrovertible.</p> + +<p>Oh the loneliness of it, to have a creed that no companion has! The +sheer sorrow of being compelled by the law of his mind to believe +concerning God what he did not know that any other man believed time and +time again obscured Bart Toyner's vision of the divine.</p> + +<p>The power of the miracle wrought at his conversion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> was gone; he had +been taught that the miraculous power was only to be with him as long as +he yielded implicit obedience, but that implied a clear-cut knowledge of +right from wrong which Toyner did not now possess; many of the old rules +clashed with that one large new rule which had come to him—that any way +of life was wicked which made it appear that God was in some provinces +of life and not in others. "Whatever is not of faith is sin"; but while +an old and a new faith are warring in a man's soul the definition fails: +many a righteous act is born of doubt, not faith. This was one reason +why Toyner no longer possessed all-conquering strength. Another reason +there was which acted as powerfully to rob him—the soul-bewildering +difficulty of believing that the God of physical law can also be the God +of promise, that He that is within us and beneath us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> can also be above +us with power to lift us up.</p> + +<p>Without a firm grip on this supernatural upholding power Toyner was a +man with a diseased craving for intoxicants. He fled from them as a man +flies from deadly infection; but with all the help that total abstinence +and the absence of temptation can give he failed in the battle. A few +weeks after he had returned to Fentown he was brought into his mother's +house one morning dead drunk. The mother, whose heart had revived within +her a little during the last year, now sank again into her previous +dejection. Her friends said to her that they had always known how it +would be in the case of so sudden a reformation. When Toyner woke up his +humiliation was terrible; he bore it as he had borne all the rest of his +pain and shame, silently enough. No one but Ann Markham even guessed the +agony that he endured,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> and she had not the chance to give a kindly +look, for at this time Toyner, unable to trust himself with himself, was +afraid to look upon Ann lest he should smirch her life.</p> + +<p>Again Toyner set his feet sternly in the way of sobriety. Ah! how he +prayed, beseeching that God, who had revealed Himself to be greater and +nobler than had before been known, would not because of that show +Himself to be less powerful towards those that fear Him. It is the +prayer of faith, not the prayer of agonised entreaty, that takes hold of +strength. Toyner failed again and again. There was a vast difference now +between this and his former life of failure, for now he never despaired, +but took up the struggle each time just where he had laid it down, and +moreover the intervals of sobriety were long, and the fits of +drunkenness short and few; but there were not many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> besides Ann who +noticed this difference. And as for Toyner, the shame and misery of +failure so filled his horizon that he could not see the favourable +contrast—shame and misery, but never despair; that one word had gone +out of his life.</p> + +<p>One day a visitor came hurrying down the street to Toyner's home. The +stranger had the face of a saint, and the hasty feet of those who are +conscious that they bear tidings of great joy. It was Toyner's friend, +the preacher. Bart had often written to him, and he to his convert. Of +late the letters had been fraught with pain to both, but this was the +first time that the preacher had found himself able to come a long +journey since he had heard of Toyner's fall. He came, his heart big with +the prayer of faith that what he had done once he might be permitted to +do again—lead this man once more into the humble path of a +time-honoured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> creed and certain self-conquest. To the preacher the two +were one and indivisible.</p> + +<p>When this life is passed away, shall we see that our prayers for others +have been answered most lavishly by the very contradiction of what we +have desired?</p> + +<p>The visit was well timed. Bart Toyner's father lay dying; and in spite +of that, or rather in consequence of nights of watching and the +necessary handling of stimulants, Bart sat in his own room, only just +returned to soberness after a drunken night. With face buried in his +hands, and a heart that was breaking with sorrow, Bart was sitting +alone; and then the preacher came in.</p> + +<p>The preacher sat beside him, and put his arm around him. The preacher +was a man whose embrace no man could shrink from, for the physical part +of him was as nothing compared with the love and strength of its +animating soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Our Lord sends a message to you: 'All things are possible to him that +believeth.'" The preacher spoke with quiet strength. "<i>You</i> know, dear +brother, that this word of His is certainly true."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I know it. By the hour in which I first saw you I know it; +but I cannot take hold of it again in the same way. My faith wavers."</p> + +<p>"Your faith wavers?" The preacher spoke questioningly. "My brother, +faith in itself is nothing; it is only the hand that takes; it is the +Saviour in whom we believe who has the power. You have turned away from +Him. It is not that your faith wavers, but that you are walking straight +forward on the road of infidelity, and on that path you will never find +a God to help, but only a devil to devour."</p> + +<p>Toyner shivered even within the clasp of the encircling arm. "I had +tried to tell you in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> writing that the Saviour you follow is more to +me—far more, not less."</p> + +<p>"In what way?" The preacher's voice was full of sympathy; but here, and +for the first time, Bart felt it was an unconscious trick. Sympathy was +assumed to help him to speak. The preacher could conceive of no divine +object of love that was not limited to the pattern he had learned to +dwell upon.</p> + +<p>"I am not good at words," Toyner spoke humbly. "I took a long time to +write to you; I said it better than I could now, that God is far more +because He is a faithful Creator, responsible for us always, whatever we +do, to bring us to good. Now I do not need to keep dividing things and +people and thoughts into His and not-His. That was what it came to +before. You may say it didn't, but it did. And all we know about +Jesus—don't you see." (Bart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> raised his face with piteous, hunted +look)—"don't you see that what His life and death meant was—just what +I have told you? God doesn't hold back His robe, telling people what +they ought to do, and then judge them. He does not shrink from taking +sin on Himself to bring them through death to life. Doesn't your book +say so again and again and again?"</p> + +<p>"God cannot sin!" cried the preacher, with the warmth of holy +indignation.</p> + +<p>Toyner became calm with a momentary contempt of the other's lack of +understanding. "That goes without saying, or He would not be God."</p> + +<p>"But that is what you have said in your letters."</p> + +<p>There was silence in the room. The misery of his loneliness took hold of +Toyner till it almost felt like despair. Who was he, unlearned, very +sinful, even now shaken with the palsy of recent excess<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>—who was he to +bandy words with a holy man? All words that came from his own lips that +hour seemed to him horribly profane. The new idea that possessed him was +what he lived by, and yet alone with it he did not gather strength from +it to walk upright.</p> + +<p>"The father tempted the prodigal," he said, "when he gave him the +substance to waste with sinners. Did the father sin? The time had come +when nothing but temptation—yes, and sin too—could save. Most things, +sir, that you hold about God I can hold too. There are bad men, powerful +and seducing men, in the world; there may easily be unseen devils. There +is hell on earth, and I don't doubt but that there's the awfulest, +longest depth of the same kind of hell beyond. There's heaven on earth, +and all the love and pain of love we have tell us there's heaven beyond, +un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>speakable and eternal; but, sir, when you come to limit God—to say, +here the responsibility of the faithful God stops, here man's +self-destruction begins—I can't believe that. He must be responsible, +not only for starting us with freedom, but responsible for the use we +make of it and for all the consequence. When you say of the infinite God +that hell and the devils are something outside of Him—I can't think +that. The devils must live and move and have their being in Him. When +you say the holy God ever said to spirit He had created, 'Depart from +Me' (except in a parable meaning that as long as a spirit chose evil it +would not be conscious of God's nearness), I tell you, sir, by all He +has taught me out of the Bible you gave me, I don't believe it. We've +studied the Bible so much now that we know that holiness is just +love—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> sort of love that holds holy hatred and every other good +feeling within itself. We know that love can't fail and cast out the +thing it loves. When we know a law, we know the way it must work. If the +Bible seems to say the big law it teaches doesn't work out true, it must +be like what is said of the six days of creation, something that came as +near as it could to what people would understand, but that needs a new +explanation."</p> + +<p>The young preacher had withdrawn his encircling arm. He sat looking very +stern and sad.</p> + +<p>"When you begin to doubt God's word, you will soon doubt that He is, and +that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him."</p> + +<p>"Sir, it seems to me that it's doubting the incarnate Word to believe +what you do, because the main plain drift of all He was and did is +contradicted by some few things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> men supposed Him to mean because they +thought them. But it's not that I would set myself up to know about +doctrines, if it wasn't that this doctrine had driven me to stop +believing and stop caring to do right. I can't just explain it clearly, +but when I came to Him the way you told me, and thought the way you told +me, I just went on and did it and was blessed and happy in the love of +God as I never could have dreamed of; but all the time there was a +something—I didn't know exactly what—that I couldn't bring my mind to; +so I just left it. But when I got tempted, and prayed and prayed, then +it came on me all of a sudden that I didn't want a God who had to do +with such a little part of life as that. You see it had been simmering +in my mind all the days that I stopped doing the things you told me were +wrong and yet went on keeping among the publicans and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> sinners because +He did. If I'd just stayed with the church-goers, maybe I wouldn't have +felt it; but to think that I couldn't take a hand in an innocent game o' +cards, or dance with the girls that hadn't had another bit of +amusement—all that wasn't very important, but that sort of thing began +it. And then to think that God was in me and not in them! I began, as I +went down the street, wondering who had God in his heart and who hadn't, +that I might know who to trust and who to try to do good to. And then, +most of all, there was all my books that I liked so much. I didn't read +them any more, for when I thought that God had set every word in the +Bible quite true and left all the other books to be true or not just as +it happened, I couldn't think to look at any book but the Bible; for +one's greedy of knowing how things really are—that's what one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> reads +for. So you see it was all in my mind God did things differently one +time and another, like making one book and not the others, and only such +a small part of things was His; and then when the temptation came, you +see, if I'd thought God was in Markham and the girls I could have done +my duty and let Him take care of them; but it was because I'd no cause +to think that, and believed that He'd let them go, that I couldn't let +them go. I felt that I'd rather give up the sort of a God I thought on +and look after them a bit. It wasn't that I thought it out clear at the +time; but that was how it came about, and I was ready to kick religion +over. And, sir, if God hadn't taught me that when I went down to hell He +was there, I don't think I'd want to be religious again; but now I do +want it with all my might and main, and I'll never let go of it, just as +I know He won't let go of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> me—no, not if some of these days they have +to shovel me into a drunkard's grave; but I believe that God's got the +same strength for me just as He had when you converted me." Toyner +looked round him despairingly as a man might look for something that is +inexplicably lost. "I can't think how it is, but I can't get hold of His +strength."</p> + +<p>The preacher meditated. It had already been given to him to pray with +great persistency and faith for this back-slider, and he had come sure +of bringing with him adequate help; but now his hope was less. In a +moment he threw himself upon his knees and prayed aloud: "Heavenly +Father, open the heart of Thine erring child to see that it was the +craft and subtlety of the devil that devised for him a temptation he +could not resist,—none other but the devil could have been so subtle; +and show him that this same<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> devil, clothed as an angel of light, has +feigned Thy voice and whispered in his ear, and that until he returns to +the simple faith as it is in the gospel Thou <i>canst</i> not help him as of +old."</p> + +<p>"Stop!" (huskily). "I have not let go of His faith. His faith was in the +Father of sinners."</p> + +<p>Then the preacher strove in words to show him the greatness of his +error, and why he could not hold to it and live in the victory which +faith gives. It was no narrow or weak view that the preacher took of the +universe and God's scheme for its salvation; for he too lived at a time +when men were learning more of the love of God, and he too had spoken +with God. The hard outline of his creed had grown luminous, fringed with +the divine light from beyond, as the bars of prison windows grow +dazzling and fade when the prisoner looks at the sun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> All that the +preacher said was wise and strong, and the only reason he failed to +convince was that Toyner felt that the thought in which his own +storm-tossed soul had anchored was a little wiser and stronger—only a +little, for there was not a great difference between them, after all.</p> + +<p>"I take in all that you say, sir; but you see I can't help feeling sure +that it's true that God is living with us as much and as true when we're +in the worst sort of sin, and the greater sin that it brings—for the +punishment of sin is more and more sin—and being sure, I know that +everything else that is true will come to fit in with it, though I may +not be able rightly to put it in now, and what won't come to fit in with +it can't be true."</p> + +<p>The preacher perceived that the evil which he had set himself to slay +was giantlike in strength. He chose him smooth stones for his sling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> +His heart was growing heavy with fear of failure, his spirit within him +still raised its face heavenward in unceasing prayer. He began to tell +the history of God's ways with man from the first. He spoke of Abraham. +He urged that the great strength had always come to men who had trusted +God's word against reason and against sight. And he saw then that for +the first time Toyner raised up his head and seemed stirred with a +reviving strength.</p> + +<p>The preacher paused, hoping to hear some encouraging word in +correspondence to the gesture, but none came.</p> + +<p>Then he spoke of Moses and of Joshua, for he was following the tale of +God's rejection of sinful nations.</p> + +<p>Toyner answered now. His eye was clearer, his hand steadier. "I have +read there's many that say that God could not have told His people to +slay whole nations, men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> women, and children. I think it's the +shallowest thing that was ever said. I don't know about His <i>telling +people</i> to do it—that may be a poem; but that He gave it to them to do, +that He gives it to winds and floods and fires and plagues to do, time +and time and again, is as certain as that if there's a God He must have +things His way or He isn't God. But I don't believe that in this world, +or in the next, He ever left man, woman, or child, but lived with each +one all through the sin and the destruction. And, sir, I take it that +men couldn't see that until at last there came One who looked into God's +heart and saw the truth, and He wanted to tell it, but there were no +words, so though He had power in Him to be King over the whole earth, He +chose instead to be the companion of sinners, and to go down into all +the depths of pain and shame and death and hell. And He said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> His Father +had been doing it always, and He did it to show forth the Father. That +is what it means. I am sure that is what it means."</p> + +<p>The preacher was surprised to see the transformation that was going on +in the man before him. That wonderful law which gives to some centre of +energy in the brain the control of bodily strength, if but the right +relationship between mind and body can be established, was again +working, although in a lesser degree than formerly, to restore this man +before his eyes. Bart, who had appeared shrunken, trembling, and +watery-eyed, was pulling himself together with some strength that he had +got from somewhere, and was standing up again ready to play a man's +part. The preacher did not understand why. There seemed to him to have +been nothing but failure in the interview. He made one more effort; he +put<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> the last stone in his sling. Toyner had just spoken of the +sacrifice of Calvary, and to the preacher it seemed that he set it at +naught, because he was claiming salvation for those who mocked as well +as for those who believe.</p> + +<p>"Think of it," he said; "you make wrong but an inferior kind of right. +You take away the reason for the one great Sacrifice, and in this you +are slighting Him who suffered for you."</p> + +<p>Then he made, with all the force and eloquence he could, the personal +appeal of the Christ whom he felt to be slighted.</p> + +<p>"You have spoken of the sufferings of lost and wretched men," he went +on; "think of His sufferings! You have spoken of your loneliness; think +of His loneliness!"</p> + +<p>Then suddenly Bart Toyner made a gesture as a slave might who casts off +the chains of bondage. The appeal to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> which he was listening was not for +him, but for some man whom the preacher's imagination had drawn in his +place, who did not appropriate the great Sacrifice and seek to live in +its power. He did not now seek to explain again that the death of Christ +was to him as an altar, the point in human thought where always the fire +of the divine life descends upon the soul self-offered in like +sacrifice. He had tried to explain this; now he tried no more, but he +held out his hands with a sign of joy and recovered strength.</p> + +<p>"You came to help me; you have prayed for me; you have helped me; you +have been given something to say. Listen: you have told me of Abraham; +he was called to go out alone, quite alone. Now you have spoken to me of +Another who was alone." Toyner was incoherent. "That was why <i>He</i> bore +it, that we might know that it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> possible to have faith all alone +because He had it. It is easy to believe in God holding us up when +others do, but awfully hard all alone. He knew that, He warned them to +keep together; but all the same He lived out His prayers alone."</p> + +<p>Toyner looked at the preacher, love and reverence in his eyes. "You +saved me once," he said; "you have saved me again."</p> + +<p>But the preacher went home very sorrowful, for he did not believe that +Bart Toyner was saved.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + +<p>The spiritual strength that proceeds from every holy man had again +flowed in life-giving stream from the preacher to Bart Toyner. The help +was adequate. Toyner never became intoxicated again.</p> + +<p>His father died; and for two years or more the mother, who had lived +frugally all her life, still lived frugally, although land and money had +been left to her. The mother would not trust her son, and yet gradually +she began to realise that it was he who was quietly heaping into her lap +all those joys of which she had been so long deprived. At length she +died, the happy mother of a son who had won the respect of other men.</p> + +<p>It was after that that Toyner wedded Ann Markham.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> Then, when he had the +power to live a more individual life of enjoyment and effort, it began +to be known little by little that these two had committed that sin +against society so hard to forgive, the sin of having their own creed +and their own thoughts and their own ways.</p> + +<p>Toyner was not a preacher. It was not in him to try to change the ideas +of those who were doing well with what ideas they had. All that he +desired was to live so that it might be known that his God was the God +of the whole wide round of human activity, a God who blessed the just +and the unjust. Toyner desired to be constantly blessing both the bad +and the good with the blessing of love and home which had been given to +him. It was inevitable that to carry out such an idea a man must live +through many mistakes and much failure. The ideal itself was an offence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +to society. We have all heard of such offences and how they have been +punished.</p> + +<p>One great factor in the refining of Ann's life was her lover's long +neglect; for he, in the simple belief that she must know his heart and +purpose and that she would not be much benefited by his companionship, +left her for those years that passed before he married her wholly +ignorant of his constancy. Ann was constant. Had he explained himself +she would have been content and taken him more or less at his own +valuation, as we all take those who talk about themselves. Having no +such explanation to listen to, she watched and pondered all that he did. +Before the day came in which he made his shy and hesitating offer of +marriage, she had grown to be one with him in hope and desire. Together +they made their mistakes and lived down their failure. They had other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> +troubles too, for the babies lived and died one by one.</p> + +<p>There is seen to be a marvellous alchemy in true piety. Mind and sense +subject to its process become refined. Where refinement is not the +result, we may believe that there is a false note in the devotion, that +there is self-seeking in the effort toward God. Toyner's wealth grew +with the spread of the town over the land he owned. He had the good +taste to spend well the money he devoted to pleasure; yet it was not +books or pictures or music, acquired late in life, that gave to him and +to his wife the power to grow in harmony with their surroundings. It was +the high life of prayer and effort that they lived that made it possible +for God—the God of art as truly as the God of prayer—to teach them.</p> + +<p>It is not at the best a cultured place, this backwoods town. There was +many a slip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> in grammar, many a broad uncouth accent, heard daily in +Ann's drawing-room; but what mental life the town had came to centre in +that room. Gradually reflecting neighbours began to learn that there was +a beneficent force other than intellectual at work there.</p> + +<p>Young men who needed interest and pleasure, the poor who needed warmth +and food, came together to that room, and met there the drunkard in his +sober intervals, the gamester when he cared to play for mere pastime; +yes, and others, the more evil, were made welcome there. It was not +forgotten that Toyner had been a wicked man and that Ann's father had +been a murderer.</p> + +<p>It was a strange effort this, to increase virtue in the virtuous, not by +separation from, but by friendship with, the unrepentant. To Toyner sin +was an abhorred thing. It con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>sisted always, yet only, in failure to +tread in the foot-prints of God, as far as it was given to each man to +see God's way—in obedience to the lower motive in any moment of the +perpetual choice of life. For himself, his life was impassioned with the +belief that it was wicked to live as if God was not the God of the whole +of what we may know.</p> + +<p>I, who have seen it, tell you that the atmosphere of that house was +always sweet. There were many young girls who came to it often, and +laughed and danced with men who were not righteous, and the girls lived +more holy lives than before. I would say this:—do not let any one +imitate the method of life which Toyner and his wife practised unless by +prayer he can obtain the power of the unseen holiness to work upon the +flux of circumstance; yet do not let those fear to imitate it who have +learned the secret of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> prayer. It was a strenuous life of prayer and +self-denial that these two lived until their race in this phase of +things was run.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p><i>It is with this abrupt note of personal observation and reflection that +the schoolmaster's manuscript ends. He had evidently become one of +Toyner's disciples. It is well that we should know what our brothers +think, feel with their hearts for an hour, if it may not be for longer.</i></p> + +<hr /> +<p class='center'>Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Zeit-Geist, by Lily Dougall + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEIT-GEIST *** + +***** This file should be named 18054-h.htm or 18054-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/5/18054/ + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Zeit-Geist + +Author: Lily Dougall + +Release Date: March 26, 2006 [EBook #18054] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEIT-GEIST *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + + + + + + + + +The Zeit-Geist + +[Illustration: Zeit-geist logo] + + + + +THE +Zeit-Geist +Library +of +_COMPLETE NOVELS_ +in One Volume. +_Paper, 1s. 6d.; cloth, 2s._ + +Early Volumes. +By L. DOUGALL. +THE ZEIT-GEIST. +With Frontispiece. + +By GYP. +CHIFFON'S MARRIAGE. +With Portrait of Author. + +By FRANKFORT MOORE. +THE SALE OF A SOUL. +With Frontispiece. + +By the Author of "A Yellow Aster." +A NEW NOVEL. +With Frontispiece. + +_Other volumes to follow._ + +Each volume with designed +Title-page. + +LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., +PATERNOSTER ROW. + + +[Illustration: Bust] + +[Illustration: Title page] + + + + +The Zeit-Geist + +L. DOUGALL + +Author of Beggars All, What Necessity Knows, etc. + +LONDON +HUTCHINSON & CO +PATERNOSTER ROW + + + "I ... create evil. I am + the Lord." + _Isa. xlv. 6, 7._ + + + "Where will God be + absent? In His face + Is light, but in His shadow + there is healing too: + Let Guido touch the shadow + and be healed!" + _The Ring and the Book._ + + + "If Nature is the garment + of God, it is woven without + seam throughout." + _The Ascent of Man._ + + + + +OXFORD, _January 1895_. + + +_When travelling in Canada, in the region north of Lake Ontario, I came +upon traces of the somewhat remarkable life which is the subject of the +following sketch. + +Having applied to the school-master in the town where Bartholomew Toyner +lived, I received an account the graphic detail and imaginative insight +of which attest the writer's personal affection. This account, with only +such condensation as is necessary, I now give to the world. I do not +believe that it belongs to the novel to teach theology; but I do believe +that religious sentiments and opinions are a legitimate subject of its +art, and that perhaps its highest function is to promote understanding +by bringing into contact minds that habitually misinterpret one +another._ + + + + +THE ZEIT-GEIST. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PROLOGUE. + + +To-day I am at home in the little town of the fens, where the Ahwewee +River falls some thirty feet from one level of land to another. Both +broad levels were covered with forest of ash and maple, spruce and +tamarack; but long ago, some time in the thirties, impious hands built +dams on the impetuous Ahwewee, and wide marshes and drowned wood-lands +are the result. Yet just immediately at Fentown there is neither marsh +nor dead tree; the river dashes over its ledge of rock in a foaming +flood, runs shallow and rapid between green woods, and all about the +town there are breezy pastures where the stumps are still standing, and +arable lands well cleared. The little town itself has a thriving look. +Its public buildings and its villas have risen, as by the sweep of an +enchanter's wand, in these backwoods to the south of the Ottawa valley. + +There was a day when I came a stranger to Fentown. The occasion of my +coming was a meeting concerning the opening of new schools for the +town--schools on a large and ambitious plan for so small a place. When +the meeting was over, I came out into the street on a mild September +afternoon. The other members of the School Council were with me. There +were two clergymen of the party. One of them, a young man with thin, +eager face, happened to be at my side. + +"This Mr. Toyner, whose opinion has been so much consulted, was not +here to-day?" I said this interrogatively. + +"No, ah--but you'll see him now. He has invited you all to a garden +party, or something of that sort. He's in delicate health. Ah--of +course, you know, it is natural for me to wish his influence with the +Council were much less than it is." + +"Indeed! He was spoken of as a philanthropist." + +"It's a very poor love to one's fellow-man that gives him all that his +vanity desires in the way of knowledge without leading him into the +Church, where he would be taught to set the value of everything in its +right proportion." + +I was rather struck with this view of the function of the Church. +"Certainly," I replied, "to see all things in right proportion is +wisdom; but I heard this Toyner mentioned as a religious man." + +"He has some imaginations of his own, I believe, which he mistakes for +religion. I do not know him intimately; I do not wish to. I believe he +has some sort of desire to do what is right; but that, you know, is a +house built upon the sand, unless it is founded upon the desire for +instruction as to what _is_ right. Every one cries up his generosity; +for instance, one of my church-wardens tells him that we need a new +organ in the church and the people won't give a penny-piece towards it, +so Toyner says, with his benevolent smile, 'They must be taught to give. +Tell them I will give half if they will give the other half.' But if the +Roman Catholic priest or a Methodist goes to him the next day for a +subscription, he gives just as willingly if, as is likely, he thinks the +object good. What can you do with a man like that, who has no principle? +It's impossible to have much respect for him." + +Now I myself am a school-master, versed in the lore of certain books +ancient and modern, but knowing very little about such a practical +matter as applied theology; nor did I know very much then concerning the +classification of Christians among themselves: but I think that I am not +wrong in saying that this young man belonged to that movement in the +Anglican Church which fights strongly for a visible unity and for Church +tradition. I am so made that I always tend to agree with the man who is +speaking, so my companion was encouraged by my sympathy. + +He went on: "I can do with a man that is out-and-out anything. I can +work with a Papist; I can work with a Methodist, as far as I can +conscientiously meet him on common ground, and I can respect him if he +conscientiously holds that he is right and I am wrong: but these +fellows that are neither one thing nor the other--they are as dangerous +as rocks and shoals that are just hidden under the water. You never know +when you have them." + +We were upon the broad wooden side-walk of an avenue leading from the +central street of the town to a region of outstanding gardens and +pleasure-grounds, in which the wooden villas of the citizens stood among +luxuriant trees. It is a characteristic of Fentown that the old trees +about the place have been left standing. + +A new companion came to my side, and he, as fate would have it, was +another clergyman. He was an older man, with a genial, bearded face. I +think he belonged to that party which takes its name from the Evangel of +whose purity it professes itself the guardian. + +"You are going to this entertainment which Mr. and Mrs. Toyner are +giving?" The cordiality of his common-place remark had a certain +restraint in it. + +"You are going also?" + +"No; it is not a house at which I visit. I have lived here for +twenty-five years, and of course I have known Mr. Toyner more or less +all that time. I do not know how I shall be able to work on the same +Council with him; but we shall see. We, who believe in the truth of +religion, must hold our own if we can." + +I was to be the master of the new schools. I pleased him with my assent. + +"I am rather sorry," he continued, "to tell the truth, that you should +begin your social life in Fentown by visiting Mr. Toyner; but of course +this afternoon it is merely a public reception, and after a time you +will be able to judge for yourself. I do not hesitate to say that I +consider his influence, especially with the young people, of a most +dangerous kind. For a long time, you know, he and his wife were quite +ostracised--not so much because of their low origin as because of their +religious opinions. But of late years even good Christians appear +disposed to be friendly with them. Money, you know--money carries all +things before it." + +"Yes, that is too often the case." + +"Well, I don't say that Toyner doesn't hold up a certain standard of +morality among the young men of the place, but it's a pretty low one; +and he has them all under his influence. There isn't a young fellow that +walks these streets, whether the son of clergyman or beggar, who is not +free to go to that man's house every evening and have the run of his +rooms and his books. And Toyner and his wife will sit down and play +cards with them; or they'll get in a lot of girls, and have a dance, or +theatricals,--the thin end of the wedge, you know, the thin end of the +wedge! And all the young men go to his house, except a few that we've +got in our Christian Association." + +The speaker was stricter in his views than I saw cause to be; but then, +I knew something of his life; he was giving it day by day to save the +men of whom he was talking. He had a better right than I to know what +was best for them. + +"When you have a thorough-going man of the world," he said, "every one +knows what that means, and there's not so much harm done. But this Mr. +Toyner is always talking about God, and using his influence to make +people pray to God. Such men are not ready to pray until they are +prepared to give up the world! The God that he tells them of is a +fiction of his imagination; indeed, I might say a mere creature of his +fancy, who is going to save all men in the end, whatever they do!" + +"A Universalist!" + +"Oh, worse than that--at least, I have read the books of Universalists +who, though their error was great, did not appear to me so far astray. I +cannot understand it! I cannot understand it!" he went on; "I cannot +understand the influence that he has obtained over our more educated +class; for twenty years ago he was himself a low, besotted drunkard, and +his wife is the daughter of a murderer! Still less do I understand how +such people can claim to be religious at all, and yet not see to what +awful evil the small beginnings of vice must lead. I tell you, if a man +is allowed by Providence to lead an easy life, and remains unfaithful, +he may still have some good metal in him which adversity might refine; +but when people have gone through all that Toyner and his wife have been +through--not a child that has been born to them but has died at the +breast--I say, when they have been through all that, and still lead a +worldly, unsatisfactory life, you may be sure that there is nothing in +them that has the true ring of manhood or womanhood." + +I was left alone to enter Mr. Toyner's gates. I found myself in a large +pleasure-ground, where Nature had been guided, not curtailed, in her +work. I was walking upon a winding drive, walled on either side by a +wild irregular line of shrubs, where the delicate forms of acacias and +crab-apples lifted themselves high in comparison to the lower lilac and +elderberry-bushes. I watched the sunlit acacias as they fluttered, +spreading their delicate leaves and golden pods against the blue above +me. I made my way leisurely in the direction of music which I heard at +some distance. I had not advanced far before another person came into my +path. + +He was a slight, delicate man of middle size. His hair and moustache +were almost quite white. Something in the air of neatness and perfection +about his dress, in the extreme gravity and clearness of his grey eyes, +even in the fine texture of that long, thin, drooping moustache, made it +evident to me that this new companion was not what we call an ordinary +person. + +"Your friend did not come in with you." The voice spoke disappointment; +the speaker looked wistfully at the form of the retreating clergyman +which he could just see through a gap in the shrubs. + +"You wished him to come?" + +"I saw you coming. I came toward the gate in the hope that he might +come in." Then he added a word of cordial greeting. I perceived that I +was walking with my host. + +There are some men to whom one instinctively pays the compliment of +direct speech. "I have been walking with two clergymen. I understand +that you differ from both with regard to religious opinion." + +It appeared to me that after this speech of mine he took my measure +quietly. He did not say in so many words he did not see that this +difference of opinion was a sufficient reason for their absence, but by +some word or sign he gave me to understand that, adding: + +"I feel myself deprived of a great benefit in being without their +society. They are the two best and noblest men I know." + +"It is rare for men to take pleasure in the society of their +opponents." + +"Yet you will admit that to be willing to learn from those from whom we +differ is the only path to wisdom." + +"It is difficult to tread that path without letting go what we already +have, and that produces chaos." + +With intensity both of thought and feeling he took up the words that I +had dropped half idly, and showed me what he thought to be the truth and +untruth of them. There was a grave earnestness in his speech which made +his opinion on this subject suddenly become of moment to me, and his +intensity did not produce any of that sensation of irritation or +opposition which the intensity of most men produces as soon as it is +felt. + +"You think that the chief obstacle which is hindering the progress of +true religion in the world at present is that while we will not learn +from those who disagree with us we can obtain no new light, and that +when we are willing to reach after their light we become also willing to +let go what we have had, so that the world does not gain but loses by +the transaction. This is, I admit, an obstacle to thought; but it is not +the essential difficulty of our age." + +"Let us consider," I said, in my pedantic way, "how my difficulty may be +overcome, and then let us discuss that one you consider to be +essential." + +Toyner's choice of words, like his appearance, betrayed a strong, yet +finely chiselled personality. + +"We are truly accustomed now to the idea that whatever has life cannot +possibly remain unchanged, but must always develop by leaving some part +behind and producing some part that is new. It is God's will that the +religious thought of the world, which is made up of the thought of +individuals, shall proceed in this way, whether we will or not, but it +must always help progress when we can make our wills at one with God's +in this matter; we go faster and safer so. Now to say that to submit +willingly to God's law of growth is to produce chaos must certainly be a +fallacy. It must then be a fallacy to argue that to keep a mind open to +all influences is antagonistic to the truest religious life; we +cannot--whether we wish or not, we _cannot_--let go any truth that has +been assimilated into our lives; and what truth we have not assimilated +it is no advantage to hold without agitation. We know better where we +are when we are forced to sift it. It is the very great apparent +advantage of recognised order that deceives us! When we lose that +_apparent_ advantage, when we lose, too, the familiar names and +symbols, and think, like children, that we have lost the reality they +have expressed to us, a very low state of things _appears_ to result. +The strain and stress of life become much greater. Ah! but, my friend, +it is that strain and stress that shape us into the image of God." + +"You hinted, I think, that to your mind there was a more real obstacle, +one peculiar to our age." + +Ever since I first met him I have been puzzled to know how it was that I +often knew so nearly what Toyner meant when he only partially expressed +his thought; he had this power over my understanding. He was my master +from the first. + +He laid his hand now slightly upon my arm, as though to emphasise what +he said. + +"It is a little hard to explain it reverently," he said, "and still +harder to understand why the difficulty should have come about, but in +our day it would seem that the nights of prayer and the fresh intuition +into the laws of God's working, which we see united in the life of our +great Example, have become divorced. It is their union again that we +must have--that we shall have; but at present there is the difficulty +for every man of us--the men who lead us in either path are different +men and lead different ways. Our law-givers are not the men who meet God +upon the mount. Our scientists are not the teachers who are pre-eminent +for fasting and prayer. We who to be true to ourselves must follow in +both paths find our souls perplexed." + +In front of us, as we turned a curve in the drive, a bed of scarlet +lilies stood stately in the sun, and a pair of bickering sparrows rose +from the fountain near which they grew. Toyner made a slight gesture of +his hand. With the eagerness of a child he asked: + +"Is it not hard to believe that we may ask and expect forgiveness and +gifts from the God who by slow inevitable laws of growth clothes the +lilies, who ordains the fall of every one of these sparrows, foresees +the fall and ordains it--the God whose character is expressed in +physical law? The texts of Jesus have become so trite that we forget +that they contain the same vision of 'God's mind in all things' that +makes it so hard to believe in a personality in God, that makes prayer +seem to us so futile." + +We came out of the shrubbery upon a bank that dropped before us to a +level lawn. I found myself in the midst of a company of people among +whom were the other members of the new School Council. Below, upon the +lawn, there was a little spectacle going on for our entertainment--a +morris-dance, simply and gracefully performed by young people dressed +in quaintly fashioned frocks of calico; there was good music too--one or +two instruments, to which they danced. Round the other side of the grass +an avenue of stately Canadian maples shut in the view, except where the +river or the pale blue of the eastern horizon was seen in glimpses +through their branches. Behind us the sun's declining rays fell upon an +old-fashioned garden of holly-hocks and asters, so that the effect, as +one caught it turning sideways, was like light upon a stained-glass +window, so rich were the dyes. I saw all this only as one sees the +surroundings of some object that interests supremely. + +The man who had been walking with me said simply, "This is my wife." + +Before me stood a woman who had the power that some few women have of +making all those whom they gather round them speak out clearly and +freshly the best that is in them. + +Ah! we live in a new country. Its streets are not paved with gold, nor +is prosperity to be attained without toil; but it gives this one +advantage--room for growth; whatever virtue a soul contains may reach +its full height and fragrance and colour, if it will. + +I did not know then that the beginning of this provincial _salon_, which +Toyner's wife had kept about her for so many years, and to which she +gave a genuine brilliance, however raw the material, had been a wooden +shanty, in which a small income was made by the sale of home-brewed +beer. + +I always remember Ann Toyner as I saw her that first time. Her eyes were +black and still bright; but when I looked at them I remembered the +little children that had died in her arms, and I knew that her hopes +had not died with them, but by that suffering had been transformed. As I +heard her talk, my own hopes lifted themselves above their ordinary +level. + +Husband and wife stood together, and I noticed that the white shawl that +was crossed Quakerwise over her thin shoulders seemed like a counterpart +of his careful dress, that the white tresses that were beginning to show +among her black ones were almost like a reflection of his white hair. I +felt that in some curious way, although each had so distinct and strong +a personality, they were only perfect as a part of the character which +in their union formed a perfect whole. They stood erect and looked at us +with frank, kindly eyes; we all found to our surprise that we were +saying what we thought and felt, and not what we supposed we ought to +say. + +As I talked and looked at them, the words that I had heard came back to +my mind. "His wife is the daughter of a murderer, and he has come up +from the lowest, vilest life." Some indistinct thought worked through my +mind whose only expression was a disconnected phrase: "I saw a new +heaven and a new earth." + +In the years since then I have learned to know the story of Toyner and +his wife. Now that they are gone away from us, I will tell what I know. +His was a life which shows that a man cut off from all contact with his +brother-thinkers may still be worked upon by the great over-soul of +thought: his is the story of a weak man who lived a strong life in a +strength greater than his own. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +In the days when there were not many people in Fentown Falls, and when +much money was made by the lumber trade, Bartholomew Toyner's father +grew rich. He was a Scotchman, not without some education, and was +ambitious for his son; but he was a hard, ill-tempered man, and +consequently neither his example nor his precepts carried any weight +whatever with the son when he was grown. The mother, who had begun life +cheerfully and sensibly, showed the weakness of her character in that +she became habitually peevish. She had enough to make her so. All her +pleasure in life was centred in her son Bart. Bart came out of school to +lounge upon the streets, to smoke immoderately, and to drink such large +quantities of what went into the country by the name of "Jamaica," that +in a few years it came to pass that he was nearly always drunk. + +Poor Bart! the rum habit worked its heavy chains upon him before he was +well aware that his life had begun in earnest; and when he realised that +he was in possession of his full manhood, and that the prime of life was +not far off, he found himself chained hand and foot, toiling heavily in +the most degrading servitude. A few more years and he realised also +that, do what he would, he could not set himself free. No one in the +world had any knowledge of the struggle he made. Some--his mother among +them--gave him credit for trying now and then, and that was a charitable +view of his case. How could any man know? He was not born with the +nature that reveals itself in many words, or that gets rid of its +intolerable burdens of grief and shame by passing them off upon others. +All that any one could see was the inevitable failure. + +The failure was the chief of what Bart himself saw. That unquenchable +instinct in a man's heart that if he had only tried a little harder he +would certainly have attained to righteousness gave the lie to his sense +of agonising struggle, with its desperate, rallies of courage and +sinkings of discouragement, gleams of self-confidence, and foul +suspicion of self, suspicion even as to the reality of his own effort. +All this was in the region of unseen spirit, almost as much unseen to +those about him as are the spirits of the dead men and angels, often a +mere matter of faith to himself, so apart did it seem from the outward +realities of life. + +Outwardly the years went easily enough. The father railed and stormed, +then relapsed into a manner of silent contempt; but he did not drive his +son from the plain, comfortable home which he kept. Bart would not work, +but he took some interest in reading. Paper-covered infidel books, and +popular books on modern science, were his choice rather than fiction. +The choice might have been worse, for the fiction to which he had access +was more enervating. Outside his father's house he neglected the better +class of his neighbours, and fraternised with the men and women that +lived by the lowest bank of the river; but his life there was still one +into which the fresh air and the sunshine of the Canadian climate +entered largely. If he lounged all day, it was on the benches in the +open air; if he played cards all night, he was not given much money to +waste; and there were few women to lend their companionship to the many +drunkards of whom he was only one. Then, also, Bart did not do even all +the evil that he might. What was the result of that long struggle of his +which always ended in failure? The failure was only apparent; the +success was this mighty one--that he did not go lower, he did not leave +Fentown Falls for the next town upon the river, a place called The +Mills, where his life could have been much worse. He fell in love with +Ann Markham; and although she was the daughter of the wickedest man in +Fentown, she was--according to the phraseology of the place--"a lady." +She kept a small beer-shop that was neat and clean; she lived so that no +man dared to say an uncivil word to her or to the sister whom she +protected. She did for her father very much what Bart's father did for +him: she kept a decent house over his head and decent clothes upon his +back, and threw a mantle of thrifty respectability over him. + +Ann was no prude, and she certainly was no saint. Twice a week there was +the sound of fiddling and dancing feet in a certain wooden hall that +stood near the river; and there, with the men and women of the worldly +sort, Ann and her sister danced. It was their amusement; they had no +other except the idle talking and laughing that went on over the table +at which Ann sold her home-brewed beer. Ann's end in life was just the +ordinary one--respectability, or a moderate righteousness, first, and +after that, pleasure. She was a strong, vigorous, sunbrowned maiden; she +worked hard to brew her beer and to sell it. She ruled her sister with +an inflexible will. She had much to say to men whom she liked and +admired. She neither liked nor admired Bart Toyner, never threw him a +word unless in scorn; yet he loved her. She was the star by which he +steered his ship in those intervals in which his eyes were clear enough +to steer at all; and the ship did not go so far out of the track as it +would otherwise have gone. When a man is in the right course, with a +good hope of the port, rowing and steering, however toilsome, is a +cheerful thing; but when the track is so far lost that the sailor +scarcely hopes to regain it--then perhaps (God only knows) it requires +more virtue to row and steer at all, even though it be done fitfully. + +This belief that he could never come to any desired haven was the one +force above all others that went to the ruining of Toyner's life. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Bart Toyner was more than thirty years old when the period of his +reformation came. His father had grown old and foolish. It was the +breaking down of his father's clear mind that first started and shocked +Bart into some strong emotion of filial respect and love; then came +another agonising struggle on his part to free himself from his evil +habits. In this fit of sobriety he went a journey to the nearest city +upon his father's business, and there, after a few days, he took to +drinking harder than ever, ceased to write home, lost all the +possessions that he had taken with him, and sank deep down into the mire +of the place. + +The first thing that he remembered in the awakening that followed was +the face of another man. It stood out in the nebulous gathering of his +returning self-consciousness like the face of an angel; there was the +flame of enthusiasm in the eyes, a force of will had chiselled handsome +features into tense lines; but in spite of that, or rather perhaps +because of it, it was a gentle, happy face. + +It is happiness that is the culmination of sainthood. You may look +through the pictures of the saints of all ages and find enthusiasm and +righteousness in many and the degree of faith that these imply; but +where you find joy too, there has been the greatest faith, the greatest +saintliness. + +Bart found himself clothed and fed; he felt the warm clasp of a human +hand in his, and some self-respect came back to him by the contact. The +face and the hand belonged to a mission preacher, and Bart arose and +followed his friend to a place where there was the sound of many feet +hurrying and a great concourse of people was gathered in a wood without +the town. + +It was only with curiosity that Bart looked about him at the high trees +that stretched their green canopy above, at the people who ranged +themselves in a hollow of the wood--one of nature's theatres. Curiosity +passed into strong emotion of maudlin sentiment when the great +congregation sang a hymn. He sat upon a bench at the back and wept tears +that even to himself had neither sense nor truth. Yet there was in them +the stirring of something inarticulate, incomprehensible, like the +stirring that comes at spring-time in the heart of the seed that lies +below the ground. After that the voice of the preacher began to make its +way slowly through the dull, dark mind of the drunkard. + +The preacher spoke of the wonderful love of God manifested in a certain +definite offer of salvation, a certain bargain, which, if closed with, +would bring heaven to the soul of every man. + +The preacher belonged to that period of this century when the religious +world first threw off its contempt for the present earthly life and +began to preach, not a salvation from sin's punishment so much as a +salvation from sin. + +It was the old cry: "Repent, believe; for the kingdom of heaven is at +hand." The doctrine that was set forth had not only the vital growth of +ages in it, but it had accreted the misunderstanding of the ages also; +yet this doctrine did not hide, it only limited, the saving power of +God. "Believe," cried the preacher, "in a just God and a Saviour." So he +preached Christ unto them, just as he supposed St. Paul to have done, +wotting nothing of the fact that every word and every symbol stand for +a different thought in the minds of men with every revolution of that +glass by which Time marks centuries. + +It mattered nothing to Bart just now all this about the centuries and +the doctrines; the heart of the preaching was the eternal truth that has +been growing brighter and brighter since the world began--God, a living +Power, the Power of Salvation. The salvation was conditioned, truly; but +what did conditions matter to Bart! He would have cast himself into sea +or fire to obtain the strength that he coveted. He eagerly cast aside +the unbelief he had imbibed from books. He accepted all that he was told +to accept, with the eager swallowing of a man who is dying for the +strength of a drug that is given to him in dilution. + +At the end of the sermon there was a great call made upon all who +desired to give up their sins and to walk in God's strength and +righteousness, to go forward and kneel in token of their penitence and +pray for the grace which they would assuredly receive. + +This public penance was a very little thing, like the dipping in Jordan. +It did not seem little to Toyner. He was thoroughly awake now, roused +for the hour to the power of seeking God with all his mind, all his +thought, all his soul. The high tide of life in him made the ordeal +terrible; he tottered forward and knelt where, in front of the rostrum, +sweet hay had been strewn upon the ground. A hundred penitents were +kneeling upon this carpet. + +There was now no more loud talking or singing. Silence was allowed to +spread her wings within the woodland temple. Toyner, kneeling, felt the +influence of other human spirits deeply vivified in the intensity of +prayer. He heard whispered cries and the sound of tears, the prayer of +the publican, the tears of the Magdalene, and now and then there came a +glad thanksgiving of overflowing joy. Toyner tried to repeat what he +heard, hoping thereby to give some expression to the need within him; +but all that he could think of was the craving for strong drink that he +knew would return and that he knew he could not resist. + +He heard light footsteps, and felt a strong arm embracing his own +trembling frame. The preacher had come to kneel where he knelt, and to +pray, not for him, but with him. + +"I cannot," said Bart Toyner, "I can't, I can't." + +"Why not?" whispered the preacher. + +"Because I know I shall take to drink again." + +"Which do you love best, God or the drink?" asked the preacher. "If you +love the drink best, you ought not to be here; if you love God best, +you need have no fear." + +"God." The word embodied the great new idea which had entered Toyner's +soul, the idea of the love that had power to help him. + +"I want to get hold of God," he said; "but it isn't any use, for I shall +just go and get drunk again." + +"Dear, dear fellow," said the young preacher, his arm drawing closer +round Bart, "He is able and willing to keep you; all you have to do is +to take Him for your Master, and He will come to you and make a new man +of you. He will take the drink crave away. He knows as well as you do +that you can't fight it." + +"I don't believe it," said Toyner. + +Then the young preacher turned his beautiful face toward the blue above +the trees and whispered a prayer: "Open the eyes of our souls that we +may see Thee, and then we shall know that Thou canst not lie. Thy honour +is pledged to give Thy servants all they need, and this man needs to +have the craving for drink taken out of his body. He has come at Thy +call, willing to be Thy slave; Thou canst not go back on Thy promises. +We know Thou hast accepted him, because he has come to Thee. We know +that Thou wilt give him what he needs,"--so the short sentences of the +whispered prayer went on in quick transition from entreaty to +thanksgiving for a gift received. Suddenly, before the conclusion had +come, Bart stood up upon his feet. + +"What is it, my brother?" asked the preacher. He too had risen and stood +with his hand on Toyner's shoulder. + +They were alone together, these two. The great crowd of the congregation +had already gone away; those that remained were each one so intensely +occupied with prayer or adoration that they paid no heed to others. + +"I feel--light," said Toyner. + +"Dear fellow," said the preacher, "the devil has gone out of you. You +are free now because you are the slave of Christ. Begin your service to +him by praising God!" + +Toyner stayed a week longer in the place, lodging with the young +preacher. Day and night they were close together. A change had come to +Toyner. It was a miracle. The young preacher believed in such miracles, +and because he believed he saw them often. + +Toyner trembled and hoped, and at length he too believed. He believed +that as long as he willingly obeyed God his old habits would not triumph +over him. The physical health which so often comes like a flood and +replaces disease at the shrines of idol temples, of Romish saints, or, +at the many Protestant homes for faith-healing, had undoubtedly come to +Bart Toyner. The stomach that had been inflamed and almost useless, now +produced in him a regular appetite for simple nourishing food. The +craving for strong drink had passed away, and with his whole mind and +heart he threw himself into such service as he believed to be acceptable +to God and the condition upon which he held his health and his freedom. +At the end of the week Toyner went home to face the old life again with +no safe-guard but the new inward strength. No one there believed in his +reformation. He had lost money for his father in his last debauch; the +man who was virtually a partner would not trust him again. He had a +nominal business of his own, an agency which he had heretofore +neglected, and now he worked hard, living frugally, and for the first +time in his life earned his own living. The rules of conduct which the +preacher had laid down for him were simple and broad. He was to see God +in everything, accepting all events joyfully from His hand; he was so to +preach Him in life and word that others would love Him; he was to do all +his work as unto a God who beheld and cared for the minutest things of +earth; he was to abstain, not only from all sin, but from all things +that might lead to evil. At first he saw no contradiction in this rule +of life; it seemed a plain path, and he walked, nay ran, upon it for a +long distance. + +Between Toyner and his old friends the change of his life and thoughts +had made the widest breach. That outward show of companionship remained +was due only to patient persistence on his part and the endurance of the +pain and shame of being in society where he was not wanted and where he +felt nothing congenial. There was a Scotch minister who, with the people +of his congregation, had received and befriended the reformed man; but +because of Toyner's desire to follow the most divine example, and also +because of his love to Ann Markham, he chose the other companionship. It +was a high ideal; something warred against it which he could not +understand, and his patience brought forth no mutual love. + +When six months had passed away, Toyner had gained with his neighbours a +character for austerity in his personal habits and constant +companionship with the rough and the poor. The post of constable fell +vacant; Toyner's father had been constable in his youth; Toyner was +offered the post now, and he took it. + +The constable in such villages as Fentown was merely a respectable man +who could be called upon on rare occasions to arrest a criminal. Crime +was seldom perpetrated in Fentown, except when it was of a nature that +could be winked at. Toyner had no uniform; he was put in possession of a +pair of hand-cuffs, which no one expected him to use; he was given a +nominal income; and the name of "constable" was a public recognition +that he was reformed. + +Toyner had had many scruples of mind before he took this office. The +considerations which induced him to accept it were various. The austere +demand of law and the service of God were very near together in his +mind; nor are they in any strong mind ever separated except in parable. + +Bart Toyner, who had for years appeared so weak and witless, possessed +in reality that fine quality of brain and heart which is so often a +prey to the temptation of intoxicants. He was now working out all the +theory of the new life in a mind that would not flinch before, or shirk +the gleams of truth struck from, sharp contact of fact with fact as the +days and hours knocked them together. For this reason it could not be +that his path would remain that plain path in which a man could run +seeing far before him. Soon he only saw his way step by step, around +there was darkness; but through that darkness, except in one black hour, +he always saw the mount of transfiguration and the light of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +Another six months passed, and an event occurred which gave a great +shock to the little community and gave Toyner a pain of heart such as +almost nothing else could have given. Ann's father, John Markham, had a +deadly dispute with a man by the name of Walker. Walker was a +comparatively new comer to the town, or he would have known better than +to gamble with Markham as he did and arouse his enmity. The feud lasted +for a week, and then Markham shot his enemy with a borrowed fire-arm. +Walker was discovered wounded, and cared for, but with little hope of +his recovery. From all around the men assembled to seize Markham, but +half a night had elapsed, and it was found that he had made good his +escape. When the others had gone, Toyner stood alone before Ann Markham. + +I have often heard what Toyner looked like in those days. Slight as his +theological knowledge might be, he was quite convinced that if religion +was anything it must be everything, personal appearance included. As he +stood before Ann, he appeared to be a dapper, rather dandified man, for +he had dressed himself just as well as he could. Everything that he did +was done just as well as he could in those days; that was the reason he +did not shirk the inexpressibly painful duty which now devolved on him. + +You may picture him. His clothes were black, his linen good. He wore a +large white tie, which was the fashionable thing in that time and place. +His long moustache, which was fine rather than heavy, hung down to his +chin on either side of his mouth. He did not look like a man who would +chance upon any strong situation in life, for the strength of +circumstances is the strength of the soul that opposes them, and we are +childishly given to estimating the strength of souls by certain outward +tests, although they fail us daily. + +"I have always been your friend, Ann," said Toyner sadly. + +Ann tossed her head. "Not with my leave." + +"No," he assented; "but I want to tell you now that if we can't get on +Markham's track I shall have to spy on you. You'll help him if you can, +of course." + +"I don't know where he is," said Ann sullenly. + +"I do not believe you are telling the truth" (sadly); "but you may +believe _me_, I have warned you." + +People in Fentown went to sleep early. At about eleven that night all +was still and lonely about the weather-stained, unpainted wooden house +in which Ann lived. + +Ann closed her house for the night. The work was a simple one: she set +her knee against the door to shut it more firmly, and worked an old nail +into the latch. Then she shook down the scant cotton curtains that were +twisted aside from the windows. There were three windows, two in the +living-room (which was also kitchen and beer-saloon) and one in the +bedroom; that was the whole of the house. There was not an article of +furniture in the place that was not absolutely necessary; what there was +was clean. The girl herself was clean, middle-sized, and dressed in +garments that were old and worn; there was about her appearance a +certain brightness and quickness, which is the best part of beauty and +grace. The very hair itself, turning black and curly, from the temples, +seemed to lie glossy and smooth by reason of character that willed that +it should lie so. + +One small coal-oil lamp was the light of the house. When Ann had closed +doors and windows she took it up and went into the bedroom. Neither room +was small; there was a shadowy part round their edges which the lamp did +not brighten. In the dimmer part of this inner room was a bed, on which +a fair young girl was sleeping. + +A curious thing now occurred. Ann, placing herself between the lamp and +the window, deliberately went through a pantomime of putting herself to +bed. She took care that the shadow of the brushing of her hair should be +seen upon the window-curtain. She measured the distance, and threw her +silhouette clearly upon it while she took off one or two of her outer +garments. Her face had resolution and nervous eagerness written in it, +but there was nothing of inward disquiet there; she was wholly satisfied +in her own mind as to what she was doing. It was not a very profound +mind, perhaps, but it was like a weapon burnished by constant and proper +use. + +She removed her shadow from the window-curtain when she removed her lamp +to the bedside. She employed herself there for a minute or two in +putting on the clothes she had taken off, and in tightly fastening up +the hair that she had loosened; then she put out the lamp and got into +bed. The wooden bedstead creaked, and rubbed against the side of the +house as she turned herself upon it. The creaking and rubbing could be +heard on the other side of the wall. + +There was a man walking like a sentry outside who did hear. It was Bart +Toyner, the constable. + +After he heard the bed creak he still waited awhile, walking slowly +round the house in silence and darkness. Then, as he passed the side +where the bedroom was, there came the sound of a slight sleeping snore, +repeated as regularly as the breath might come and go in a woman's +breast. + +After a while Toyner retreated with noiseless steps, standing still when +he had moved away about fifty paces, looking at the house again with +careful, suspicious eyes; then, as if satisfied, he slid back the iron +shade that covered his lantern and, lighting his own steps, he walked +away. + +He had moved so quietly that the girl who lay upon the bed did not hear +him. She did not, in fact, know for certain whether he had been there or +not, much less that he had gone, so that she toilsomely kept up the +pretence of that gentle snore for half an hour or more. It was very +tiresome. Her bright black eyes were wide open as she lay performing +this exercise. Her face never lost its look of strong resolution. At +length, true to her acting, she moved her head sleepily, sighed heavily, +and relapsed into silent breathing as a sleeper might. It was the acting +of a true artist. + +Half an hour more of silence upon her bed, and she crept off +noiselessly; she lifted the corner of the window-curtain and looked out. +There was not a light to be seen in any of the houses within sight, +there was not a sound to be heard except the foam at the foot of the +falls, the lapping of the nearer river, and the voice of a myriad +crickets in the grass. She opened the window silently. + +"Bart," she whispered. Then a little louder, "Bart--Bart Toyner." + +The one thing that she wanted just then was to be alone, and of all +people in the world Toyner was the man whom she least wanted to meet. +Yet she called him. She got out of the window and took a few paces on +one side and on the other in the darkness, still calling his name in a +voice of soft entreaty. In his old drunken days she had scorned him. She +scorned him now more than ever, but she still believed that her call +would never reach his ear in vain. In this hour of her extremity she +must make sure of his absence by running the risk of having to endure +his nearer presence. When she knew that he was not there, she took a +bundle from inside the room, shut down the window through which she had +escaped, and wrapping her head and hands in a thin black shawl such as +Indian women drape themselves with, she sped off over the dark grass to +the river. + +Overhead, the stars sparkled in a sky that seemed almost black. The +houses and trees, the thick scrubby bushes and long grass, were just +visible in all the shades of monochrome that night produces. + +In a few minutes she was beyond all the houses, gliding through a wood +by the river. The trees were high and black, and there was a faint +musical sound of wind in them. She heard it as she heard everything. +More than once she stopped, not fearful, but watching. She must have +looked like the spirit of primeval silence as she stood at such moments, +lifting her shawl from her head to listen; then she went on. She knew +where a boat had by chance been left that day; it was a small rough +boat, lying close under the roots of a pine tree, and tied to its trunk. +In this she bestowed her bundle, and untying the string, pushed from the +shore. She could hardly see the opposite side of the little Ahwewee in +the darkness; she rowed at once into the midst of its rapid current; +once there, she dipped her oars to steer rather than to propel. She +travelled swiftly with the black stream. + +For half an hour or more she was only intent upon steering her boat. +Then, when she had come about three miles from the falls, she was in +still water, and began rowing with all her strength to make the boat +shoot forward as rapidly as before. + +The water was as still now as if the river had widened and deepened into +an inland sea; yet in the darkness to all appearance the river was as +narrow, the outline of the trees on either side appearing black and high +just within sight. When the moon rose this mystery of nature was +revealed, for the river was a lake, spreading far and wide on either +side. The lake was caused by dams built farther down the stream, and +the forest that had covered the ground before still reared itself above +the water, the bare dead trees standing thick, except in the narrow, +winding passage of the original stream. + +The moon rose large, very large indeed, and very yellow. There was smoke +of distant forest fires in the dry hot air, which turned the moon as +golden as a pane of amber glass. There was no fear of fire in the forest +through which the boat was passing other than that cold pretence of +yellow flames, the broken reflections of the moon on the wet mirror in +which the trees were growing. These trees would not burn; they had been +drowned long ago! They stood up now like corpses or ghosts, rising from +the deathly flood, lifeless and smooth; ghastly, in that they retained +the naked shape that they had had when alive. To the east the reflection +of the moon was seen for a mile or more under their grey outstretched +branches, and on all sides its light penetrated, showing through what a +strange dead wilderness the one small fragile boat was travelling. + +Very little of the feeling of the place entered the mind of the girl who +was working at her oars with such strong, swift strokes. Every day +through the ten or fifteen miles of the dead forest a little snorting +steamboat passed, bearing market produce and passengers. The smoke of +its funnel had blasted all sense of the weird picturesqueness of the +place in the minds of the inhabitants, that is, they were accustomed to +it, and sentiment in most hearts is slowly killed by use and wont, as +this forest had been killed by the encroaching water. Ann Markham's was +not a mind which harboured very much sentiment at that period of her +life; it was a keen, quick-witted, practical mind. She was not afraid +of the solitude of the night, or of the strange shapes and lights and +shadows about her. Now that she knew for certain that she was alone and +unpursued, she was for the time quite satisfied. + +A mile more down the windings of the lake, and Ann began counting the +trees between certain landmarks. Then into an opening between the trees +which could not have been observed by a casual glance she steered her +boat, and worked it on into a little open passage-way among their +trunks. The way widened as she followed it, and then closed again. Where +the passage ended, one great tree had fallen, and its trunk with +upturned branches was lying, wedged between two standing trunks, in an +almost horizontal position. On it a man was sitting, a wild, miserable +figure of a man, who looked as if he might have been some savage being +who was at home there, but who spoke in a language too vicious and +profane for any savage. + +He leaned out from his branch as far as he dared, and welcomed the girl +with curses because she had not come sooner, because it was now the +small hours of the night and he had expected her in the evening. + +"Be quiet, father," said the girl; "what's the use of talking like +that!" Then she held the boat under the tree and helped him to slip down +into it, where, in spite of his rage, he stretched his legs with an +evident animal satisfaction. He wallowed in the straitened liberty that +the boat gave, lying down in the bottom and gently kicking out his +cramped limbs, while the girl held tight to the trees, steadying the +boat with her feet. + +It was this power of taking an evident sensual satisfaction in such +small luxuries as he was able to obtain that had alone attached Markham +to his daughter. His character belonged to a type found both among men +and women; it was a nature entirely selfish and endowed with an +instinctive art in working upon the unselfish sentiments of others--an +art which even creates unselfishness in other selfish beings. + +"I came as soon as I could," she said. "I suppose you did not want me to +put Toyner on your track." + +"Yee owe," said the wretched man, stretching himself luxuriously. "I've +been a-standin' up and a-sittin' down and a-standin' up since last +night, an'----" Here he suddenly remembered something. He sat up and +looked round fearfully. + +"When it got dark before the moon came I saw the devil! One! I think +there was half a dozen of them! I saw them comin' at me in the air. I'd +have gone mad if they hadn't gone off when the moon rose." + +"Lie still, father, until I give you something to eat," she said. + +While she was unfastening her bundle, she looked about her, and saw how +the spaces of shadow between the grey branches might easily seem to take +solid form and weird shape to a brain that was fevered with excitement +of crime and of flight and enforced vigil. She had a painful thing to +tell this man--that she could not, as she had hoped, release him from +his desperate prison that night; but she did not tell him until she had +fed him first and given him drink too. She insisted upon his taking the +food first. It was highly seasoned, beef with mustard upon it, and +pickles. All the while he watched her hand with thirsty eye. When he had +gulped his food to please her, she produced a small bottle. He cursed +her when he saw its size, but all the same he held out his hand for it +eagerly and drank its contents, shutting his eyes with satisfaction and +licking his lips. + +All this time she was steadying the boat by holding on to a tree with a +strong arm. + +"Now it's hard on you, father, but you'll have to stay here another +night. Down at The Mills they're watching for you, and it would be sure +death for you to try and get through the swamp, even if I could take you +in the boat to the edge anywhere." + +The man, who had been entirely absorbed with eating and drinking and +stretching himself, now gave a low howl of anguish; then he struggled to +his knees and shook his fist in her face. "By ---- I'll throw you out of +this 'ere boat, I will; what do yer come tellin' me such a thing as that +for? Don't yer know I'd liefer die--don't yer know that?" He brought +his fist nearer and nearer to her eyes. "Don't yer know that?" + +It appeared that he would have struck her, but by a dexterous twist of +her body and a pull upon the tree she jerked the boat so that he lost +his balance, not entirely, but enough to make him right himself with +care and sit down again, realising for the time being that it was she +who was mistress of this question--who should be thrown out of the boat +and drowned. + +"Of course I'll row you to The Mills, if it's to jail you want to go; +but Walker is pretty bad, they say. I think it'll be murder they'll +bring you up for; and it ain't no sort of use trying to prove that you +didn't do it!" + +The miserable man put his dirty knotted hands before his face and howled +again. But even that involuntary sound was furtive lest any one should +hear. He might have shrieked and roared with all the strength that was +in him--there was no human ear within reach--but the instinct of +cowardice kept him from making any more noise than was necessary to rend +and break the heart of the woman beside him,--that, although he was only +half conscious of it, was his purpose in crying. He had a fiendish +desire to make her suffer for bringing him such news. + +Ann was not given to feeling for others, yet now it was intense +suffering to her to see him shaking, writhing, moving like a beast in +pain. She did not think of it as her suffering; she transferred it all +to him, and supposed that it was the realisation of his misery that she +experienced. + +At last she said: "There's one fellow up to the falls that knows a track +through the north of the marsh to sound ground; I heard him tell it one +day how he'd found it out. It's that David Brown that's been coming +round to see Christa. Christa can get the chart he made from him by +to-morrow night--I know she can. I'll try to be here earlier than I was +to-night. And I brought you strips of stuff, father, so that you could +tie yourself on to the tree and have a sort of a sleep; and I brought a +few drops of morphia, just enough to make you feel sleepy and stupid, +and make the time pass a bit quicker." + +For a long while he writhed and cried, telling her that it took all the +wits that he had to keep awake enough to keep the devils off him without +taking stuff to make him sleep, and that he was sure she'd never come +back, and that he would very likely be left on the tree to rot or to +fall into the water. + +All that he said came so near to being true that it caused her the +utmost pain to hear it. He was clever enough by instinct, not by +thought, to know that mere idle cries could not torture her as did the +true picture of the fears and dangers that encompassed him in his wild +hiding-place. The endurance of this torture exhausted her as nothing had +ever exhausted her before; yet all the time she never doubted but that +the pain was his, and that she was merely a spectator. + +She soothed him at last, not by gentleness and caresses--no such +communication ever passed between them--but by plain, practical, hopeful +suggestions spoken out clearly in the intervals of his whining. At +length she esteemed it time to use the spur instead of stroking him any +longer. "Get up on the tree, father, and I will give you the rest of the +things when you are fixed on the branch. If Toyner's stirring again +before I get home, he'll find means to keep me from coming to-morrow +night. Climb up now. I'll give you the things. There--there isn't enough +of the morphia drops to get you to sleep, only to make you feel easy; +and here's the strips of blanket I've sewed together to tie yourself on +with. It's nice and soft--climb up now and fix yourself. It's Toyner +that will catch me, and you too, if I don't get back. Look at the +moon--near the middle of the sky." + +She established him upon the branch again with the comforts that she had +promised, and then she gave him one thing more, of which she had not +spoken before. It was a bag of food that would last, if need be, for +several days. + +He took it as evidence that she had lied to him in her assurance that +she could return the next night. As she moved her boat out of the secret +openings among the dead trees, she heard him whining with fear and +calling a volley of curses after her. + +That her father's words were all profane did not trouble Ann in the +least. It was a meaningless trick of speech. Markham meant no more at +this time by his most shocking oaths than does any man by his habitual +expletive. Ann knew this perfectly. God knew it too. + +Yet if his profanity was mechanical, the man himself was without trace +of good. There was much reason that Ann's heart should be wrung with +pity. It is the divine quality of kinship that it produces pity even for +what is purely evil. Ann rowed her boat homeward with a hard +determination in her heart to save her father at any cost. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +An hour later the small solitary boat crept up the current of the +moonlit river. The weary girl plied her oars, looking carefully for the +nook under the roots of the old pine whence she had taken the boat. + +She saw the place. She even glanced anxiously about the ground +immediately around it, thinking that in the glamour of light she could +see everything; and yet in that rapid glance, deluded, no doubt, into +supposing the light greater than it was, she failed to see a man who was +standing ready to help her to moor the boat. + +Bart Toyner watched her with a look of haggard anxiety as she came +nearer. + +A uniform is a useful thing. It is almost natural to an actor to play +his part when he has assumed its dress. A man in any official capacity +is often just an actor, and the best thing that he can do at times is to +act without a thought as to how his inner self accords with the action, +at least till we have attained to a higher level of civilisation. Toyner +had no uniform, nor had he mastered the philosophy that underlies this +instinct for playing a part; he had an idea that the whole mind and soul +of him should be in conscientious accord with all that he did. It was +this ideal that made his fall certain. + +He had no notion that the girl had not seen him. Before she got out, +when she put her hand to tether the boat, she felt his hand gently +taking the rope from her and fell back with a cry of fear. + +In her wearied state she could have sobbed with disappointment. How much +had he discovered? If he knew nothing more than merely that she had +returned with the boat, how could it be possible to elude him and come +again the next night? She thought of her father, and her heart was full +of pity; she thought that her own plans were baffled, and she was +enraged. Both sentiments fused into keener hatred of Toyner; but she +remembered--yes, even then she remembered quite clearly and +distinctly--that if the worst came to the worst and she could save her +father in no other way, she had one weapon in reserve, one in which she +had perfect faith. + +It was for this reason that she sat still for a minute in the boat, +looking up at Toyner, trying to pry into his attitude toward her. At the +end of the minute he put out his hand to lift her up, and she leaned +upon it. + +Without hesitation she began to thread her way through the wood toward +home, and he walked by her side. He might have been escorting her from a +dance, so quietly they walked together, except that the question of a +man's life or death which lay between them seemed to surround them with +a strange atmosphere. + +At length Bart spoke. "I don't know where you have been," he said. "I +have been patrolling the shore all night." He paused awhile. "I thought +you were safe at home." + +She stopped short and turned upon him. "Look here! what are you going to +do now? It's a pretty mean sort of business this you've taken to, +sneaking round your old friends to do them all the harm you can." + +"It's the first time I knew that you'd ever been a friend of mine, Ann." +He said this in a sort of sad aside, and then: "You've sense enough to +know that when a man shoots another man he's got to be found and shut up +for the good of the country and for his own good too. It's the kindest +thing that can be done to a man sometimes, shutting him up in jail." He +said this last quite as much by way of explanation to himself as to her. + +"Or hanging him," she suggested sarcastically. + +He paused a moment. "I hope he won't come to that." + +"But you'll do all you can to catch him, knowing that it's like to come +to that. What's the good of hoping?" + +He had only said it to soothe her. He had another self-justification. + +"I can only do what I have to do: it is not me that will decide whether +Walker dies or not. At any rate, it ain't no use to justify it to you. +It's natural that you should look upon me as an enemy just now; but all +the police in the country are more your enemies than I am. You've got +him off now, I suppose; however you've done it I don't pretend to know. +It'll be some one else that catches him if he's caught." + +She wondered if he was only saying this to try her, or if he really +believed that Markham had gone far; yet there was small chance even then +that he would cease to watch her the next night and the next. He had +shown both resolution and diligence in this business--qualities, as far +as she knew, so foreign to his character that she smiled bitterly. + +"A nice sort of thing religion is, to get out of the mire yourself and +spend your time kicking your old friends further in!" + +Now the fugitive had been never a friend to Toyner, except in the sense +that he had done more than any one else to lead him into low habits and +keep him there. He had, in fact, been his greatest enemy; but that, +according to Toyner's new notions, was the more reason for counting him +a friend, not the less. + +"Well, I grant 'tain't a very grand sort of business being constable," +he said; "to be a preacher 'ud be finer perhaps; but this came to hand +and seemed the thing for me to do. It ain't kicking men in the mire to +do all you can to stop them making beasts of themselves." + +He stood idling in the moonlight as he justified himself to this woman. +Surely it was only standing by his new colours to try to make his +position seem right to her. He had no hope in it--no hope of persuading +her, least of all of bringing her nearer to him; if he had had that, his +dallying would have seemed sinful, because it would have chimed so +perfectly with all his natural desires. + +Ann took up her theme again fiercely. "Look here, Bart Toyner; I want to +know one thing, honour bright--that is," scornfully, "if you care about +honour now that you've got religion." + +He gave a silent sarcastic smile, such as one would bestow upon a +naughty, ignorant child. "Well, at least as much as I did before," he +said. + +"Well, then, I want to know if you're a-going to stop spying on me now +that father has got well off? There ain't no cause nor reason for you to +hang about me any longer. You know what my life has been, and you know +that through it all I've kept myself like a lady. It ain't nice, knowing +as people do that you came courting once, 'tain't nice to have you +hanging round in this way." + +He knew quite well that the reason she gave for objecting to his spying +was not the true one. He had enough insight into her character, enough +knowledge of her manner and the modulations in her voice, to have a +pretty true instinct as to when she was lying and when she was not; but +he did not know that the allusion to the time when he used to court her +was thrown out to produce just what it did in him, a tender recollection +of his old hopes. + +"Until Markham is arrested, you know, and every one else at Fentown +knows, that it is my duty to see that you don't communicate with him. +You've fooled me to-night, and I'll have to keep closer watch; but if +you don't want me to do the watching, I can pay another man." + +She had hoped faintly that he would have shown himself less resolute; +now there was only one thing to be done. After all, she had known for +days that she might be obliged to do it. + +"I wouldn't take it so hard, Bart, if it was any one but you," she said +softly. She went on to say other things of this sort which would make it +appear that there was in her heart an inward softness toward him which +she had never yet revealed. With womanly instinct she played her little +part well and did not exaggerate; but she was not speaking now to the +man of drug-weakened mind and over-stimulated sense whom she had known +in former years. + +He spoke with pain and shame in his voice and attitude. "There isn't +anything that I could do for you, Ann, that I wouldn't do as it is, +without you pretending that way." + +She did not quite take it in at first that she could not deceive him. + +"I thought you used to care about me," she said; "I thought perhaps you +did yet; I thought perhaps"--she put well-feigned shyness into her +tone--"that you weren't the sort that would turn away from us just +because of what father has done. All the other folks will, of course. +I'm pretty much alone." + +"I won't help you to break the laws, Ann. Law and righteousness is the +same for the most part. Your feeling as a daughter leads you the other +way, of course; but it ain't no good--it won't do any good to him in the +long run, and it would be wrong for me to do anything but just what I +ought to do as constable. When that's done we can talk of being friends +if you like, but don't go acting a lie with the hope of getting the +better of me. It hurts me to see you do it, Ann." + +For the first time there dawned in her mind a new respect for him, but +that did not alter her desperate resolve. She had been standing before +him in the moonlight with downcast face; now she suddenly threw up her +head with a gesture that reminded him of the way a drowning man throws +up his hands. + +"You've been wanting to convert me," she said. "You want me to sign the +pledge, and to stop going to dances and playing cards, and to bring up +Christa that way." + +All the thoughts that he had had since his reform of what he could do +for this girl and her sister if she would only let him came before his +heart now, lit through and through with the light of his love that at +that moment renewed its strength with a power which appalled him. + +She took a few steps nearer to him. + +"Father didn't mean to do any harm," she whispered hastily; "he's got no +more sin on his soul than a child that gets angry and fights for what it +wants. He's just like a child, father is; but it's been a lesson to +him, and he'll never do it again. Think of the shame to Christa and me +if he was hanged. And I've striven so to keep us respectable--Bart, you +know I have. There's no shame in the world like your father being----" +(there was a nervous gasp in her throat before she could go on)--"and +he'd be awfully frightened. Oh, you don't know how frightened he'd be! +If I thought they were going to do that to him, it would just kill me. +I'll do anything; I wouldn't mind so much if they'd take me and hang me +instead--it wouldn't scare me so much: but father would be just like a +child, crying and crying and crying, if they kept him in jail and were +going to do that in the end. And then no one would expect Christa and me +to have any more fun, and we never would have any. There's a way that +you can get father off, Bart, and give him at least one more chance to +run for his life. If you'll do it, I'll do whatever you want,--I'll sign +the pledge; I'll go to church; I'll teach Christa that way. She and I +won't dance any more. You can count on me. You can trust me. You know +that when I say a thing I'll do it." + +He realised now what had happened to him--a thing that of all things he +had learned to dread most,--a desperate temptation. He answered, and his +tone and manner gave her no glimpse of the shock of opposing forces that +had taken place within a heart that for many months had been dwelling in +the calm of victory. + +"I cannot do it, Ann." + +"Bart Toyner," she said, "I'm all alone in this world; there's not a +soul to help me. Every one's against me and against him. Don't turn +against me; I need your help--oh, I need it! I never professed to care +about you; but if your father was in danger of dying an awful death and +you came to me for help, I wouldn't refuse you, you know I wouldn't." + +He only spoke now with the wish to conceal from her the panic within; +for with the overwhelming desire to yield to her had come a ghastly fear +that he was going to yield, and faith and hope fled from him. He saw +himself standing there face to face with his idea of God, and this +temptation between him and God. The temptation grew in magnitude, and +God withdrew His face. + +"I know, Ann, it sounds hard about your father" (mechanically); "but you +must try and think how it would be if he was lying wounded like Walker +and some other man had done it. Wouldn't you think the law was in the +right then?" + +"No!" (quickly). "If father'd got a simple wound, and could be nursed +and taken care of comfortably until he died, I wouldn't want any man to +be hanged for it. It's an awful, awful thing to be hanged." + +She waited a moment, and he did not speak. The lesser light of night is +fraught with illusions. She thought that she saw him there quite plainly +standing quiet and indifferent. She was so accustomed to his +appearance--the carefulness of his dress, the grave eyes, and the thin, +drooping moustache--that her mind by habit filled in these details which +she did not in reality see; nor did she see the look of agonised prayer +that came and went across the habitual reserve of his face. + +"Can't you believe what I say, Bart? I say that I will give up dancing +and selling beer, and sign the pledge, and dress plain, and go to +church. I say I will do it and Christa will do it; and you can teach us +all you've a mind to, day in and day out, and we'll learn if we can. +Isn't it far better to save Christa and me--two souls, than to hunt one +poor man to death? Don't you believe that I'll do what I promise? I'll +go right home now and give it to you in writing, if you like." + +"I do believe you, Ann." He stopped to regain the steadiness of his +voice. He had had training in forcing his voice in the last few months, +for he hated to bear verbal testimony to his religious beliefs, and yet +he had taught himself to do it. He succeeded in speaking steadily now, +in the same strong voice in which he had learnt to pray at meetings. It +was not exactly his natural voice. It sounded sanctimonious and +ostentatious, but that was because he was forced to conceal that his +heart within him was quaking. "I do believe that you would do what you +say, Ann; but it isn't right to do evil that good may come." + +He did not appeal to her pity; he did not try to tell her what it cost +him to refuse. If he could have made her understand that, she might have +been turned from her purpose. He realised only the awful weakness and +wickedness of his heart. He seemed to see those appetites which, up to a +few months before, had possessed him like demons, hovering near him in +the air, and he seemed to see God holding them back from him, but only +for so long as he resisted this temptation. + +To her he said aloud: "I cannot do it, Ann. In God's strength I cannot +and will not do it." + +Within his heart he seemed to be shouting aloud to Heaven: "My God, I +will not do it, I will not do it. Oh, my God!" He turned his back upon +her and went quickly to the village, only looking to see that at some +distance she followed him, trudging humbly as a squaw walks behind her +Indian, as far as her own door. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +When one drops one's plummet into life anywhere it falls the whole +length of the line we give it. The man who can give his plummet the +longest line is he who realises most surely that it has not touched the +bottom. + +Bart Toyner betook himself to prayer. He had learned from his friend the +preacher that when a man is tempted he must pray until he is given the +victory, and then, calm and steadfast, go out to face the world again. +If Toyner's had been a smaller soul, the need of his life would have +imperatively demanded then that just what he expected to happen to him +should happen, and in some mysterious way no doubt it would have +happened. + +When we quietly observe religious life exactly as it is, without the +bias of any theory, there are two constantly recurring facts which, +taken together, excite deep astonishment: the fact that small minds +easily attain to a certainty of faith to which larger minds attain more +slowly and with much greater distress; and also the fact that the +happenings of life do actually come in exact accordance to a man's +faith--faith being not the mere expectation that a thing is going to +take place, but the inner eye that sees into the heart of things, and +knows that its desire must inevitably take place, and why. This sort of +faith, be it in a tiny or great nature, comes triumphantly in actual +fact to what it predicts; but the little heart comes to it easily and +produces trivial prayers, while the big heart, thinking to arrive with +the same ease at the same measure of triumph, is beaten back time and +time and again. + +Probably the explanation is that the smaller mind has not the same +germinating power; there is not enough in it to cause the long, slow +growth of root and stem, and therefore it soon puts forth its little +blossom. These things all happen, of course, according to eternal law of +inward development; they are not altered by any force from without, +because nothing is without: the sun that makes the daisy to blossom is +just that amount of sun that it absorbs into itself, and so with the +acorn or the pine-cone. These latter, however, do not produce any bright +immediate blossom, though they ultimately change the face of all that +spot of earth by the spread of their roots and branches. + +After praying a long time Bart Toyner relapsed into meditation, +endeavouring to contemplate those attributes of his God which might +bring him the strength which he had not yet attained, and just here came +to him the subtlest and strongest reinforcement to all those arguments +which were chiming together upon what appeared to him the side of evil. +The God in whom he had learned to trust was a God who, moved by pity, +had come out of His natural path to give a chance of salvation to wicked +men by the sacrifice of Himself. To what did he owe his own rescue but +to this special adjustment of law made by God? and how then was it right +for him to adhere to the course the regular law imposed on him and to +hunt down Markham? If he saved Markham, he would answer to the law for +his own breach of duty--this would be at least some sacrifice. Was not +this course a more God-like one? + +There was one part of Toyner that spoke out clearly and said that his +duty was exactly what he had esteemed it to be before Ann Markham +appealed to him. He believed this part of him to be his conscience. + +All the rest of him slowly veered round to thoughts of mercy rather than +legal duty; he thought of Ann and Christa with hard, godless hearts, +surrounded by every form of folly and sin, and he believed that Ann +would keep her promise to him, and that different surroundings would +give them different souls. Yet he felt convinced that God and conscience +forbade this act of mercy. + +One thing he was as certain of now as he had been at the beginning--that +if he disobeyed God, God would leave him to the power of all his evil +appetites; he felt already that his heart gave out thoughts of affection +to his old evil life. + +As the hours passed he began to realise that he would need to disobey +God. He found himself less and less able to face the thought of giving +up this rare opportunity of winning Ann's favour and an influence over +her--_moral_ influence at least; his mind was clear enough to see that +what was gained by disobeying God's law was from a religious point of +view nil. In his mind was the beginning of a contempt for God's way of +saving him. If he was to win his own soul by consigning Ann and her +father to probable perdition, he did not want to win it. + +The August morning came radiant and fresh; the air, sharp with a touch +of frost from neighbouring hills, bore strength and lightness for every +creature. The sunlight was gay on the little wooden town, on its breezy +gardens and wastes of flowering weeds, on the descent of the foaming +fall, on the clear brown river. Even the sober wood of ash and maple +glistened in the morning light, and the birds sang songs that in +countries where a longer summer reigns are only heard in spring-time. + +Bart Toyner went out of the house exhausted and almost hopeless. The +source of his strength had failed within him. He looked forward to +defeat. + +As it happened Toyner's official responsibility for Markham's arrest was +to be lightened. The Crown Attorney for the county had already +communicated with the local government, and a detective had been sent, +who arrived that morning by the little steamboat. Before Toyner realised +the situation he found himself in consultation with the new-comer as to +the best means of seeking Markham. Did the perfect righteousness require +that he should betray Ann's confidence and state that Markham was in +hiding somewhere within reach? Bart looked the question for a moment in +the face, and trembled before it. Then he set it aside unanswered, +resolved on reticence, whether it was right or wrong. + +The detective, finding that Toyner had no clue to report, soon went to +drink Ann's beer, on business intent. Bart kept sedulously apart from +this interview. When it was over the stranger took Toyner by the arm and +told him privately that he was convinced that the young woman knew +nothing whatever about the prisoner, and as Markham had been gone now +forty-eight hours it was his opinion that it was not near Fentown that +he would be found. + +This communication was made to Toyner in the public-house, where they +had both gone the better to discuss their affairs. Toyner had gone in +labouring under horrible emotion. He believed that he was going to get +drunk, and the result of his fear was that he broke his pledge, giving +as an excuse to the by-standers that he felt ill. Yet he did not get +drunk. + +Toyner saw the detective depart by the afternoon boat, and as he walked +back upon the bit of hot dusty road in the sun he reeled, not with the +spirits he had taken, but with the sickening sense that his battle was +lost. + +Nothing seemed fair to him, nothing attractive, but to drink one more +glass of spirits, and to go and make promises to Ann that would be sweet +to her ear. He knew that for him it was the gate of death. + +At this point the minister met him, and jumped at once to the conclusion +that he was drunk. The minister was one of those good men who found +their faith in God upon absolute want of faith in man. His heart was +better than his head, as is the case with all small-minded souls that +have come into conscious contact with God, but his opinions ruled his +official conduct. "I am afraid you have been drinking, Toyner," he said +reproachfully. + +The first three words, "I am afraid," were enough for Bart; he was +filled himself with an all-pervading fear--a fear of himself, a fear of +God, a fear of the devil who would possess him again. He was not drunk; +the fact that drunkenness in him appeared so likely to this man, who was +the best friend he had, completed in his heart the work of revolt +against the minister and the minister's God. What right had God to take +him up and clothe him and keep him in his right mind for a little while, +just to let him fall at the first opportunity? It was quite true that he +had deserved it, no doubt; he had done wrong, and he was going to do +wrong; but God, who had gone out of His way to mercifully convert him +and keep him straight for a while, could certainly have gone on keeping +him if He had chosen. His mind was a logical one. He had been taught to +praise God for some extraordinary favour towards him; he had been taught +that the grace which had changed his life for good was in no degree his +own; and why then was he to bear all the disgrace of his return to evil? + +In the next hours he walked the streets of the town, and talked to other +men when need was, and did a little business on his own account in the +agency in which he was engaged, and went home and took supper, watching +the vagaries of his father's senile mania with more than common pity for +the old man. His own wretchedness gave him an aching heart of sympathy +for all the sorrow of others which came across his mind that day. + +The whole day was a new revelation to him of what tenderness for others +could be and ought to be. + +He did not hope to attain to any working out of this higher sympathy and +pity himself. The wonderful confidence which his new faith had so long +given him, that he was able in God's strength to perform the higher +rather than the lower law of his nature, had ebbed away. God's strength +was no longer with him; he was going to the devil; he could do nothing +for himself, little for others; but he sympathised as never before with +all poor lost souls. He was a little surprised, as the day wore to a +close, that he had been able to control his craving, that he had not +taken more rum. Still, he knew that he would soon be helpless. It was +his doom, for he could awake in himself no further feeling of repentance +or desire to return to God. + +In the long day's struggle, half conscious and half unconscious, his +love for Ann--and it was not a bad sort of love either--had triumphed +over what principle he had; it had survived the sudden shock that had +wrecked his faith. The hell which he was experiencing was intolerable +now, because of the heaven which he had seen, and he could not forgive +the God who had ordained it. The unreal notion that an omnipotent God +can permit what He does not ordain could have no weight with him, for he +was grappling with reality. As he brooded bitterly upon his own fate, +his heart became enlarged with tenderness for all other poor helpless +creatures like himself who were under the same misrule. + +His resolution was taken--he would use his sobriety to help Ann. It +would not profit himself, but still he would win from her the promise +concerning her future life and Christa's which she had offered him, and +he would go that night and do all that a man could do to help the poor +wretch to whom his heart went out with ever-increasing pity. It would +not be much, but he would do what he could, and after that he would tell +the authorities what he had done and give up his office. He had a very +vague notion of the penalties he would incur; if they put him in prison, +so much the better--it might save him a little longer from drinking +himself to death. + +Like an honest man he had given up attempting to pull God round to his +own position. He did not now think for a moment that the act of love and +mercy which possessed his soul was a pious one; his motive he believed +to be solely his pity for Markham and his love for Ann, which, being +natural, he supposed to be selfish, and, being selfish, he knew to be +unholy. + +It had all come to this, then--his piety, his reformation, his prayers, +his thanksgiving, his faith. His heart within him gave a sneering laugh. +He was terribly to blame, of course--he was a reprobate; but surely God +was to blame too! + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Ann Markham's thoughts of Bart that day were chiefly wondering thoughts. +She tried to think scornfully of his refusal to help her; theoretically +she derided the religion that produced the refusal, but in the bottom of +her heart she looked at it with a wonder that was akin to admiration. +Then there was a question whether he would remain fixed in his +resolution. If this man did not love her then Ann's confidence failed +her in respect to her judgment of what was or was not; for though she +had regarded him always as a person of not much strength or importance, +not independent enough to be anything more than the creature of the +woman whom he desired to marry, yet, curiously enough, she had believed +that his love for her had a strength that would die hard. She did not +stop to ask herself how it could be that a weak man could love her +strongly. Love, in any constant and permanent sense of the word, was an +almost unknown quality among her companions, and yet she had attributed +it to Bart. Well! his refusal of last night proved that she had been +mistaken--that was all. But possibly the leaven of her proposal would +work, and he would repent and come back to her. The fact that he had +evidently not betrayed her to the detective gave her hope of this. Her +thoughts about Toyner were only subordinate to the question, how she was +to rescue her father. With the light and strength of the morning, hope +in other possibilities of eluding Bart, even if he remained firm, came +back to her. She would at least work on; if she was baffled in the end, +it would be time enough to despair. Her sister was not her confidante, +she was her tool. + +Ann waited until the shadow of the pear tree, which with ripening fruit +overhung the gable of their house, stretched itself far down the bit of +weedy grass that sloped to the river. The grass plot was wholly +untended, but nature had embroidered it with flowers and ferns. + +Ann sat sewing by the table on which she kept her supply of beer. She +could not afford to lose her sales to-day, although she knew bitterly +that most of those who turned in for a drink did so out of prying +curiosity. Even Christa, not very quick of feeling, had felt this, and +had retired to lounge on the bed in the inner room with a paper novel. +Christa usually spent her afternoon in preparing some cheap finery to +wear in the cool of the evening, but she felt the family disgrace and +Ann's severity, and was disheartened. As Ann bided her time and +considered her own occupation and Christa's, she marvelled at the +audacity of the promise which she had offered to give Bart, yet so awful +was the question at stake that her only wish was that he had accepted +it. + +At four o'clock in the afternoon she roused Christa and apportioned a +certain bit of work to her. There was a young man in Fentown called +David Brown, a comely young fellow, belonging to one of the richer +families of the place. He was good-natured, and an athlete; he had of +late fallen into the habit of dropping in frequently to drink Ann's +beer. She felt no doubt that Christa was his attraction. Some weeks +before he had boasted that he had found the bed of a creek which made +its way through the drowned forest, and that by it he had paddled his +canoe through the marsh that lay to the north of the lake. He had also +boasted that he had a secret way of finding the creek again. Upon +considering his character Ann believed that although the statement was +given boastfully it was true. Brown had a trace of Indian blood in him, +and possessed the faculties of keen observation and good memory. It was +by the help of this secret that she had hoped to extricate her father +herself. There was still a chance that she might be able to use it. + +"Some men think the world and all of a woman if they can only get into +the notion that she is ill-used. David may be more sweet on you than +ever," said Ann to Christa. "Put on your white frock: it's a little +mussed, so it won't look as if you were trying to be fine; don't put on +any sash, but do your hair neatly." + +She will look taking enough, thought Ann to herself; she did not +despise herself for the stratagem. It was part of the hard, practical +game that she had played all her life, for that matter; she was not +conscious of loving Christa any more than she was conscious of loving +her father. It was merely her will that they should have the utmost +advantage in life that she could obtain for them. Nothing short of a +moral revolution could have changed this determination in her. + +When Christa had performed her toilet, obeying Ann from mere habit, Ann +drilled her in the thing she was to do. Brown would of course suspect +what this information was to be used for. Christa was to coax him to +promise secrecy. Ann went over the details of the plan again and again, +until she was quite sure that the shallow forgetful child understood the +importance of her mission. + +Christa sat with her elbows on the table and cried a little. Her fair +hair was curled low over her eyes, the coarse white dress hung limp but +soft, leaving her neck bare. With all her motions her head nodded on her +slender graceful neck, like a flower which bows on its stalk. + +Before this disaster Christa had spent her life laughing; that had been +more becoming to her than sullenness and tears. For all that, Ann was +not sorry that Christa's eyelids should be red when David Brown was seen +slowly lounging toward the window. + +He had not been to see them the day before; it was apparent from his air +that he thought it was not quite the respectable thing to do to-day. He +tried to approach the house with a _nonchalant_, happen-by-chance air, +so that if any one saw him they would suppose his stopping merely +accidental. + +Ann poured out his beer. Christa looked at him with eyes full of +reproach. Then she got up and went away to the doorstep, and stood +looking out. To the surprise of both of them, David did not follow her +there. He stood still near Ann. + +"It's hard on Christa," said Ann with a sigh; "she has been crying all +day. Every one will desert us now, and we shall have to live alone +without friends." + +"Oh no" (abruptly); "nobody blames you." + +"I don't mind for myself so much; I don't care so much about what people +think, or how they treat me." She lifted her head proudly as she spoke. +"But" (with pathos) "it's hard on Christa." + +"No; you never think of yourself, do you?" David giggled a little as he +said it, betraying that he felt his words to be unusually personal. Ann +wondered for a minute what could be the cause of this giggle, and then +she returned to the subject of Christa's suffering. + +"Look here," he interrupted, "if there's any little thing I can do to +help you, like lending you money if you're left hard up, or anything of +that sort, you know" (he was blushing furiously now), "it's for you I'd +do it," he blurted out. "I don't care about Christa." + +"The silly fellow!" thought Ann. She was six years older than he, and +she felt herself to be twenty years older. She entirely scorned his +admiration in its young folly; but she did not hesitate a moment to make +use of it. All her life had been a long training in that thrift which +utilised everything for family gain. She was a thorough woman of +society, this girl who sat in her backwoods cottage selling beer. + +She looked at the boy, and a sudden glow of sensibility appeared in her +face. "Oh, David!" she said; "I thought it was Christa." + +"But it isn't Christa," he stammered, grinning. He was hugely pleased +with the idea that she had accepted his declaration of courtship. + +Half an hour later and Ann had the secret of the new track through the +north of the drowned forest, and Brown had the wit not to ask her what +she wanted to do with it. He had done more--he had offered to row her +boat for her, but this Ann had refused. + +It was a curious thing, this refusal. It arose purely from principle on +her part; she had come to the limit which the average mind sets to the +evil it will commit. She deceived and cajoled the boy without scruple, +but she did not allow him to break the law. She remembered that he had +parents who valued his good name more than he had as yet learned to +value it. He was young; he was in her power; and she declined his +further help. + +Christa had wandered down the grass to the river-side and stood there +pouting meanwhile. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +This incident with David Brown and the getting possession of his chart +was the one stimulant that helped Ann to endure this long day of +inactivity. It was like a small thimbleful of wine to one who longed for +a generous draught; there was nothing else to do but to wait, alert for +all chances that might help her. Evening closed in; the sisters were +left alone. Christa returned indolently to lounging upon the bed and +reading her novel. If Ann had had less strength, she would have paced +the floor of the outer room in impatience; as it was she sat still by +the table which held the beer and stitched her seam diligently. About +eight o'clock she heard Toyner's step. + +Was he going to haunt the house again in order to keep her from going +out of it? + +He came up to the door and came in. + +She was preparing herself to act just as if she did not know who had +come, and did not take much notice of him; but when he came up and she +looked at his face in the lamp-light, she saw written in it the struggle +that he had gone through. Its exact nature and detail she was incapable +of conceiving, but one glance proved to her its reality. She was struck +by the consciousness of meeting an element in life which was wholly new +to her. When such a thing forces itself upon our attention, however +indefinite and unexpressed may be our thought, it is an experience never +to be forgotten. Ann fought against her conviction. She began at once, +as intelligent humanity always does, to explain away what she did not +understand, supposing by that means that she could do away with its +existence. + +"I think you are ill, Bart," she said quickly. "It looks to me as if you +were in for a bout of chills; and enough to give it to you too, hanging +about in the woods all night." + +He drew a chair close to the table and sat down beside her. + +"There isn't any chills in the swamps about here," he said; "they are as +wholesome as dry land is." She saw by this that he had no intention of +upbraiding her with his fall, or of proclaiming the object of his visit. +She wanted to rouse him into telling her something. + +"I heard them saying something about you to-day that I didn't believe a +bit. I heard you were in the saloon drinking." + +He took hold of the end of her seam, passed his finger along it as if +examining the fabric and the stitches. "I took one glass," he said, +with the curious quiet gravity which lay to-night like a spell upon all +his words and actions. + +"Well," she said cheerily, "I don't believe in a man making a slave of +himself, not to take a glass when he wants it just because he sometimes +makes a beast of himself by taking more than he ought." + +"If you choose to think black is white, Ann, it will not make it that +way." + +"That's true," she replied compliantly; "and you've got more call to +know than I have, for I've never 'been there.'" + +"God forbid!" he said with sudden intensity. All the habits of thought +of the last year put strength into his words. "If I thought you ever +could be 'there,' Ann, it's nothing to say that I'd die to save you from +it." + +She let her thought dwell for a moment upon the picture of herself as a +drunkard which had caused such intense feeling in him. "I am not worth +his caring what becomes of me in that way," she thought to herself. It +was the first time it ever occurred to her to think that she was +unworthy of the love he had for her; but at the same moment she felt a +shadow extinguish the rays of hope she had begun to feel, for she +believed, as Bart did, that his piety was in direct opposition to the +help he might otherwise give her. She had begun to hope that piety had +loosened its grasp upon him for the time. + +"I don't know what's to become of us, Christa and me," she said +despairingly; "if we don't take to drink it will be a wonder, everybody +turning the cold shoulder on us." + +This was not her true thought at all. She knew herself to be quite +incapable of the future she suggested, but the theme was excellently +adapted to work upon his feelings. + +"I'm going away to-night, Ann," he said; "perhaps I won't see you again +for a long time; but you know all that you said you would promise last +night----" + +Her heart began to beat so sharply against her side with sudden hope, +and perhaps another feeling to which she gave no name, that her answer +was breathless. "Yes," she said eagerly, "if----" + +He went on gravely: "I am going to start to-night in a row-boat for The +Mills. You can tell me where your father is, and on my way I'll do all I +can to help him to get away. It won't be much use perhaps. It is most +likely that he will only get away from this locality to be arrested in +another, but all that one man can do to help him I will do; but you'll +have to give me the promise first, and I'll trust you to keep it." + +Ann said nothing. The immediate weight of agonised care for her father's +life was lifted off her; but she had a strange feeling that the man who +had taken her responsibility had taken upon him its suffering too in a +deeper sense than she could understand. It flashed across her, not +clearly but indistinctly, that the chief element in her suffering had +been the shame of defying law and propriety rather than let her father +undergo a just penalty. In some way or other this had been all +transferred to Bart, and in the glimmering understanding of his +character which was growing within her, she perceived that he had it in +him to suffer under it far more intensely than she had suffered. It was +very strange that just when she obtained the promise she wanted from him +she would have been glad to set him free from it! + +Within certain self-pleasing limits Ann had always been a good-natured +and generous person, and she experienced a strong impulse of this good +nature and generosity just now, but it was only for a moment, and she +stifled it as a thing that was quite absurd. Her father must be +relieved, of course, from his horrid situation; and, after all, Bart +could help him quite easily, more easily than any other man in the world +could, and then come back and go on with his life as before. Questions +of conscience had never, so far, clouded Ann's mental horizon. A +moment's effort to regain her habitual standpoint made it quite clear to +her that in this case it was she, she and Christa, who were making the +sacrifice; a minute more, and she could almost have found it in her +heart to grumble at the condition of the vow which she had so liberally +sketched the night before, and only the fact that there was something +about Bart which she did not at all understand, and a fear that that +something might be a propensity to withdraw from his engagement, made +her submissively adhere to it. + +"Christa and I will sign the pledge. We will give up dancing and wearing +finery. We will stop being friends with worldly people, and we will go +to church and meetings, and try to like them." Ann repeated her vow. + +Bart took the pen and ink with which she chronicled her sales of beer +and wrote the vow twice on two pages of his note-book; at the bottom he +added, "God helping me." Ann signed them both, he keeping one and giving +her the other. + +This contract on Ann's part had many of the elements of faith in it--a +wonderful audacity of faith in her own power to revolutionise her life +and control her sister's, and all the unreasoning child-likeness of +faith which could launch itself boldly into an unknown future without +any knowledge of what life would be like there. + +On the part of Toyner the contract showed the power that certain habits +of thought, although exercised only for a few months, had over him. Good +people are fond of talk about the weakness of good habits compared with +the strength of bad ones. But, given the same time to the formation of +each, the habits which a man counts good must be stronger than those +which he counts evil, because the inner belief of his mind is in unity +with them. Toyner believed to-night that he was in open revolt against a +rule of life which he had found himself unable to adhere to, and against +the God who had ordained it; but, all the same, it was this rule, and +faith in the God which he had approached by means of it, that actuated +him during this conference with Ann. As a man who had given up hope for +himself might desire salvation for his child, so he gravely and gently +set her feet in what he was accustomed to regard as the path of life +before he himself left it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Ann's plan of the way in which Toyner more than any other man could aid +her father was simple enough. He who was known to be in pursuit of +Markham was to take him as a friend through the town at The Mills and +start him on the road at the other side. Markham was little known at The +Mills, and no one would be likely to take the companion of the constable +to be the criminal for whose arrest he had been making so much +agitation; they were to travel at the early hour of dawn when few were +stirring. This plan, with such modifications as his own good sense +suggested, Toyner was willing to adopt. + +He started earlier in the evening than she had done, having no +particular desire for secrecy. He told his friends that he was going to +row to The Mills by night, and those who heard him supposed that he had +gained some information concerning Markham that he thought it best to +report. It was a calm night; the smoke of distant burning was still in +the air. + +He dropped down the river in the dark hours before the moonrise, and +began to row with strength, as Ann had done, when he reached the placid +water. His boat was light and well built. He could see few yards of dark +water in advance; he could see the dark outline of the trees. The water +was deep; there were no rocks, no hidden banks; he did not make all the +haste he could, but rowed on meditatively--he was always more or less +attracted by solitude. To-night the mechanical exercise, the darkness, +the absolute loneliness, were greater rest to him than sleep would have +been. In a despairing dull sort of way he was praying all the time; his +mind had contracted a habit of prayer, at least if expressing his +thoughts to the divine Being in the belief that they were heard may be +called prayer. + +Probably no one so old or so wise but that he will behave childishly if +he can but feel himself exactly in the same relation to a superior being +that a child feels to a grown man. Toyner expressed his grievance over +and over again with childlike simplicity; he explained to God that he +could not feel it to be right or fair that, when he had prayed so very +much, and prayers of the sort to which a blessing was promised, he +should be given over to the damning power of circumstance, launched in a +career of back-sliding, and made thereby, not only an object of greater +scorn to all men than if he had never reformed, but actually, as it +appeared to him, more worthy of scorn. + +He did not expect his complaints to be approved by the Deity, and gained +therefore no satisfying sense that the prayer had ascended to heaven. + +The moon arose, the night was very warm; into the aromatic haze a mist +was arising from the water on all sides. It was not so thick but that he +could see his path through it in the darkness; but when the light came +he found a thin film of vapour between him and everything at which he +looked. The light upon it was so great that it seemed to be luminous in +itself, and it had a slightly magnifying power, so that distances looked +greater, objects looked larger, and the wild desolate scene with which +he was familiar had an aspect that was awful because so unfamiliar. + +When Toyner realised what the full effect of the moonlight was going to +be, he dropped his oars and sat still for a few minutes, wondering if +he would be able to find the landmarks that were necessary, so strange +did the landscape look, so wonderful and gigantic were the shapes which +the dead trees assumed. Then he continued his path, looking for a tree +that was black and blasted by lightning. He was obliged to grope his way +close to the trees; thus his boat bumped once or twice on hidden stumps. +It occurred to him to think what a very lonely place it would be to die +in, and a premonition that he was going to die came across him. + +Having found the blasted tree, he counted four fallen trees; they came +at intervals in the outer row of standing ones; then there was a break +in the forest, and he turned his boat into it and paused to listen. + +The sound that met his ear--almost the strangest sound that could have +been heard in that place--was that of human speech; it was still some +distance away, but he heard a voice raised in angry excitement, +supplicating, threatening, defying, and complaining. + +Toyner began to row down the untried water-way which was opened to his +boat. The idea that any one had found Markham in such a place and at +such an hour was too extraordinary to be credited. Toyner looked eagerly +into the mist. He could see nothing but queer-shaped gulfs of light +between trunks and branches. Again his boat rubbed unexpectedly against +a stump, and again the strange premonition of approaching death came +over him. For a moment he thought that his wisest course would be to +return. Then he decided to go forward; but before obeying this command, +his mind gave one of those sudden self-attentive flashes the capacity +for which marks off the mind of the reflective type from others. He saw +himself as he sat there, his whole appearance and dress; he took in his +history, and the place to which that hour had brought him, he, Bart +Toyner, a thin, somewhat drooping, middle-aged man, unsuccessful, +because of his self-indulgence, in all that he had attempted, yet having +carried about with him always high desires, which had never had the +slightest realisation except in the one clear shining space of vision +and victory which had been his for a few months and now was gone. The +light had mocked him; now perhaps he was going to die! + +He pushed his boat on, his sensations melting into an excited blank of +thought in which curiosity was alone apparent. He was growing strangely +excited after his long calm despondency; no doubt the excitement of the +other, who was shouting and jabbering not far away in the moonlit +night, affected him. + +He found his way through the trees of the opening; evidently the splash +of his oar was caught by the owner of the noisy voice, for before he +could see any one a silence succeeded to the noise, a sudden absolute +silence, in itself shocking. + +"Are you there, Markham?" cried Toyner. + +No answer. + +Toyner peered into the silver mist on all sides of him; the sensation of +the diffused moonlight was almost dazzling, the trees looked far away, +large and unreal. At length among them he saw the great log that had +fallen almost horizontal with the water; upon it a solitary human figure +stood erect in an attitude of frenzied defiance. + +"I have come from your daughter, Markham." Then in a moment, by way of +self-explanation, he said, "Toyner." + +The man addressed only flung a clenched fist into the air. The silence +of his pantomime now that there was some one to speak to was made +ghastly by the harangue which he had been pouring out upon the solitude. + +"Have you lost your head?" asked Toyner. "I have come from your +daughter--I'm not going to arrest you, but set you down at The +Mills--you can go where you will then." + +He knew now the answer to his first question. The man before him was in +some stage of delirium. Toyner wondered if any one could secretly have +brought him drink. + +There was nothing to be done but to soothe as best he could the other's +fear and enmity, and to bring the boat close to the tree for him to get +in it. Whether he was sane or mad, it was clearly necessary to take him +from that place. Markham retained a sullen silence, but seemed to +understand so far that he ceased all threatening gestures. His only +movements were certain turnings and sudden crouchings as if he saw or +felt enemies about him in the air. + +"Now, get in," said Toyner. He had secured the boat. He pulled the other +by the legs, and guided him as he slipped from his low bench. "Sit down; +you can't stand, you know." + +But Markham showed himself able to keep his balance, and alert to help +in pushing off the boat. There was a heavy boat-pole ready for use in +shallow water, and Markham for a minute handled it adroitly, pushing off +from his tree. + +Toyner turned his head perforce to see that the boat was not proceeding +towards some other dangerous obstacle. Then Markham, with the sudden +swift cunning of madness, lifted the butt end of his pole and struck him +on the head. + +Toyner sank beneath the blow as an ox shivers and sinks under the +well-aimed blow of the butcher. + +Markham looked about him for a moment with an air of childish triumph, +looked not alone at the form of the fallen man before him, but all +around in the air, as if he had triumphed not over one, but over many. + +No eye was there to see the look of fiendish revenge that flitted next +over the nervous working of his face. Then he fell quickly to work +changing garments with the limp helpless body lying in the bottom of the +boat. With unnatural strength he lifted Toyner, dressed in his own coat +and hat, to the horizontal log on which he had lived for so long. He +took the long mesh of woollen sheeting that his daughter had brought to +be a rest and support to his own body, and with it he tied Toyner to the +upright tree against which the log was lying; then, with an additional +touch of fiendish satire, he took a bit of dry bread out of the ample +bag of food which Ann had hung there for his own needs, and laid it on +Toyner's knees. Having done all this he pushed his boat away with +reckless rapidity, and rowed it back into the open water, steering with +that unerring speed by which a somnambulist is often seen to perform a +dangerous feat. + +The moonlit mist and the silence of night closed around this lonely nook +in the dead forest and Toyner's form sitting upon the fallen log. In the +open river, where no line determined the meeting of the placid moonlit +water and the still, moonlit mist, the boat dashed like a dark streak +up the white winding Ahwewee toward the green forest around Fentown +Falls. The small dark figure of the man within it was working at his +oars with a strength and regularity of some powerful automaton. At every +stroke the prow shot forward, and the sound of the splashing oars made +soft echoes far and wide. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +When men have visions the impression left upon their minds is that light +from the unseen world of light has in some way broken through into the +sphere of their cognizance. The race in its ages of reflection has upon +the whole come to the conclusion that that which actually takes place is +the gradual growth and the sudden breaking forth of light within the +mysterious depths of the man himself. A new explanation of a fact does +not do away with the fact. + +Toyner was not dead, he was stunned; his head was badly injured. When +his consciousness returned, and through what process of inflammation and +fever his wounded head went in the struggle of nature toward recovery, +was never clearly known. His body, bound with the soft torn cloths to +the upright tree, sagged more and more until it found a rest upon the +inclined log. The fresh sweet air from pine woods, the cool vapours from +the water beneath him, were nurses of wise and delicate touch. The sun +arose and shone warmly, yet not hotly, through the air in which dry haze +was thickening. The dead trees stood in the calm water, keeping silence +as it were, a hundred stalwart guards with fingers at their lips, lest +any sound should disturb the life that, with beneficent patience, was +little by little restoring the wounded body from within. Even the little +vulgar puffing market-boat that twice a day passed the windings of the +old river channel--the only disturber of solitude--was kept at so great +a distance by this guard of silent trees that no perception of her +passing, and all the life and perplexity of which she must remind him, +entered into Toyner's half-closed avenues of sense. + +For two days the sun rose on Bart through the mellow, smoke-dimmed +atmosphere. Each night it lay in a red cloud for an hour in the west, +tingeing and dyeing all the mirror below the trees with red. No one was +there in the desolate lake to see the twice-told glory of that rosy +flood and firmament, unless it was this wondrous light that first +penetrated the eyes of the prisoner with soothing brightness. + +It was at some hour of light--sunset or sunrise, or it might have been +in the blending of the mornings and the evenings in that confusion of +mind which takes no heed of time--that Toyner first began to know +himself. Then it was not of himself that he took knowledge; his heart in +its waking felt after something else around and beneath and above him, +everywhere, something that meant light and comfort and rest and love, +something that was very strong, that was strength; he himself, Bart +Toyner, was part of this strength, and rested in it with a rest and +refreshing which is impossible to weakness, however much it may crave. + +It came to him as he lay there, not knowing the where or when of his +knowledge--it came to him that he had made a great mistake, as a little +child makes a mistake in laughable ignorance. Indeed, he laughed within +himself as he thought what a strange, childish, grotesque notion he had +had,--he had thought, he had actually thought, that God was only a part +of things; that he, Bart Toyner, could turn away from God; that God's +power was only with him when he supposed himself to be obedient to Him! +Yes, he had thought this; but now he knew that God was all and in all. + +There came to him, trooping with this new joy of knowledge, the sensuous +sight and sound and smell of many things that he had known, but had not +understood, before. All the spring-times through which he had walked +unconscious of their meaning, came to him. There was a sound in his ears +of delicate flowers springing to light through dewy moss, of buds +bursting, and he saw the glancing of myriad tiny leaves upon the grey +old trees. With precisely the same sense of sweetness came the vision of +days when autumn rain was falling, and the red and sear leaf, the nut, +the pine-cone and the flower-seed were dropping into the cold wet earth. +Was life in the spring, and death in the autumn? Was the power and love +of God not resting in the damp fallen things that lay rotting in the +ground? + +There came before him a troop of the little children of Fentown, all the +rosy-cheeked faces and laughing eyes and lithe little dancing forms that +he had ever taken the trouble to notice; and Ann and Christa came and +stood with them--Christa with her dancing finery, with her beautiful, +thoughtless, unemotional face, her yellow hair, and soft white hands; +and Ann, a thousand times more beautiful to him, with her sun-brown +tints and hazel eyes, so full of energy and forethought, her dark neat +hair and working-dress and hardened hands--this was beauty! Over against +it he saw Markham, blear-eyed, unkempt and dirty; and his own father, a +gaunt, idiotic wreck of respectable manhood; and his mother, faded, +worn, and peevish; with them stood the hunch-backed baker of Fentown +and all the coarse and ugly sons of toil that frequented its wharfs. +There was not a child or a maiden among those he saw first who did not +owe their life to one of these. With the children and the maidens there +were pleasure and hope; with the older men and women there were effort +and failure, sin and despair. The life that was in all of them, was it +partly of God and partly of themselves? He laughed again at the +question. The life that was in them all was all of God, every impulse, +every act. The energy that thrilled them through, by which they acted, +if only as brutes act, by which they spoke, if only to lie, by which +they thought and felt, even when thought and feeling were false and bad, +the energy which upheld them was all of God. That devil, too, that he +saw standing close by and whispering to them--his form was dim and +fading; he was not sure whether he was a reality or a thought, but--if +he had life, was it his own? Somewhere, he could not remember where or +when, he had heard the voice of truth saying, "Thou couldst have no +power against me except it were given thee from above." + +The strange complexity of dreams, which seems so foolish, brings them +nearer to reality than we suppose, for there is nothing real which has +not manifold meanings. Before this vision of his townspeople faded, Bart +saw Ann slowly walk over from the group in which she had risen to be a +queen, to that group whose members were worn with disappointment and +age; as she went he saw her perfectly as he had never seen her before, +the hard shallow thoughts that were woven in with her unremitting effort +to do always the thing that she had set herself to do; and he saw, too, +a nature that was beneath this outer range of activity, a small +trembling fountain of feeling suppressed and shut from the light. In +some strange way as she stood, having grown older by transition from one +group to the other, he saw that this inner fountain of strength was +increasing and overflowing all that other part which had before made up +almost the entire personality of the woman. This change did not take +place visibly in the other people among whom she stood. It was in Ann he +saw the change. He felt very glad he had seen this; he seemed to think +of nothing else for a long time. + +He forgot then all the detail of that which he had seen and thought, and +it seemed to him that he spent a long time just rejoicing in the divine +life by which all things were, and by which they changed, growing by +transformation into a glory which was still indistinct to him, too far +off to be seen in any way except that its light came as the light comes +from stars which we say we see and have never really seen at all. + +Through this joy and light the details of life began to show again. The +two forces which he had always supposed had moulded his life acted his +early scenes over again. His young mother, before the shadow of despair +had come over her, was seen waiting upon all his boyish footsteps with +cheerful love and patience, trying to guide and to help, but trying much +more to comfort and to please; and his father, with a strong body and +the strength of fixed opinion and formed habits, having no desire for +his son except to train and form him as he himself was trained and +formed, was seen darkening all the boy's happiness with unreasonable +severity, which hardened and sharpened with the opposition of years into +selfish cruelty. Toyner had often seen these scenes before; all that +was new to him now was that they stood in the vivid light of a new +interpretation. Ah! the father's cruelty, the irritable self-love, the +incapacity to recognise any form of life but his own, it was of +God,--not a high manifestation: the bat is lower than the bird, and yet +it is of God. Bart saw now the one great opportunity of life! He saw +that the whole of the universe goes to develop character, and the one +chief heavenly food set within reach of the growing character for its +nourishment is the opportunity to embrace malice with love, to gather it +in the arms of patience, convert its shame into glory by willing +endurance. + +Had he, Bart Toyner, then really been given the power in that beginning +of life to put out his hand and take this fruit which would have given +him such great strength and stature, or had he only had strength just +for what he had done and nothing more? + +The answer seemed to come to him from all that he had read of the growth +of things. He looked into the forests, into the life of the creatures +that now lived in them; he saw the fish in the rivers and the birds in +the air, everywhere now roots were feeling under the dark ground for +just the food that was needed, and the birds flew open-mouthed, and the +fishes darted here and there, and the squirrels hoarded their nuts. +Everywhere in the past the growth of ages had been bringing together +these creatures and their food by slowly developing in them new powers +to assimilate new foods. What then of those that pined and dwindled when +the organism was not quite strong enough and the old food was taken +away? Ah, well! they fell--fell as the sparrows fall, not one of them +without God. And what of man rising through ages from beast to +sainthood, rising from the mere dominion of physical law which works out +its own obedience into the moral region, where a perpetual choice is +ordained of God, and the consequences of each choice ordained? Was not +the lower choice often inevitable? Who could tell when or where except +God Himself? And the higher choice the only food by which character can +grow! So men must often fall. Fall to what end? To pass into that +boundless gulf of distant light into which everything is passing, +passing straight by the assimilation of its proper food, circuitously by +weakness and failure, but still coming, growing, reaching out into +infinite light, for all is of God, and God is Love. + +All Toyner's thought and sense seemed to lose hold again of everything +but that first realisation of the surrounding glory and joy and +strength, and the feeling that he himself had to rest for a little +while before any new thing was given him to do. + +His body lay back upon the grey lifeless branch, wrapped in the ragged, +soiled garment that Markham had put upon him; the silence of night came +again over the water and the grey dead trees, and nature went on +steadily and quietly with her work of healing. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +When Toyner had left Fentown to go and rescue Markham, Ann had stood a +good way off upon the dark shore just to satisfy herself that he had got +into the boat and rowed down the river. This was not an indication that +she doubted him. She followed him unseen because she felt that night +that there were elements in his conduct which she did not in the least +understand. When he was gone, she went back to fulfil her part of the +contract, and she had a strength of purpose in fulfilling it which did +not belong mainly to the obligation of her promise. Something in his +look when he had come in this evening, in his glance as he bade her +farewell, made her eager to fulfil it. + +All night, asleep or awake, she was more or less haunted with this new +feeling for Toyner--a feeling which did not in her mind resemble love or +liking, which would have been perhaps best translated by the word +"reverence," but that was not a word in Ann's vocabulary, not even an +idea in her mental horizon. + +Our greatest gains begin to be a fact in the soul before we have any +mental conception of them! + +The next day Ann was up early. She took her beer (it was home-brewed and +not of great value) and deliberately poured it out, bottle after bottle, +into a large puddle in the front road. The men who were passing early +saw her action, and she told them that she had "turned temp'rance." She +washed the bottles, and set them upside down before the house to dry +where all the world might see them. The sign by which she had +advertised her beer and its price had been nothing but a sheet of brown +paper with letters painted in irregular brush strokes. Ann had plenty of +paper. This morning she laid a sheet upon her table, and rapidly painted +thereon with her brush such advertisements as these: + + + _Tea and Coffee, 3 Cents a Cup. + Ginger Bread, Baked Beans, + Lemonade. + +Cooking done to order at any hour + and in any style._ + + +By the time this placard was up, Christa had sauntered out to smell the +morning air, and she looked at it with what was for Christa quite an +exertion of surprise. + +She went in to where Ann was scrubbing the tables. Christa never +scrubbed except when it was necessary from Ann's point of view that she +should, but she never interfered either. Now she only said: + +"Ann!" + +"I'm here; I suppose you can see me." + +"Yes; but, Ann----" + +It was so unusual for Christa to feel even a strong emotion of surprise +that she did not know in the least how to express it. + +Ann stopped scrubbing. She had never supposed that Christa would yield +easily to all the terms of the condition; she had not sufficient +confidence in her to explain the truth concerning the secret compact. + +"Look here, Christa, do you know that Walker died last night? Now I'll +tell you what it is; you needn't think that the people who are +respectable but not religious will have anything more to do with us, +even in the off-hand way that they've had to do with us before now. +Father's settled all that for us. Now the only thing we've got to do is +to turn religious. We're going to be temp'rance, and never touch a game +of cards. You're going to wear plain black clothes and not dance any +more. It wouldn't be respectable any way, seeing they may catch father +any day, and the least we can do is sort of to go into mourning." + +Christa stood bright and beautiful as a child of the morning, and heard +the sentence of this long night passed upon her; but instead of looking +plaintive, a curiously hard look of necessary acquiescence came about +the lines of her cherry lips. Ann was startled by it; she had expected +Christa to bemoan herself, and in this look she recognised that the +younger sister had an element of character like her own, was perhaps +growing to be what she had become. The quality that she honestly +admired in herself appeared disgusting to her in pretty Christa, yet she +went on to persuade and explain; it was necessary. + +"We can't dance, Christa, for no one would dance with us; we can't wear +flowers in our hats, for no one would admire them. I suppose you have +the sense to see that? The men that come here are a pretty easy-going +rough lot, but they draw a line somewhere. Now I've kept you like a lady +so far, and I'll go on doing that to the end" (This was Ann's paraphrase +for respectability); "so if you don't want to sit at home and mope, +we've got to go in for being religious and go to church and meetings. +The minister will come to see us, and all that sort will take to +speaking to us, and I'll get you into Sunday school. There are several +very good-looking fellows that go there, and there's a class of real +big girls taught by a Young-Men's-Christian-Association chap. He'd come +to see you, you know, if you were in his class." + +Christa was perfectly consoled, perfectly satisfied; she even showed her +sister some of the animation which had hitherto come to her only when +she was flirting with men. + +"Ann," she said earnestly, "you are very splendid. I got up thinking +there weren't no good in living at all." + +Ann eyed her sharply. Was one set of actions the same to Christa as +another? and was she content to forget all their own shame and all her +father's wretched plight if she could only have a few pleasures for +herself? It was exactly the passive state that she had desired to evoke +in Christa; but there are many spectres that come to our call and then +appal us with their presence! + +Ann went on with her work. She was not in the habit of indulging +herself in moods or reveries; still, within her grew a silent +disapproval of Christa. She felt herself superior to her. After a while +another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive +for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive +was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed +hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance, +been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of +Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself +she felt that a great gulf was fixed. + +Well, she did not know; she did not understand; she was not at all sure +that she wanted to understand anything more about Bart Toyner and all +the complex considerations about life which the thought of him seemed to +arouse in her. She felt that the best way of ridding herself of +uncomfortable thoughts about him was to be busy in performing all that +he could reasonably require at her hands. It is just in the same way +that many people rid themselves of thoughts about God. + +All that long day, while the sunlight fell pink through the haze, Ann +worked at renovating her own life and Christa's. She took Christa and +went to some girls of their acquaintance, and presented them with all +the feathers, furbelows, and artificials which she and Christa +possessed. She cooked some of the viands which she had advertised for +sale, and prepared all her small stock of kitchen utensils for the new +avocation. It was a long hard day's work, and before it was over the +village was ringing with the news of all this change. The minister had +already called on Ann and Christa, saying suitable things concerning +their father's terrible crime and their own sad position. When he was +gone Christa laughed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +The sweet-scented smoke of the distant forest fires had diffused itself +all day in the atmosphere more and more palpably. It was not a gloomy +effect, and familiar to eyes accustomed to the Canadian August. All the +sunbeams were very pink, and they fell flickering among the shadows of +the pear tree upon Markham's grey wooden house, upon the path and the +ragged green in front. Ann had pleasant associations with these pink +beams because they told of fine weather. Smoke will not lie thus in an +atmosphere that is molested with any currents of wind that might bring +cloud or storm. On the whole Ann had spent the day happily, for fair +weather has much to do with happiness; but when that unusual flood of +blood-red light came at sunset, giving an unearthly look to a land which +was well enough accustomed to bright sunsets of a more ordinary sort, +Ann's courage and good humour failed her; she yielded to the common +influence of marvels and felt afraid. + +What had she done, and what was she going to do? She was playing with +religion; and religion, if it was nothing more, was something which had +made Bart Toyner look at her with such a strange smile of selfless hope +and desire--hope that she would be something different from what she had +been, desire that the best should come to her whatever was going to +happen to him. That was the explanation of what had seemed inexplicable +in his look (she felt glad to have worked it out at last); and if +anything so strange as that were possible in Bart, what was the force +with which she was playing? Would some judgment befall her? + +The evening closed in. Christa went to bed to finish a yellow-backed +novel. As it was the last she was to read for a long time, she thought +she might as well enjoy it. Ann sat alone in the outer room. The night +was very still. Christa went to sleep, but Ann continued to sit, +stitching at the very plain garb that Christa was to don on the morrow, +not so much because she needed to work as because she felt no need of +sleep. The night being close and warm, her window, a small French +casement, stood open. At a late hour, when passers upon the road were +few, arrested by some sound, she knew not what, she lifted her head and +looked through the open window intently, in the same way as we lift our +eyes and look sometimes just because another, a stranger perhaps, has +riveted his gaze upon us. + +A moment more, and Ann saw some one come within the beams of her own +lamp outside of the window; the figure crossed like a dark, silent +shadow, but Ann thought she recognised Toyner. The outline of the +clothes that he had worn when she had seen him last just about this hour +on the previous night was unconsciously impressed upon her mind. A +shudder of fear came over her, and then she was astonished at the fear; +he might easily have done all that she had given him to do and returned +by this time. Yet why did he pass the window in that ghostly fashion and +show no sign of coming to the door? A moment or two that she sat seemed +beaten out into the length and width of minutes by the throbbing of her +nerves, usually so steady. She determined to steel herself against +discomfort. If Toyner had done his work and come home and did not think +it wise to visit her openly, what was there to alarm in that? Yet she +remembered that Toyner had spoken of being away for some indefinite +length of time. She had not understood why last night, and now it seemed +even more hard to understand. + +As she sewed she found herself looking up moment by moment at the +window. It was not long before she saw the same figure there again, +close now, and in the full light. Her hands dropped nerveless upon her +knee; she sat gazing with strained whitened face. The outline of the +clothes she associated with the thought of Toyner, but from under the +dark hat her father's face looked at her. Not the face of a man she +thought, but the face of a spirit, as white as if it were lifeless, as +haggard as if it were dead, but with blazing life in the eyeballs and a +line like red fire round their rims. In a moment it was gone again. + +Ann started up possessed with the desire to prove the ghostly visitant +material; passing through the door, she fled outside with her lamp. +Whatever had been there had withdrawn itself more quickly than she had +come to seek it. + +She felt convinced now that her father was dead; she fell to imagining +all the ways in which the tragic end might have come. No thought that +came to her was satisfactory. What had Bart done? Why had his form +seemed to her so inextricably confused with the form of her father at +the moment of the apparition? The recognition of a man or his garments, +although the result of observation, does not usually carry with it any +consciousness of the details that we have observed; and she did not know +now what it was that had made her think of Toyner so strongly. + +The next morning, as the day was beginning to wear on, one of the +Fentown men put his head into Ann's door. + +"Do you happen to know where Toyner is?" he asked. + +She gave a negative, only to be obliged to repeat it to several +questions in quick succession. + +"Seen him this morning?" + +"Seen him last night?" + +"Happen to know where he would likely be?" + +The growing feeling of distress in Ann's mind made the shake of her head +more and more emphatic. She was of course an object of more or less pity +to every one at that time, and the intruder made an explanation that had +some tone of apology. + +"Oh, well, I didn't know but as you might have happened to have seen him +since he came back. His boat's there at the landing all right, but his +mother's not seen him up to the house." + +During the day Ann heard the same tale in several different forms. +Toyner was one of those quiet men not often in request by his +neighbours; and as he was known at present to have reason possibly for +hidden movements in search of his quarry, there was not that hue and cry +raised concerning the presence of the boat and the absence of the owner +that would have been aroused in the case of some other; still, the +interest in his whereabouts gradually grew, and Ann heard the talk about +it. Within her own heart an unexpressed terror grew stronger and +stronger. It was founded upon the sense of personal responsibility. She +alone knew the secret mission upon which Toyner had left; she alone knew +of the glimpse of her father which she had caught the night before, and +she doubted now whether she had seen a spirit or visible man. What had +happened in the dark hour in which Toyner and Markham had met, and which +of them had brought back the boat? The misery of these questions grew to +be greater than she could endure; but to confide her distress to any one +was impossible. To do so might not only be to put her father's enemies +upon his track, but it would be to confess Bart's unfaithfulness to his +public duty; and in that curious revolution of feeling which so +frequently comes about in hearts where it is least expected, Ann felt +the latter would be the more intolerable woe of the two. + +Then came another of those strange unearthly sunsets. Ann's mind was +made up. Inactivity she could endure no longer. There was one +explanation that appeared to her more reasonable than any other; that +was, that Bart had wavered in his resolution to relieve Markham, that +the latter had died upon the tree where he was hiding, and that Bart +would not show himself for the present where Ann could see him. Ann did +not believe in this explanation; but because of the apparition which she +thought she had seen, because of the horrible nature of the fear it +entailed, she determined that, come what would, she would go to that +secret place which she alone knew and find out if her father had been +taken from it or if any trace remained there to show what had really +happened. It was when the sisters were again alone for the night that +she first broke the silence of her fears. + +"Christa, father came to the window last night, but went away again +before I could catch him." + +"Sure he would never show his face in this place, Ann. You must have +been dreaming!" + +"Well, I must try to find him. I tell you what I'm going to do. I've +been along all the boats, and there's not one of them I could take +without being heard except David Brown's canoe that is tied at the foot +of his father's field. I could get that, and I expect to be back here +long before it's light. If any one should come to the door asking for +me, you say, like the other night, that I'm ill and can't see them." + +"Yes," said Christa, without exhibiting much interest. Ann had been the +_deus ex machina_ of the house since Christa's babyhood. It never +occurred to her that any power needed to interfere on behalf of Ann. + +"But if I shouldn't get back by daylight, you'll have to manage to say a +word to David Brown. Tell him that I borrowed his canoe for a very +special purpose. If you just say that, he'll have sense not to make a +fuss." + +"Yes," said Christa sleepily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +The canoe did not answer to Ann's one slim Indian paddle so lightly as +the boat she had taken before had answered to the oars. Kneeling upright +in the stern, she was obliged to keep her body in perfect balance. + +The moon did not rise now until late, but the smoke that had for two +days hung so still and dim had been lifted on a light breeze that came +with the darkness. The stars were clear above, and Ann's eyes were well +accustomed to the wood and stream. + +Ah! how long it seemed before she came round the bend of the river and +down to the blasted tree. She felt a repulsion for the whole death-like +place to-night that she had not felt before. She had been sure the +other night of meeting some one at the end of her secret journey, and +now the best she could hope was that the place would be empty; and even +if it were empty, perhaps, for all she knew, one of the men for whom she +was seeking might be lying dead in the water beneath. Certainly the +inexplicable appearance of her father the night before had shaken her +nerves. Ann was doing a braver thing than she had ever done in her life, +because she was a prey to terror. Lonely as the desolate Ahwewee was, to +turn from it into the windings of the secret opening seemed like leaving +the world behind and going alone into a region of death. There was no +sound but the splash of paddle, the ripple of the still water under the +canoe, the occasional voice of a frog from the swampy edges of the lake, +and the shrill murmur of crickets from the dry fields beyond. + +When Ann came near she saw the bound figure reclining in the arms of the +fallen tree. Then she believed that her worst fear had been true--that +Bart had been unfaithful, and that her father had died in this wretched +place. He must be dead because she had seen his spirit! + +She came nearer. He had not died of starvation; the bag of food which +she had hung upon the branch hung there yet. She set the canoe close +against the tree, and, holding by the tree, raised herself in it. She +had to be very careful lest the canoe should tip under her even while +she held by the tree. Then she put forth a brave hand, and laid it upon +the breast of the unconscious man. + +He was not dead. The heart was beating, though not strongly; the body +was warm. + +"Father, father." She shook him gently. + +The answer was a groan, very feeble. It told her at once that the man +before her was stricken with some physical ill that made him incapable +of responding to her. + +And now what was she to do? It was necessary by some means to get her +father into the canoe. To that she did not give a second thought, but +while he still lived it seemed to her monstrous to take him either back +to Fentown Falls or down to The Mills. Her horror of prison and of +judgment for him had grown to be wholly morbid and unreasonable, just +because his terror of it had been so extreme. Only one course remained. +She had the chart that David Brown had given her. He had told her that +at that northern edge of the swamp, which could be reached by the way he +had marked out, a small farmhouse stood. Possibly the people in this +house might not yet have heard of Markham the murderer; or possibly, if +they had heard, they might be won for pity's sake to let him regain +strength there and go in peace. It was her only chance. The moon was +rising now, and she would find the way. She felt strength to do anything +when she had realised that the heart beneath her hand was still beating. + +Ann moved the canoe under the fallen log, and moving down it upon her +knees, she took the rope from the prow, secured it round the log from +which the sick man must descend, and fastened it again to the other end +of the boat. This at least was a guarantee that they could not all sink +together. Even yet the danger of upsetting the canoe sideways was very +great. It was only necessity that enabled her to accomplish her task. + +"Father, rouse yourself a little." She took Markham's old felt hat, upon +which the insensible head was lying, and set it warmly over his brow. +She unfastened the bands that tied his body to the log. She had not come +without a small phial of the rum that was always necessary for her +father, in the hope that she might find him alive. She soaked some +morsels of bread in this, and put it in the mouth of the man over whom +she was working. It was very dark; the only marvel was, not that she did +not recognise Toyner, but that she and he were not both engulfed in the +black flood beneath them in the struggle which she made to take him in +the canoe. + +Twice that day Toyner had stirred and become conscious; but +consciousness, except that of confused dreams, had again deserted him. +The lack of food, if it had preserved him from fever, had caused the +utmost weakness of all his bodily powers; yet when the small amount of +bread and rum which he could swallow gave him a little strength, he was +roused, not to the extent of knowing who he was or where, but enough to +move his muscles, although feebly, under direction. After a long time +she had him safely in the bottom of the canoe, his head lying upon her +jacket which she had folded for a pillow. At first, as she began to +paddle the canoe forward, he groaned again and again, but by degrees the +reaction of weakness after exertion made him lapse into his former state +that seemed like sleep. + +Ann had lost now all her fears of unknown and unseen dangers. All that +she feared was the loss of her way, or the upsetting of her boat. The +strength that she put into the strokes of her paddle was marvellous. She +had just a mile to go before she came to another place where a stretch +of still water opened through the trees. There were several of these +blind channels opening off the bed of the Ahwewee. They were the terror +of those who were travelling in boats, for they were easily mistaken for +the river itself, and they led to nothing but impenetrable marsh. From +this particular inlet David Brown had discovered a passage to the land, +and Ann pursued the new untried way boldly. Somewhere farther on David +had told her a little creek flowed in where the eye could not discern +any wider opening than was constantly the case between the drowned +trees. Its effect upon the current of the water was said to be so slight +that the only way to discover where it ran was by throwing some light +particles upon the water and watching to see whether they drifted +outwards from the wood steadily. She turned the boat gently against a +broken stump from which she could take a decaying fragment. An hour +passed. She wearily crossed the water to and fro, casting out her chips +of punk, straining her eyes to see their motion in the moonlight. The +breeze that had moved the smoke had gone again. Above the moon rode +through white fleecy clouds. The water and air lay still and warm, +inter-penetrated with the white light. The trees, without leaf or twigs, +cast no shadow with the moon in the zenith. + +The patient experimenting with the chips was a terrible ordeal to Ann. +The man whom she supposed to be her father lay almost the whole length +of the canoe so close to her, and yet she could not pass his +outstretched feet to give him food or stimulant. At last, at last, to +her great joy, she found the place where the chips floated outward with +steady motion. She then pushed her canoe in among the trees, thankful to +know that it, at least, had been there before, that there would be no +pass too narrow for it. The canoe itself was almost like a living +creature to her by this time. Like an intelligent companion in the +search, it responded with gentle motion to her slightest touch. + +It seemed to Ann that the light of the moon was now growing very strong +and clear. Surely no moon had ever before become so bright! Ann looked +about her, almost for a moment dreading some supernatural thing, and +then she realised that the night was gone, that pale dawn was actually +smiling upon her. It gave her a strange sense of lightheartedness. Her +heart warmed with love to the sight of the purple tint in the eastern +sky, that bluish purple which precedes the yellow sunrise. On either +side of her boat now the water was so shallow that sedge and rushes rose +above it. + +The herons flapped across her path to their morning fishing. + +The creek still made a narrow channel for the canoe. Pretty soon its +current flowed between wild undulating tracts of bright green moss in +which the trees still stood dead, but bark and lichen now adhered to +their trunks, and a few more strokes brought her to the fringes of young +spruce and balsam that grew upon the drier knolls. She smelt living +trees, dry woods and pastures in front. Then a turn of the narrow creek, +and she saw a log-house standing not twenty paces from the stream. Above +and around it maples and elms held out green branches, and there was +some sort of a clearing farther on. + +Ann felt exultant in her triumph. She had brought her boat to a place of +safety. She seemed to gather life and strength from the sun; although it +still lay below the blue horizon of lake and forest which she had left +behind her, the sky above was a gulf of sunshine. + +She stepped out of the boat and pushed away the hat to look in her +father's face. She saw now who it was that she had rescued. Toyner +stirred a little when she touched him, and opened his eyes, the same +grave grey eyes with which he had looked at her when he bade her +good-bye. There was no fever in them, and, as it seemed to her, no lack +of sense and thought. Yet he only looked at her gravely, and then seemed +to sleep again. + +The girl sprang upright upon the bank and wrung her hands together. It +came to her with sudden clearness what had been done. Had Toyner told +his tale, she could hardly have known it more clearly. Her father, had +tried to murder Bart; her father had tied him in his own place; it was +her father who had escaped alone with the boat. It was he himself, and +no apparition, who had peered in upon her through the window. She was +wrought up into a strong glow of indignation against the baseness that +would turn upon a deliverer, against the cruelty of the revenge taken. +No wonder that miserable father had not dared to enter her house again +or to seek further succour from her! All her pity, all the strength of +her generosity, went out to the man who had ventured so much on his +behalf and been betrayed. That unspoken reverence for Toyner, a sense of +the contrast between him and her father and the other men whom she knew, +which had been growing upon her, now culminated in an impulse of +devotion. A new faculty opened within her nature, a new mine of wealth. + +The thin white-faced man that lay half dead in the bottom of the canoe +perhaps experienced some reviving influence from this new energy of love +that had transformed the woman who stood near him, for he opened his +eyes again and saw her, this time quite distinctly, standing looking +down upon him. There was tenderness in her eyes, and her sunbrowned face +was all aglow with a flush that was brighter than the flush of physical +exercise. About her bending figure grew what seemed to Bart's +half-dazzled sense the flowers of paradise, for wild sunflowers and +sheafs of purple eupatorium brushed her arms, standing in high phalanx +by the edge of the creek. Bart smiled as he looked, but he had no +thoughts, and all that he felt was summed up in a word that he uttered +gently: + +"Ann!" + +She knelt down at once. "What is it, Bart?" and again: "What were you +trying to say?" + +It is probable that her words did not reach him at all. He was only +half-way back from the region of his vision; but he opened his eyes and +looked at her again. + +The sun rose, and a level golden beam struck through between the trunks +of the trees, touching the flowers and branches here and there with +moving lights, and giving all the air a brighter, mellower tint. There +was something that Bart did feel a desire to say--a great thought that +at another time he might have tried in a multitude of words to have +expressed and failed. He saw Ann, whom he loved, and the paradise about +her; he wanted to bring the new knowledge that had come to him in the +light of his vision to bear upon her who belonged now to the region of +outward not of inward sight and yet was part of what must always be to +him everlasting reality. + +"What were you going to say, Bart?" she asked again tenderly. + +And again he summed up all that he thought and felt in one word: + +"God." + +"Yes, Bart," she said, with some sudden intuitive sense of agreement. + +Then, seeming to be satisfied, he closed his eyes and went back into the +state of drowsiness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Ann went up to the house. It was a great relief to her to remember that +the man for whom she was going to ask help was no criminal. She could +hold up her head and speak boldly. + +Another minute and she began to look curiously to see how long the grass +and weeds had grown before the door. It was some months since David +Brown had been here. The doubt which had entered Ann's mind grew +swiftly. She knocked loudly upon the door and upon the wooden shutters +of the windows. The knocks echoed through empty rooms. + +She had no hesitation in house-breaking. In a shed at the back she found +a broken spade which formed a sufficiently strong and sharp lever for +her purpose. She pried open a shutter and climbed in. She found only +such furniture as was necessary for a temporary abode. A small iron +stove, a few utensils of tin, a huge sack which had been used for a +straw bed, and a few articles of wooden furniture, were all that was to +be seen. + +Upon the canvas sack she seized eagerly. Bart might be dying, or he +might be recovering from some injury; in either case she had only one +desire, and that was to procure for him the necessary comforts. Having +no access to hay or straw, she began rapidly to gather the bracken which +was standing two and three feet high in great quantities wherever the +ground was dry under the trees. She worked with a nervous strength that +was extraordinary, even to herself, after the toilsome night. When she +had filled the sack, she put it upon the floor of the lower room and +went back to the canoe. She saw that Bart had roused himself and was +sitting up. He was even holding on to the rushes with his hand--an act +which she thought showed the dreamy state of his mind, for she did not +notice that the rope had come undone. She helped Bart out of the canoe, +putting her arm strongly round him so that he was able to walk. She saw +that he had not his mind yet; he said no word about the help she gave +him; he walked as a sleeping man might walk. When she laid him down upon +the bed of bracken and arranged his head upon the thicker part which she +had heaped for a pillow, he seemed to her to fall asleep almost at once; +and yet, for fear that his strange condition was not sleep, she hastily +opened the bag of food and the flask of rum. + +She stripped the twigs from a tiny spruce tree, piling them inside the +old stove. When they had cracked and blazed with a fierce, sudden heat, +Ann could only break bread-crumbs into a cupful of boiling water and put +a few drops of rum in it. She woke Bart and fed him as she might have +fed a baby. When he lay down again exhausted, with that strange moan +which he always gave when he first put back his head, she had the +comfort of believing that a better colour came to his cheek than before. +She resolved that if he rested quietly for a few hours and appeared +better after the next food she gave him, she would think it safe to +cushion the canoe with bracken and take him home. This thought suggested +to her to moor the canoe. + +She went down to the creek again, but it was too late. The water running +gently and steadily had done its work, taken the canoe out from among +the rushes, and floated it down between the mosses of the swamp. Making +her feet bare, she sprang from one clump of fern root to another, +sometimes missing her footing and striking to her knees through the +green moss that let her feet easily break into the black wet earth. In a +few minutes she could see the canoe. It had drifted just beyond the +swamp, where all the ground was lying under some feet of water; but +there a tree had turned its course out of the current of the creek, so +that it was now sidling against two ash trees, steady as if at anchor. +So few feet as it was from her, Ann saw at a glance that to reach it was +quite impossible. Realising the helplessness of her position without +this canoe, she might have been ready to brave the dangers of a struggle +in deep water to obtain it, but the danger was that of sinking in +bottomless mud. The canoe was wholly beyond her reach. Retracing her +steps, she washed her feet in the running creek, and, as she put on her +shoes, sitting upon the grassy bank in the morning sunlight, she felt +drowsily as if she must rest there for a few minutes. She let her head +fall upon the arm she had outstretched on the warm sod. + +When she stirred again she had that curious feeling of inexplicable +lapse of time that comes to us after unexpected and profound slumber. +The sun had already passed the zenith; the tone in the voices of the +crickets, the whole colouring of earth and sky, told her, before she had +made any exact observation of the shadows, that it was afternoon. + +She prepared more food for the sick man. When she had fed him and put +him to rest again, she went out to discover what means of egress by +land was to be found from this lonely dwelling. She followed the faint +trace of wheel-ruts over the grass, which for a short distance ran +through undergrowth of fir and weeds. She came out upon a cleared space +of some acres, from which a fine crop of hay had clearly been taken, +apparently about a month before. Whoever had mowed the hay had evidently +been engaged also in a further clearing of the land beyond, and there +was a small patch where tomatoes and pea vines lay neglected in the sun; +the peas had been gathered weeks before, but the tomatoes, later in +ripening, hung there turning rich and red. Ann went on across the +cleared space. Following the track, she came to a thick bit of bush +beyond, where a long cutting had been made, just wide enough for a cart +to pass through. + +There was no other way out; Ann must walk through this long green +passage. No knight in a fairy tale ever entered path that looked more +remote from the world's thoroughfares. When she had walked a mile she +came to an opening where the ground dipped all round to a bottom which +had evidently at some time held water, for the flame-weed that grew +thick upon it stood even, the tops of its magenta flowers as level as a +lake--it was, in fact, a lake of faded crimson lying between shores of +luxuriant green. The cart-ruts went right down into the flame-flowers, +and she thought she could descry where they rose from them on the other +side. Evidently the blossoming had taken place since the last cart had +passed over, and no doubt many miles intervened between this and the +next dwelling-house. Nothing but the thought of necessities that might +arise for help on Bart's account made her make the toilsome passage, +knee-deep among the flowers, to see whether, beyond that, the road was +passable; but she only found that it was not fit for walkers except at a +time of greater drought than the present. The swamp crept round in a +ring, so that she discovered herself to be upon what was actually an +island. Ann turned back, realising that she was a prisoner. + +On her way home again she gathered blood-red tomatoes; and finding a +wild apple tree, she added its green fruit to what she already held +gathered in the skirt of her gown; starvation at least was not a near +enemy. + +She had made her investigation calmly, and with a light heart; she felt +sure that Bart had grown better and stronger during the day, and that +was all that she cared about. She never paused to ask herself why his +recovery was not merely a humane interest but such a satisfying joy. +The knowledge of her present remoteness from all distresses of her life +as a daughter and sister came to her with a wonderful sense of rest, and +opened her mind to the sweet influences of the summer night and its +stars as that mind had never been opened before. + +She cooked the apples and tomatoes, making quite a good meal for +herself. Then she roused Bart, and gave him part of the cooked fruit. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +The darkness closed in about eight o'clock. Ann sat on the doorstep +watching the lights in the sky shine out one by one. Last night had been +the only night which had ever possessed terrors for her, and now that +she believed her father to be still alive she thought no longer with any +horror of his apparition. She wondered where he was wandering, but her +heart hardened towards him. She rested and dozed by turns upon the +doorstep until about midnight. Then in the darkness she heard a voice +from the bracken couch that assured her that Bart's mind had come back +to him again. + +"Who is there?" he asked. + +"I am going to give you something to eat," she said, letting her voice +speak her name. + +"Is it very dark?" he asked, "or am I blind?" + +"You can see right enough, Bart," she said gently; "you can watch me +kindle the fire." + +She left the door of the stove open while the spruce twigs were +crackling, and in the red, uncertain, dancing light he caught glimpses +of the room in which he was, and of her figure, but the fire died down +very quickly again. + +"I was thinking, Ann," he said slowly, "that it was a pity for Christa +to be kept from dancing. She is young and light on her feet. God must +have made her to dance." + +"Christa's well enough without it," said Ann, a little shortly. + +She thought more coldly of Christa since she had come up to a higher +level herself. + +"Well, I only meant about Christa that I think I made a mistake," said +Bart slowly. + +"How a mistake?" she asked. + +It was a very hard question to answer. A moment before and he thought he +had seen what the mistake was and how to speak, but when he tried, all +that manifold difficulty of applying that which is eternal to that which +is temporal came between his thought and its expression. + +He could not know clearly wherein his difficulty lay; no one had taught +him about the Pantheism which obliterates moral distinctions, or told +him of the subjective ideal which sweeps aside material delight. He only +felt after the realities expressed by these phrases, and dimly perceived +that truth lies midway between them, and that truth is the mind of God, +and can only be lived, not spoken. For a while he lay there in the +darkness, trying to think how he could tell Ann that to his eyes all +things had become new; after a little while he did try to tell her, and +although the words were lame, and apparently contradictory to much that +they both knew was also true, still some small measure of his meaning +passed into her mind. + +"God is different from what I ever thought," he said; "He isn't in some +things and not in others; it's wicked to live so as to make people think +that, for they think they can get outside of Him, and then they don't +mind Him at all." + +"How do you know it?" she asked curiously. + +"I saw it. Perhaps God showed me because I was so hard up. It's God's +truth, Ann, that I am saying." + +The room was quite dark again now; the chirping of the crickets outside +thrilled through and through it, as if there were no walls there but +only the darkness and the chirping. Ann sat upon a wooden chair by the +stove. + +She considered for a minute, and then she said, with the first touch of +repentance in her heart: "Well, I reckon God ain't in me, any way. There +isn't much of God in me that I can see." + +"I'll tell you how it is if I can." Toyner's voice had a strange rest +and calm in it. He spoke as a man who looked at some inward source of +peace, trying to describe it. "Supposing you had a child, you wouldn't +care anything about him at all if you could just work him by wires so +that he couldn't do anything but just what you liked; and yet the more +you cared about him, the more it would hurt you dreadfully if he didn't +do the things that you knew were good for him, and love you and talk to +you too. Well now, suppose one day, when he was a little fellow, say, +he wanted to touch something hot, and you told him not to. Well, if he +gave it up, you'd make it easier for him to be good next time; but +suppose he went on determined to have his own way, can't you think of +yourself taking hold of his hand and just helping him to reach up and +touch the hot thing? I tell you, if you did that it would mean that you +cared a great sight more about him than if you just slapped him and put +it out of his reach; and yet, you see, you'd be helping him to do the +wrong thing just because you wanted to take the naughtiness out of his +heart, not because you were a devil that wanted him to be naughty. Well, +you see, between us and our children" (Toyner was talking as men do who +get hold of truth, not as an individual, but as mankind) "it's not the +same as between God and us. They have our life in them, but they're +outside us and we're outside them, and so we get into the way, when we +want them to be good, of giving them a punishment that's outside the +harm they've done, and trying to put the harm they are going to do +outside of their reach; and when they do the right thing, half the time +we don't help them to do it again. But that isn't God's way. Nothing is +ever outside of Him; and what happens after we have done a thing is just +what must happen, nothing more and nothing less, so that we can never +hope to escape the good or the evil of what we have done; for the way +things must happen is just God's character that never changes. You see +the reason we can choose between right and wrong when a tree can't, or a +beast, is just because God's power of choice is in us and not in them. +So we use His power, and when we use it right and think about pleasing +Him--for, you see, we know He can be pleased, for our minds are just +bits of His mind (as far as we know anything about Him; but of course we +only know a very little)--He puts a tremendous lot of strength into us, +so that we can go on doing right next time. Of course it's a low sort of +right when we don't think about Him, for that's the most of what He +wants us to do; but I tell you" (a little personal fire and energy here +broke the calm of the recital), "I tell you, when I do look up to God +and say, '_Now I am going to do this for Your sake and because You are +in me and will do it_,' I tell you, there's _tremendous power_ given us. +_That's the law that makes the value of religion_; I know it by the way +I gave up drinking. But now, look here; most of the time we don't use +God's will, that He lends us, to do what's right; well, then He doesn't +slap us and put the harm out of our reach. He does just what the mother +does when she takes the child's hand and puts it against the hot thing, +and the burn hurts her as much as it hurts the child; but He is not weak +like we are to do it only once in a way. I tell you, Ann, every time you +do a wrong thing God is with you; that is what I saw when I was hard up +and God showed me how things really were. Now, look here, there isn't +any end to it that we can see here; it's an awful lot of help we get to +do the wrong thing if that's the thing we choose to do. It gets easier +and easier, and at first there's a lot of pleasure to it, but by-and-by +it gets more and more dreadful, and then comes death, and that's the end +here. But God does not change because we die, and wherever we go He is +with us and gives us energy to do just what we choose to do. It's hell +before we die when we live that way, and it's hell after, for ages and +ages and worlds and worlds perhaps, just until the hell-fire of sin has +burned the wrong way of choosing out of us. But remember, God never +leaves us whatever we do; there's nothing we feel that He doesn't feel +with us; we must all come in the end to being like Himself, and there's +always open the short simple way of choosing His help to do right, +instead of the long, long way through hell. But I tell you, Ann, whether +you're good or whether you're wicked, God is in you and you are in Him. +If He left you, you would neither be good nor wicked, you would stop +being; but He loves you in a bigger, closer way than you can think of +loving anybody; and if you choose to go round the longest way you can, +through the hell-fire of sin on earth and all the other worlds, He will +suffer it all with you, and bring you in the end to be like Himself." + +The calm voice was sustained in physical strength by the strength of the +new faith. + +Ann's reply followed on the track of thoughts that had occurred to her. +"Well now, there's that awful low girl, Nelly Bowes. She's drunk all the +time, and she's got an awful disease. She's as bad as bad can be, and so +is the man she lives with; and that little child of hers was born a +hard-minded, sickly little beast." Her words had a touch of triumphant +opposition as she brought them out slowly. "It's a mean, horrid shame +for the child to be born like that. It wasn't its fault. Do you mean to +say God is with them?" + +"It's a long sight easier to believe that than that He just let them go +to the devil! I tell you it's an awful wicked thing to teach people +that God can save them and doesn't. God is saving those two and the +child just by the hell they've brought on themselves and it; and He's in +hell with them, and He'll bring them out to something grander than we +can think about. They could come to it without giving Him all that agony +and themselves too; but if they won't, He'll go through it with them +rather than turn them into puppets that He could pull by wires. And as +to the child, I can't see it quite clear; but I see this much that I +know is true: it's God's character to have things so that a good man has +a child with a nice clean soul, and it's just by the same way of things +that the other happens too. It's the working out of the bad man's +salvation to see his child worse than himself, and it's the working out +of the child's salvation to have his bad soul in a bad body. Look you, +can't you think that in the ages after death the saving of the soul of +that child may be the one thing to make that man and woman divine? +They'll never, never get rid of their child, and the child will come +quicker to the light through the blackness he is born to than if, having +the bad soul that he has, God was to set him in heaven. But, look you, +Ann, there isn't a day or an hour that God is not asking them to choose +the better and the quicker way, and there isn't a day or an hour that He +isn't asking you and me and every one else in the world to do as He does +so as to help them to choose it, and live out the sufferings of their +life with them till they do." + +Ann sat quite still; she had a feeling that if she moved to make any +other sound, however slight, than that of speech some spell would be +broken. In the darkness Bart had awakened out of the stupor of his +injury; and although Ann could not have expressed it, she felt that his +voice came like the speech of a soul that is not a part of the things we +see and touch. It was so strange to her that he did not ask her where he +was. For a few minutes more at least she did not want to bring the least +rustle of material surroundings into their talk. She was still +incredulous; it is only a very weak mind that does not take time to grow +into a new point of view. + +"Bart, was God with father when he tried to kill you and tied you to the +tree?" + +"Yes." + +"How do you know?" + +"You can't think of God being less than something else. If God was not +in your father, then space is outside God's mind. You can't think that +God wanted to save your father from doing it and didn't, unless you +think that the devil was stronger than God. You can't think that you are +more loving than God; and if He is so loving, He couldn't let any one do +what wasn't just the best thing. I tell you, it's a love that's awful to +think of that will go on giving men strength to do wrong until through +the ages of hell they get sick of it, rather than make them into +machines that would just go when they're wound up and that no one could +love." + +"Do they know all this in church, Bart?" Ann asked. It had never +occurred to her before to test her beliefs by this standard, but now it +seemed necessary; she felt after tradition instinctively. The nakedness +of Bart's statements seemed to want tradition for a garment. + +Bart's words were very simple. "When I was fastened on that log and saw +all this, I saw that Jesus knew it all, and that that was what all His +life and dying meant, and that the people that follow Him are learning +to know that that was what it meant; it takes them a long, long time, +and we can't understand it yet, but as the world goes on it will come +clearer. Everybody that knows anything about Him says all this in +church, only they don't quite understand it. There's many churches, Ann, +where the people all get up and say out loud, 'He descended into hell.' +I don't know much, for I've only read the Bible for one year; but if you +think of all that Jesus did and all that happened to Him, you will see +what I mean. People have made little of it by saying it was a miracle +and happened just once, but He knew better. He said that God had been +doing it always, and that He did nothing but what He saw God doing, and +that when men saw Him they would know that God was like that always. +Haven't I just been telling you that God bears our sins and carries our +sorrows with us until we become blessed because we are holy? We can +always choose to be that, but He will never _make_ us choose. Jesus +never _made_ anybody do anything; and, Ann, if there are things in the +Bible that we don't understand to mean that, it is because they are a +parable, and a parable, Ann, is putting something people can't +understand in pictures that they can look at and look at, and always +learn something every time they look, till at last they understand what +is meant. People have always learned just as much from the Bible as they +can take in, and made mistakes about the rest; but it is God's character +to make us learn even by mistakes." + +Ann's interest began to waver. They were silent awhile, and then, +"Bart, do you know where you are?" she asked. + +"I don't seem to care much where I am, as long as you are here." There +was a touch of shyness in the tone of the last words that made all that +he had said before human to her. + +"If it hadn't been that I thought it was father, I'd have taken you +home." She told him how she had brought him. "If it had been a boat," +she said, "I'd have found out who it was before we got here, but the +canoe was too narrow." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +Ann dosed where she sat. Toyner slept again. At length they were both +aware that the level light of the sun was in the room. + +Ann sat up, looking at the door intently. Then her eyes moved as if +following some one across the room. + +"What is it?" asked Toyner. + +Ann started up with one swift look of agonised entreaty, and then it +seemed that what she had seen vanished, for she turned to Bart +trembling, unable to speak at first, sobs struggling with her breath. + +"It was father--I saw him come to the door and come in. He's dead now." + +"What did he look like?" Toyner's voice was very quiet. + +"He looked as if he was dead, but as if he was mad too--his body as if +it was dead, and himself wild and mad and burning inside of it." She was +crouching on the floor, shaken with the sobs of a new and overwhelming +pity. "O Bart! I never cared--cared anything for him before--except to +have him comfortable and decent; but if I thought he was going to +be--like that--now I think I would die to save him if I could." + +"Would you die to save him? So would God; and you can't believe in God +at all unless you know that He does what He wants to do. And God does +it; dies in him, and is in him now; and He will save him." + +Bart's eyes were full of peace. + +"Can't you trust God, Ann? When He is suffering so much for love of each +of us? He could make us into good machines, but He won't. Can't you +begin to do what He is doing for yourself and other people? Ann, if He +suffers in your father and in you, He is glad when you are glad. Try to +be glad always in His love and in the glory of it." + +Ann's mind had reverted again to the traditions of which she knew so +little. "I don't want to go to heaven," she said, "if father is in some +place looking like he did just now." + +"Heaven" (Bart repeated the word curiously), "heaven is inside you when +you grow to be like God; and through all ages and worlds heaven will be +to do as He does, to suffer with those that are suffering, and to die +with those that are dying. But remember, Ann, too, it means to rejoice +with those who are rejoicing; and joy is greater than pain and +heaviness. And heaven means always to be in peace and strength and +delight, because it is along the line of God's will where His joy +flows." + +Ann rose and ran out of the house. To be in the sunshine and among the +wild sunflowers was more to her just then than any wisdom. The wave of +pity that had gone over her soul had ebbed in a feeling of exhaustion. +Her body wanted warmth and heat. She felt that she wanted _only_ that. +After she had sat for an hour near the bank of the rippling stream, and +all her veins were warmed through and through with the sunlight, the +apparition of her father seemed like a dream. She had seen him thus once +in life, and supposed him a spirit. She was ready to suppose what she +had now seen to be a repetition of that last meeting, coming before she +was well roused from her sleep. She took comfort because her pulses ran +full and quiet once more. She thought of her love to Bart, and was +content. As to all that Bart had said--ah well! something she had +gathered from it, which was a seed in her mind, lay quiet now. + +At length Toyner found strength to walk feebly, and sat down on the +doorstep, where he could see Ann. It was his first conscious look upon +this remote autumn bower, and he never forgot its joy. The eyes of men +who have just arisen from the dim region that lies near death are often +curiously full of unreasoning pleasure. Within himself Toyner called the +place the Garden of Eden. + +"If only I had not brought you here!" said Ann. "If only I had not left +the canoe untied!" + +For answer Bart looked around upon the trees and flowers and upon her +with happy eyes that had no hint of past or future in them. Something of +the secret of all peace--the _Eternal Now_--remained with him as long +as the weakness of this injury remained. + +"Don't fret, Ann" (with a smile). + +"I'm afraid for you; you look awful ill, and ought to have a doctor." + +He had it in his mind to tell her that he was all right and desired only +what he had; but, in the dreamy reflective mood that still held him, +what he said was: + +"If all the trouble in earth and heaven and hell were put together, Ann, +it would be just like clouds passing before the sun of joy. The clouds +are never at an end, but each one passes and melts away. Ann! sorrow and +joy are like the clouds and the sun." + +It is never destined that man should remain long in Eden. About noon +that day Ann heard a shout from the direction of the lake outside among +the dead trees; the shout was repeated yet nearer, and in a minute or +two she recognised the voice and heard the sound of oars splashing up +the narrow channel made by the running creek. The thought of this +deliverance had not occurred to her; yet when she recognised the voice +it seemed to her natural enough that David Brown should have divined +where his canoe might have been brought. She stood waiting while his +boat came up the creek. The young athlete sprang from it, question and +reproach in his handsome young face. She found no difficulty then in +telling him just what she had done, and why. She felt herself suddenly +freed from all that life of frequent deception which she had so long +practised. She had no desire to dupe any man now into doing any service. +Something in the stress of the last days, in her new reverence for Bart, +had wrought a change in the relative value she set on truth and the +gain of untruth. She held up her head with a gesture of new dignity as +she told David that she had sought her father and found Bart. + +"Father has half killed him, and now it hurts me to see him ill. Bart is +a good man. O David, I tell you there is no one in the world I mind +about so much as Bart. Could you take him in your boat now to the +hospital at The Mills? He would have done as much for you, and more, if +you had got hurt in that way." + +So David took the man Ann loved to the hospital at The Mills. He did it +willingly if he did it ruefully. Ann went home, as she had come, in the +canoe, except that she had gone out in the dead of night and she went +home in broad daylight. + +No one blamed Ann when they knew she had gone out to help her father; no +one smiled or sneered when they found that she had succeeded in saving +Toyner's life. + +A few days passed, and poor Markham was found drowned in a forest pool. +They brought him home and buried him decently at Fentown for his +daughter's sake. + +Toyner lay ill for weeks in the little wooden hospital at The Mills. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +When Toyner was well he came home again. His mind was still animated +with the conception of God as suffering in the human struggle, but as +absolute Lord of that struggle, and the consequent belief that nothing +but obedience to the lower motive can be called evil. The new view of +truth his vision had given him had become too really a part of his mind +to be overthrown. It was no doubt a growth from the long years of +desultory browsing upon popular science and the one year that had been +so entirely devoted to the story of the gospel and to prayer. He could +not doubt his new creed; but no sooner had he left the hospital walls +than that burden came upon him of which the greatest stress is this, +that in trying to fit new light to common use we are apt to lose the +clearer vision of the light itself. + +In Toyner's former religious experience he had been much upheld by the +knowledge that he was walking in step with a vast army of Christians. +Now he no longer believed himself in the ways of exclusive thought and +practices in which the best men he knew were walking. The only religious +thinkers with whom he had come in contact gave up a large class of human +activities and the majority of human souls to the almost exclusive +dominion of the devil. As far as Toyner knew he was alone in the world +with his new idea. He had none of that vanity and self-confidence which +would have made it easy for him to hold to it. It did not appear to him +reasonable that he could be right and these others wrong. He did not +know that no man can think alone, that by some strange necessity of +thought he could only think what other men were then thinking. He felt +homesick, sick for the support of those faithful ones which he had been +wont to see in imagination with him: their conscious communion with God +was the only good life, the life which he must seek to attain and from +which he feared above all things to fall short; and that being so, it +would have been easier, far easier, to call his new belief folly, +heresy, nay, blasphemy if that were needful, and to repent of it, if he +could have done so. He could not, do what he would; he saw his vision to +be true. + +The thing had grown with his growth; he believed that a voice from +heaven had spoken it. Is not this the history of all revelation? + +When I say that Toyner could not doubt his new conception of God and of +the human struggle, I mean that he could not in sincerest thought hold +the contrary to be true. I do not mean to say that daily and hourly, +when about his common avocations, his new inspiration did not seem a +mere will-o'-the-wisp of the mind. It took months and years to bring it +into any accustomed relation to every-day matters of thought and act; +and it is this habitual adjustment of our inward belief to our outward +environment that makes any creed _appear_ to be incontrovertible. + +Oh the loneliness of it, to have a creed that no companion has! The +sheer sorrow of being compelled by the law of his mind to believe +concerning God what he did not know that any other man believed time and +time again obscured Bart Toyner's vision of the divine. + +The power of the miracle wrought at his conversion was gone; he had +been taught that the miraculous power was only to be with him as long as +he yielded implicit obedience, but that implied a clear-cut knowledge of +right from wrong which Toyner did not now possess; many of the old rules +clashed with that one large new rule which had come to him--that any way +of life was wicked which made it appear that God was in some provinces +of life and not in others. "Whatever is not of faith is sin"; but while +an old and a new faith are warring in a man's soul the definition fails: +many a righteous act is born of doubt, not faith. This was one reason +why Toyner no longer possessed all-conquering strength. Another reason +there was which acted as powerfully to rob him--the soul-bewildering +difficulty of believing that the God of physical law can also be the God +of promise, that He that is within us and beneath us can also be above +us with power to lift us up. + +Without a firm grip on this supernatural upholding power Toyner was a +man with a diseased craving for intoxicants. He fled from them as a man +flies from deadly infection; but with all the help that total abstinence +and the absence of temptation can give he failed in the battle. A few +weeks after he had returned to Fentown he was brought into his mother's +house one morning dead drunk. The mother, whose heart had revived within +her a little during the last year, now sank again into her previous +dejection. Her friends said to her that they had always known how it +would be in the case of so sudden a reformation. When Toyner woke up his +humiliation was terrible; he bore it as he had borne all the rest of his +pain and shame, silently enough. No one but Ann Markham even guessed the +agony that he endured, and she had not the chance to give a kindly +look, for at this time Toyner, unable to trust himself with himself, was +afraid to look upon Ann lest he should smirch her life. + +Again Toyner set his feet sternly in the way of sobriety. Ah! how he +prayed, beseeching that God, who had revealed Himself to be greater and +nobler than had before been known, would not because of that show +Himself to be less powerful towards those that fear Him. It is the +prayer of faith, not the prayer of agonised entreaty, that takes hold of +strength. Toyner failed again and again. There was a vast difference now +between this and his former life of failure, for now he never despaired, +but took up the struggle each time just where he had laid it down, and +moreover the intervals of sobriety were long, and the fits of +drunkenness short and few; but there were not many besides Ann who +noticed this difference. And as for Toyner, the shame and misery of +failure so filled his horizon that he could not see the favourable +contrast--shame and misery, but never despair; that one word had gone +out of his life. + +One day a visitor came hurrying down the street to Toyner's home. The +stranger had the face of a saint, and the hasty feet of those who are +conscious that they bear tidings of great joy. It was Toyner's friend, +the preacher. Bart had often written to him, and he to his convert. Of +late the letters had been fraught with pain to both, but this was the +first time that the preacher had found himself able to come a long +journey since he had heard of Toyner's fall. He came, his heart big with +the prayer of faith that what he had done once he might be permitted to +do again--lead this man once more into the humble path of a +time-honoured creed and certain self-conquest. To the preacher the two +were one and indivisible. + +When this life is passed away, shall we see that our prayers for others +have been answered most lavishly by the very contradiction of what we +have desired? + +The visit was well timed. Bart Toyner's father lay dying; and in spite +of that, or rather in consequence of nights of watching and the +necessary handling of stimulants, Bart sat in his own room, only just +returned to soberness after a drunken night. With face buried in his +hands, and a heart that was breaking with sorrow, Bart was sitting +alone; and then the preacher came in. + +The preacher sat beside him, and put his arm around him. The preacher +was a man whose embrace no man could shrink from, for the physical part +of him was as nothing compared with the love and strength of its +animating soul. + +"Our Lord sends a message to you: 'All things are possible to him that +believeth.'" The preacher spoke with quiet strength. "_You_ know, dear +brother, that this word of His is certainly true." + +"Yes, yes, I know it. By the hour in which I first saw you I know it; +but I cannot take hold of it again in the same way. My faith wavers." + +"Your faith wavers?" The preacher spoke questioningly. "My brother, +faith in itself is nothing; it is only the hand that takes; it is the +Saviour in whom we believe who has the power. You have turned away from +Him. It is not that your faith wavers, but that you are walking straight +forward on the road of infidelity, and on that path you will never find +a God to help, but only a devil to devour." + +Toyner shivered even within the clasp of the encircling arm. "I had +tried to tell you in writing that the Saviour you follow is more to +me--far more, not less." + +"In what way?" The preacher's voice was full of sympathy; but here, and +for the first time, Bart felt it was an unconscious trick. Sympathy was +assumed to help him to speak. The preacher could conceive of no divine +object of love that was not limited to the pattern he had learned to +dwell upon. + +"I am not good at words," Toyner spoke humbly. "I took a long time to +write to you; I said it better than I could now, that God is far more +because He is a faithful Creator, responsible for us always, whatever we +do, to bring us to good. Now I do not need to keep dividing things and +people and thoughts into His and not-His. That was what it came to +before. You may say it didn't, but it did. And all we know about +Jesus--don't you see." (Bart raised his face with piteous, hunted +look)--"don't you see that what His life and death meant was--just what +I have told you? God doesn't hold back His robe, telling people what +they ought to do, and then judge them. He does not shrink from taking +sin on Himself to bring them through death to life. Doesn't your book +say so again and again and again?" + +"God cannot sin!" cried the preacher, with the warmth of holy +indignation. + +Toyner became calm with a momentary contempt of the other's lack of +understanding. "That goes without saying, or He would not be God." + +"But that is what you have said in your letters." + +There was silence in the room. The misery of his loneliness took hold of +Toyner till it almost felt like despair. Who was he, unlearned, very +sinful, even now shaken with the palsy of recent excess--who was he to +bandy words with a holy man? All words that came from his own lips that +hour seemed to him horribly profane. The new idea that possessed him was +what he lived by, and yet alone with it he did not gather strength from +it to walk upright. + +"The father tempted the prodigal," he said, "when he gave him the +substance to waste with sinners. Did the father sin? The time had come +when nothing but temptation--yes, and sin too--could save. Most things, +sir, that you hold about God I can hold too. There are bad men, powerful +and seducing men, in the world; there may easily be unseen devils. There +is hell on earth, and I don't doubt but that there's the awfulest, +longest depth of the same kind of hell beyond. There's heaven on earth, +and all the love and pain of love we have tell us there's heaven beyond, +unspeakable and eternal; but, sir, when you come to limit God--to say, +here the responsibility of the faithful God stops, here man's +self-destruction begins--I can't believe that. He must be responsible, +not only for starting us with freedom, but responsible for the use we +make of it and for all the consequence. When you say of the infinite God +that hell and the devils are something outside of Him--I can't think +that. The devils must live and move and have their being in Him. When +you say the holy God ever said to spirit He had created, 'Depart from +Me' (except in a parable meaning that as long as a spirit chose evil it +would not be conscious of God's nearness), I tell you, sir, by all He +has taught me out of the Bible you gave me, I don't believe it. We've +studied the Bible so much now that we know that holiness is just +love--the sort of love that holds holy hatred and every other good +feeling within itself. We know that love can't fail and cast out the +thing it loves. When we know a law, we know the way it must work. If the +Bible seems to say the big law it teaches doesn't work out true, it must +be like what is said of the six days of creation, something that came as +near as it could to what people would understand, but that needs a new +explanation." + +The young preacher had withdrawn his encircling arm. He sat looking very +stern and sad. + +"When you begin to doubt God's word, you will soon doubt that He is, and +that He is the rewarder of them that seek Him." + +"Sir, it seems to me that it's doubting the incarnate Word to believe +what you do, because the main plain drift of all He was and did is +contradicted by some few things men supposed Him to mean because they +thought them. But it's not that I would set myself up to know about +doctrines, if it wasn't that this doctrine had driven me to stop +believing and stop caring to do right. I can't just explain it clearly, +but when I came to Him the way you told me, and thought the way you told +me, I just went on and did it and was blessed and happy in the love of +God as I never could have dreamed of; but all the time there was a +something--I didn't know exactly what--that I couldn't bring my mind to; +so I just left it. But when I got tempted, and prayed and prayed, then +it came on me all of a sudden that I didn't want a God who had to do +with such a little part of life as that. You see it had been simmering +in my mind all the days that I stopped doing the things you told me were +wrong and yet went on keeping among the publicans and sinners because +He did. If I'd just stayed with the church-goers, maybe I wouldn't have +felt it; but to think that I couldn't take a hand in an innocent game o' +cards, or dance with the girls that hadn't had another bit of +amusement--all that wasn't very important, but that sort of thing began +it. And then to think that God was in me and not in them! I began, as I +went down the street, wondering who had God in his heart and who hadn't, +that I might know who to trust and who to try to do good to. And then, +most of all, there was all my books that I liked so much. I didn't read +them any more, for when I thought that God had set every word in the +Bible quite true and left all the other books to be true or not just as +it happened, I couldn't think to look at any book but the Bible; for +one's greedy of knowing how things really are--that's what one reads +for. So you see it was all in my mind God did things differently one +time and another, like making one book and not the others, and only such +a small part of things was His; and then when the temptation came, you +see, if I'd thought God was in Markham and the girls I could have done +my duty and let Him take care of them; but it was because I'd no cause +to think that, and believed that He'd let them go, that I couldn't let +them go. I felt that I'd rather give up the sort of a God I thought on +and look after them a bit. It wasn't that I thought it out clear at the +time; but that was how it came about, and I was ready to kick religion +over. And, sir, if God hadn't taught me that when I went down to hell He +was there, I don't think I'd want to be religious again; but now I do +want it with all my might and main, and I'll never let go of it, just as +I know He won't let go of me--no, not if some of these days they have +to shovel me into a drunkard's grave; but I believe that God's got the +same strength for me just as He had when you converted me." Toyner +looked round him despairingly as a man might look for something that is +inexplicably lost. "I can't think how it is, but I can't get hold of His +strength." + +The preacher meditated. It had already been given to him to pray with +great persistency and faith for this back-slider, and he had come sure +of bringing with him adequate help; but now his hope was less. In a +moment he threw himself upon his knees and prayed aloud: "Heavenly +Father, open the heart of Thine erring child to see that it was the +craft and subtlety of the devil that devised for him a temptation he +could not resist,--none other but the devil could have been so subtle; +and show him that this same devil, clothed as an angel of light, has +feigned Thy voice and whispered in his ear, and that until he returns to +the simple faith as it is in the gospel Thou _canst_ not help him as of +old." + +"Stop!" (huskily). "I have not let go of His faith. His faith was in the +Father of sinners." + +Then the preacher strove in words to show him the greatness of his +error, and why he could not hold to it and live in the victory which +faith gives. It was no narrow or weak view that the preacher took of the +universe and God's scheme for its salvation; for he too lived at a time +when men were learning more of the love of God, and he too had spoken +with God. The hard outline of his creed had grown luminous, fringed with +the divine light from beyond, as the bars of prison windows grow +dazzling and fade when the prisoner looks at the sun. All that the +preacher said was wise and strong, and the only reason he failed to +convince was that Toyner felt that the thought in which his own +storm-tossed soul had anchored was a little wiser and stronger--only a +little, for there was not a great difference between them, after all. + +"I take in all that you say, sir; but you see I can't help feeling sure +that it's true that God is living with us as much and as true when we're +in the worst sort of sin, and the greater sin that it brings--for the +punishment of sin is more and more sin--and being sure, I know that +everything else that is true will come to fit in with it, though I may +not be able rightly to put it in now, and what won't come to fit in with +it can't be true." + +The preacher perceived that the evil which he had set himself to slay +was giantlike in strength. He chose him smooth stones for his sling. +His heart was growing heavy with fear of failure, his spirit within him +still raised its face heavenward in unceasing prayer. He began to tell +the history of God's ways with man from the first. He spoke of Abraham. +He urged that the great strength had always come to men who had trusted +God's word against reason and against sight. And he saw then that for +the first time Toyner raised up his head and seemed stirred with a +reviving strength. + +The preacher paused, hoping to hear some encouraging word in +correspondence to the gesture, but none came. + +Then he spoke of Moses and of Joshua, for he was following the tale of +God's rejection of sinful nations. + +Toyner answered now. His eye was clearer, his hand steadier. "I have +read there's many that say that God could not have told His people to +slay whole nations, men, women, and children. I think it's the +shallowest thing that was ever said. I don't know about His _telling +people_ to do it--that may be a poem; but that He gave it to them to do, +that He gives it to winds and floods and fires and plagues to do, time +and time and again, is as certain as that if there's a God He must have +things His way or He isn't God. But I don't believe that in this world, +or in the next, He ever left man, woman, or child, but lived with each +one all through the sin and the destruction. And, sir, I take it that +men couldn't see that until at last there came One who looked into God's +heart and saw the truth, and He wanted to tell it, but there were no +words, so though He had power in Him to be King over the whole earth, He +chose instead to be the companion of sinners, and to go down into all +the depths of pain and shame and death and hell. And He said His Father +had been doing it always, and He did it to show forth the Father. That +is what it means. I am sure that is what it means." + +The preacher was surprised to see the transformation that was going on +in the man before him. That wonderful law which gives to some centre of +energy in the brain the control of bodily strength, if but the right +relationship between mind and body can be established, was again +working, although in a lesser degree than formerly, to restore this man +before his eyes. Bart, who had appeared shrunken, trembling, and +watery-eyed, was pulling himself together with some strength that he had +got from somewhere, and was standing up again ready to play a man's +part. The preacher did not understand why. There seemed to him to have +been nothing but failure in the interview. He made one more effort; he +put the last stone in his sling. Toyner had just spoken of the +sacrifice of Calvary, and to the preacher it seemed that he set it at +naught, because he was claiming salvation for those who mocked as well +as for those who believe. + +"Think of it," he said; "you make wrong but an inferior kind of right. +You take away the reason for the one great Sacrifice, and in this you +are slighting Him who suffered for you." + +Then he made, with all the force and eloquence he could, the personal +appeal of the Christ whom he felt to be slighted. + +"You have spoken of the sufferings of lost and wretched men," he went +on; "think of His sufferings! You have spoken of your loneliness; think +of His loneliness!" + +Then suddenly Bart Toyner made a gesture as a slave might who casts off +the chains of bondage. The appeal to which he was listening was not for +him, but for some man whom the preacher's imagination had drawn in his +place, who did not appropriate the great Sacrifice and seek to live in +its power. He did not now seek to explain again that the death of Christ +was to him as an altar, the point in human thought where always the fire +of the divine life descends upon the soul self-offered in like +sacrifice. He had tried to explain this; now he tried no more, but he +held out his hands with a sign of joy and recovered strength. + +"You came to help me; you have prayed for me; you have helped me; you +have been given something to say. Listen: you have told me of Abraham; +he was called to go out alone, quite alone. Now you have spoken to me of +Another who was alone." Toyner was incoherent. "That was why _He_ bore +it, that we might know that it was possible to have faith all alone +because He had it. It is easy to believe in God holding us up when +others do, but awfully hard all alone. He knew that, He warned them to +keep together; but all the same He lived out His prayers alone." + +Toyner looked at the preacher, love and reverence in his eyes. "You +saved me once," he said; "you have saved me again." + +But the preacher went home very sorrowful, for he did not believe that +Bart Toyner was saved. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +The spiritual strength that proceeds from every holy man had again +flowed in life-giving stream from the preacher to Bart Toyner. The help +was adequate. Toyner never became intoxicated again. + +His father died; and for two years or more the mother, who had lived +frugally all her life, still lived frugally, although land and money had +been left to her. The mother would not trust her son, and yet gradually +she began to realise that it was he who was quietly heaping into her lap +all those joys of which she had been so long deprived. At length she +died, the happy mother of a son who had won the respect of other men. + +It was after that that Toyner wedded Ann Markham. Then, when he had the +power to live a more individual life of enjoyment and effort, it began +to be known little by little that these two had committed that sin +against society so hard to forgive, the sin of having their own creed +and their own thoughts and their own ways. + +Toyner was not a preacher. It was not in him to try to change the ideas +of those who were doing well with what ideas they had. All that he +desired was to live so that it might be known that his God was the God +of the whole wide round of human activity, a God who blessed the just +and the unjust. Toyner desired to be constantly blessing both the bad +and the good with the blessing of love and home which had been given to +him. It was inevitable that to carry out such an idea a man must live +through many mistakes and much failure. The ideal itself was an offence +to society. We have all heard of such offences and how they have been +punished. + +One great factor in the refining of Ann's life was her lover's long +neglect; for he, in the simple belief that she must know his heart and +purpose and that she would not be much benefited by his companionship, +left her for those years that passed before he married her wholly +ignorant of his constancy. Ann was constant. Had he explained himself +she would have been content and taken him more or less at his own +valuation, as we all take those who talk about themselves. Having no +such explanation to listen to, she watched and pondered all that he did. +Before the day came in which he made his shy and hesitating offer of +marriage, she had grown to be one with him in hope and desire. Together +they made their mistakes and lived down their failure. They had other +troubles too, for the babies lived and died one by one. + +There is seen to be a marvellous alchemy in true piety. Mind and sense +subject to its process become refined. Where refinement is not the +result, we may believe that there is a false note in the devotion, that +there is self-seeking in the effort toward God. Toyner's wealth grew +with the spread of the town over the land he owned. He had the good +taste to spend well the money he devoted to pleasure; yet it was not +books or pictures or music, acquired late in life, that gave to him and +to his wife the power to grow in harmony with their surroundings. It was +the high life of prayer and effort that they lived that made it possible +for God--the God of art as truly as the God of prayer--to teach them. + +It is not at the best a cultured place, this backwoods town. There was +many a slip in grammar, many a broad uncouth accent, heard daily in +Ann's drawing-room; but what mental life the town had came to centre in +that room. Gradually reflecting neighbours began to learn that there was +a beneficent force other than intellectual at work there. + +Young men who needed interest and pleasure, the poor who needed warmth +and food, came together to that room, and met there the drunkard in his +sober intervals, the gamester when he cared to play for mere pastime; +yes, and others, the more evil, were made welcome there. It was not +forgotten that Toyner had been a wicked man and that Ann's father had +been a murderer. + +It was a strange effort this, to increase virtue in the virtuous, not by +separation from, but by friendship with, the unrepentant. To Toyner sin +was an abhorred thing. It consisted always, yet only, in failure to +tread in the foot-prints of God, as far as it was given to each man to +see God's way--in obedience to the lower motive in any moment of the +perpetual choice of life. For himself, his life was impassioned with the +belief that it was wicked to live as if God was not the God of the whole +of what we may know. + +I, who have seen it, tell you that the atmosphere of that house was +always sweet. There were many young girls who came to it often, and +laughed and danced with men who were not righteous, and the girls lived +more holy lives than before. I would say this:--do not let any one +imitate the method of life which Toyner and his wife practised unless by +prayer he can obtain the power of the unseen holiness to work upon the +flux of circumstance; yet do not let those fear to imitate it who have +learned the secret of prayer. It was a strenuous life of prayer and +self-denial that these two lived until their race in this phase of +things was run. + + * * * * * + +_It is with this abrupt note of personal observation and reflection that +the schoolmaster's manuscript ends. He had evidently become one of +Toyner's disciples. It is well that we should know what our brothers +think, feel with their hearts for an hour, if it may not be for longer._ + + * * * * * + +Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Zeit-Geist, by Lily Dougall + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ZEIT-GEIST *** + +***** This file should be named 18054.txt or 18054.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/5/18054/ + +Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions +(www.canadiana.org)) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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