"He has some concern about your Sam--as you have yourself. He is disturbed because the boy has lost his heart to your tenant, Mrs.
Richie."
"Call it twelve dollars," Samuel said, embarra.s.sed to the point of munificence. He put the canvas bag in his pocket, and rose. "I"ll deposit this to-morrow, sir," he added, as he had added every Sunday morning for the last twenty years.
"Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar, sternly, "sit down!"
With involuntary haste the senior warden sat down, but he would not look at Dr. Lavendar. "It is not my purpose or desire," he said, "to be disrespectful, but I must request you, sir--"
"To mind my own business? I will, Sam, I will. My business is to admonish you: _Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way. First, be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift._"
Samuel Wright cleared his throat. "I cannot, Dr. Lavendar, discuss this matter with you. I must be my own judge."
"I have heard that a man might be his own lawyer," said Dr. Lavendar, smiling; "but you can"t be your own judge. The Christian religion judges you. Samuel, and convicts you. Your father is willing to see you; he has taken the first step. Think what that means to a man like your father! Now listen to me; I want to tell you what it"s all about."
"I have no desire, sir, to be informed. I--"
Dr. Lavendar checked him gently: "I am sure you will listen, Samuel, no matter what your decision may be." Then, very cautiously, he began about young Sam. "Your father thinks he ought to get away from Old Chester; he"s worried because of Mrs. Richie."
"You know my sentiments, sir, in regard to my son"s idiocy."
"Oh, come, come! Falling in love is a harmless amus.e.m.e.nt," said Dr.
Lavendar; "but your father does take it a good deal to heart. He wants to get him out of town. However, to send him away without letting him know why, is difficult; and the last thing would be to let him think we take his love-making seriously! Therefore your father thinks some kind of excuse has to be made."
Here Dr. Lavendar became elaborately casual; he had decided that he must prepare his senior warden for a possible reference to a dangerous topic. "He mustn"t be taken unawares," Dr. Lavendar had told himself.
But he quailed, now that the moment of preparation had come. "Your father thinks the excuse might be the finding a publisher for some poetry that Sam has written."
Samuel Wright"s large pallid face suddenly twitched; his dull eyes blazed straight at Dr. Lavendar; "Finding a publisher--for poetry! Dr.
Lavendar, rather than have my son encouraged in making what you call "poetry," I"d let him _board_ at Mrs. Richie"s!"
"Well," said Dr. Lavendar, easily, "never mind about his poetry; your father has an idea that life in a small place with only your own interests, is narrowing; and I guess he"s right to some extent. Anyway this project of a journey isn"t a bad one. Sam has never been further from his mother"s ap.r.o.n-string in his life, than Mercer."
"My dear Dr. Lavendar," said Samuel, pompously, "a boy attached to that string will never have the chance to fall into temptation."
"My dear Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar, "a boy attached to that string may never have the chance to overcome temptation--which would be almost as serious. I tell you, Sam, safety that depends on an ap.r.o.n- string is very unsafe!"
"My son is not to be trusted, sir."
"Samuel!" Dr. Lavendar protested with indignation, "how can he become worthy of trust without being trusted? You have no more right to shut up a grown man in Old Chester for fear of temptation, than you would have to keep a growing boy in his first pair of trousers! Why, Sam, there isn"t any virtue where there has never been any temptation.
Virtue is just temptation, overcome. Hasn"t that ever struck you?
However, that"s not the point. The point is, that your father has expressed a willingness to meet you."
Mr. Wright made no answer.
"He will talk over with you this matter of Sam"s falling in love.
Whether you agree with him that the boy should go away, is not important. What is important is his desire to see you."
"I said," Samuel Wright broke out, with a violence that made Dr.
Lavendar start--"I said I would never speak to him again! I took my oath. I cannot break my oath. "He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not--""
"Yes," said Dr. Lavendar; ""to his own hurt," but not to somebody else"s hurt. You swore to your father"s, to your children"s, to the community"s hurt. Change as quickly as you can. Come up the hill with me to-night."
"I can"t," Samuel Wright said hoa.r.s.ely, and into his hard eyes came the same look of childish terror that the old minister had seen in Benjamin Wright"s face when he sat in the hot sunshine watching the canaries.
Then Dr. Lavendar began to plead....
It was a long struggle. Sometimes it really seemed as if, as the senior warden had said, he "could not" do it; as if it were a physical impossibility. And there is no doubt that to change a habit of thought which has endured for thirty-two years involves a physical as well as a spiritual effort, which may cause absolute anguish. Mr. Wright"s face was white; twice he wiped the perspiration from his forehead: half a dozen times he said in an agonized tone, "I cannot do it; I _cannot._"
"Samuel, your father is very old; he is very feeble; but he has had the strength to take the first step. Haven"t you the strength to take the second? Will you carry your wicked quarrel to his grave? No, Sam, no! I am sure you won"t."...
An hour later, when Dr. Lavendar sat down to a dinner of more than ordinary Sunday coldness, his old face was twinkling with pleasure.
Samuel had promised to go with him that night to The Top! Perhaps as the still afternoon softened into dusk his joy began to cast a shadow of apprehension. If so, he refused to notice it. It was the Lord"s business, and "He moves in a mysterious way," he hummed to himself, waiting in the warm darkness for Samuel to call for him,--for both the quailing men had made Dr. Lavendar"s presence a condition of the interview.
At half-past seven Mr. Wright arrived. He was in a shiny box-buggy, behind a smart sorrel. He was dressed in his black and solemn best, and he wore his high hat with a flat brim which only came out at funerals. His dignity was so tremendous that his great bulk seemed to take even more than its share of room in the buggy. When he spoke, it was with a laboriousness that crushed the breath out of any possible answer. As they drove up the hill he cleared his throat every few minutes. Once he volunteered the statement that he had told Sam not to stay late at--at--
"Oh," said Dr. Lavendar, "your father will pack him off;--he will probably take the opportunity to call on Mrs. Richie," he added smiling. But Sam"s father did not smile. And, indeed, Dr. Lavendar"s own face was sober when they turned in between the sagging old gate- posts at The Top.
When the moment came to get out of the buggy, Samuel looked at his companion dumbly; a sort of paralysis seemed to hold him in his seat.
When he did move, Dr. Lavendar heard him gasp for breath, and in the darkness, as he hitched the sorrel to a staple in one of the big locusts, his face went white. The large manner which had dominated Old Chester for so many years was shrinking and shrivelling; the whole man seemed, somehow, smaller....
Benjamin Wright, in his mangy beaver hat, sitting quaking in his library, heard their steps on the veranda. As soon as supper was over, he had dismissed his rejoicing grandson, and long before it was necessary, had bidden Simmons light the lamps; but as night fell, it occurred to him that darkness would make things easier, and in a panic, he shuffled about and blew them all out. A little later, he had a surge of terror; he couldn"t bear _that voice_ in the dark!
"You! Simmons!" he called across the hall. "Light the lamps!"
"I done lit "em, suh--" Simmons expostulated from the pantry, and then looked blankly at the black doorway of the library. "I "clare to goodness, they"s gone out," he mumbled to himself; and came in, to stand on one leg and scratch a match on the sole of his carpet slipper.
"Don"t light all four, you stupid n.i.g.g.e.r!" the old man screamed at him.
When Simmons left him he lit a cigar, his fingers trembling very much; it went out almost at once, and he threw it away and took another.
Just as he heard that ponderous step on the veranda, he took a third-- [Ill.u.s.tration: Samuel slid into a chair near the door.] but only to throw it, too, still smouldering, into the empty fireplace.
Dr. Lavendar came in first. His face was very grave; he made no conventional pretence of ease. Behind him, in the doorway, loomed the other figure. Out in the hall, Simmons, his bent old back flattened against the wall, his jaw chattering with amazement, stood, clutching at the door-k.n.o.b and staring after the visitors.
"Come in!" said, Benjamin Wright. "h.e.l.lo, Lavendar. h.e.l.lo--"
Alas! at that moment Samuel"s cracked and patched-up self-respect suddenly crumbled;--his presence of mind deserted him, and scrambling like an embarra.s.sed boy into a marked discourtesy, he thrust both hands into his pockets. Instantly he realized his self-betrayal, but it was too late; his father, after a second"s hesitation, occupied both his hands with the decanter and cigar-box.
"Well; here we are, Benjamin!" said Dr. Lavendar.
"Take a cigar," said the very old man; he held the box out, and it shook so that the loose cigars jarred within it. Dr. Lavendar helped himself. "Have one--" Benjamin Wright said, and thrust the box at the silent standing figure.
"I--do not smoke." Samuel slid into a seat near the door, and balancing his hat carefully on his knees twisted one leg about the leg of his chair.
His father bustled around to the other side of the table. "That doggoned n.i.g.g.e.r brought up Kentucky instead of Monongahela!" He lifted the decanter and began to fill the gla.s.ses.
"Hold on! hold on! Don"t swamp us," said Dr. Lavendar, He leaned over to rescue his tumbler, and his good-natured scolding made an instant"s break in the intensity.
"Have some?" said Mr. Wright, turning to his son.