Just then a bolt shot downward, revealing with large exaggeration the hills, the folded valleys--the descents.
"It"s like standing on a thin plank in a turbulent sea!" the surgeon remarked wryly. "Ah, my boy, Life"s like that!" and he disappeared into his room.
Nevertheless, it was that night he wrote to his friend: "I am getting nearer this Mystery, which I take to be, the inner heart of it, a mixture of the Holy Ghost and Sweat--with a good bath afterward! But the old boy is the mixer of the Pills, mind you, and he _is_ a Master! Most likely I shall never get hold of the heart of it; for somehow, yet with all courtesy, he keeps me at a distance. I have never been "confessed,"
whatever that may be--an experience that comes to the youngest boy among them! Perhaps the Doctor thinks that old fellows like you and me have only dead sins to confess, which would crumble to dust if exposed. But there is a sting in very old sins, I think--for instance--oh! if you were here tonight, I should be as foolish as a woman...."
The storm that night struck one of the school buildings and killed a lad. In the morning the Master and the surgeon set out for the School Village, which was lower in the valley beyond Albany. It was warm and clear at the Inn; but thick mist wreaths still lay heavily over the Intervale. The hills all about glittered as in October, and there was in the air that laughing peace, that breath of sweet plenty which comes the morning after a storm. The two men followed the foot-path, which wound downward from the Inn across the Intervale. The sun filled the windless air, sucking up the spicy odors of the tangled path--fern and balsam and the mother scent of earth and rain and sun. The new green rioted over the dead leaves.... The Master closely observing his guest, remarked:
"You seem quite well, Doctor. I suppose you will be leaving us soon?"
"Leaving?" the surgeon questioned slowly, as if a secret dread had risen at the Master"s hint of departure. "Yes," he admitted, after a time, "I suppose I am what you would call well--well enough. But something still clogs within me. It may be the memory of Fear. I am afraid of myself!"
"Afraid? You need some test, perhaps. That will come sooner or later; we need not hurry it!"
"No, we need not hurry!"
Yet he knew well enough that the Inn never sheltered drones, and that many special indulgences had been granted him: he had borrowed freely from the younger Brothers--of their time and strength. He thought complacently of the large cheque which he should drop into the house-box on his departure. With it the Master would be able to build a new cottage or a small hospital for the School.
"Some of them," mused the Master, "never go back to the machine that once broke them. They stay about here and help me--buy a farm and revert! But for the most part they are keen to get back to the fight, as is right and best. Sometimes when they loiter too long, I shove them out of the nest!"
"And I am near the shoving point?" his companion retorted quickly. "So I must leave all your dear boys and Peace and Fishing and _you_! Suppose so, suppose so!... Doctor, you"ve saved my life--oh, hang it, that doesn"t tell the story. But even _I_ can feel what it is to live at the Inn!"
Instinctively he grasped his host by the arm--he was an impulsive man.
But the Master"s arm did not respond to the clasp; indeed, a slight shiver seemed to shake it, so that the surgeon"s hand fell away while the Master said:
"I am glad to have been of service--to you--yes, especially to _you_...."
They came into the school village, a tiny place of old white houses, very clean and trim, with a number of sweeping elms along the narrow road. A mountain brook turned an old water-wheel, supplying power for the workshops where the boys were trained. The great surgeon had visited the place many times in company with the Master, and though he admired the order and economy of the inst.i.tution, and respected its purpose--that is, to create men out of the refuse of society--to tell the truth, the place bored him a trifle. This morning they went directly to the little cottage that served as infirmary, where the dead boy had been brought. He was a black-haired Italian, and his lips curved upward pleasantly. The Master putting his hand on the dead boy"s brow as he might have done in life stood looking at the face.
"I"ve got a case in the next room, I"d like to have your opinion on, Doctor," the young physician said in a low tone to the surgeon, and the two crossed the pa.s.sage into the neighboring room. The surgeon fastened his eyes on the sick lad"s body: here was a case he understood, a problem with a solution. The old Master coming in from the dead stood behind the two.
"Williams," the surgeon said, "it"s so, sure enough--you must operate--at once!"
"I was afraid it was that," the younger man replied. "But how can I operate here?"
The surgeon shrugged his shoulders--"He would never reach the city!"
"Then I must, you think----"
The shrewd surgeon recognized Fear in the young man"s voice. Quick the thrill shot through his nerves, and he cried, "I will operate, _now_."
In half an hour it was over, and the Master and the surgeon were leaving the village, climbing up by the steep path under the blazing noon sun.
The Master glanced at the man by his side, who strode along confidently, a trifle of a swagger in his buoyant steps. The Master remarked:
"The test came, and you took it--splendidly."
"Yes," the great surgeon replied, smiling happily, "it"s all there, Doctor, the old power. I believe I am about ready to get into harness again!" After they had walked more of the way without speaking, the surgeon added, as to himself--"But there are other things to be feared!"
Though the Master looked at him closely he invited no explanation, and they finished their homeward walk without remark.
It soon got about among the inmates of the Inn what a wonderful operation the surgeon of St. Jerome"s had performed, and it was rumored that at the beginning of autumn he would go back to his old position.
Meantime the great surgeon enjoyed the homage that men always pay to power, the consideration of his fellows. He had been much liked; but now that the Brothers knew how soon he was to leave them, they surrounded him with those attentions that men most love, elevating him almost to the rank of the Master--and they feared him less. His fame spread, so that from some mill beyond Stowe they brought to the Inn a desperate case, and the surgeon operated again successfully, demonstrating that he was once more master of his art, and master of himself. So he stayed on merely to enjoy his triumph and escape the dull season in the city.
It was a wonderful summer, that! The fitful temper of the north played in all its moods. There were days when the sun shone tropically down into the valleys, without a breath of air, when the earthy, woody smells were strong--and the nights--perfect stillness and peace, as if some spirit of the air were listening for love words on the earth. The great elms along Albany road hung their branches motionless, and when the moon came over behind the house the great hills began to swim ghostly, vague--beyond, always beyond!... And then there were the fierce storms that swept up the valley and hung growling along the hills for days, and afterward, sky-washed and clear, the westerly breeze would come tearing down the Intervale, drying the earth before it.... But each day there was a change in the sound and the smell of the fields and the woods--in the quick race of the northern summer--a change that the surgeon, fishing up the tiny streams, felt and noted. Each day, so radiant with its abundant life, sounded some under-note of fulfilment and change--speaking beforehand of death to come.
Toward the end of August a snap of cold drove us in-doors for the night meal. Then around the fire there was great talk between the Master and the surgeon, a sort of battle of the soul, to which we others paid silent attention. For wherever those nights the talk might rise, in the little rills of accidental words, it always flowed down to the deep underlying thoughts of men. And in those depths, as I said, these two wrestled with each other. The Master, who had grown silent of late years, woke once more with fire. The light, keen thrusts of the surgeon, who argued like a fencer, roused his whole being; and as day by day it went on we who watched saw that in a way the talk of these two men set forth the great conflict of conflicts, that deepest fissure of life and belief anent the Soul and the Body. And the Master, who had lived his faiths by his life before our eyes, was being worsted in the argument! The great surgeon had the better mind, and he had seen all of life that one may see with eyes....
They were talking of the day of departure for the distinguished guest, and arranging for some kind of triumphal procession to escort him to White River. But he would not set the time, shrinking from this act, as if all were not yet done. There came a warm, glowing day early in September, and at night after the pipes were lighted the surgeon and the Master strolled off in the direction of the pool, arm in arm. There had been no talk that day, the surgeon apparently shrinking from coming to the last grapple with one whose faiths were so important to him as the Master"s.
"The flowers are dying: they tell me it"s time to move on," said the surgeon. "And yet, my dear host, I go without the Secret, without understanding All!"
"Perhaps there is no inner Secret," the Master smiled. "It is all here before you."
"I know that--you have been very good to me, shared everything. If I have not learned the Secret, it is my fault, my incapacity. But--" and the gay tone dropped quickly and a flash of bitterness succeeded--"I at least know that there _is_ a Secret!"
They sat down on the marble bench and looked into the water, each thinking his thoughts. Suddenly the surgeon began to speak, hesitantly, as if there had long been something in his mind that he was compelled to say.
"My friend," he said, "I too have something to tell--the cause within the cause, the reason of the reason--at least, sometimes I think it is!
The root reason for all--unhappiness, defeat, for the shaking hand and the jesting voice. And I want you to hear it--if you will."
The Master raised his face from the pool but said never a word. The surgeon continued, his voice trembling at times, though he spoke slowly, evidently trying to banish all feeling.
"It is a common enough story at the start, at least among men of our kind. You know that I was trained largely in Europe. My father had the means to give me the best, and time to take it in. So I was over there, before I came back to St. Jerome"s, three, four years at Paris, Munich, Vienna, all about.... While I was away I lived as the others, for the most part--you know our profession--and youth. The rascals are pretty much the same to-day, I judge from what my friends say of their sons!
Well, at least I worked like the devil, and was decent.... Oh, it isn"t for that I"m telling the tale! I was ambitious, then. And the time came to go back, as it does in the end, and I took a few weeks" run through Italy as a final taste of the lovely European thing, and came down to Naples to get the boat for New York. I"ve never been back to Naples since, and that was twenty-six years ago this autumn. But I can see the city always as it was then! The seething human hive--the fellows piling in the freight to the music of their songs--the fiery mouth of Vesuvius up above. And the soft, dark night with just a plash of waves on the quay!"
The Master listened, his eyes again buried in the water at their feet.
"Well, _she_ was there on board, of course--looking out also into that warm dark night and sighing for all that was to be lost so soon. There were few pa.s.sengers in those days.... She was my countrywoman, and beautiful, and there was something--at least so I thought then--of especial sweetness in her eyes, something strong in her heart. She was engaged to a man living somewhere in the States, and she was going back to marry him. Why she was over there then I forget, and it is of no importance. I think that the man was a doctor, too--in some small city.... I loved her!"
The Master raised his eyes from the pool and leaning on his folded arms looked into the surgeon"s face.
"I am afraid I never thought much about that other fellow--never have to this day! That was part of the brute I am--to see only what is before my eyes. And I knew by the time we had swung into the Atlantic that I wanted that woman as I had never wanted things before. She stirred me, mind and all. Of course it might have been some one else--any one you will say--and if she had been an ordinary young girl, it might have gone differently? It is one of the things we can"t tell in this life. There was something in that woman that was big all through and roused the spirit in me. I never knew man or woman who thirsted more for greatness, for accomplishment. Perhaps the man she was to marry gave her little to hope for--probably it was some raw boy-and-girl affair such as we have in America.... The days went by, and it was clearer to both of us what must be. But we didn"t speak of it. She found in me, I suppose, the power, the sort of thing she had missed in the other. I was to do all those grand things she was so hot after. I have done some of them too.
But that was when she had gone and I no longer needed her.... I needed her then, and I took her--that is all.
"The detail is old and dim--and what do you care to hear of a young man"s loves! Before we reached port it was understood between us. I told her I wanted her to leave the other chap--he was never altogether clear to me--and to marry me as soon as she could. We did not stumble or slide into it, not in the least: we looked it through and through--that was her kind and mine. How she loved to look life in the face! I have found few women who like that.... In the end she asked me not to come near her the last day. She would write me the day after we had landed, either yes or no. So she kissed me, and we parted still out at sea."
All the Brothers had left the court and the arcades, where they had been strolling, and old Sam was putting out the Inn lights. But the two men beside the pool made no movement. The west wind still drew in down the valley with summer warmth and ruffled the water at their feet.
"My father met me at the dock--you know he was the first surgeon at St.
Jerome"s before me. My mother was with him.... But as she kissed me I was thinking of that letter.... I knew it would come. Some things must!
Well, it came."
The silent listener bent his head, and the surgeon mused on his pa.s.sionate memory. At last the Master whispered in a low voice that hardly reached into the night:
"Did you make her happy?"