第58章

But even as he stood thus, the white splendour faded from his countenance, leaving it shadowed with care.In one corner of the room, against the wall, shielding his face from the light of the window with his big black hat and the palm of his hand, sat the school-master.He was violently flushed, his eyes swollen and cloudy, his hair tossed, his linen rumpled, his posture bespeaking wretchedness and self-abandonment.Always in preaching the parson had looked for the face of his friend; always it had been his mainstay, interpreter, steadfast advocate in every plea for perfection of life.But to-day it had been kept concealed from him; nor until he had reached his closing exhortation, had the school-master once looked him in the eye, and he had done so then in a most remarkable manner: snatching the hat from before his face, straightening his big body up, and transfixing him with an expression of such resentment and reproach, that among all the wild faces before him, he could see none to match this one for disordered and evil passion.If he could have harboured a conviction so monstrous, he would have said that his words had pierced the owner of that face like a spear and that he was writhing under the torture.

As soon as he had pronounced the benediction he looked toward the corner again, but the school-master had already left the room.Usually he waited until the others were gone and the two men walked homeward together, discussing the sermon.

To-day the others slowly scattered, and the parson sat alone at the tipper end of the room disappointed and troubled.

John strode up to the door.

"Are you ready?" he asked in a curt unnatural voice.

"Ah!" The parson sprang up gladly."I was hoping you'd come!"They started slowly off along the path, John walking unconsciously in it, the parson stumbling along through the grass and weeds on one side.It had been John's unvarying wont to yield the path to him.

"It is easy to preach," he muttered with gloomy, sarcastic emphasis.

"If you tried it once, you might think it easier to practise," retorted the parson, laughing.

"It might be easier to one who is not tempted.""It might be easier to one who is.No man is tempted beyond his strength, but a sermon is often beyond his powers.I let you know, young man, that a homily may come harder than a virtue.""How can you stand up and preach as you've been preaching, and then come out of the church and laugh about it!" cried John angrily.

"I'm not laughing about what I preached on," replied the parson with gentleness.

"You are in high spirits! You are gay! You are full of levity!""I am full of gladness.I am happy: is that a sin?"John wheeled on him, stopping short, and pointing back to the church:

"Suppose there'd been a man in that room who was trying to some temptation--more terrible than you've ever known anything about.You'd made him feel that you were speaking straight at him -bidding him do right where it was so much easier to do wrong.You had helped him; he had waited to see you alone, hoping to get more help.Then suppose he had found you as you are now--full of your gladness! He wouldn't have believed in you! He'd have been hardened.""If he'd been the right kind of man," replied the parson, quickly facing an arraignment had the rancour of denunciation, "he ought to have been more benefited by the sight of a glad man than the sound of a sad sermon.He'd have found in me a man who practises what he preaches: I have conquered my wilderness.But, I think," he added more gravely, "that if any such soul had come to me in his trouble, I could have helped him: if he had let me know what it was, he would have found that I could understand, could sympathize.

Still, I don't see why you should condemn my conduct by the test of imaginary cases.I suppose I'm happy now because I'm glad to be with you,"and the parson looked the school-master a little reproachfully in the eyes.

"And do you think I have no troubles?" said John, his lips trembling.He turned away and the parson walked beside him.

"You have two troubles to my certain knowledge," said he in the tone of one bringing forward a piece of critical analysis that was rather mortifying to exhibit."The one is a woman and the other is John Calvin.If it's Amy, throw it off and be a man.If it's Calvinism, throw it off and become an Episcopalian." He laughed out despite himself.

"Did you ever love a woman?" asked John gruffly.

"Many a one--in the state of the first Adam!""That's the reason you threw it off: many a one!""Don't you know," inquired the parson with an air of exegetical candour, "that no man can be miserable because some woman or other has flirted his friend? That's the one trouble that every man laughs at--when it happens in his neighbourhood, not in his own house!"The school-master made no reply.

"Or if it is Calvin," continued the parson, "thank God, I can now laugh at him, and so should you! Answer me one question: during the sermon, weren't you thinking of the case of a man born in a wilderness of temptations that he is foreordained never to conquer, and then foreordained to eternal damnation because he didn't conquer it?""No--no!"

"Well, you'd better've been thinking about it! For that's what you believe.

And that's what makes life so hard and bitter and gloomy to you.I know! Icarried Calvinism around within me once: it was like an uncorked ink-bottle in a rolling snowball: the farther you go, the blacker you get! Admit it now," he continued in his highest key of rarefied persistency, "admit that you were mourning over the babies in your school that will have to go to hell! You'd better be getting some of your own: the Lord will take care of other people's! Go to see Mrs.Falconer! See all you can of her.There's a woman to bring you around!"They had reached the little bridge over the clear, swift Elkhorn.Their paths diverged.John stopped at his companion's last words, and stood looking at him with some pity.