Robert E. Knowles

“ A few of the superfluities do seem to be a little unevenly distributed—but the great holy luxuries of life are as freely vouchsafed the peasant as the king. The glory and the beauty of life itself; the shelter of a mother's arms and the deeper shelter of her heart; the first dismantling kiss of love; the earliest glimpse of your first-born's face—these are for the ploughman as well as the poet or the prince.
And there is another moment when life's so often tawny tide glows with the very light of heaven. It came to me and Gordon the day he led little Harold in, to look upon his sister's face. ”

“ You're drifting; oh, Gordon, you're drifting away from God—and me," for my soul's loneliness was about me like a mist.
"Don't," he said huskily, holding out his arms to me, "for God's sake don't make it any harder for me. No man can drift far if he tries to do good in his Master's name—and I intend, I honestly purpose, to give my life to those poor people at the mission. If any man will do His will, we're told, he shall know the doctrine. I'm going to try to do His will, Helen—and I want you close beside me, together, doing our life-work hand in hand. ”

“ A woman's figure moves before it, so close that he could almost touch—and his arms go out unbidden, God's retrievers, though they knew it not. He controls himself, and steps back a pace, for she has passed to the other side of the room. Beside an old chest of drawers she kneels, and his heart burns with eager passion as he beholds the beauty of her face. Time, and sorrow, and God, have worked together. Unto them all she hath submitted, and they have held to their holy task till the beauty of peace rewards their secret toil. ”

“ Gordon nodded. "It's consumption," he said.
"Oh, Gordon, don't ask me to go. I'm so frightened of death; and I couldn't help her any—I couldn't say a word," for if I ever felt my helplessness, it was then. "I'm afraid I would only be in the way," I supplemented, not without much sincerity.
"A loving heart's never in the way," my husband answered in the lowest tone. His face, radiant a moment before from its sacred duty, was now shadowed with sorrow; his eyes gave me a final glance of loneliness and longing as he turned to go back to the dying bed. ”

“ Margaret's only word was that she could not give her father up—nor Angus—that I must say nothing more about her love and that we must wait—together. Which was all sweet enough to me, for she was mine again, and our manse light had been rekindled.
For the rest, I was willing to wait, on which after all hangs the reality of all joy or sorrow. Every grief hath that opportunity of cure; every joy that peril of vicissitude. Till time hath ceased from her travail, no man can tell her offspring's sex, whether it be rugged care, or sweet and tender joy. ”

“ And if ever a man was happy in his work, that man was Gordon Laird. In his work, I say—for our home lay still under the shadow of its great and bitter sorrow. After one or two unsatisfactory letters, followed by a final one of despairing note, no word had come from Harold. This was what Gordon had feared. Those months stand out before me now, each one almost separate in its pain, like sombre mountain peaks robed in cloud. I know all about the anguish of those who roam some desert waste searching for a spring, or with parched lips upturned to the unsoftening skies. ”

“ Passion paints the eternal childlike that is in us all. The face is the window through which the vista of a [222] soul's inner life is flashed by her mystic hand, and in that moment the window glows with the unfeigned light of childhood, its simple radiance still unquenched, though long draped by artificial years.
Thus transfigured were the faces of Angus Strachan and Michael Blake—the one with mingled love and fear, the other with unmingled scorn. With that swift intensity of passion came the reversal to their common type, and the great betrayal was complete. ”

“ Gordon's look of love was beautiful. "No," he said, "never again, here—and we'll wait, my darling," the words coming low and passionate. "Look," as he cast his eyes within the door, "she wants you—she's motioning for you."
Which was true enough, and in a moment I was bending over the dying form.
"You'll comfort mother, and Martha, won't you—and the children—when I'm gone? Poor Martha, she'll have it all to do now," the words coming faint and pitiful; "all the work, I mean—she works so hard. And she has to go to the factory, even after she sits up all night." ”

“ As he walks on, the shouting and the tumult die, the banners gleam no more, and he is left alone with the empire of his heart, and with other worlds to conquer. We need no swift-flying transport to bear us to life's greatest battle-fields.
A little waif, a boy of ten, pinched and ragged, was gazing in a window as Mr. Blake passed along. A question from the man, a quick and pathetic answer from the boy—and they went in together. Then the man came out alone, and the fervent joy of an hour ago was gone, but a deeper gladness had taken the room it left behind. ”

“ And they were frank, so frank and honest—eager, too, inquisitive, in a reverent sort of way; penetrating they seemed to be—the more penetrating because they were rather veiled—and they looked to be in quest of truth, and love, and life. Yes, life; I think the eyes of the Reverend Gordon Laird had more of life in them than any others I have ever seen—not bright, or animated, or brilliant, or anything of that sort; but life, with all its mystery and loneliness and longing, seemed to lie deep in them, like water in a silent well. ”

“ Oh, father, head-winds are precious unto love if only love's hands together hold the sail.
"After a long silence Angus spoke again and my poor heart had to listen.
"'Margaret,' he began, 'no man ever renounced what I renounce to-night, for no man ever loved as I love you, though I reckon many a man would swear the same, knowing not his perjury—for none can know my love. And joy, and pride, and home—and all with which our pure thought had enriched our home—all these must I surrender now. I must give up everything but love—and that is mine forever. Oh, Margaret, I won you, did I not? ”

“ Harold was well on his way in school—clever, like his father—and his sister had left the days of babyhood behind, when a new influence came into our quiet lives, a new Life into our little circle.
It was our daughter's birthday night, and Gordon had asked some friends to dinner. For, as I should have said before, he was simply crazy about Dorothy, which was the name we had bestowed upon our daughter—it had been my mother's. Nobody need tell me that a father's master passion is anything else than his first-born girl. ”

“ Michael Blake thought of his adopted home across the sea and its green fields and tree-graced meadows. Then he thought of the far Western plains, vast beyond human fancy, waiting and calling for the tired feet of all who spend weary lives in the old land, playing on stone steps, while wealth and grandeur smile above them. In a few minutes he turned away, for the folk of his country are not accustomed to the sight of hungry children; and a woman under drink is something that many of their eldest have never seen at all. ”

“ We could not—we dared not—know; but suddenly the old man on the stage—oh! the perjured wastery of simulated love like that—broke forth with a wild outcry of love and rapture as he leaped towards the soiled and wasted prodigal before him.
And then—and then—mingling with the father's chant, there came from the bowed and broken wanderer one single note; a little cry, a muffled plaint of penitence and hope. It was such a little sound, subdued and faltering as became a broken heart, and it was almost lost in the father's louder strain—but I heard it, and my soul laid hold of God. ”

“ It was my own fault that Margaret's attachment to Angus Strachan came to me as a bolt from the blue. I had never dreamed of it—I was so sure of everybody loving Margaret that I never thought of anybody loving her. Of course it was easily seen that their friendship was mutually cherished; but friendship, although a mother's hope, is a father's reassurance. Margaret's mother had more than once spoken of their friendship in that portentous tone which all women hope to assume before they die; and her words exuded the far-off fragrance of orange blossoms. ”

“ Whatever has been before of pain, or whatever may be ahead of sorrow, he said, neither the one nor the other can ever make pure gladness as if it had never been. It belongs to you forever, said the Reverend Gordon Laird.
I should have known that I had no right to be so happy. For one thing, Charlie had gone back to Savannah, and I should have been miserable over that, if conscience had been half as faithful as it should have been. Then, besides, he was waiting for my decision about Europe and the yacht—and I had no claim to happiness till that was settled. ”

“ We closed with the penitential psalm which Mr. Blake had asked, and its great words seemed charged with the strong reality of men who believed in sin with the same old-fashioned earnestness as marked their faith in God, the two answering the one to the other as deep calleth unto deep, eternally harmonious as they are.
The congregation swayed slowly down the aisle, Scottishly cold and still, like the processional of the ice in the spring-time. They reminded me of noble bergs drifting through the Straits of Belle Isle. It was a Presbyterian flood, and every man a floe. ”

“ But Gordon's face was like marble. In the last appeal a Scotchman is always Scotch—and I knew Gordon was thinking of that last night when he had been all but turned from uncle's door. "Not while we have a crust to eat or a hand to toil," he said, in a tone so low and resolute that I actually feared to press my argument with another word; "no child of mine shall be dependent on his father's enemy;" which language smote me to the heart—nor do I think Gordon would have uttered it in a calmer mood. ”

“ It is one of the blessed laws of life that no heart, however hospitable, can entertain more than one sorrow at one time, how many so ever be waiting at the door. Each must wait its turn.
But alas! Joy has its corresponding law; every heart's pleasure is an alternative, and if much we would enjoy, much also we must renounce. Joy usually comes as twins, and the great perplexity is to discern which the first-born is, that our homage may not return unto us void. ”

“ He leaped to where Gordon stood, and at his presence the men fell back.
"You shan't injure this man," he shouted hoarsely. "Not that I contend he doesn't deserve it—but he's my guest," the word echoing clear. "He's my guest," uncle repeated, for he knew the magic of the word; "he's a stranger amongst us—and an ignorant stranger at that. I'll take the fool home," he went on, casting at Gordon one of the most contemptuous glances I ever saw from human eyes, "and I'll deal with him myself. I'll promise you to deal with him—he's my guest. And you shall do as you please with the nigger." ”