Everson

“ It was probably one o'clock when Jack Everson, who had been sleeping for nearly an hour, was awakened by a gentle shaking of his shoulder. Opening his eyes and looking up he saw Wharton bending over him.
"All right," remarked the American; "I'm ready for my turn," and he rose, yawning, to his feet.
"I think we had better rest until morning."
"Why?"
"The current has become so rapid that it is hard to make progress; this stream can't be of much further use to us." ”

“ Neither Jack Everson nor Dr. Marlowe forgot his own personal danger in hurrying to the help of their imperilled friends. If the two were too late to be of any assistance they were imminently likely to precipitate themselves into the same whirlpool of woe and death. ”

“ The energy of the man more than threescore under the spur of his anguish was like that of the athlete of one-third of his years. He still led the way, and, after the brief halt under the fearful blow, he rallied and compelled Jack Everson to keep upon a trot to save himself from falling behind.
A hundred paces from the opening they reached a point where the trails forked. They stopped, the parent being the first to do so. ”

“ Once he was sure he caught the sound of whispered words, so that the astounding fact was established that during the few minutes occupied in talking with Mustad he had a friend within instant call.
"All of which goes to prove that these people are cowards at heart," was the sage conclusion of Jack Everson. "They will throw away their lives for the sake of Islamism, and they will fight like wildcats if a man turns his back upon them; but when he stands face to face they are whipped curs." ”

“ Jack Everson found matters exceedingly interesting.
When he informed his friends that he would rejoin them in the course of a few minutes the possibility of anything interfering with his promise did not occur to him. That danger threatened every member of the little company may be set down as self-evident, but what could happen to disturb him in the brief interval spent in running up the slope, dashing into the house and back again to the river's side? ”

“ Jeffrey said softly.
The small-eyed man grunted. "We could flood the city with the afternoon edition. People are buying anything with a moon angle. The Russians wouldn't shout for joy, but there shouldn't be any harm done at this late date."
His eyes brightened. "We might get away with it. We've got your stone. We could demand that Everson locate the place where you got it and either prove or disprove your story. ”

“ Wharton and Jack Everson were the only persons awake. The women had been sleeping for several hours, while Anderson and Turner had long since joined the venerable doctor in the realms of unconsciousness. The two young men sat down where they could speak in low tones without being overheard.
"It won't do for all of us to sleep at the same time," remarked Jack; "the scoundrels may be creeping up stream after us." ”

“ The fall of Mustad at the command of the wrathful physician was more than the other Ghoojurs could stand. Suspecting no connection between the almost inaudible reports and the terrifying incidents, they believed their only hope was in headlong flight. Without a word they dashed down the trail, quickly passing from sight, and were seen no more.
Meanwhile Jack Everson, finding no demand for long shooting, sprang from the rock and made all haste to the spot where he had recognized his friends, and where they awaited his coming with an anxiety that could not have been more intense. ”

“ Jeffrey insisted. "How can telling people the truth be a dirty, lousy trick?"
The small-eyed man laughed again. "You don't think folks'll like this story, do you? You don't think they'll feel like celebrating when they read this, do you? It's a cinch they won't start cheering you for what you did almost twenty years ago! Say, wait'll Everson sees that moon pic plastered on my front page. There's an angle! A pic of Everson's expression! Hey, Marty! Get me—"
Restlessly, Jeffrey rose and shuffled to a window. ”

“ Eversley had been informed by Mr. Brandiston of the action which he had felt it his duty to take in Gerald’s case. The news shocked and staggered Mr. Eversley. It is possible that Mr. Brandiston, as taking a strong view himself, put his view in [194] too strong a light before Mr. Eversley. The desire that others should see things as we see them lies deep down in human nature. Or it is possible that the dread lest the charge should be true was the shadow cast by Mr. Eversley’s own affection for his son. He did not, indeed, write as if he believed Gerald to be guilty. ”

“ Eversley look so often at the daguerreotype upon the desk in his study and sigh? Human nature has its presentiments of good and evil; how irrational they are! and how infallible! Does a lover need to be told in words that he is loved? Nay, love is a fire, it cannot burn and glow unfelt. Heaven have mercy upon him who searches for it and finds not its glad warmth!
Mr. Eversley still reasoned with himself. It might be that Gerald’s letters from St. Anselm’s had been less full or less regular than of old. ”

“ One man sees in Nature only the earthquake and the pestilence. Another sees the peacefulness of the evening, the sunshine, and the soft and beauteous rain. It is not Nature that is different, but it is man or the mood of man.
Mr. Eversley made no allusion to Gerald’s profession. Perhaps a place in the Treasury would seem to him to involve some danger of ‘laying up treasure upon earth.’ He had a vague idea, however, that Gerald would get on in the world, by his own ability or by Lord Venniker’s influence, and that it would not be well for him to interfere. ”

“ That of a Wessex bending the knee before a Spaniard.
"You were away," continued Everingham, eager to goad his friend into speech, "and my Lord Cardinal and Don Miguel know how to blow upon the flames of Mary's jealousy. Your influence can still save England, my lord," he added with great earnestness, "let not your enemies say that fear of a woman keeps you from exerting it."
"H'm! do they say that?" mused Wessex quaintly, whilst a smile, which almost might be called boyish, altered the whole expression of his serious face. "By my faith! but they are right. One's enemies usually are." ”

“ Great, great is the potency of faith! It is faith that ‘removes mountains.’
But there was another person whose good opinion was to Gerald Eversley worth almost as much as Dr. Pearson’s, and he too did not fail him in his hour of need. It was Harry Venniker. To him Gerald had written, giving a brief account of the circumstances in which he found himself, as soon as he knew how grave a view Mr. Brandiston took of them, only begging him not to say anything to his mother or his sister about them. He received an answer on the morning of his first interview with Dr. Pearson. ”

“ He had spoken so light-heartedly, so gaily, that in spite of the grave issues at stake Everingham could not help but laugh.
"Nay! perhaps you exaggerate the danger," he said. "The Lady Ursula might prefer the convent to being a duchess. She has never seen Your Grace, she is rich and high-born, she may be pious——"
"Or perverse," responded Wessex. "I've never met a woman yet who didn't want—badly—the thing she mightn't get."
"Is England then a woman," queried Everingham with renewed earnestness, "since she wants Wessex?" ”

“ To win a holiday for the school is to win the hearts of all its members. Gerald Eversley was overwhelmed with congratulations. Masters who had seldom or never spoken to him before stopped in the street to tell him that the school had cause to be proud of him. The boys, as he passed, remarked to each other that he was ‘the cleverest chap at St. Anselm’s.’ Mr. Brandiston’s usual reserve thawed under the genial feeling that, whatever Gerald’s faults were, he had justified his scholastic life by conferring distinction on his house. ”

“ And yet if between two human hearts there has been no reticence, no disguise; if each has been open to the other as the merry earth lies open to the sunshine——. There passes a cloud before the face of the sun in the heaven, it endures but for a moment, and it is gone, but the earth is conscious of its chillness.
Mr. Eversley reasoned with himself that he was [208] making too much of trifles. If there had been any definite overt mark of altered sentiment, he would have written, perhaps, or spoken to Gerald about it ”

“ Eversley was there and the young ladies, but not Mr. Gerald.
The congregation was unusually large. The communicants were more numerous, by two, than ever before. Mr. Seaford expressed audible satisfaction at the amount of the offertory. But Mr. Eversley’s thoughts were not in the church. How he got through the service he knew not. It was observed that he gave out the wrong hymn before the sermon. He preached as one might preach to the deaf. On the first Sunday of the year—the great Communion [223] Sunday—Gerald, his son, his best-beloved, had turned his back upon the house of God! ”

“ Eversley ever looked upon her performance of duty as constituting a title to the divine favour; she knew that her righteousness (like other people’s) was no better than ‘filthy rags.’ She belonged to ‘the elect;’ other people, or nearly all other people, did not belong to ‘the elect,’ but to some other body. Mrs. Eversley’s principal horror was of ‘the world.’ She fought a hand-to-hand fight with that mysterious impersonation, which seems to be the sum total of all that a narrowly minded religious man or woman is unwilling that other people should do. ”

“ The two men had once more turned to go back the way they came; slowly they strolled across the vast and lofty rooms and through the Great Hall, which, deserted at this time of day, was the scene of so much gaiety and magnificence during the evening hours.
"Your Grace, methinks, must be mistaken," said Everingham after a while; "there is, at any rate on the part of your friends, no desire to keep you and the Lady Ursula apart; you are best judge of your own honour, my lord, and no one would presume to dictate to you ”

“ And he just aches for you as much as ever. And if you haven't greatly changed yourself——"
"I shall never change, Pete," Mrs. Evershed said simply.
"Then you go to him, and this darned old broken leg of mine will be a blessing in disguise. I'm a plain man and not much of a scholar, but when you live all alone like I do, you learn to think. And he treated you in the right way. And I bet a dollar that you'd be the first to admit it."
Mrs. Evershed held out her hand without a reply. There was something like a frown upon her forehead, and in her eyes a blend of laughter and tears. ”

“ It was that the Everlasting Life was so real, so tremendous.
The first Sacrament of the year was a great event in Kestercham parish. Mr. Eversley would exhort, nay, entreat his people to partake of it. It was a virtual consecration of the year to God. A person who had been ‘converted’ during the year (if such there were) would probably make his first communion then. What a joy it was to Mr. Eversley if one who had long been walking in sin were seen slowly and timidly moving up the church to the Lord’s Table on that Sunday! All the regular communicants were always present. ”

“ Moreover, the reading public is determined to have the facts about those whom it admires. You cannot keep people from knowing," concluded Utterly in a harsh tone, some basic rudeness in his nature showing suddenly through the outer veneer. He was certain that they were withholding something from him, certain that Mrs. Lister knew a great deal more than she would tell. To him Basil Everman grew each moment more unusual, more mysterious, the position of the scholar who should discover him more to be desired. If he could see Dr. Lister alone, he might be able to learn more. ”

“ It is therefore with delight that one who remembers Everett in his robes of rhetorical splendor, who recalls his full-blown, high-colored, double-flowered periods, the rich, resonant, grave, far-reaching music of his speech, with just enough of nasal vibration to give the vocal sounding-board its proper value in the harmonies of utterance,—it is with delight that such a one reads the glowing words of Emerson whenever he refers to Edward Everett. It is enough if he himself caught inspiration from those eloquent lips ”

“ Gerald Eversley, after leaving the Hall, rushed to his rooms. He flung his cap and gown on the sofa. The sense of hunger was dead within him. Hastily he began putting a few clothes—he hardly knew what they were—into a small travelling-bag. Stopping himself in the act of packing, he seized his hat, ran across the grass plot to the porter’s lodge, and told the underporter to order a fly at once. Then he looked at the table of trains. There would be a train starting for London in three-quarters of an hour. [336] Whether he could get on to Helmsbury before next morning he did not stay to ask. ”

“ Eversley, when he was left alone, sank upon his knees and for an hour and more poured out his soul to God, imploring that, though He had justly punished him for his shortcomings by the alienation of his son who had been the joy of his life, yet He would not suffer that dear son to perish eternally, but would open his eyes to see in Jesus the one Saviour and Redeemer of the world. ”

“ But too often masters waste [79] their favours upon those who do not need them, and the misunderstood boys whom their schoolfellows neglect are equally neglected by their masters.
Mr. Brandiston, in whose house Gerald Eversley had been placed, was what is sometimes called ‘a master of the old school.’ It does not exactly appear what is the meaning of the phrase, though it may be presumed that the master, who is so described, does not altogether belong to the present school of masters. He was a tall and handsome man; in youth he must have been very handsome. ”

“ Mr. Eversley wrote him a letter, which he found awaiting him on his return to St. Anselm’s, saying (among other things) that he should feel the issue of the examination to be ‘a Providential guiding;’ that if Gerald were successful it would be well for him to go to Balliol, but if not, it would be the will of God that he should go elsewhere.
The school was assembled for prayers one Thursday morning. It was Dr. Pearson’s habit, if some extraordinary success was achieved by one of the boys, to celebrate it by granting a holiday. ”