Philip Strong

“ It was as if the outward action of life was suspended in them for a moment, and then came the battle of two strong spirits: the struggle of fretful and indulged egotism, the impulse of a vigorous temperament, against a deep moral force, a high purity of mind and conscience, and the invincible love of the mother for the child. Time, bitterness, and power had hardened Philip’s mind, and his long-restrained emotions, breaking loose now, made him a passionate and wilful figure. His force lay in the very unruliness of his spirit, hers in the perfect command of her moods and emotions. ”

“ She knew why he had come; and somehow the steady look in these slow, brown eyes, and the blinking glance behind Jean's brass-rimmed spectacles, disconcerted Philip. Here were people who knew the truth about him, knew the sort of man he really was. These poor folk who had had nothing of the world but what they earned, they would never hang on any prince's favours. ”

“ She had met the shock of utter disillusion; her own perfect honesty now fathomed the black dishonesty of the man she had loved. Death had come with sorrow and unmerited shame. But an innate greatness, a deep courage supported her. Out of her wrongs and miseries now she made a path for her future, and in that path Philip’s foot should never be set. ”

“ A tear stole out of Philip's eye and rolled down and fell with a warm splash on the letter which lay beside him. If a $2,500 call could be drowned by one tear, that professorship in Sociology in Fairview Seminary was in danger.
"So you think the people in this neighborhood would miss me a little?" he asked almost as modestly as if he were asking a great favor.
"Would they, Mr. Strong! You will never know what you have done for them. If the mill-men were to hear of your leaving they would come down here in a body and almost compel you to stay. ”

“ The minister and his wife opened the door together, and one of the neighbors rushed into the hall so excited he could hardly speak.
"Oh, Mr. Strong, won't you go right down to Mr. Winter's house? You have more influence with those men than any one around here!"
"What men?"
"The men who are going to kill him if some one doesn't stop it!"
"What!" cried Philip, turning pale, not from fear, but from self-reproach to think he might have made a mistake. "Who is trying to kill him—the mill-men?" ”

“ While Philip spoke the Duke never took eyes from his face—that face so facile in the display of feeling or emotion. The voice also had a lilt of health and vitality which rang on the ears of age pleasantly. As he listened he thought of his eldest son, partly imbecile, all but a lusus naturae, separated from his wife immediately after marriage, through whom there could never be succession—he thought of him, and for the millionth time in his life winced in impotent disdain. He thought too of his beloved second son, lying in a soldier's grave in Macedonia ”

“ Philip, where he stood, was full in its light. He took no heed, and they engaged at once. After a few passes Grandjon-Larisse said: “You are in the light, monseigneur; the sun shines full upon you,” and he pointed to the shade of a wall near by. “It is darker there.”
“One of us must certainly be in the dark-soon,” answered Philip grimly, but he removed to the wall. From the first Philip took the offensive. He was more active, and he was quicker and lighter of fence than his antagonist. But Grandjon-Larisse had the surer eye, and was invincibly certain of hand and strong of wrist. ”

“ Beyond would be other stepping- stones, and others and others still again, and they would all mark the way and lead to what Philip called the world. The world! She felt a sudden little twist of regret at her heart. Here she was like a cow grazing within the circle of its tether—like a lax caterpillar on its blade of grass. Yet it had all seemed so good to her in the past; broken only by little bursts of wonder and wish concerning that outside world.
"Do we ever learn how to live?" ”

“ Philip, it seems to me like the leading of his hand. Surely you have shown your willingness and your courage and your sacrifice by your work here. But your methods are distasteful, and your preaching has so far roused only antagonism. Oh, I dread the thought of this life for you another day. It looks to me like a suicidal policy, with nothing to show for it when you have gone through with it. ”

“ It required all of Philip's wisdom and love and consciousness of his immediate duty to answer his wife's appeal and say no to it. It was one of the severest struggles he ever had. There was to be taken into the account not only his own safety, but that of his wife as well. For, think what he would, he could not shake off the feeling that a man so cowardly as to resort to the assassination of a man would not be over particular even if it should chance to be a woman. Philip was man enough to be entirely unshaken by anonymous threats. A thousand a day would not have unnerved him in the least. ”

“ What quantity of guilt may I not carry into the eternal kingdom if I do not do what I can to save him! Oh, how can men be so selfish? Yet I am only one person. I cannot prevent all this suffering alone."
"Of course you cannot, Philip. You wrong yourself to take yourself to task so severely for the sins of others. But what has stirred you up so this time?" Mrs. Strong understood Philip well enough to know that some particular case had roused his feeling. ”

“ There was something so steady, so infrangible in Philip’s composure now, that Grandjon-Larisse, who had come to challenge a great adventurer, a marauder of honour, found his furious contempt checked by some integral power resisting disdain. He intended to kill Philip—he was one of the most expert swordsmen in France—yet he was constrained to respect a composure not sangfroid and a firmness in misfortune not bravado. Philip was still the man who had valiantly commanded men; who had held of the high places of the earth. ”

“ Since that minute he, like Philip, had been in a kind of dream; on his part, to find in the young man, if possible, an heir and successor; on Philip’s to make real exalted possibilities. There had slipped past two months, wherein Philip had seen a new and brilliant avenue of life opening out before him. Most like a dream indeed it seemed. He had been shut out from the world, cut off from all connection with England and his past, for M. Dalbarade made it a condition of release that he should send no message or correspond with any one outside Castle Bercy. He had not therefore written to Guida. ”

“ Isn't it rather a dull old place?"
"Yes, I suspect it is, compared with Milton. I suppose you couldn't live without the excitement of dodging assassins and murderers every time you go out to prayer meeting or make parish calls. How do you like your work so far?"
"There is plenty of it," answered Philip, gravely. "A minister must be made of cast-iron and fire-brick in order to stand the wear and tear of these times in which we live. I'd like a week to trade ideas with you and talk over the work, Alfred." ”

“ Have less egotism, less vanity, monsieur. You are no more than a million others—and I—I am nothing. Come, come, there is more than one duty in the life of every man, and sometime he must choose between one and the other. England does not need you"—his voice and manner softened, he leaned towards Philip, the eyes almost closing as he peered into his face—"but you are needed by the House of Bercy."
"I was commissioned to a warship in time of war," answered Philip quietly, "and I lost that warship. When I can, it is my duty to go back to the powers that sent me forth. ”

“ Twice Philip raised him to his feet, feeling sure that if the crowd once threw him down they would trample him to death. Once some one threw a rope over the wretched man's head. Both he and Mr. Winter were struck again and again. Their clothes were torn into tatters. Mr. Winter was faint and reeling. Only his great terror made his clutch on Philip like that of a drowning man.
At last the crowd had dragged the two outside the gate into the street.
Here they paused awhile and Philip again spoke to the mob:
"Men, made in God's image, listen to me! ”

“ I will only believe that everything is all right. Say good-bye to me, Philip. I am happy now, but if—if you stay any longer—ah, please, please go, Philip!”
A moment afterwards Philip and Shoreham were entering the high road, waving their handkerchiefs to her as they went.
She had gone back to the Druid’s cromlech where Philip’s friend had sat, and with smiling lips and swimming eyes she watched the young men until they were lost to view. ”

“ But Philip did not see that when once such a man has stood in his own pillory, sat in his own stocks, voluntarily paid the piper, he will take no after insult.
Detricand still would not be tempted out of his composure. "No," he answered, "I've been an enemy to Jersey too, both by act and example; but people here have been kind enough to forget the act, and the example I set is not unique."
"You've never thought that you've outstayed your welcome, eh?"
"As to that, every country is free to whoever wills, if one cares to pay the entrance fee and can endure the entertainment. ”

“ If you present the name, you do so on your own responsibility."
"With mine," said Deacon Stearns. He was the last to shake hands with the minister, and his warm, strong grasp gave Philip a sense of fellowship that thrilled him with a sense of courage and companionship very much needed. He at once went up to his study after the committee was gone. Mrs. Strong, coming up to see him later, found him as she often did now, on his knees in prayer. ”

“ Then Philip would stop him and plan with him how the load could be divided into two packs so that he might carry one under each arm, and thus be able to walk straight and erect and hold his head up as a man should. Nobody ever dreamed of telling him a lie! "He knows just how we feel" people used to say, and somehow the sight of his strong, manly face stirred within them a desire to be brave and noble, and true, and he was beloved by all who knew him.
This indeed was the most precious gift which the wood-fairies could give. ”

“ Philip, with a brief return of his teasing habit.
"No, sir, I mean all the professors and people in Fairview and all the thinking people of Milton and every one who knows you, Philip. Every one knows that whatever else you lack, it isn't brains." ”

“ Winter; but a wide-spread unrest and discontent had seized on every man employed in the mills, and as the winter drew on, affairs reached a crisis.
The difference between the mills and the men over the scale of wages could not be settled. The men began to talk about a strike. Philip heard of it, and at once, with his usual frankness and boldness, spoke with downright plainness to the men against it. That was at the little hall a week after the attempt on Mr. Winter's life. Philip's part in that night's event had added to his reputation and his popularity with the men. ”

“ When the evening service was over, Philip, as his habit was, lay down on the couch in front of the open fire until the day's excitement had subsided a little. It was almost the only evening in the week when he gave himself up to complete rest of mind and body.
He had been lying there about a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Strong, who had been moving a plant back from one of the front windows and had been obliged to raise a curtain, stepped back into the room with an exclamation.
"Philip! There is some one walking back and forth in front of the house! ”

“ But in spite of his pleas, the mill-owner was gradually pushed and dragged down off the veranda toward the gate. The men tried to get Philip out of the way.
"We don't want to harm you, sir. Better get out of danger," said the same man who had spoken before.
Philip for answer threw one arm about Mr. Winter, saying: "If you kill him, you will kill me with him. You shall never do this great sin against an innocent man. In the name of God, I call on every soul here to——"
But his words were drowned in the noise that followed. The mob was insane with fury. ”

“ "I wonder if you're not oversensitive about your misfortune. Has it ever struck you to thank God for it?"
Philip looked up quickly. His lips tightened. He remembered how for months, trusting in what they told him, he had implored God to heal him as He had healed the Leper and made the Blind to see.
"As long as you accept it rebelliously it can only cause you shame. But if you looked upon it as a cross that was given you to bear only because your shoulders were strong enough to bear it, a sign of God's favour, then it would be a source of happiness to you instead of misery." ”

“ And he could almost hear the Brother Man say: "Your work is in Milton, in Calvary Church yet. Except a man shall renounce all that he hath he cannot be His disciple." It mattered not to Philip that the answer to his prayer came in this particular way. He was not superstitious or morbid, or given to yielding to impulse or fancy. He lay down upon the couch again and knew in his heart that he was at peace with God and his own conscience in deciding to stay with Calvary Church and refuse the call to Fairview. ”

“ Philip went at once upstairs into his study, and, to his alarm, found that his wife had fainted. She lay on the floor in front of his desk. As Philip stooped to raise her he noticed two pieces of paper, one of them addressed to "The Preacher," and the other to "The Preacher's Wife." They were anonymous scrawls, threatening the lives of the minister and his wife. On his desk, driven deep into the wood, was a large knife. ”

“ He was invited again and again to address the men in that part of Milton. They were almost all of them mill-employes. They had a simple organization for debate and discussion of questions of the day. Gradually the crowds increased as Philip continued to come, and developed a series of talks on Christian Socialism. There was standing room only. He was beginning to know a number of the men and a strong affection was growing up in their hearts for him. ”