The Doctor

R >> Ralph Connor >> The Doctor


"Journalism?" cried Margaret faintly. She was thinking of the dark-faced
old lady up in the country who was counting the days till her son should
be sent forth a minister of the Gospel.

"Yes," said Kiddie. "And there's where he'll shine. See what he's done
with the Monthly. He's got great style. But wasn't there a row at the
college!" continued Kiddie. "Old Father Finlayson there," nodding across
the room at the Highlander, who was engaged in what appeared to be
an extremely interesting conversation with his hostess, "orthodox old
beggar as he is, was ready to lead a raid on Squeaky Sandy's house. You
know he has been at war with Boyle all winter on every and all possible
themes. But he fights fair, and this hitting below the belt was too much
for him. He was raging up and down the hall like a wild man when Boyle
came in. 'Mr. Boyle,' he roared, rushing up to him and seizing him by
the hand and working it like a pump-handle in a fire, 'it was a most
iniquitous proceeding! I wish to assure you I have no sympathy whatever
with that sort of thing!' And so he went on till he had Boyle almost in
tears. By Jove! he's a rum old party! Look at his socks, will you!"

The young ladies glanced across and beheld in amused but amazed horror
the Highlander's great feet encased in a new pair of carpet slippers
adorned with pink roses and green ground, which made a startling
contrast with his three-ply worsted stockings, magenta in colour, which
his fond aunt had knit as part of his outfit for the Arctic regions of
Canada.

"You may laugh," continued Bob. "So would I yesterday. But, by Jingo! he
can wear magenta socks on his head if he likes for me! He's all white,
and he has the heart of a gentleman!" Little Kidd's voice went shaky and
his eyes had the curious shine that appeared in them only in moments of
deepest excitement, but if he had only known it, he had never been so
near storming the gate of Miss Belle's heart as at that moment. She
showed her sympathy with Kiddie's attitude by giving Mr. Finlayson "the
time of his life," as Kiddie himself remarked. So assiduously, indeed,
did she devote herself to the promotion of Mr. Finlayson's comfort and
good cheer that that gentleman's fine sense of honour prompted him to
inform her incidentally of the existence of Miss Jennie McLean, who was
to "come out to him as soon as he was placed." He was surprised,
but entirely delighted, to discover that this announcement made no
difference whatever in Miss Belle's attentions. At the supper hour,
however, Miss Belle, moved by Kiddie's lugubrious countenance, yielded
her place to Margaret, who continued the operation of giving Mr.
Finlayson "the time of his life." But not a word could she extract from
him regarding the heresy case, for, with a skill that might have made a
Queen's Counsel green with envy, he baffled her leading questions with a
density of ignorance unparalleled in her experience, until she let it
be known that Dick was an old schoolmate and dear friend. Then Mr.
Finlayson poured forth the grief and rage swelling in his big heart at
the treatment his enemy had received and his anxious concern for his
future both here and hereafter. In a portion of this concern, at least,
Margaret shared. And as Mr. Finlayson continued to unburden himself,
during the walk home, regarding the heresies in Edinburgh from which he
had fled and the heresies that had apparently taken possession of Dick's
mind, her heart continued to sink within her, for it seemed that the
opinions attributed to Dick were subversive of all she had held true
from her childhood. With such intelligence and sympathy, however, did
she listen to Mr. Finlayson discoursing, that that gentleman carried
back with him to college a heart somewhat lightened of its burden, but
withal seriously impressed with the charm and the mental grasp of the
young ladies of Canada. And so enthusiastically did he dwell upon this
theme in his next letter, that Miss Jessie McLean set herself devoutly
to pray, either that Finlayson might soon be placed, or that the
professors might cease giving parties.

The brand of heresy almost invariably works ill to him who bears it. For
if he be young and shallow enough to enjoy the distinction, it will only
increase his vanity and render his return to sure and safe paths
more difficult. But if his doubts are to him a grief and a horror of
darkness, the brand will burn in and drive him far from his fellows,
and change the kindly spirit in him to bitterness unless, perchance, he
light upon a friend who gives him love and trust unstinted and links him
to wholesome living. After all, in matters of faith every man must blaze
his own path through the woods and make his own clearing in which to
dwell. And he may well thank God if his path lead him some whither where
there is space enough to work his day's work and light enough to live
by.

With Dick it was mostly dark, for it was not given him to have a friend
who could understand. But he was not allowed to feel himself to be
quite abandoned, for in the darkest of his hours there stood at his side
Margaret Robertson, whose strong, cheery good sense and whose loyalty to
right-doing helped him and strengthened him and so made it possible to
wait till the better day dawned.




XIV

WHOSOEVER LOOKETH UPON A WOMAN


The Journalistic World has its own diversity of mountain and plain, and
its own variety of inhabitants. There are its mountain ranges and
upland regions of clear skies and pure airs, where are wide outlooks
and horizons whose dim lines fade beyond the reach of clear vision.
Amid these mountain ranges and upon these uplands dwell men among the
immortals to whom has come the "vision splendid" and whose are the
voices that in the crisis of a man or of a nation give forth the call
that turns the face upward to life eternal and divine. To these men such
words as Duty, Honour, Patriotism, Purity, stand for things of intrinsic
value worth a man's while to seek and, having found, to die for.

Level plains there are, too, where harvests are sown and reaped. But
there these same words often become mere implements of cultivation,
tools for mechanical industries or currency for the conduct of
business. Here dwell the practical men of affairs, as they love to call
themselves, for whom has faded the vision in the glare of opportunism.

And far down by the water-fronts are the slum wastes where the sewers of
politics and business and social life pour forth their fetid filth. Here
the journals of yellow shade grub and fatten. In this ooze and slime
puddle the hordes of sewer rats, scavengers of the world's garbage,
from whose collected stores the editor selects his daily mess for the
delectation of the great unwashed, whether of the classes or of the
masses, and from which he grabs in large handfuls that viscous mud that
sticks and stings where it sticks.

The Daily Telegraph was born yellow, a frank yellow of the barbaric type
that despises neutral tints. By the Daily Telegraph things were called
by their uneuphemistic names. A spade was a spade, and mud was mud, and
nothing was sacred from its sewer rats. The highest paid official on its
staff was a criminal lawyer celebrated in the libel courts. Everybody
cursed it and everybody read it. After a season, having thus firmly
established itself in the enmities of the community, and having become,
in consequence, financially secure, it began to aspire toward the
uplands, where the harvests were as rich and at the same time less
perilous as well as less offensive in the reaping. It began to study
euphemism. A spade became an agricultural implement and mud alluvial
deposit. Having become by long experience a specialist in the business
of moral scavenging, it proceeded to devote itself with most vehement
energy to the business of moral reform. All indecencies that could not
successfully cover themselves with such gilding as good hard gold can
give were ruthlessly held up to public contempt. It continued to be
cursed, but gradually came to be respected and feared.

It was to aid in this upward climb that the editor of the Daily
Telegraph seized upon Dick. That young man was peculiarly fitted for the
part which was to be assigned to him. He was a theological student and,
therefore, his ethical standards were unimpeachable. His university
training guaranteed his literary sense, and his connection with the
University and College papers had revealed him a master of terse
English. He was the very man, indeed, but he must serve his
apprenticeship with the sewer rats. For months he toiled amid much slime
and filth, breathing in its stinking odours, gaining knowledge, it
is true, but paying dear for it in the golden coin of that finer
sensibility and that vigorous moral health which had formerly made his
life, to himself and to others, a joy and beauty. For the slime would
stick, do what he could, and with the smells he must become so familiar
that they no longer offended. That delicate discrimination that
immediately detects the presence of decay departed from him, and in its
place there developed a coarser sense whose characteristic was its power
to distinguish between sewage and sewage. Hence, morality, with him,
came to consist in the choosing of sewage of the less offensive forms.
On the other hand, consciousness of the brand of heresy drove him from
those scenes where the air is pure and from association with those high
souls who by mere living exhale spiritual health and fragrance.

"We do not see much of Mr. Boyle these days, Margaret," Mrs. Macdougall
would say to her friend, carefully modulating her tone lest she should
betray the anxiety of her gentle, loyal heart. "But I doubt not he is
very busy with his new duties."

"Yes, he is very busy," Margaret would reply, striving to guard her
voice with equal care, but with less success. For Margaret was cursed,
nay blessed, with that heart of infinite motherhood that yearns over the
broken or the weak or the straying of humankind, and makes their pain
its own.

"Bring him with you to tea next Sabbath evening, my dear," the little
lady would say, with never a quiver or inflection of voice betraying
that she had detected the girl's anxiety for her friend.

But more infrequently, as the days went on, could she secure Dick for
an hour on Sabbath evening in the quiet, sweet little nook of the
professor's dining-room. He was so often held by his work, but more
often by his attendance upon Iola, for between Iola and him there had
grown up and ripened rapidly an intimacy that Margaret regarded with
distrust and fear. How she hated herself for her suspicions! How she
fought to forbid them harbour in her heart! But how persistently they
made entrance and to abide.

The World of Fashion is, for the most part, a desert island of gleaming
sands, at times fanned by perfume-laden zephyrs and lapped by shining
waters. Then those who dwell there disport themselves, careless of all
save the lapping, shining waters and the gleaming sands out of which
they build their sand castles with such concentrated eagerness and such
painful industry. At other times there come tempests, sudden and out
of clear skies, which sweep, with ruthless besom, castles and
castle-builders alike, and leave desolation and empty spaces for a time.

A silly world it is, and hard of heart, and like to die of ennui at
times. And hence it welcomes with pathetic joy all who can bring some
new fancy or trick to their castle-building, rejecting all other without
remorse. To this World of Fashion Iola had offered herself, giving
freely her great voice and her superb body, now developed into the full
splendour of its rich and sensuous beauty. And how they gathered about
her and gave her unstinted their flatteries and homage, taking toll the
while of the very soul-stuff in her. Devoutly they worshipped at the
shrine of that heavenlike and heaven-given instrument wherewith she
could tickle their senses, rejoicing, during the pauses of their envies
and hatreds, such among them as were female, and of their lusts and
despairs such as were male, in her warm flesh tints and full flesh
curves and the draperies withal wherewith, with consummate art, she
revealed or enhanced the same. For Iola was possessed of a fatal,
maddening beauty, and an alluring fascination of manner that wrought
destruction among men and fury among women.

To Dick, who, with his brilliant talents, shed lustre upon her courts,
Iola gave chief place in her train, yet in such manner as that her
preference for him neither lessened the number nor checked the ardour of
her devotees. He was her friend of childhood days, her good friend,
but nothing more. Upon this basis of a boy and girl friendship was
established an intimacy which seemed to render unnecessary those
conventions, unreal and vexing in appearance, but which, as the wise
old world has proved, man and woman with the dread potencies of passion
slumbering within them cannot afford to despise. By their mutual tastes,
as by their habits of life, Iola and Dick were brought into daily
association. Under Dick's guidance she read and studied the masters of
the English drama. For she had her eye now upon the operatic stage and
was at present devoting herself to the great musical dramas of Wagner.
Together they took full advantage of the theatre privileges which Dick's
connection with the press gave him. And at those festive routs by which
society amuses and vexes itself they were constantly thrown together.
Dick was acutely and growingly sensitive to the influence Iola had upon
him. Her beauty disturbed him. The subtle potency that exhaled from
her physical charms affected him like draughts of wine. Away from her
presence he marvelled at himself and scorned his weakness; but
once within sound of her voice, within touch of her hand, her power
reasserted itself. The mystery of the body, its subtle appeal, its
terrible potency, allured and enslaved him. Against this infatuation of
Dick's, Margaret felt herself helpless. She well knew that Dick's
love for her had not changed, except to grow into a bitter, despairing
intensity that made his presence painful to her at times. This very love
of his closed her lips. She could only wait her time, meanwhile
keeping such touch with him as she could, bringing to him the wholesome
fragrance of a pure heart and the strength and serenity of a life
devoted to well doing.

Something would occur to recall him to his better self. And something
did occur. Almost a year had elapsed since Barney had gone out of Iola's
life in so tragic a way. Through all the months of the year he had
waited, longing and hoping for the word that might recall him to her,
until suspense became unbearable even for his strong soul. Hence it
was that Iola received from him a letter breathing of love so deep,
so tender, and withal so humble, that even across the space that these
months had put between Barney and herself, Iola was profoundly stirred
and sorely put to it to decide upon her answer. She took the letter to
Margaret and read her such parts as she thought necessary. "A year has
gone. It seems like ten. I have waited for your word, but none has come.
Looking back upon that dreadful night I sometimes think I may have been
severe. If so, my punishment has been heavy enough to atone. Tell me,
shall I come to you? I can offer you a home even better than I had hoped
a year ago. I am offered a lectureship here with an ample salary, or an
assistantship on equal terms, by Trent. I have discovered that I am in
the grip of a love beyond my power to control. In spite of all that my
work is to me, I find myself looking, not into the book before me, but
into your eyes--I may be able to live without you, but I cannot live my
best. I don't see how I can live at all. It seems as if I could not wait
even a few days for your word to come. Darling, my heart's love, tell me
to come."

"How can I answer a letter like that?" said Iola to Margaret.

"How?" exclaimed Margaret. "Tell him to come. Wire him. Go to him.
Anything to get him to you."

Iola mused a while. "He wants me to marry him and to keep his house."

"Yes," said Margaret, "he does."

"Housekeeping and babies, ugh!" shuddered Iola.

"Yes," cried Margaret, "ah, God, yes! Housekeeping and babies and
Barney! God pity your poor soul!"

Iola shrank from the fierce intensity of Margaret's sudden passion.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "Why do you speak so?"

"Why? Can't you read God's meaning in your woman's body and in your
woman's heart?"

From Margaret Iola got little help. Indeed, the gulf between the two was
growing wider every day. She resolved to show her letter to Dick. They
were to go that evening to the play and after the play there would be
supper. And when he had taken her home she would show him the letter.

On their way home that evening as they were passing Dick's rooms, he
suddenly remembered that a message was to be sent him from the office.

"Let us run in for a moment," he said.

"I think I had better wait you here," replied Iola.

"Nonsense!" cried Dick. "Don't be a baby. Come in."

Together they entered and, laying aside her wrap, Iola sat down and drew
forth Barney's letter.

"Listen, Dick. I want your advice." And she read over such portions of
Barney's letter as she thought necessary.

"Well?" she said, as Dick remained silent.

"Well," replied Dick, "what's your answer to be?"

"You know what he means," said Iola a little impatiently. "He wants me
to marry him at once and to settle down."

"Well," said Dick, "why not?"

"Now, Dick," cried Iola, "do you think I am suited for that kind of
life? Can you picture me devoting myself to the keeping of a house tidy,
the overseeing of meals? I fancy I see myself spending the long, quiet
evenings, my husband busy in his office or out among his patients while
I dose and yawn and grow fat and old and ugly, and the great world
forgetting. Dick, I should die! Of course, I love Barney. But I must
have life, movement. I can't be forgotten!"

"Forgotten?" cried Dick. "Why should you be forgotten? Barney's wife
could not be ignored and the world could not forget you. And, after
all," added Dick, in a musing tone, "to live with Barney ought to be
good enough for any woman."

"Why, how eloquent you are, Dick!" she cried, making a little moue. "You
are quite irresistible!" she added, leaning toward him with a mocking
laugh.

"Come, let us go," said Dick painfully, conscious of her physical charm.
"We must get away."

"But you haven't helped me, Dick," she cried, drawing nearer to him and
laying her hand upon his arm.

The perfume of her hair smote upon his senses. The beauty of her face
and form intoxicated him.

He knew he was losing control of himself.

"Come, Iola," he said, "let us go."

"Tell me what to say, Dick," she replied, smiling into his face and
leaning toward him.

"How can I tell you?" cried Dick desperately, springing up. "I only know
you are beautiful, Iola, beautiful as an angel, as a devil! What has
come over you, or is it me, that you should affect me so? Do you know,"
he added roughly, lifting her to her feet, his breath coming hard and
fast, "I can hardly keep my hands off you. We must go. I must go. Come!"

"Poor child," mocked Iola, still smiling into his eyes, "is it afraid it
will get hurt?"

"Stop it, Iola!" cried Dick. "Come on!"

"Come," she mocked, still leaning toward him.

Swiftly Dick turned, seized her in his arms, his eyes burning down upon
her mocking face. "Kiss me!" he commanded.

Gradually she allowed the weight of her body to lean upon him, drawing
him steadily down toward her the while, with the deep, passionate lure
of her lustrous eyes.

"Kiss me!" he commanded again. But she shook her head, holding him still
with her gaze.

"God in heaven!" cried Dick. "Go away!" He made to push her from him.
She clasped him about the neck, allowing herself to sink in his arms
with her face turned upward to his. Fiercely he crushed her to him, and
again and again his hot, passionate kisses fell upon her face.

Conscious only of the passion throbbing in their hearts and pulsing
through their bodies, oblivious to all about them, they heard not the
opening of the door and knew not that a man had entered the room. For
a single moment he stood stricken with horror as if gazing upon death
itself. Turning to depart, his foot caught a chair. Terror-smitten,
the two sprang apart and stood with guilt and shame stamped upon their
ghastly faces.

"Barney!" they cried together.

Slowly he came back to them. "Yes, it is I." The words seemed to come
from some far distance. "I couldn't wait. I came for my answer, Iola.
I thought I could persuade you better. I have it now. I have lost
you! And"--here he turned to Dick--"oh, my God! My God! I have lost my
brother, too!" he turned to depart from him.

"Barney," cried Dick passionately, "there was no wrong! There was
nothing beyond what you saw!"

"Was that all?" inquired his brother quietly.

"As God is in heaven, Barney, that was all!"

Barney threw a swift glance round the room, crossed to a side table, and
picked up a Bible lying there. He turned the leaves rapidly and handed
it to his brother with his finger upon a verse.

"Read!" he said. "You know your Bible. Read!" His voice was terrible and
compelling in its calmness.

Following the pointing finger, Dick's eyes fell upon words that seemed
to sear his eyeballs as he read, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust
after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."
Heart-smitten, Dick stood without a word.

"I could kill you now," said the quiet, terrible voice. "But what need?
To me you are already dead."

When Dick looked up his brother had gone. Nerveless, broken, he sank
into a chair and sat with his face in his hands. Beside him stood Iola,
pale, rigid, her eyes distended as if she had seen a horrid vision. She
was the first to recover.

"Dick," she said softly, laying her hand upon his head.

He sprang up as if her fingers had been red-hot iron and had burned to
the bone.

"Don't touch me!" he cried in vehement frenzy. "You are a devil! And I
am in hell! In hell! do you hear?" He caught her by the arm and shook
her. "And I deserve hell! Hell! Hell! Fools! no hell?" He turned again
to her. "And for you, for this, and this, and this," touching her
hair, her cheek, and her heaving bosom with his finger, "I have lost my
brother--my brother--my own brother--Barney. Oh, fool that I am! Damned!
Damned! Damned!"

She shrank back from him, then whispered with pale lips, "Oh, Dick,
spare me! Take me home!"

"Yes, yes," he cried in mad haste, "anywhere, in the devil's name! Come!
Come!" He seized her wrap, threw it upon her shoulders, caught up his
hat, tore open the door for her, and followed her out.

"Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" And out of the
embers of his passion there kindled a fire that night that burned with
unquenchable fury for many a day.




XV

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S METHODS


The Superintendent was spending the precious hours of one of his rare
visits at home in painful plodding through his correspondence. For it
was part of the sacrifice his work demanded, and which he cheerfully
made, that he should forsake home and wife and children for his work's
sake. The Assembly's Convener found him in the midst of an orderly
confusion of papers of different sorts.

"How do you do, sir?" The Superintendent's voice had a fine burr about
it that gripped the ear, and his hand a vigour and tenacity of hold
that gripped the outstretched hand of the Assembly's Convener and nearly
brought the little man to the floor. "Sit down, sir, and listen to this.
Here are some of the compensations that go with the Superintendent's
office. This is rich. It comes from my friend, Henry Fink, of the
Columbia Forks in the Windermere Valley. British Columbia, you
understand," noticing the Convener's puzzled expression. "I visited the
valley a year ago and found a truly deplorable condition of things.
Men had gone up there many years ago and settled down remote from
civilization. Some of them married Indian wives and others of them
ought to have married them, and they have brought up families in the
atmosphere and beliefs of the pagans. Would you believe it, I fell in
with a young man on the trail, twenty years of age, who had never heard
the name of our Saviour except in oaths? He had never heard the story of
the Cross. And there are many others like him. At the Columbia Forks the
only institution that stands for things intellectual is a Freethinkers'
Club, the president of which is a retired colonel of the British Army, a
man of fine manners, of some degree of intelligence and reading, but,
I have reason to believe, of bad life. His is the dominant influence in
the community if we except my friend, Mr. Henry Fink, or, as he is known
locally, 'Hank Fink.' Hank is a character, I assure you. A Yankee from
the Eastern States, the son of a Scotch mother. Has a cattle ranch, runs
a store which supplies the scattered ranchers, prospectors, and miners
with the necessaries of life, and keeps a stopping place. Is postmaster,
too. In fact, Hank is pretty much the whole village. He has lived in
that country some fifteen years. Has a good Canadian wife, and a flock
of small children. He is a rara avis in that country from the fact that
he hates whiskey. He hates it almost as much as he does Colonel Hicks
and his Freethinking Club. When I visited the village, for some reason
or other Hank took me up, the Scotch blood in him possibly recognising
kinship. He gave me his store to preach in, took me all about the
country, and in a week had a mission organized on a sound financial
basis. His methods were very simple, very direct, and very effective. He
estimated the amount each man should pay and announced this fact to the
man, who generally acquiesced. I didn't probe too deeply into Hank's
motives, but it seemed to give him considerable satisfaction to learn
that Colonel Hicks was filled with indignant and scornful rage at the
proposal to establish a Christian mission in that remote valley. It
grieved the Colonel to think that after so many years of immunity they
should at last be called upon to tolerate this particularly offensive
appendage to an effete civilization. I noticed that Hank's English
always broke down in referring to the Colonel. Well, we sent in
Finlayson a year ago this spring, you remember. Strong man, good
preacher, conscientious fellow. Thought he would do great work. You know
Finlayson? Well, this is the result." Here he picked up Hank's letter.
"This would hardly do for the Home Mission report," continued the
Superintendent, with a twinkle in his keen grey eyes: