Chapter 5

"'I went home late in the evening. I hoped that my wife would be in bed, but she was waiting for me. She said that I looked sick, and wanted to know what was the matter. I told her that I had a headache, and got into bed as soon as possible; but I couldn't sleep. Long after midnight my wife rose and turned on the light and came to my bed and said that she knew I was troubled about something--that she had seen it in my face for weeks. She begged that I would let her help me bear it. Then I told her the truth, and discovered--for I didn't know her before--one of the noblest women in the world. She hid her face in the pillow, and then I had a bad moment.

"'"Why did you do it?" she asked as soon as she could speak.

"'And I said: "We've been foolish--trying to keep up with Harry and the rest of them. It was my fault. I ought to have told you that I couldn't go the pace."

"'She saw the truth in a flash, and the old-fashioned woman in her got to work.

"'"Roger, get up and dress yourself," said she. "We will go and see your partners to-night. We will go together, for I am as guilty as you. We will tell them the truth and beg for time. Maybe we can get the money."

"'We started in our motor-car about one o'clock for the city, on dark and muddy roads. Some ten miles out we broke an axle and left car and driver and went on afoot. My wife wouldn't wait. No trains were running. But we could get a trolley five miles down the road. So we went on in the dark and silence. I put my arm around her, and not a word passed between us for an hour or so. I don't know what she was thinking of, but I was trying to count my follies. It began to rain, and I felt sorry for Bess, and took off my coat and threw it over her.'

"'"I don't mind the rain," she said. "It will cool me."

"'We were a sight when we got to the trolley, and just before daylight we rang the bell of the senior partner. Our weariness and muddy shoes and rain-soaked garments were a help to us. They touched his heart, sir. Anyhow, he gave me a week of grace in which to make good. I must get the money somehow, and I want your advice about it.'

"'I'm glad of one part of it all,' I said--'that you have discovered each other and learned that you are human beings of a pretty good sort. I've much more respect for both of you than I ever had before.'

"He looked at me in surprise.

"'Oh, you are a better man than you were three months ago!' I answered him. 'You happen to have run against the law, and it's shocked and frightened you. But you are improving. Long ago you began to incur debts which you couldn't pay, and you must have known that you couldn't pay them. In that manner you became possessed of a large sum of money belonging to other people. It was used not for necessities, but to maintain a foolish display. That is the most heartless kind of fraud. I've much more respect for you now that you see your fault and confess it. I'm convinced now that you have a conscience, and that you will be likely to make some use of it in the future. I'm particularly grateful to your wife. She has shown me that she is just a woman, and not an angel. I don't believe that it was at all necessary for you to have groveled in aristocratic crimes in order to win her heart. The yacht cruise and the tandem and the violets and the Fifth Avenue clothes and the ton of candy were quite superfluous. You needed only to tell her the truth, like a man, and say that you loved her.'

"'It is true, Roger,' said the girl as she broke down again.

"'I did it all to please you, dear,' the boy answered, in his effort to comfort her.

"'And it did please me,' she said, brokenly, 'but I know that I should have been better pleased if--'

"She hesitated, and I expressed her thought for her:

"'If he had centralized on manhood. There is something sweeter than violets and grander than fine raiment in a sort of character that a boy should offer to the girl he loves.'

"They were both convinced. It was easy to see that now, and I promised to do what I could for them.

"I got a schedule of the young man's debts and found that he owed, among other debts, six thousand dollars to sundry shops and department stores in New York--the purchases of his wife in the eight months of their wedded life. I asked her how it could have happened.

"'He opened accounts for me and said I could buy what I wanted, and you know it is so easy to say "Charge it,'" was her answer. 'Every one has accounts these days, and they tempt you to buy more than you need.'

"'It is true. Credit is the latest ally of the devil. It is the great tempter. It is responsible for half the extravagance of modern life. The two words 'charge it' have done more harm than any others in the language. They have led to a vast amount of unnecessary buying. They have developed a talent for extravagance in our people. They have created a large and growing sisterhood and brotherhood of dead-beats. They have led to bankruptcy and slow pay and bad debts. They have raised the cost of everything we require because the tradesman compels us to pay his uncollected accounts. They are added to your bills and mine, and the merchant prince suffers no impairment of his fortune.

"Bessie's bank-account was also overdrawn. That reminds me of a new sinner--the bank-check. It is so easy to draw a check--and, then, somehow, it's only a piece of paper. You let it go without a pang while you would be very thoughtful if you were counting out the money and parting with it.

"The check is another way of saying 'Charge it.'

"That evening I went to see Harry."

XII

IN WHICH HARRY IS FORCED TO ABANDON SWAMP FICTION AND LIKE FOLLIES AND TO STUDY THE GEOGRAPHY AND NATIVES OF A LAND UNKNOWN TO OUR HEIRISTOCRACY

"I found Harry smoking with Cub Sayles in his den above stairs in the big country-house of Henry Delance. As I entered Harry said to his young friend:

"'I have to talk over some things with Mr. Potter--would you mind going down to the library?'

"Cub withdrew, and Harry sat down with me.

"'I suppose you've seen him?' he asked, nervously.

"'Whom?'

"'Why, you know a mysterious stranger has been looking for me and--by Jove!--I'm scared stiff. He's an Englishman.'

"'What of that?'

"'Let me show you,' said Harry.

"He took a key from his pocket, unlocked a door, and fetched the familiar skull of the Bishop of St. Clare and put it on the table before me.

"'It's that damn Bishop's head,' he whispered. 'It has come back--would you believe it?--picked up by a fisherman on the Irish coast and returned to the express office in London. All the old directions were quite legible on the box. "To Harry Delance, SS. _Lusitania_. If not found, forward to Pointview, Conn., U.S.A., charges collect!" So it came on. I received a notice and went down and got it out of bond and paid three pounds, and here it is.'

"'It looks as if the Bishop was out for revenge,' I said, with a laugh.

"'He's got on my nerves and my conscience,' said Harry. 'By Jove! he haunts me. When I heard of this mysterious Englishman to-day I got a chill.'

"'You go buy yourself a small shovel and a pocket light to-morrow,' I suggested, and at night go back in the hills with the Bishop's head and bury it.'

"'And if I get into trouble I want you to take care of me.'

"I made no answer. It didn't seem necessary, but I said: 'There's another matter of which I have come to talk with you. Our friend Roger is in trouble.'

"I told him the story of Roger's downfall. It got under his vest, and I added: 'Now, Harry, it's up to you to indulge in some more philanthropy. You ought to help him.'

"'What--what can I do?' he asked in amazement.

"'Lend him the money--twenty thousand dollars. It isn't all that the public will charge against you on Roger's account, but it will do.'

"'Harry sank in his chair and threw up his hands as if grasping for a straw.

"'It's my whole allowance for the year,' he said, 'and I couldn't appeal to the Governor.'

"'Nevertheless you ought to do it, for Roger told me that it was your pace that brought him where he is.'

"'What an ass!' Harry exclaimed, and the old Bishop seemed to indorse his view. 'By the blue beard of the Caliph, what am I to do?'

"'Pay it,' I insisted.

"'Pay it and die,' he groaned. 'I shall have to do it somehow, but this kind of thing is grinding me.'

"'You can go to my ranch in Wyoming and live on nothing for six months,' I said. 'When you get back I'll lend you enough to tide you over!

"'I'll do it,' he said, as if it were the very straw he had been reaching for.

"Then he began to tell me of other troubles. Marie had been decidedly cool to Harry at the servants' ball. Then he had met her on the street, and she had barely noticed him and hurried away, with the young Reverend Robert Knowles at her side. Harry was, fortunately, going slow, but he had received internal injuries and was suffering from shock.

"'The old man is at the bottom of it,' I explained. 'You gave him a dose from the wrong bottle. It p'isoned him.'

"'By Jove! What a prude he is!' said Harry. 'Upon my word that is one of the noblest books I ever read--contains a great lesson, don't you know? It takes you straight to the heights.'

"'Too straight,' I said. 'It turns out for nothing. It crosses a morass to avoid going around. When you reach the high ground you are covered with mud and slime. You need to be washed and disinfected, and perhaps you've caught a fever that will last as long as you live. Many a boy and girl have got mired in this swamp fiction that you enjoy so much. There are many of us who prefer to go around the swamp and keep on a decent footing even if it takes longer.'

"'We want to know all sides of life,' said Harry.

"'And would you care to see the girl you loved studying life in a brothel?'

"'Well, really, you know, that's different,' Harry stammered.

"'But the fact is, her feet might as well be in a brothel as her brain,' I insisted. 'She might shake the dust from her _feet_. Harry, there's one side of life that you ought to study at once--the American side. You've neglected the Western hemisphere in your studies. When can you start for the ranch?'

"'Day after to-morrow--if you like. This place is a dreadful bore.'

"'Good! I'll attend to the tickets to-day, The cart, drag, and horses will be all the better for a vacation, and the eyes of the people are in need of rest.'

"'The whole outfit is going to be sold," said Harry. 'Idiots and the hoi polloi have quite ruined the sport here. The Governor is always poking fun at it, you know, and it has made me so weary! One can't stand that kind of thing forever--can he? I got after his helmet, battle-ax, and family tree, by Jove! Our crested chambermaids and bootblacks have been a great help to me. What a noble band of philanthropists! Father and I have made an agreement. He is going to chuck the battle-ax and saw the royal branches off our family tree and I am going to sell the drag, cart, and horses.'

"'That's a great treaty,' I said. 'The settlement of the Alaskan frontier is not more important than fixing the boundaries of our social life. Let us surrender the tools of idiocy; especially, let us abandon all claim to the helmet and battle-ax. They're all right in their place, but they aren't ours. The plowshare and the pruning-hook are our symbols.'

"'By Jove! you know, the old Bishop of St. Clare agrees with you exactly,' said Harry. 'I've been reading his life and writings, which I picked up in London, and he's about converted me to your way of thinking. He hated "the glittering idleness" of the rich and put industry above elegance.'

"'And he doesn't intend that your education shall be neglected--he's looking after you.'

"'He's as industrious as Destiny,' said the young man. 'Did you know that Cub Sayles is engaged?'

"'To whom?'

"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers.'

"'God rest his soul!' I exclaimed.

"'It's just the thing for Cub,' said Harry. 'He's poor but presentable, and has many extravagant tastes. She's quite a bit older than he, of course, but that isn't unusual.'

"'I warned him long ago, knowing that his folly would undo him. Now he will be a captain of New Thought, King of the Flub Dubs, advertising manager of the Psychological Hair Factory, and inspector of pimples.'

"'But don't you know that he will have everything that he desires?'

"'Except happiness.'

"'Oh, I think that she is very fond of him!' said Harry. 'She told me to-day that he is the only man she ever loved, and the dear old girl thinks that she won him by concentration.'

"With this remark, made on the 20th of May, Harry dropped out of the history of Pointview until December."

XIII

IN WHICH THE MINISTER GETS INTO LOVE AND TROUBLE

"Cub resigned his place in my office next day, and confessed his purpose, and I heard him with sober respect and tried in every proper way to save him. It wouldn't work.

"The lines of panic had left the face of Cub. The two-pound expression had departed from it. The faintness of chaperons would no longer imperil his comfort.

"'A hundred and four pounds of candy and twenty suppers, and all for nothing!' I exclaimed. 'You ruin a girl's digestion and chuck her over. It isn't fair.'

"'But, sir, I found that I didn't love her,' said Cub.

"'What a waste of violets, confectionery, and crab-meat!'

"'Yes, sir, in a way; but you see I had to have my training in society,' Cub declared.

"What was the use? Cub had no more humor than a sewing-machine.

"'The wedding day drew on apace, and just before its arrival a notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked. It looked like a postponement, but the knot was tied, on schedule time, by the Reverend Robert Knowles. That made no end of talk, and a small party of insurgents left his church. Deacon Benson was on the point of pulling out, and swore so much about it that I advised him to hang on for his own sake.

"'But there ain't much to hang on to,' said the Deacon.

"'Mrs. Revere-Chalmers-Sayles held a mortgage on the property of the Baptist Society of Pointview, and asked me to foreclose it.

"'I have another mortgage on the Congregational church, and they're behind in their interest, but I'm not going to push them,' she said to me.

"So young Mr. Knowles had acted from motives of business prudence, and was not much at fault. The old church had ceased to live within its means and had entered the 'charge it' van, and was trying to serve two masters.

"Betsey and I paid both mortgages and threw them in the fire.

"Young Mr. Knowles came to see us with Marie, and brought the thanks of the parish. They were a good-looking couple.

"This minister of the First Congregational Church of Pointview now aspired to be the prime minister of its first heiress. Their acquaintance, which had begun in the arrangements for the servants' ball, had grown in warmth and intimacy as soon as Harry had gone. Robert began to take after Marie, with muffler open and all the gas on. He was a swell of a parson--utterly damned with good-fortune. Had an income from the estate of his father, a call from on high, a crest from Charlemagne, diplomas from college and the seminary, a fine figure, red cheeks, and 'heavenly eyes.' As to his fatal gift of beauty, the young ladies were of one mind. They agreed, also, about the cut of his garments, that were changed several times a day.

"A dashing, masculine, head-punching spirit might have saved him with all his ballast, but he didn't have it. The Reverend Robert was a good fellow to everybody--a fairly sound-hearted, decent, handsome fellow, but not a man. To be that, one has to know things at first hand--especially work and trouble. He was a second-hand, school-made thinker. His doctrines came out of the books, but his conduct was mildly modern. He danced and smoked a little, and played bridge and golf, and made his visits in a handsome motor-car.

"Marie liked the young man, and she and her mother rode and tramped about with him almost every day of that summer. Deacon Joe showed signs of faintness when he spoke of him.

"One day I went up to the Benson homestead and found the old man sitting on his piazza alone.

"'Where's Marie?' I asked.

"'Off knocking around with the minister,' said Deacon Joe, in a voice frail with contempt.

"'She might be in worse company,' I suggested.

"'Maybe,' he snapped.

"'What's the matter with the minister?'

"'Nothing,' said the old man, with a chuckle. 'He's a complete gentleman, complete! So plaguy beautiful that he's a kind of a girl's plaything. He couldn't milk a cow or dig a hill o' potatoes. Acts kind o' faint an' sickly to me.'

"The Deacon thoughtfully stirred the roots of his beard with the fingers of his right hand, and went on with a squint and a feeble tone which he seemed to think best suited to his subject.

"'Talks so low you can hardly hear him. I have to set with my hand to my ear every Sunday to make out what he's sayin', an' he prays as if he had the lung fever. Talks o' hell as though it was a quart o' cold molasses. That's one reason we ain't no respect for it in this community. Ay--'es! That's the reason.'

"He squinted his face thoughtfully and resumed with more energy.

"'I like to hear a man get up on his hind legs and holler as they used to--by gravy! Ye can't scare anybody by whispers. Damn it, sir, what we need is an old-fashioned revival.'

"The Deacon halted to take a chew of tobacco, and went on, with a sorrowful calmness:

"'Now this young feller don't want to give no credit to God--not a bit--no, sir! Science has done everything. I've noticed it time an' ag'in. T'other Sunday he said that an angel spoke to Moses, an' the Bible says, as plain as A B C, that God spoke to him. How can he expect that God is going to bless his ministry, an' he never givin' Him any credit?'

"'It's rather bad politics, anyhow,' I said.

"'An' the church is goin' from bad to worse,' he complained. 'The average attendance is about forty-seven, an' it used to be between five an' six hundred, an' we are all taxed to death to keep it goin'. I have to pay three hundred a year for the privilege o' gittin' mad every Sunday. Two or three of us have got after him an' made him promise to do better. Some awful free-minded folks have crept into the church, an' the fact is, we need their money,' Deacon Joe went on. 'What the minister ought to do is stick to the old doctrines that are safe an' sound. 'St'id o' that he's tryin' to sail 'twixt rock an' reef.'

"'Between Scylla and Charybdis,' I suggested.

"'Between Silly an' what?' the old man asked, as if in doubt of my meaning.

"We were interrupted by the arrival of the Reverend Robert with Marie and her mother, in his handsome landaulet. Marie asked me to go with her to gather wild flowers in a bit of woodland not far away. I went, and soon saw her purpose. She had had the 'jolliest, cutest letter from Harry' that she had ever read, and seemed to be in doubt as to whether she ought to let him write to her.

"'Has your grandfather forbidden it?' I asked.

"'No.'

"'Then it's up to you,' I said.

"'Do you think he cares for me?'

"'I should think him a fool if he didn't,' I said, looking down into her lovely dark eyes.

"'But do you really and truly think that he cares for me?' she insisted.

"'I suspect that he does.'

"'Why?'

"'A lawyer must not betray a confidence.'

"'Do you like him?'

"'Wait until his uneducation is completed, and I'll tell you. I am beginning to have hope for Harry.'

"'I'm sorry grandpapa is so hateful!' she exclaimed, with a sigh.

"I stood up for the old man and asked:

"'Do you like the Reverend Robert?'

"'Very much! He's so good-looking, and has such beautiful thoughts! Have you heard him preach?'

"'No.'

"'We think his sermons are fine. Everybody likes them but grandpapa. He wants noise, you know--lung power and old theology. I hate it!'

"'He doesn't take to Robert?'

"'No; he calls him a calf. Nobody is good enough for me, you know. He'd like me to marry some man with a hoe, who would take me to church and Sunday school every sabbath morning, and for a walk to the cemetery in the afternoon, and down to the prayer-meeting every Wednesday night, and on a journey from Genesis to Revelations once a year. It's too much to expect of a human being. Then the hoes are in the hands of Poles, Slavs, and Italians. So what am I to do?'

"'Well, you are young--you can afford to wait a while,' I said.

"'But not until I am old and all withered up. I am going to marry the man I love within a year or so, if he has the good sense to ask me. Don't you ever go to church?'

"'No,' I said.

"'Why not?'

"I tried to think. There were the ministers--two boys and three old men--dried beef and veal! Not to my knowledge had a single one of them ever expressed an idea. They were seen, but not felt. The Church! Why, certainly, it was founded on the sweetness, strength, and sanity of a great soul. I had almost forgotten that. It had grown feeble. It had got its fortunes entangled in psychological hair. It should have been correcting the follies of the people--their selfishness, their sinful pride, their extravagance, their loss of honor and humanity. Had I not seen, in the case of Harry and his followers, how the Church had failed in its work? Ought it not to have sought and saved them long ago--saved them from needless disaster? It should have been appealing to their consciences. If appeals had failed it should have stung them with ridicule or raised a voice like that of Christ against the Pharisees. The Church! Why, it was living, not in the present, but in the past. Here in Pointview the Church itself had become one of the greatest follies of the time.

"'I want you to go next Sunday and hear Mr. Knowles, as a favor to me--won't you?' Marie asked.

"'Yes,' I said. 'In the next five Sundays I shall go to every Protestant church in Pointview. I want to know what they're doing. I shall put aside my scruples and go.'"

XIV

IN WHICH SOCRATES DISCOVERS A NEW FOLLY

"Well, I went and saw the Reverend Robert Knowles sail between 'Silly and Charybdis.' He bumped on both sides, but did it rather gracefully. He reviewed the career of Samuel, who lived and died some thousands of years ago. The miraculous touch of Carlyle or Macaulay might easily have failed in the task of reviving a man so thoroughly dead. But the Reverend Robert entered this unequal contest with no evidence of alarm. The dead man prevailed. The power of his long sleep fell upon us. My head grew heavy. I felt my weight bearing down upon the cushions. A stiffness came into my bones.

"On our way to church Betsey had placed the young minister in my thoughts. The trustees had reckoned that he would revive the interest of the young people in Sunday worship; and he did, but it was the worship of youth and beauty.

"Well, the other churches were emptier than ever, and so the spiritual life of the community was in no way improved. In fact, I guess it had been a little embittered by the new conditions. As soon as it became known that Marie had won the prize of his favor the other girls had returned to their native altars, having discovered that the new minister was vain, worldly, and conceited.

"Lettie Davis, who had made a dead set at him, had been strongly convinced of that as soon as he began to show a preference for Marie, and the Davis family had left the church and gone over to the Methodists. The young man had been filled with alarm. He feared it would wreck the church. That old ship of the faith was leaky and iron-sick, and down by the head and heel, as they say at sea. She rolled if one got off or on her.