Part 21

"You tell me the substance of it. Life's too short to spend so much time reading McGuffin's effusions."

"Your sins have found you out." MacKay's face showed a gleam of grim humour as he spoke. "You are not spiritual. You were accustomed to spend only fifteen or twenty minutes in your morning devotions instead of a full hour as required by McGuffin's standards. You are not meek. You once thrashed a rough who insulted a lady on the street instead of sweetly reasoning with him. Then you took him to the hospital to recover from the thrashing. You are not sound. It is whispered that you said that you didn't think Moses wrote the account of his own funeral in the Book of Deuteronomy."

As Sinclair listened to this epitome of McGuffin's catalogue of his shortcomings he went off into peals of laughter, in which MacKay joined. The inner nature of the quiet, reserved man had come out in the intimacies of a rare friendship.

"Do they think that I would corrupt the morals of the heathen?" Sinclair inquired as he recovered himself.

"Apparently. Perhaps you would batter your heresies into them with your fists."

"What would McGuffin have thought if he had seen me at Sin-tiam or where the Hakkas were trying to cut the head off poor young MacAllister?"

"He wouldn't have seen you. He would have swooned away."

"Well, I suppose it is all off with me so far as being a missionary under my own Church is concerned."

"I am afraid that it is. I had set my heart on it. We could have done so much together. You have won the hearts of the natives in a wonderful way. I could have left the medical work all to you. You would have done great good. But it is an unrealized dream. I am disappointed. But I am not discouraged. I am accustomed to disappointments. I meet them often. But discouraged? Never!"

Sinclair gripped MacKay's hand in his powerful grasp:

"I am glad to have known you, MacKay. It has done me good."

"And I, you. But we'll say no more of that. What are you going to do? Have you anything in view?"

"Nothing. But something will always turn up for a doctor. I'll find work somewhere, where the sins of my past are not known."

Just then there was a whoop outside. Then another and another. Then the sound of a heavy footfall in a war-dance on the verandah.

"That's Gorman!" exclaimed Sinclair. "What is the matter with him?"

He sprang to the door, followed by McKay. There was Gorman, executing the wildest kind of a dance, bringing his feet down with a vigour which threatened to split the tiles of the verandah, and all the time waving a letter over his head to the accompaniment of wild yells:

"Whoop! Docther! Hurroosh! Be the blissin' of the saints! Whoop! Me mother-in-law's gone to glory. Hurroosh!"

"Dead!" exclaimed Sinclair. "When did it happen?"

"Six weeks ago, be the blissin' of hiven! Whoop! Won't the angels be havin' a divil of a time wid her now! Hurroosh! That's always the way wid her. The first month she's p'aceful as a suckin' lamb wid its twinklin' tail. Thin she cuts loose, an' be the middle of the second she bates Banagher. She'll jist have hit her gait be now. Begorra but they'll jist be wonderin' what they've got! Whoop! An' now me wife an' childer for me, an' a quiet loife! Hurroosh!"

*XXXIX*

*A REALIZED DREAM*

"Dr. Sinclair, I owe you an apology. I have a letter for you which I neglected to deliver. I was so selfish in my gladness yesterday that I forgot that I had this for you."

Sinclair rose from where he sat beside his patient on the broad verandah and received from Mr. MacAllister the letter. It was addressed in the same hand as a little note he had carried in an inner pocket until it was worn to fragments. In spite of his efforts at self-control, the hot blood rushed to his face. The keen grey eyes had a humorous twinkle.

"I shall keep Allister company for a while. When you are ready, I should like to have a few minutes' talk with you."

"Thank you, I'll be back shortly," was all Sinclair could say as he hurried to his room.

It had been a bitter disappointment to him the day before, when the _Hailoong's_ mail was distributed, that there was not so much as a note from Hong-Kong for him. All through that long, lonesome winter he had centred his anticipations around that first mail. Now it had come. There were other letters for him. But there were none from Hong-Kong. It was not till then that he realized how much Jessie MacAllister had been in his thoughts and how blank life would be without her.

But, with the stoicism which lay hidden under the easy good-humour of his surface temperament, he said nothing of his disappointment, even to McLeod, and went about his duties outwardly as cheerful as usual. He did not know how many letters in the same handwriting were lying at Swatow and Amoy and Foochow, awaiting an opportunity of transmission to the blockaded Formosan coast. He did not know of this letter, sent by her father's hand, that it might be safely delivered.

That letter was sufficient reward for all his waiting and disappointment. It was so tender, so trusting, so full of longing for his coming. Words which had refused to leave her tongue during those few brief hours of intercourse after their mutual confessions flowed easily from her pen. Again the wonder came to him that this girl who wrote to him with such confidence and laid bare her heart to him should be the same as she who had flouted him on the deck of the _Hailoong_ only a few short months before. He had to read the letter again and again and look yet once more at the signature--"Jessie MacAllister," to be sure.

There was another thought. Her father must know and be satisfied. That gave him no little comfort.

But with this he suddenly remembered that he had promised Mr. MacAllister to be back shortly. He had no idea how long he had spent reading that letter. He sprang to his feet and hurried out to the verandah, where MacKay had joined the father and son. At his apology for being longer than he had expected there came again the little twinkle in the grey eyes and the quiet reply:

"No apologies are necessary. I, too, have not found the time long."

It did not entirely remove Sinclair's embarrassment. But the business man went on in a serious tone:

"Dr. Sinclair, I am informed by Dr. MacKay that your Church has refused to appoint you a medical missionary."

"Yes, Mr. MacAllister, they have rejected me. They do not consider that I am sufficiently devout or sufficiently orthodox to be trusted to heal the heathen."

"Yes! Yes! I understand. I have seen a lot of this in the church. There is a wrong standard. A devotion and spirituality which is too deep and real to be wordy is rejected, and that shallow, spurious kind which vents itself in talk is accepted. A man who says nothing but sacrifices himself is given second place, and he who does nothing but talk of self-sacrifice is put first. They are less concerned about orthodoxy of life than they are about orthodoxy of creed. But a better day is coming. These things will right themselves by and by. In the meantime you want work, do you not?"

"I certainly do."

"There is a scheme I wish to lay before you. God has just given me the greatest joy of my life. My son, my Allister, has been restored to me. I want to establish some permanent memorial of my gratitude, something which will be of use and do good to men. It was by a doctor that my son was saved from a cruel death. It was by a doctor and in a hospital that he was nursed back to health. It was by a doctor that he has been restored to me, and will be restored to his mother and sister. It seems to me that I could give no more fitting token of my thankfulness than to erect and equip a hospital and ask that doctor to take charge of it. Dr. Sinclair, will you accept the position?"

"Mr. MacAllister, such a position has been the dream of my life. I will accept it gladly."

"I thought you would. Now as to the place. Since it was in North Formosa my son's life was saved, it would be appropriate that in North Formosa the hospital should be built. And there I intended to build it and present it to the mission of the Canadian Church. But, since your Church has refused your application on what are to me entirely insufficient grounds, the hospital will be erected in Hong-Kong and presented to one of the missions there. In all probability you will be able to do as great, or even a greater, work there than here. Would you be agreeable to that?"

"Quite. I had hoped to be able to work under the Church in which I was trained from childhood. But, since it has rejected me, it is a matter of indifference to me under what board I labour, so long as I am doing the duty set before me. But there is one request I wish to make."

"What is it?"

"I wish to take Sergeant Gorman with me as chief of the staff of male nurses and attendants, whether native or foreign. As you know, he is a Roman Catholic, and some narrow-minded people may make objections."

"There will be no objections. It will be stipulated in the deed of gift."

*XL*

*THE COWARD*

April had passed. The first week of May had come, the hot May of the tropics. Yet there was a sweetness, a certain morning freshness about it. On her second trip after the blockade the _Hailoong_ had borne back to Hong-Kong a little group of passengers. They were Mr. MacAllister, his son, and Dr. Sinclair.

Sergeant Gorman, who had returned to Amoy to his family by the previous voyage of the boat, joined them at that port and accompanied them to Hong-Kong. As he expressed it to McLeod, he wanted "jist to be in at the finish; jist to see the docther fix bayonets an' take the fort wid one gallant charge, an' see that spalpeen of a Carteret scattered an' runnin' for cover in total rout and confushun."

Towards midnight the _Hailoong_ slipped into port. There were few about and no guests in the rotunda or corridors of the hotel to whom it was necessary for Mr. MacAllister to introduce the young men by whom he was accompanied.

In the reunion which followed Mrs. MacAllister forgot for the time her opposition to the friendship between her daughter and Sinclair. Her gratitude for his rescue of her son was deep and sincere. With all the warmth of her Highland nature she thanked him, till he blushed painfully and showed an embarrassment under praise which he had never manifested in the most trying moments of the ridicule he had suffered when they were first acquainted.

The next day passed like a dream to Sinclair. Father and mother were constantly with their long-lost son. Sinclair and Miss MacAllister were left much to themselves. In some way during those seven months of separation they had grown acquainted with one another. That sacred and never-to-be-forgotten hour in which they had confessed their love had found them almost strangers. It had been as one kneels to a sovereign that he had knelt before her and gave her hand the kiss of homage. It was with the grave reverence of a sacred rite that he had sealed their vows of love by pressing his lips to hers.

But that was in the past now. Seven months had slowly worn away; seven months in which thoughts had been busy. And ever in the background of those thoughts was the fact that they loved each other, and had confessed their love, and neither had shrunk from the other nor repelled a caress. The passion, the abandon of love had grown during those months of waiting. It knew that it would not be refused.

"Oh, Donald, I have been so weary for you, so lonesome and weary! I have dreamed of you out there under the rains, among the wounded, and facing the bullets.... Donald, I'm ashamed. I know that it wasn't brave. But I couldn't help it. Often and often I cried myself to sleep."

Her face was tear-wet now as he lifted it to his. But it was smiling through its tears.

"Jessie, it was the thought of you which kept me up. It was because of you that I stayed at work. If it hadn't been for you, I might have given up before the end came.... I might not have been there when Allister fell."

She shuddered at the thought and pressed closer to him. But Allister was safe, and the suggestion of what might have been now only served as a stimulus to her love for the man to whom she had given her heart before he had done that which was to bind her to him by gratitude as well as by love.

But her mother was not yet ready to give up her project of marrying her daughter to the Earl of Lewesthorpe. He was still the suitor she had accepted, if her daughter had not. She realized very clearly that her daughter had no more inclination towards him than when they came to Hong-Kong. Indeed, it was the other way. On more than one occasion her aversion to him had been so manifest as to cause comment. But Mrs. MacAllister had resolved to have her own way and gain her ambition. Not even gratitude to Dr. Sinclair for his inestimable service could bend her will.

If because she was grateful she had allowed him some liberty that day without her watchful presence, she had intended that evening to make it perfectly plain that Lord Lewesthorpe was the only one who would be countenanced as an aspirant for her hand. With her love for social events, and a touch of the melodramatic, she had invited a very few very select friends for the evening. Most of them did not know that she had a son. None save those who had accompanied him from Formosa knew that her son was in Hong-Kong.

Of course Captain Whiteley and Mr. McLeod were among the guests. Her husband, son, and daughter had insisted that Sergeant Gorman should be one of the number. Remembering that he had once told her that he was the son of an Irish gentleman, she consented. Otherwise it was to be a surprise.

It was a surprise. The guests arrived one by one and were presented to Allister. The last to come was the lion of the evening. Mrs. MacAllister greeted him effusively and conducted him to where her son sat in a great easy-chair, hidden by a group of guests.

"Allister, my son, I want you to meet one of our most intimate friends, a particular friend of your sister, the friend of whom I spoke to you to-day, his lordship, the Earl of Lewesthorpe."

Allister had risen to his feet. The two young men were facing each other in silence. The young aristocrat's dark countenance turned a ghastly yellow and his jaw dropped. Allister's pale cheeks had a flush of burning red and his great dark eyes fairly blazed with anger.

"Carteret! The coward!" burst from his lips. On the blanched faces of the guests wonder and consternation were written. But astonishment held them dumb. Before any of them could speak Carteret's ready self-assurance returned.

"Lieutenant MacAllister," he said, "why not let by-gones be by-gones? We have both made mistakes. We have both suffered. These things belong to the past. Why not let them die, and start afresh?"

"If it were only the past, Carteret, I would let them die. But it is the present. You were a coward in the past. You are a scoundrel now."

Sinclair stepped quickly to Allister's side, for he saw that he was becoming dangerously excited. Mrs. MacAllister awoke out of her paralysis of surprise to cry:

"Allister! Allister, my son! What is the meaning of this? Has the fever come back on you? Why do you insult his lordship so? What is the meaning of this?"

"Mother," he said, "it is not fever. It is cool fact. That is the man who ragged me all through my service in the Guards. That is one of the men who insulted me after Tel-el-Kebir. He is the one who was too much of a coward either to take a thrashing or to fight, and Standish was shot. That is the man who has caused me to be an exile these nearly three years, to suffer starvation and wounds under a foreign flag. Yet I could forgive all that, as I have forgiven Standish. But knowing that, and without your knowing it, he has dared to speak love to my sister and ask her hand in marriage. I'll never forgive him that. Never!"

Drawing herself up to her full height, Mrs. MacAllister turned on her lion. Her raven black hair, her flashing eyes, her high colour and large, strong frame were the very embodiment of the fearless spirit of her race:

"Lord Lewesthorpe, iss thiss true?"

"It is very apparent that I am not welcome here," he replied. "With your permission, I'll retire."

"Bedad, an ye'd betther, ye cowardly spalpeen!"

Gorman had made one quick step forward, with the evident intention of helping him to retire, when Sinclair's iron grasp closed on his shoulder.

"You're right, docther; I was forgettin' meself."

That was the only departure Gorman made that evening from the strictest rules of the conduct to be expected of the son of an Irish gentleman. And perhaps it wasn't a departure, either, but the most characteristic act of all. In any case, he saw "that spalpeen of a Carteret scattered an' runnin' for cover in total rout an' confushun."

*XLI*

*"GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN"*

It was Christmas Day. Not Christmas Day of the North, with its clear frosty air, its robe of virgin snow, its furs, its prancing horses, and tinkling sleigh-bells. It was Christmas Day in the tropics, with a summer sky and summer sun, with roses blooming and rich tropical plants spreading their huge leaves and casting a grateful shade in the botanical gardens. A slight breeze from the northeast tempered the warmth.

It was a high day in Hong-Kong. In the early forenoon services had been held and the age-old song had been sung.

"Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, good will toward men."

At high noon in the Union Church, where men of many creeds worshipped in harmony, Dr. Donald Sinclair and Miss Jessie MacAllister were married with simple, yet solemn, rites. The ceremony passed without unusual incident, save that Constance Beauchamp just missed kissing the groom before he had time to kiss the bride. And when they turned to pass out of the church Sergeant Gorman, in a stage whisper, said to McLeod:

"Be all the saints above, McLeod, if the angels in glory look anny purtier than thim two, glory's no place for you an' me."

In the afternoon the Allister Thanksgiving Hospital was formally opened by the governor of the colony, and in the name of Him who came to heal men's diseases it was dedicated to the work of healing the diseases of men.

When the notables had dispersed to talk of the merchant prince's munificent gift, when the guard of honour had marched back to the barracks, and the music of the bands had died away, a few who had special interest in the work, or had come from far to be present on that day, still strolled through the long, cool corridors, the well-furnished wards, and the high, centre-lighted operating-room. Consul Beauchamp and his family and Dr. MacKay had come from Formosa to be present. They stood with the donor, his wife, and son.

"This must be a great satisfaction to you, Mr. MacAllister," the consul said.

"Yes, Mr. Beauchamp. I never before knew as I know now that the pleasure of wealth is not in making or keeping money, but in giving it away. What do you think, Dr. MacKay?"

"I was not thinking of that. I was thinking of my little hospital with its poor equipment and its need of a doctor to take charge. I am not covetous. But I cannot help thinking that this hospital and the doctor who is at the head of it might have been in North Formosa, where it is needed even more than in Hong-Kong. But there was no vision, and my people must suffer."

And when that hospital became not only a centre of healing but developed a medical college in connection with it, when the doctor at the head of it grew to be such an authority on tropical diseases that he was called to England to be dean of a great school of tropical medicine, when he received honours from medical colleges and societies the world over and a knighthood at the hands of his sovereign, those who knew him often thought of the day when he was refused appointment as a medical missionary in the little North Formosa Mission. And they wondered.

But Dr. Sinclair was not thinking of that then. He had been showing his bride the great building her father had erected, for she had arrived from England only the evening before and had not found an opportunity to see it. Together they walked on the deep, cool upper verandah and looked out over the glorious prospect of city and harbour, mountain and sea. Side by side they stood under one of its arches, her hand resting lightly in his.

"It is all so fairy-like," he said, "that even yet I can scarcely persuade myself that it is not a dream."

"It is a dream, Donald, the loveliest dream one could wish. But what is best about it is that it is a dream of delight which does not vanish with one's waking."

"To me the strangest thought of all is the way it was brought about. I left home not knowing where I was going, with only a vague idea that I might find a place to do good somewhere. I have been given an appointment beyond my fondest imaginings. What is more than all beside, I have been given you."

Behind the lattice-work which sheltered one end of the verandah from the rays of the sun and from the gaze of the inquisitive, her head rested on his shoulder, her lips were lifted to his.

"Donald," she said softly, "my story is even stranger than yours. I came to the East with little thought of anything but pleasure; with little purpose in life, and no ambition to do good. I have been given a brother and a husband, love and a life to live. I did not deserve it. What does it mean?"

"It means that there is a hand shaping our destinies, giving us a work to do, showing us a path to tread. Are we willing to follow the leading of that hand, Jessie?"

"Yes, Donald."

The measured step of drilled men sounded on the steep gravelled road below. Sergeant Gorman and a squad of the ambulance corps he had already trained were bearing an injured man to the door. Arm in arm Dr. Sinclair and his bride walked down to see the first patient borne in. In a few moments more his wedding coat was thrown off, his operator's apron and sleeves slipped on, and Sinclair was at work.

Thus without fuss or delay, refusing to be excused even by the festivities of the marriage-day, the Life-Healer and the fair woman who had been willing to blend her destiny with his together entered on their life-long labour of Good Will Toward Men.

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