Chapter 4

he knew, except that the father's was the fighting and the son's the sparring style. To-night the roles appeared to be reversed, the son pressing hard at the in-fighting, the father trusting to his foot work and countering with the light touch of a man making points.

“You ARE boring in, aren't you?” said the father, stopping a fierce rally.

“You are not playing up, dad,” said his son. “I don't feel like soft work to-night. Come to me!”

“As you say,” replied the father, and for the next five minutes Barry had no reason to complain of soft work, for his father went after him with all the fight that was in him, so that in spite of a vigorous defence the son was forced to take refuge in a runaway game.

“Now you're going!” shouted the son, making a fierce counter with his right to a hard driven left, which he side-stepped. It was a fatal exposure. Like the dart of a snake the right hand hook got him below the jaw, and he was hurled breathless on the couch at the side of the room.

“Got you now!” said his father.

“Not quite yet,” cried Barry. Like a cat he was on his feet, breathing deep breaths, dodging about, fighting for time.

“Enough!” cried his father, putting down his hands.

“Play up!” shouted Barry, who was rapidly recovering his wind. “No soft work. Watch out!”

Again the father was on guard, while Barry, who seemed to have drawn upon some secret source of strength, came at him with a whirlwind attack, feinting, jabbing, swinging, hooking, till finally he landed a short half arm on the jaw, which staggered his father against the wall.

“Pax!” cried the young man. “I have all I want.”

“Great!” said his father. “I believe you could fight, boy, if you were forced to.”

In the shed they sluiced each other with pails of water, had a rub down and got into their dressing gowns.

“I feel fine, now, dad, and ready for anything,” said Barry, glowing with his exercise and his tub. “I was feeling like a quitter. I guess that asthma got at my nerve. But I believe I will see it through some way.”

“Yes?” said his father, and waited.

“Yes. They were talking blue ruin in there to-night. Finances are behind, congregation is running down, therefore the preacher is a failure.”

“Well, lad, remember this,” said his father, “never let your liver decide any course of action for you. Some good stiff work, a turn with the gloves, for instance, is the best preparation I know for any important decision. A man cannot decide wisely when he feels grubby. Your asthma this afternoon is a symptom of liver.”

“It is humiliating to a creature endowed with conscience and intellect to discover how small a part these play at times in his decisions. The ancients were not far wrong who made the liver the seat of the emotions.”

“Well,” said his father, “it is a good thing to remember that most of our bad hours come from our livers. So the preacher is a failure? Who said so?”

“Oh, a number of them, principally Hayes.”

“Thank God, and go to sleep,” said his father. “If Hayes were pleased with my preaching I should greatly suspect my call to the ministry.”

“But seriously, I am certainly not a great preacher, and perhaps not a preacher at all. They say I have no 'pep,' which with some of them appears to be the distinctive and altogether necessary characteristic of a popular preacher.”

“What said Innes?” enquired his father.

“Did you ever hear Innes say much? From his silence one would judge that he must possess the accumulated wisdom of the ages.”

“When he does talk, however, he generally says something. What was his contribution?”

“'Ah, weel,' said the silent one, 'Ah doot he's no a Spurgeon, not yet a Billy Sunday, but ye'll hardly be expectin' thae fowk at Wapiti for nine hundred dollars a year.' Then, bless his old heart, he added, 'But the bairns tak to him like ducks to water, so you'd better bide a bit.' So they decided to 'bide a bit' till next Sunday. Dad, at first I wanted to throw their job in their faces, only I always know that it is the old Adam in me that feels like that, so I decided to 'bide a bit' too.”

“It is a poor job, after all, my boy,” said his father. “It's no gentleman's job the way it is carried on in this country. To think of your being at the bidding of a creature like Hayes!”

He could have said no better word. The boy's face cleared like the sudden shining of the sun after rain. He lifted his head and said,

“Thank God, not at his bidding, dad. 'One is your Master,'” he quoted. “But after all, Hayes has something good in him. Do you know, I rather like him. He's--”

“Oh, come now, we'll drop it right there,” said his father, in a disgusted tone. “When you come to finding something to like in that rat, I surrender.”

“Who knows?” said the boy, as if to himself. “Poor Hayes. He may be quite a wonderful man, considering all things, his heredity and his environment. What would I have been, dad, but for you?”

His father grunted, pulled hard at his pipe, coughed a bit, then looked his son straight in the face, saying, “God knows what any of us owe to our past.” He fell into silence. His mind was far away, following his heart to the palisaded plot of ground among the Foothills and the little grave there in which he had covered from his sight her that had been the inspiration to his best and finest things, and his defence against the things low and base that had once hounded his soul, howling hard upon his trail.

The son, knowing his mood, sat in silence with him, then rising suddenly he sat himself on the arm of his father's chair, threw his arm around his shoulder and said, “Dear old dad! Good old boy you are, too. Good stuff! What would I have been but for you? A puny, puling, wretched little crock, afraid of anything that could spit at me. Do you remember the old gander? I was near my eternal damnation that day.”

“But you won out, my boy,” said his father in a croaking voice, putting his arm round his son.

“Yes, because you made me stick it, just as you have often made me stick it since. May God forget me if I ever forget what you have done for me. Shall we read now?”

He took the big Bible from its place upon the table, and turning the leaves read aloud from the teachings of the world's greatest Master. It was the parable of the talents.

“Rather hard on the failure,” he said as he closed the book.

“No, not the failure,” said his father, “the slacker, the quitter. It is nature's law. There is no place in God's universe for a quitter.”

“You are right, dad,” said Barry. “Good-night.”

He kissed his father, as he had ever done since his earliest infancy. Their prayers were said in private, the son, clergyman though he was, could never bring himself to offer to lead the devotions of him at whose knee he had kneeled every night of his life, as a boy, for his evening prayer.

“Good-night, boy,” said his father, holding him by the hand for a moment or so. “We do not know what is before us, defeat, loss, suffering. That part is not in our hands altogether, but the shame of the quitter never need, and never shall be ours.”

The little man stepped into his bedroom with his shoulders squared and his head erect.

“By Jove! He's no quitter,” said his son to himself, as his eyes followed him. “When he quits he'll be dead. God keep me from shaming him!”