Part 47 (1/2)
Soothed by the cool shade, Cameron loitered along the path, pausing to learn of Tim the names of plants and trees as he went.
”Ain't yeh never comin'?” called Mandy from the gloom far in front.
”What's all the rush?” replied Tim, impatiently, who loved nothing better than a quiet walk with Cameron through the woods.
”Rush? We'll be late, and I hate walkin' up before the hull crowd. Come on!” cried his sister in impatient tone.
”All right, Mandy, we're nearly through the woods. I begin to see the clearing yonder,” said Cameron, pointing to where the light was beginning to show through the tree tops before them.
But they were late enough, and Mandy was glad of the cover of the opening hymn to allow her to find her way to a group of her girl friends, the males of the party taking shelter with a neighbouring group of their own s.e.x near by.
Upon the sloping sides of the gra.s.sy hills and under the beech and maple trees, the vanguard of the retreating woods, sat the congregation, facing the preacher, who stood on the gra.s.sy level below. Behind them was the solid wall of thick woods, over them time spreading boughs, and far above the trees the blue summer sky, all the bluer for the little white clouds that sailed serene like s.h.i.+ps upon a sea. At their feet lay the open country, checkered by the snake fences into fields of yellow, green, and brown, and rolling away to meet the woods at the horizon.
The Sabbath rest filled the sweet air, breathed from the shady woods, rested upon the checkered fields, and lifted with the hymn to the blue heaven above. A stately cathedral it was, this place of wors.h.i.+p, filled with the incense of flowers and fields, arched by the high dome of heaven, and lighted by the glory of the setting sun.
Relieved by the walk for a time from the ache in his head, Cameron surrendered himself to the mysterious influences of the place and the hour. He let his eyes wander over the fields below him to the far horizon, and beyond--beyond the woods, beyond the intervening leagues of land and sea--and was again gazing upon the sunlit loveliness of the Cuagh Oir. The Glen was abrim with golden light this summer evening, the purple was on the hills and the little loch gleamed sapphire at the bottom.
The preacher was reading his text.
”Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to every man according to his several ability, and straightway took his journey,”
and so on to the end of that marvellously wise tale, wise with the wisdom of G.o.d, confirmed by the wisdom of human experience.
The Reverend Harper Freeman's voice could hardly, even by courtesy, be called musical; in fact, it was harsh and strident; but this evening the hills, and the trees, and the wide open s.p.a.ces, Nature's mighty modulator, subdued the harshness, so that the voice rolled up to the people clear, full, and sonorous. Nor was the preacher possessed of great learning nor endued with the gift of eloquence. He had, however, a shrewd knowledge of his people and of their ways and of their needs, and he had a kindly heart, and, more than all, he had the preacher's gift, the divine capacity for taking fire.
For a time his words fell unheeded upon Cameron's outer ear.
”To every man his own endowments, some great, some small, but, mark you, no man left quite poverty-stricken. G.o.d gives every man his chance. No man can look G.o.d in the face, not one of you here can say that you have had no chance.”
Cameron's vagrant mind, suddenly recalled, responded with a quick a.s.sent. Opportunity? Endowment? Yes, surely. His mind flashed back over the years of his education at the Academy and the University, long lazy years. How little he had made of them! Others had turned them into the gold of success. He wondered how old Dunn was getting on, and Linklater, and little Martin. How far away seemed those days, and yet only some four or five months separated him from them.
”One was a failure, a dead, flat failure,” continued the preacher.
”Not so much a wicked man, no murderer, no drunkard, no gambler, but a miserable failure. Poor fellow! At the end of life a wretched bankrupt, losing even his original endowment. How would you like to come home after ten, twenty, thirty years of experiment with life and confess to your father that you were dead broke and no good?”
Again Cameron's mind came back from its wandering with a start. Go back to his father a failure! He drew his lip down hard over his teeth. Not while he lived! And yet, what was there in prospect for him? His whole soul revolted against the dreary monotony and the narrowness of his present life, and yet, what other path lay open? Cameron went straying in fancy over the past, or in excursions into the future, while, parallel with his rambling, the sermon continued to make its way through its various heads and particulars.
”Why?” The voice of the preacher rose clear, dominant, arresting. ”Why did he fail so abjectly, so meanly, so despicably? For there is no excuse for a failure. Listen! No man NEED fail. A man who is a failure is a mean, selfish, lazy chump.” Mr. Freeman was colloquial, if anything. ”Some men pity him. I don't. I have no use for him, and he is the one thing in all the world that G.o.d himself has no use for.”
Again Cameron's mind was jerked back as a runaway horse by a rein. So far his life had been a failure. Was there then no excuse for failure?
What of his upbringing, his education, his environment? He had been indulging the habit during these last weeks of s.h.i.+fting responsibility from himself for what he had become.
”What was the cause of this young man's failure?” reiterated the preacher. The preacher had a wholesome belief in the value of reiteration. He had a habit of rubbing in his points. ”He blamed the boss. Listen to his impudence! 'I knew thee to be a hard man.' He blamed his own temperament and disposition. 'I was afraid.' But the boss brings him up sharp and short. 'Quit lying!' he said. 'I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You've got a mean heart, you ain't honest, and you're too lazy to live. Here, take that money from him and give it to the man that can do most with it, and take this useless loafer out of my sight.'
And served him right, too, say I, impudent, lazy liar.”
Cameron found his mind rising in wrathful defense of the unhappy wretched failure in the story. But the preacher was utterly relentless and proceeded to enlarge upon the character of the unhappy wretch.
”Impudent! The way to tell an impudent man is to let him talk. Now listen to this man cheek the boss! 'I knew you,' he said. 'You skin everybody in sight.' I have always noticed,” remarked the preacher, with a twinkle in his eye, ”that the hired man who can't keep up his end is the kind that cheeks the boss. And so it is with life. Why, some men would cheek Almighty G.o.d. They turn right round and face the other way when G.o.d is explaining things to them, when He is persuading them, when He is trying to help them. Then they glance back over their shoulders and say, 'Aw, gwan! I know better than you.' Think of the impudence of them! That's what many a man does with G.o.d. With G.o.d, mind you! G.o.d!
Your Father in heaven, your Brother, your Saviour, G.o.d as you know him in the Man of Galilee, the Man you always see with the sick and the outcast and the broken-hearted. It is this G.o.d that owns you and all you've got--be honest and say so. You must begin by getting right with G.o.d.”
”G.o.d!” Once more Cameron went wandering back into the far away days of childhood. G.o.d was very near then, and very friendly. How well he remembered when his mother had tucked him in at night and had kissed him and had put out the light. He never felt alone and afraid, for she left him, so she said, with G.o.d. It was G.o.d who took his mother's place, near to his bedside. In those days G.o.d seemed very near and very kind. He remembered his mother's look one day when he declared to her that he could hear G.o.d breathing just beside him in the dark. How remote G.o.d seemed to-day and how shadowy, and, yes, he had to confess it, unfriendly. He heard no more of the sermon. With a curious ache in his heart he allowed his mind to dwell amid those happy, happy memories when his mother and G.o.d were the nearest and dearest to him of all he knew.