Part 14 (1/2)
Brent did not come out of his room to dinner that afternoon. Mrs. Hodges was for calling him, but the old man objected. ”No, Hester,” he said, ”Freddie jest wants to be let alone. He 's a-feelin' now.”
”But, 'Liphalet, he ought to know how nice people talked about his sermon. I tell you that was my kind o' doctern. It 's wonderful how a child will learn.”
Notwithstanding his belief that his young friend wanted to be left alone, the old man slipped into his room later on with a cup of tea. The young man sat before the table, his head buried in his hands. Eliphalet set the cup and saucer down and turned to go, but he paused at the door and said, ”Thank the Lord fur the way you give it to 'em, Freddie. It was worth a dollar.” He would have hurried out, but the young man sprang up and seized his hand, exclaiming, ”It was wrong, Uncle 'Liph, it was wrong of me. I saw them sitting about me like jackals waiting for their prey; I remembered all that I had been and all that I was; I knew what they were thinking, and I was angry, angry. G.o.d forgive me! That sermon was preached from as hot a heart as ever did murder.”
The old man stroked the young one's hair as he would a child's. ”Never mind,” he said. ”It don't matter what you felt. That 's between you an'
Him. I only know what you said, an' that 's all I care about. Did n't you speak about the Lord a-whippin' the money-changers from the temple?
Ain't lots o' them worse than the money-changers? Was n't Christ divine?
Ain't you human? Would a body expect you to feel less'n He did? Huh!
jest don't you worry; remember that you did n't hit a head that was n't in striking distance.” And the old man pressed the boy back into his chair and slipped out.
CHAPTER XII
Beside an absolute refusal again to supply, Brent made no sign of the rebellion which was in him, and his second year slipped quickly and uneventfully away. He went to and from his duties silent and self-contained. He did not confide in Mr. Hodges, because his guardian seemed to grow more and more jealous of their friends.h.i.+p. He could not confide in Elizabeth, on account of a growing conviction that she did not fully sympathise with him. But his real feelings may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to his friend Taylor some two months after the events recorded in the last chapter.
”MY DEAR TAYLOR,” it ran, ”time and again I have told myself that I would write you a line, keeping you in touch, as I promised, with my progress. Many times have I thought of our last talk together, and still I think as I thought then--that, in spite of all your disadvantages and your defeats, you have the best of it. When you fail, it is your own failure, and you bear down with you only your own hopes and struggles and ideals. If I fail, there falls with me all the framework of pride and anxiety that has so long pushed me forward and held me up. For my own failure I should not sorrow: my concern would be for the one who has so carefully shaped me after a pattern of her own. However else one may feel, one must be fair to the ambitions of others, even though one is the mere material that is heated and beaten into form on the anvil of another's will. But I am ripe for revolt. The devil is in me,--a restrained, quiet, well-appearing devil, but all the more terrible for that.
”I have at last supplied one of the pulpits here, that of my own church. The Rev. Mr. Simpson was afflicted with a convenient and adaptable indisposition which would not allow him to preach, and I was deputed to fill his place. I knew what a trial it would be, and had carefully written out my sermon, but I am afraid I did not adhere very strictly to the ma.n.u.script. I think I lost my head. I know I lost my temper. But the sermon was a nine days' wonder, and I have had to refuse a dozen subsequent offers to supply. It is all very sordid and sickening and theatrical. The good old Lowry tried to show me that it was my duty and for my good, but I have set my foot down not to supply again, and so they let me alone now.
”It seems to me that that one sermon forged a chain which holds me in a position that I hate. It is a public declaration that I am or mean to be a preacher, and I must either adhere to it or break desperately away. Do you know, I feel myself to be an arrant coward. If I had half the strength that you have, I should have been out of it long ago; but the habit of obedience grows strong upon a man.
”There is but one crowning act to be added to this drama of deceit and infamy,--my ordination. I know how all the other fellows are looking forward to it, and how, according to all the prescribed canons, I should view the momentous day; but I am I. Have you ever had one of those dreams where a huge octopus approaches you slowly but certainly, enfolding you in his arms and twining his horrid tentacles about your helpless form? What an agony of dread you feel! You try to move or cry out, but you cannot, and the arms begin to embrace you and draw you towards the great body. Just so I feel about the day of the ceremony that shall take me into the body of which I was never destined to be a member.
”Are you living in a garret? Are you subsisting on a crust? Happy, happy fellow! But, thank G.o.d, the ordination does not take place until next year, and perhaps in that time I may find some means of escape. If I do not, I know that I shall have your sympathy; but don't express it. Ever sincerely yours, BRENT.”
But the year was pa.s.sing, and nothing happened to release him. He found himself being pushed forward at the next term with unusual rapidity, but he did not mind it; the work rather gave him relief from more unpleasant thoughts. He went at it with eagerness and mastered it with ease. His fellow-students looked on him with envy, but he went on his way unheeding and worked for the very love of being active, until one day he understood.
It was nearing the end of the term when a fellow-student remarked to him, ”Well, Brent, it is n't every man that could have done it, but you 'll get your reward in a month or so now.”
”What do you mean?” asked Brent. ”Done what?”
”Now don't be modest,” rejoined the other; ”I am really glad to see you do it. I have no envy.”
”Really, Barker, I don't understand you.”
”Why, I mean you are finis.h.i.+ng two years in one.”
”Oh, pshaw! it will hardly amount to that.”
”Oh, well, you will get in with the senior cla.s.s men.”
”Get in with the senior cla.s.s!”
”It will be kind of nice, a year before your time, to be standing in the way of any appointive plums that may happen to fall; and then you don't have to go miles away from home before you can be made a full-fledged shepherd. Well, here is my hand on it anyway.”
Brent took the proffered hand in an almost dazed condition. It had all suddenly flashed across his mind, the reason for his haste and his added work. What a blind fool he had been!
The Church Conference met at Dexter that year, and they had hurried him through in order that he might be ready for ordination thereat.
Alleging illness as an excuse, he did not appear at recitation that day.