"Don't touch me!" he cried in vehement frenzy. "You are a devil! And I am in h.e.l.l! In h.e.l.l! do you hear?" He caught her by the arm and shook her. "And I deserve h.e.l.l! h.e.l.l! h.e.l.l! Fools! no h.e.l.l?" He turned again to her. "And for you, for this, and this, and this," touching her hair, her cheek, and her heaving bosom with his finger, "I have lost my brother--my brother--my own brother--Barney. Oh, fool that I am! d.a.m.ned!

d.a.m.ned! d.a.m.ned!"

She shrank back from him, then whispered with pale lips, "Oh, d.i.c.k, spare me! Take me home!"

"Yes, yes," he cried in mad haste, "anywhere, in the devil's name! Come!

Come!" He seized her wrap, threw it upon her shoulders, caught up his hat, tore open the door for her, and followed her out.

"Can a man take fire into his bosom and not be burned?" And out of the embers of his pa.s.sion there kindled a fire that night that burned with unquenchable fury for many a day.

XV

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S METHODS

The Superintendent was spending the precious hours of one of his rare visits at home in painful plodding through his correspondence. For it was part of the sacrifice his work demanded, and which he cheerfully made, that he should forsake home and wife and children for his work's sake. The a.s.sembly's Convener found him in the midst of an orderly confusion of papers of different sorts.

"How do you do, sir?" The Superintendent's voice had a fine burr about it that gripped the ear, and his hand a vigour and tenacity of hold that gripped the outstretched hand of the a.s.sembly's Convener and nearly brought the little man to the floor. "Sit down, sir, and listen to this.

Here are some of the compensations that go with the Superintendent's office. This is rich. It comes from my friend, Henry Fink, of the Columbia Forks in the Windermere Valley. British Columbia, you understand," noticing the Convener's puzzled expression. "I visited the valley a year ago and found a truly deplorable condition of things.

Men had gone up there many years ago and settled down remote from civilization. Some of them married Indian wives and others of them ought to have married them, and they have brought up families in the atmosphere and beliefs of the pagans. Would you believe it, I fell in with a young man on the trail, twenty years of age, who had never heard the name of our Saviour except in oaths? He had never heard the story of the Cross. And there are many others like him. At the Columbia Forks the only inst.i.tution that stands for things intellectual is a Freethinkers'

Club, the president of which is a retired colonel of the British Army, a man of fine manners, of some degree of intelligence and reading, but, I have reason to believe, of bad life. His is the dominant influence in the community if we except my friend, Mr. Henry Fink, or, as he is known locally, 'Hank Fink.' Hank is a character, I a.s.sure you. A Yankee from the Eastern States, the son of a Scotch mother. Has a cattle ranch, runs a store which supplies the scattered ranchers, prospectors, and miners with the necessaries of life, and keeps a stopping place. Is postmaster, too. In fact, Hank is pretty much the whole village. He has lived in that country some fifteen years. Has a good Canadian wife, and a flock of small children. He is a rara avis in that country from the fact that he hates whiskey. He hates it almost as much as he does Colonel Hicks and his Freethinking Club. When I visited the village, for some reason or other Hank took me up, the Scotch blood in him possibly recognising kinship. He gave me his store to preach in, took me all about the country, and in a week had a mission organized on a sound financial basis. His methods were very simple, very direct, and very effective. He estimated the amount each man should pay and announced this fact to the man, who generally acquiesced. I didn't probe too deeply into Hank's motives, but it seemed to give him considerable satisfaction to learn that Colonel Hicks was filled with indignant and scornful rage at the proposal to establish a Christian mission in that remote valley. It grieved the Colonel to think that after so many years of immunity they should at last be called upon to tolerate this particularly offensive appendage to an effete civilization. I noticed that Hank's English always broke down in referring to the Colonel. Well, we sent in Finlayson a year ago this spring, you remember. Strong man, good preacher, conscientious fellow. Thought he would do great work. You know Finlayson? Well, this is the result." Here he picked up Hank's letter.

"This would hardly do for the Home Mission report," continued the Superintendent, with a twinkle in his keen grey eyes:

"COLUMBIA FORKS, WINDERMERE, B. C.

"DEAR SIR:--I take my pen to write you a few lines to let you know how things is goin'. Well, sir, I want to tell you this station is goin' to the devil. [Judging from what I saw of the place, it hadn't far to go.]

Your preacher ain't worth a cuss. I don't say he ain't good fer some people, but he ain't our style. [Mr. Finlayson would doubtless agree with that.] He means well, but he ain't eddicated up to the West. You remember how we got the boys all corralled up nice an' tame when you was here. Well, he's got 'em wild. Couldn't reach 'em with a shotgun. He throwed h.e.l.l fire at 'em till they got scart an' took to the hills till you can't get near 'em no more'n mountain goats. So they have all quit comin'--I don't count Scotty Fraser, for he would come, anyway--except me an' Monkey Fiddler an' his yeller dog. You can always count on the dog. Now, sir, this is your show, not mine. But I was born an' raised a Presbyteryn down East, an' though I haven't worked hard at the business for some years, it riles me some to hear Col. Hicks an' a lot of durned fools that has got smarter than G.o.d Almighty Himself shootin' off against the Bible an' religion an' all that. [We needn't read too closely between the lines at this point.] Send a man that don't smell so strong of sulphur an' brimstone, who has got some savey, an' who will know how to handle the boys gentle. They ain't to say bad, but just a leetle wild. Send him along, an' we will stay with him an' knock the tar out of that bunch of fools.

"Yours most respeckfully,

"HENRY FINK.

"P. S. When are you comin' into the valley again? If you could arrange to spend a month or two I'll guarantee we will have 'em all in nice shape.

"Yours respeckfully,

"HENRY FINK."

"I don't think you can count much from the support of a man like that,"

said the a.s.sembly's Convener; "I don't think he shows any real interest in the work."

"My dear sir," said the Superintendent, "don't you know he is the Chairman of our Board of Management, a most regular attendant upon ordinances and contributes most liberally to our support? And while these things in the East wouldn't necessarily indicate a change of heart, they stand for a good deal west of the Great Divide. And, at any rate, in these matters we remember gratefully the word that is written, 'He that is not against us is on our part.'"

"Well, well," said the a.s.sembly's Convener, "it may be so. It may be so.

But what's to be done with Finlayson? And where will you get a successor for him?"

"We can easily place Finlayson. He is a good man and will do excellent work in other fields. But where to get a man for Windermere is the question. Do you know anyone?"

The a.s.sembly's Convener shook his head sadly.

"There appears to be no one in sight," said the Superintendent. "I have a number of applications here," picking up a good-sized bundle of neatly folded papers, "but they are hardly the kind to suit conditions at Windermere. Numbers of them feel themselves specially called of G.o.d to do mission work in large centres of population. Others are chiefly anxious about the question of support. One man would like to be in touch with a daily train service, as he feels it necessary to keep in touch with the world by means of the daily newspaper. A number are engaged who want to be married. Here's Mr. Brown, too fat. No move in him. Here's McKay--good man, earnest, but not adaptable, like Finlayson; won't do.

Here's Garton--fine fellow, would do well, but hardly strong enough. So what are you to do? I have gone over the whole list of available men and I cannot find one suitable for Windermere."

In this the a.s.sembly's Convener could give him no help. Indeed, from few did the Superintendent receive a.s.sistance in the securing of men for his far outposts.

a.s.sistance came to him from an unexpected quarter. He was to meet the a.s.sembly's Convener and some members of the Committee that evening at Professor Macdougall's for tea. The Superintendent's mind could not be kept long away from the work that was his very life, and at the table the conversation turned to the question of the chronic difficulty of securing men for frontier work, which had become acute in the case of Windermere. Margaret, who had been invited to a.s.sist Mrs. Macdougall in the dispensing of her hospitality, was at once on the alert. Why could not d.i.c.k be sent? If only that Presbytery difficulty could be got over he might go. That he would be suited for the work she was well a.s.sured, and equally certain was she that it would be good for him.

"It would save him," Margaret said to herself with a sharp sting at her heart, for she had to confess sadly that d.i.c.k had come to the point where he needed saving. She had learned from Iola the whole miserable story of Barney's visit, of his terrible indictment of his brother and the final break between them, but she had seen little of him during the past six months. From that terrible night d.i.c.k had gone down in physical and in moral health. Again and again he had written Barney, but there had been no reply. Hungrily he had come to Margaret for word of his brother, hopeful of reconciliation. But of late he had given up hope and had ceased to make inquiry, settling down into a state of gloomy, remorseful grief into which Margaret felt she dare not intrude. He occasionally met Iola at society functions, but there was an end of all intimacy between them. His only relief seemed to be in his work, and he gave himself to that with such feverish energy that his health broke down, and under Margaret's persuasion he was now at home with his mother. Thence he had written once to say that his days were one long agony. She remembered one terrible sentence. "Everything here, the house, the mill, my father's fiddle, my mother's churn, the woods, the fields, everything, everything shrieks 'Barney' at me till I am like to go mad. I must get away from here to some place where he has never been with me."

It required some considerable skill to secure the Superintendent that evening for a few minutes alone. In whatever company he was, he was easily the centre of interest. But Margaret, even in the early days of the Manse, had been a favourite with him, and he was not a man to forget his friends. He had the rare gift of gripping them to him with "hooks of steel." Hence, he had kept in touch with her during the latter years, pitying the girl's loneliness as much as his admiration for her cheery courage and her determined independence would allow him. When Margaret found her opportunity she wasted no time.

"I have a man for you for Windermere," were her opening words.

"You have? Where have you got him? Who is he? And are you willing to spare him? Few young ladies are. But you are different from most." The Superintendent was ever a gallant.

"You remember Mr. Boyle who graduated a year ago?" Her words came hurriedly and there was a slight flush on her cheek. "There was some trouble about his license at Presbytery. That horrid old Mr. Naismith was very nasty, and d.i.c.k, Mr. Boyle, I mean--we have always been friends," she hastened to add, explaining her deepening blush, "you know his mother lived at the Mill near us. Well, since that day in Presbytery he has never been the same. His work--he is on the Daily Telegraph, you know--takes him away from--from--well, from Church and that kind of thing, and from all his friends."

"I understand," said the Superintendent, with grave sympathy.

"And he's got to be very different. He had some trouble, great trouble, the greatest possible to him. Oh, I may as well tell you. The brothers--you remember the doctor, Barney?"

"Very well," replied the Superintendent. "Strong man. Where is he now?"

"He went to Europe. Well, the brothers were everything to each other since little fellows together. Oh, it was beautiful! I never saw anything like it anywhere. They had a misunderstanding, a terrible misunderstanding. d.i.c.k was in the wrong." The Superintendent shot a keen glance at her. "No," she said, answering his glance, the colour in her face deepening into a vivid scarlet, "it was not about me, not at all. I can't tell you about it, but that, and his trouble with the Presbytery, and all the rest of it are just killing him. And I know if he got back to his own work again and away from home it would save him, and his mother, too, for she is breaking her heart. Couldn't you get him out there?"

The Superintendent saw how hard a task it had been for her to tell the story, and the sight of her eager face, the big blue eyes bright, and the lips quivering with the intensity of her feeling, deeply touched him.

"It might be possible," he said.

"Oh, I know the Presbytery difficulty," cried Margaret, with a desperate note in her voice.

"That could be arranged, I have no doubt," said the Superintendent, brushing aside that difficulty with a wave of the hand. "The question is, would he be willing to go?"

"Oh, he would go, I am sure. If you saw him and if you told him those stories about the need there is, I am sure he would go. Could you see him? There is no use to write. I do wish you could. He is such a fine boy and his mother is so set upon his being a minister." The blue eyes were bright with tears she was too brave to let fall.

"My dear young lady," said the Superintendent, his deep voice growing deeper under the intensity of his feelings, "I would do much for your sake and for your mother's. I am to visit your home early next month.

I shall make it a point to see Mr. Boyle, and I promise you I shall get him if it is possible."

The sudden lifting of the burden from her heart deprived the girl of speech, but she shyly put out her hand and touched the long, sinewy fingers that lay within reach of hers in a timid caress. Instantly the fingers closed upon her hand in a grasp so strong that it seemed to drive the conviction into her heart that somehow this strong man would find a way by which d.i.c.k could be saved.

How, or by what arguments, the Superintendent overcame d.i.c.k's objections, Margaret never learned. But the full bitter tale of reasons against his ever taking up his work again, with which d.i.c.k had made himself so familiar during the past dark, dreary months, were one by one removed, and when the Superintendent left the Old Stone Mill he had secured his missionary for Windermere. It gave the Superintendent acute satisfaction to remember the flash of his missionary's blue eyes as, in answer to the warning, "You will have a hard fight of it, remember," the reply came, "A hard fight? Thank G.o.d!"

Before the year was over it fell that the Windermere valley came to be one of the mission fields that gladdened the hearts of the Home Mission Committee of the Calgary Presbytery, and especially of its doughty Convener. In the Convener's study, eight by ten, the report from the Windermere field was discussed with the ubiquitous and indefatigable Superintendent.