The Voice
by
Margaret Deland
THE VOICE
BY
MARGARET DELAND
CHAPTER I
"Dr. Lavendar," said William
King, "some time when Goliath
is doing his 2.40 on a plank road, don't
you want to pull him up at that house
on the Perryville pike where the Grays
used to live, and make a call? An old
fellow called Roberts has taken it;
he is a--"
"Teach your grandmother," said
Dr. Lavendar; "he is an Irvingite. He
comes from Lower Ripple, down on the
Ohio, and he has a daughter, Philippa."
"Oh," said Dr. King, "you know 'em,
do you?"
"Know them? Of course I know
them! Do you think you are the only
man who tries to enlarge his business?
But I was not successful in my efforts.
The old gentleman doesn't go to any
church; and the young lady inclines to
the Perryville meeting-house--the parson
there is a nice boy."
"She is an attractive young creature,"
said the doctor, smiling at some pleasant
memory; "the kind of girl a man would
like to have for a daughter. But did
you ever know such an old-fashioned
little thing!"
"Well, she's like the girls I knew when
I was the age of the Perryville parson,
so I suppose you'd call her old-fashioned,"
Dr. Lavendar said. "There
aren't many such girls nowadays;
sweet-tempered and sensible and with
some fun in 'em."
"Why don't you say 'good,' too?"
William King inquired.
"Unnecessary," Dr. Lavendar said,
scratching Danny's ear; "anybody who
is amiable, sensible, and humorous is
good. Can't help it."
"The father is good," William King
said, "but he is certainly not sensible.
He's an old donkey, with his TONGUES
and his VOICE!"
Dr. Lavendar's face sobered. "No,"
he said, "he may be an Irvingite, but
he isn't a donkey."
"What on earth is an Irvingite,
anyhow?" William asked.
Dr. Lavendar looked at him, pityingly:
"William, you are so ridiculously
young! Well, I suppose you can't help
it. My boy, about the time you were
born, there was a man in London--
some folks called him a saint, and some
folks called him a fool; it's a way folks
have had ever since our Lord came into
this world. His name was Irving, and he
started a new sect." (Dr. Lavendar was
as open-minded as it is possible for one
of his Church to be, but even he said
"sect" when it came to outsiders.)
"He started this new sect, which believed
that the Holy Ghost would
speak again by human lips, just as
on the Day of Pentecost. Well, there
was 'speaking' in his congregation;
sort of outbursts of exhortation, you
know. Mostly unintelligible. I
remember Dr. Alexander said it was
'gibberish'; he heard some of it when
he was in London. It may have been
'gibberish,' but nobody can doubt
Irving's sincerity in thinking it was the
Voice of God. When he couldn't
understand it, he just called it an
'unknown tongue.' Of course he was
considered a heretic. He was put out of
his Church. He died soon after, poor
fellow."
"Doesn't Mr. Roberts's everlasting
arguing about it tire you out?" William
asked.
"Oh no," Dr. Lavendar said, cheerfully;
"when he talks too long I just
shut my eyes; he never notices it!
He's a gentle old soul. When I answer
back--once in a while I really have to
speak up for the Protestant Episcopal
Church--I feel as if I had kicked Danny."
William King grinned. Then he got
up and, drawing his coat-tails forward,
stood with his back to the jug of lilacs
in Dr. Lavendar's fireplace. "Oh, well,
of course it's all bosh," he said, and
yawned; "I was on a case till four
o'clock this morning," he apologized.
"William," said Dr. Lavendar,
admiringly, "what an advantage you
fellows have over us poor parsons!
Everything a medical man doesn't understand
is 'bosh'! Now, we can't classify things
as easily as that."
"Well, I don't care," William said,
doggedly; "from my point of view--"
"From your point of view," said Dr.
Lavendar, "St. Paul was an epileptic,
because he heard a Voice?"
"If you really want to know what I
think--"
"I don't," Dr. Lavendar said; "I
want you to know what I think. Mr.
Roberts hasn't heard any Voice, yet;
he is only listening for it. William,
listening for the Voice of God isn't
necessarily a sign of poor health; and
provided a man doesn't set himself up
to think he is the only person his
Heavenly Father is willing to speak to,
listening won't do him any harm. As
for Henry Roberts, he is a humble old
man. An example to me, William! I
am pretty arrogant once in a while.
I have to be, with such men as you in
my congregation. No; the real trouble
in that household is that girl of his. It
isn't right for a young thing to live in
such an atmosphere."
William agreed sleepily. "Pretty
creature. Wish I had a daughter just
like her," he said, and took himself off
to make up for a broken night's rest.
But Dr. Lavendar and Danny still sat
in front of the lilac-filled fireplace, and
thought of old Henry Roberts listening
for the Voice of God, and of his Philippa.
The father and daughter had lately
taken a house on a road that wandered
over the hills between elderberry-bushes
and under sycamores, from Old Chester
to Perryville. They were about
half-way between the two little towns,
and they did not seem to belong to
either. Perryville's small manufacturing
bustle repelled the silent old man
whom Dr. Lavendar called an "Irvingite";
and Old Chester's dignity and dull
aloofness repelled young Philippa.
The result was that the Robertses and
their one woman servant, Hannah, had
been living on the Perryville pike for
some months before anybody in either
village was quite aware of their existence.
Then one day in May, Dr. Lavendar's
sagging old buggy pulled up at
their gate, and the old minister
called over the garden wall to Philippa:
"Won't you give me some of your apple
blossoms?"
That was the beginning of Old Chester's
knowledge of the Roberts family.
A little later Perryville came to know
them, too: the Rev. John Fenn, pastor
of the Perryville Presbyterian Church,
got off his big, raw-boned Kentucky
horse at the same little white gate in
the brick wall at which Goliath had
stopped, and walked solemnly--not
noticing the apple blossoms--up to the
porch. Henry Roberts was sitting there
in the hot twilight, with a curious
listening look in his face--a look of
waiting expectation; it was so marked, that
the caller involuntarily glanced over his
shoulder to see if any other visitor was
approaching; but there was nothing to
be seen in the dusk but the roan nibbling
at the hitching-post. Mr. Fenn said
that he had called to inquire whether
Mr. Roberts was a regular attendant
at any place of worship. To which the
old man replied gently that every place
was a place of worship, and his own
house was the House of God.
John Fenn was honestly dismayed at
such sentiments--dismayed, and a little
indignant; and yet, somehow, the
self-confidence of the old man daunted him.
It made him feel very young, and there
is nothing so daunting to Youth as to
feel young. Therefore he said, venerably,
that he hoped Mr. Roberts realized
that it was possible to deceive oneself
in such matters. "It is a dangerous
thing to neglect the means of grace,"
he said.
"Surely it is," said Henry Roberts,
meekly; after which there was nothing
for the caller to do but offer the Irvingite
a copy of the _American Messenger_
and take his departure. He was so
genuinely concerned about Mr. Roberts's
"danger," that he did not notice Philippa
sitting on a stool at her father's side.
But Philippa noticed him.
So, after their kind, did these two
shepherds of souls endeavor to establish
a relationship with Henry and
Philippa Roberts. And they were
equally successful. Philippa gave her
apple blossoms to the old minister,--and
went to Mr. Fenn's church the very
next Sunday. Henry Roberts accepted
the tracts with a simple belief in the
kindly purpose of the young minister,
and stayed away from both churches.
But both father and daughter were
pleased by the clerical attentions:
"I love Dr. Lavendar," Philippa
said to her father.
"I am obliged to Mr. Fenn," her
father said to Philippa. "The youth,"
he added, "cares for my soul. I am
obliged to any one who cares for my
soul."
He was, indeed, as Dr. Lavendar said,
a man of humble mind; and yet with
his humbleness was a serene certainty
of belief as to his soul's welfare that
would have been impossible to John
Fenn, who measured every man's chance
of salvation by his own theological
yardstick, or even to Dr. Lavendar,
who thought salvation unmeasurable.
But then neither of these two ministers
had had Henry Roberts's experience.
It was very far back, that experience;
it happened before Philippa was born;
and when they came to live between the
two villages Philippa was twenty-four
years old....
It was in the thirties that young
Roberts, a tanner in Lower Ripple,
went to England to collect a small
bequest left him by a relative. The
sense of distance, the long weeks at sea
in a sailing-vessel, the new country and
the new people, all impressed themselves
upon a very sensitive mind, a
mind which, even without such emotional
preparation, was ready to respond to
any deeply emotional appeal. Then
came the appeal. It was that new
gospel of the Tongues, which, in those
days, astounded and thrilled all London
from the lips of Edward Irving--fanatic,
saint, and martyr!--the man who, having
prayed that God would speak again
in prophecy, would not deny the power
of prayer by refusing to believe that his
prayer was answered, even though the
prophecy was unintelligible. And later,
when the passionate cadences of the
spirit were in English, and were found
to be only trite or foolish words,
repeated and repeated in a wailing chant
by some sincere, hysterical woman, he
still believed that a new day of Pentecost
had dawned upon a sinful world! "For,"
said he, "when I asked for bread, would
God give me a stone?"
Henry Roberts went to hear the
great preacher and forgot his haste
to receive his little legacy so that he
might hurry back to the tanyard.
Irving's eloquence entranced him, and it
alone would have held him longer than
the time he had allowed himself for
absence from the tannery. But it
happened that he was present on that
Lord's Day when, with a solemn and
dreadful sound, the Tongues first spoke
in that dingy Chapel in Regent Square,
and no man who heard that Sound
ever forgot it! The mystical youth from
America was shaken to his very soul.
He stayed on in London for nearly a
year, immersing himself in those tides
of emotion which swept saner minds
than his from the somewhat dry land
of ordinary human experience. That
no personal revelation was made to
him, that the searing benediction of the
Tongues had not touched his own awed,
uplifted brow, made no difference: he
believed!--and prayed God to help
any lingering unbelief that might be
holding him back from deeper knowledges.
To the end of his days he was
Edward Irving's follower; and when
he went back to America it was as a
missionary of the new sect, that
called itself by the sounding title
of The Catholic Apostolic Church.
In Lower Ripple he preached to any
who would listen to him the doctrine
of the new Pentecost. At first curiosity
brought him hearers; his story of
the Voice, dramatic and mysterious,
was listened to in doubting silence;
then disapproved of--so hotly disapproved
of that he was sessioned and read
out of Church.
But in those days in western Pennsylvania,
mere living was too engrossing a matter
for much thought of "tongues" and
"voices"; it was easier, when a man
talked of dreams and visions, not to
argue with him, but to say that he
was "crazy." So by and by Henry
Roberts's heresy was forgotten and his
religion merely smiled at. Certainly
it struck no roots outside his own
heart. Even his family did not share
his belief. When he married, as he did
when he was nearly fifty, his wife was
impatient with his Faith--indeed, fearful
of it, and with persistent, nagging
reasonableness urged his return to
the respectable paths of Presbyterianism.
To his pain, when his girl, his
Philippa, grew up she shrank from
the emotion of his creed; she and her
mother went to the brick church under
the locust-trees of Lower Ripple; and
when her mother died Philippa went
there alone, for Henry Roberts, not
being permitted to bear witness in the
Church, did so out of it, by sitting at
home on the Sabbath day, in a bare
upper chamber, waiting for the
manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It never
came. The Tongues never spoke. Yet
still, while the years passed, he waited,
listening--listening--listening; a
kindly, simple old man with mystical
brown eyes, believing meekly in his
own unworth to hear again that Sound
from Heaven, as of a rushing, mighty
wind, that had filled the London Chapel,
bowing human souls before it as a great
wind bows the standing corn!
It was late in the sixties that Henry
Roberts brought this faith and his Philippa
to the stone house on the Perryville
pike, where, after some months
had passed, they were discovered by
the old and the young ministers. The
two clergymen met once or twice in
their calls upon the new-comer, and
each acquired an opinion of the other:
John Fenn said to himself that the old
minister was a good man, if he was an
Episcopalian; and Dr. Lavendar said
to William King that he hoped there
would be a match between the "theolog"
and Philippa.
"The child ought to be married and
have a dozen children," he said;
"although Fenn's little sister will do to
begin on--she needs mothering badly
enough. Yes, Miss Philly ought to be
making smearkase and apple-butter for
that pale and excellent young man.
He intimated that I was a follower of
the Scarlet Woman because I wore a
surplice."
"Now look here! I draw the line
at that sort of talk," the doctor said;
"he can lay down the law to me, all he
wants to; but when it comes to
instructing you--"
"Oh, well, he's young," Dr. Lavendar
soothed him; "you can't expect
him not to know everything at his age."
"He's a squirt," said William. In
those days in Old Chester middle age
was apt to sum up its opinion of youth
in this expressive word.
"We were all squirts once," said Dr.
Lavendar, "and very nice boys we were,
too--at least I was. Yes, I hope the
youngster will see what a sweet creature
old Roberts's Philippa is."
She was a sweet creature; but as
William King said, she was amusingly
old-fashioned. The Old Chester girl of
those days, who seems (to look back
upon her in these days) so medieval,
was modern compared to Philippa! But
there was nothing mystical about her;
she was just modest and full of pleasant
silences and soft gaieties and simple,
startling truth-telling. At first,
when they came to live near Perryville,
she used, when the weather was fine, to
walk over the grassy road, under the
brown and white branches of the sycamores,
into Old Chester, to Dr. Lavendar's
church. "I like to come to your
church," she told him, "because you
don't preach quite such long sermons as
Mr. Fenn does." But when it rained
or was very hot she chose the shorter
walk and sat under John Fenn, looking
up at his pale, ascetic face, lighted from
within by his young certainties
concerning the old ignorances of people
like Dr. Lavendar--life and death and
eternity. Of Dr. Lavendar's one certainty,
Love, he was deeply ignorant, this
honest boy, who was so concerned for
Philippa's father's soul! But Philippa
did not listen much to his certainties; she
coaxed his little sister into her pew, and
sat with the child cuddled up against
her, watching her turn over the leaves of
the hymn-book or trying to braid the
fringe of Miss Philly's black silk mantilla
into little pigtails. Sometimes Miss
Philly would look up at the careworn
young face in the pulpit and think how
holy Mary's brother was, and how
learned--and how shabby; for he had
only a housekeeper, Mrs. Semple, to
take care of him and Mary. Not but
what he might have had somebody
besides Mrs. Semple! Philippa, for all
her innocence, could not help being
aware that he might have had--almost
anybody! For others of Philly's sex
watched the rapt face there in the pulpit.
When Philippa thought of that,
a slow blush used to creep up to her
very temples. She saw him oftener in
the pulpit than out of it, because
when he came to call on her father
she was apt not to be present.
At first he came very frequently to
see the Irvingite, because he felt it his
duty to "deal" with him; but he made
so little impression that he foresaw the
time when it would be necessary to
say that Ephraim was joined to his
idols. But though it might be right
to "let him alone," he could not stop
calling at Henry Roberts's house; "for,"
he reminded himself, "the believing
daughter may sanctify the unbelieving
father!" He said this once to Dr.
Lavendar, when his roan and old Goliath
met in a narrow lane and paused
to let their masters exchange a word or
two.
"But do you know what the believing
daughter believes?" said Dr. Lavendar.
He wiped his forehead with his red bandanna,
for it was a hot day; then he put
his old straw hat very far back on his head
and looked at the young man with a
twinkle in his eye, which, considering
the seriousness of their conversation,
was discomfiting; but, after all, as
John Fenn reminded himself, Dr. Lavendar
was very old, and so might be
forgiven if his mind was lacking in
seriousness. As for his question of
what the daughter believed:
"I think--I hope," said the young
minister, "that she is sound. She comes
to my church quite regularly."
"But she comes to my church quite
irregularly," Dr. Lavendar warned
him; and there was another of those
disconcerting twinkles.
The boy looked at him with honest,
solemn eyes. "I still believe that she
is sound," he said, earnestly.
Dr. Lavendar blew his nose with a flourish
of the red bandanna. "Well, perhaps
she is, perhaps she is," he said, gravely.
But the reassurance of that "perhaps"
did not make for John Fenn's peace of
mind; he could not help asking himself
whether Miss Philippa WAS a "believing
daughter." She did not, he was sure,
share her father's heresies, but
perhaps she was indifferent to them?
which would be a grievous thing!
And certainly, as the old minister had
declared, she did go "irregularly" to the
Episcopal Church. John Fenn wished
that he was sure of Miss Philippa's
state of mind; and at last he said to
himself that it was his duty to find out
about it, so, with his little sister beside
him, he started on a round of pastoral
calls. He found Miss Philly sitting in
the sunshine on the lowest step of the
front porch--and it seemed to Mary
that there was a good deal of delay in
getting at the serious business of play;
"for brother talks so much," she
complained. But "brother" went on
talking. He told Miss Philippa that he
understood she went sometimes to Old
Chester to church?
"Sometimes," she said.
"I do not mean," he said, hesitatingly,
"to speak uncharitably, but we all
know that Episcopacy is the handmaid
of Papistry."
"Do we?" Philly asked, with grave
eyes.
"Yes," said Mr. Fenn. "But even
if Dr. Lavendar's teachings are
defective,"--Mary plucked at his sleeve,
and sighed loudly; "(no, Mary!)--
even if his teachings are defective, he
is a good man according to his lights;
I am sure of that. Still, do you think
it well to attend a place of worship
when you cannot follow the pastor's
teachings?"
"I love him. And I don't listen to
what he says," she excused herself.
"But you should listen to what
ministers say," the shocked young man pro-
tested--"at least to ministers of the
right faith. But you should not go to
church because you love ministers."
Philippa's face flamed. "I do not
love--most of them."
Mary, leaning against the girl's knee,
looked up anxiously into her face. "Do
you love brother?" she said.
They were a pretty pair, the child and
the girl, sitting there on the porch with
the sunshine sifting down through the
lacy leaves of the two big locusts on
either side of the door. Philippa wore
a pink and green palm-leaf chintz; it
had six ruffles around the skirt and
was gathered very full about her slender
waist; her lips were red, and her
cheeks and even her neck were delicately
flushed; her red-brown hair was
blowing all about her temples; Mary
had put an arm around her and
was cuddling against her. Yes, even
Mary's brother would have thought
the two young things a pretty sight
had there been nothing more serious
to think of. But John Fenn's
thoughts were so very serious that even
Mary's question caused him no
embarrassment; he merely said, stiffly,
that he would like to see Miss Philippa
alone. "You may wait here, Mary,"
he told his little sister, who frowned
and sighed and went out to the gate
to pull a handful of grass for the roan.
Philippa led her caller to her rarely
used parlor, and sat down to listen in
silent pallor to his exhortations. She
made no explanations for not coming
to his church regularly; she offered no
excuse of filial tenderness for her
indifference to her father's mistaken beliefs;
she looked down at her hands, clasped
tightly in her lap, then out of the window
at the big roan biting at the hitching-post
or standing very still to let Mary rub
his silky nose. But John Fenn looked
only at Philippa. Of her father's heresies
he would not, he said, do more than
remind her that the wiles of the devil
against her soul might present them-selves
through her natural affections;
but in regard to her failure to wait
upon the means of grace he spoke
without mercy, for, he said, "faithful
are the wounds of a friend."
"Are you my friend?" Philly asked,
lifting her gray eyes suddenly.
Mr. Fenn was greatly confused; the
text-books of the Western Seminary had
not supplied him with the answer to
such a question. He explained, hurriedly,
that he was the friend of all
who wished for salvation.
"I do not especially wish for it,"
Philippa said, very low.
For a moment John Fenn was silent
with horror. "That one so young
should be so hardened!" he thought;
aloud, he bade her remember hell fire.
He spoke with that sad and simple
acceptance of the fact with which, even
less than fifty years ago, men humbled
themselves before the mystery which
they had themselves created, of divine
injustice. She must know, he said,
his voice trembling with sincerity,
that those who slighted the offers of
grace were cast into outer darkness?
Philly said, softly, "Maybe."
"'Maybe?' Alas, it is, certainly!
Oh, why, WHY do you absent yourself
from the house of God?" he said,
holding out entreating hands. Philippa
made no reply. "Let us pray!"
said the young man; and they knelt
down side by side in the shadowy
parlor. John Fenn lifted his harsh,
melancholy face, gazing upward
passionately, while he wrestled for her
salvation; Philly, looking downward,
tracing with a trembling finger the
pattern of the beadwork on the ottoman
before which she knelt, listened with an
inward shiver of dismay and ecstasy.
But when they rose to their feet she
had nothing to say. He, too, was
silent. He went away quite exhausted
by his struggle with this impassive,
unresisting creature.
He hardly spoke to Mary all the way
home. "A hardened sinner," he was
thinking. "Poor, lovely creature! So
young and so lost!" Under Mary's
incessant chatter, her tugs at the end of
the reins, her little bursts of joy at the
sight of a bird or a roadside flower, he
was thinking, with a strange new pain--a
pain no other sinner had ever roused in
him--of the girl he had left. He
knew that his arguments had not
moved her. "I believe," he thought,
the color rising in his face, "that
she dislikes me! She says she loves
Dr. Lavendar; yes, she must dislike me.
Is my manner too severe? Perhaps
my appearance is unattractive." He
looked down at his coat uneasily.
As for Philly, left to herself, she
picked up a bit of sewing, and her face,
at first pale, grew slowly pink. "He
only likes sinners," she thought; "and,
oh, I am not a sinner!"
CHAPTER II
After that on Sabbath mornings
Philippa sat with her father, in
the silent upper chamber. At first
Henry Roberts, listening--listening--
for the Voice, thought, rapturously,
that at the eleventh hour he was to
win a soul--the most precious soul in his
world!--to his faith. But when, after a
while, he questioned her, he saw that
this was not so; she stayed away
from other churches, but not because
she cared for his church. This troubled
him, for the faith he had outgrown was
better than no faith.
"Do you have doubts concerning the
soundness of either of the ministers--the
old man or the young man?" he asked her,
looking at her with mild, anxious eyes.
"Oh no, sir," Philly said, smiling.
"Do you dislike them--the young
man or the old man?"
"Oh no, father. I love--one of
them."
"Then why not go to his church?
Either minister can give you the seeds
of salvation; one not less than the
other. Why not sit under either ministry?"
"I don't know," Philippa said, faintly.
And indeed she did not know why
she absented herself. She only knew
two things: that the young man seemed
to disapprove of the old man; and when
she saw the young man in the pulpit,
impersonal and holy, she suffered.
Therefore she would not go to hear
either man.
When Dr. Lavendar came to call upon
her father, he used to glance at Philippa
sometimes over his spectacles while
Henry Roberts was arguing about prophecies;
but he never asked her why she
stayed away from church; instead, he
talked to her about John Fenn, and he
seemed pleased when he heard that the
young man was doing his duty in
making pastoral calls. "And I--I,
unworthy as I was!" Henry Roberts
would say, "I heard the Voice, speaking
through a sister's lips; and it said: Oh,
sinner! for what, for what, what can
separate, separate, from the love...
Oh, nothing. Oh, nothing. Oh, nothing."
He would stare at Dr. Lavendar
with parted lips. "I HEARD IT," he would
say, in a whisper.
And Dr. Lavendar, bending his head
gravely, would be silent for a respectful
moment, and then he would look at
Philippa. "You are teaching Fenn's
sister to sew?" he would say. "Very
nice! Very nice!"
Philly saw a good deal of the sister
that summer; the young minister,
recognizing Miss Philippa's fondness for
Mary, and remembering a text as to the
leading of a child, took pains to bring the
little girl to Henry Roberts's door once
or twice a week; and as August burned
away into September Philippa's pleasure
in her was like a soft wind blowing
on the embers of her heart and kindling
a flame for which she knew no name.
She thought constantly of Mary, and
had many small anxieties about her--
her dress, her manners, her health; she
even took the child into Old Chester
one day to get William King to pull a
little loose white tooth. Philly shook
very much during the operation and
mingled her tears with Mary's in that
empty and bleeding moment that follows
the loss of a tooth. She was so
passionately tender with the little girl
that the doctor told Dr. Lavendar that
his match-making scheme seemed likely
to prosper--"she's so fond of the sister,
you should have heard her sympathize
with the little thing!--that I think she
will smile on the brother," he said.
"I'm afraid the brother hasn't cut his
wisdom teeth yet," Dr. Lavendar said,
doubtfully; "if he had, you might pull
them, and she could sympathize with
him; then it would all arrange itself.
Well, he's a nice boy, a nice boy;--
and he won't know so much when he gets
a little older."
It was on the way home from Dr.
King's that Philippa's feeling of
responsibility about Mary brought her a
sudden temptation. They were walking
hand in hand along the road. The
leaves on the mottled branches of the
sycamores were thinning now, and the
sunshine fell warm upon the two young
things, who were still a little shaken
from the frightful experience of
tooth-pulling. The doctor had put the small
white tooth in a box and gravely presented
it to Mary, and now, as they
walked along, she stopped sometimes
to examine it and say, proudly, how she
had "bleeded and bleeded!"
"Will you tell brother the doctor
said I behaved better than the circus
lion when his tooth was pulled?"
"Indeed I will, Mary!"
"An' he said he'd rather pull my
tooth than a lion's tooth?"
"Of course I'll tell him."
"Miss Philly, shall I dream of my
tooth, do you suppose?"
Philippa laughed and said she didn't
know.
"I hope I will; it means something
nice. I forget what, now."
"Dreams don't mean anything,
Mary."
"Oh yes, they do!" the child assured
her, skipping along with one arm round
the girl's slender waist. "Mrs. Semple
has a dream-book, and she reads it to
me every day, an' she reads me what
my dreams mean. Sometimes I haven't
any dreams," Mary admitted, regretfully,
"but she reads all the same.
Did you ever dream about a black ox
walking on its back legs? I never did.
I don't want to. It means trouble."
"Goosey!" said Miss Philippa.
"If you dream of the moon," Mary
went on, happily, "it means you are
going to have a beau who'll love you."
"Little girls mustn't talk about love,"
Philippa said, gravely; but the color
came suddenly into her face. To dream
of the moon means--Why! but only
the night before she had dreamed that
she had been walking in the fields and
had seen the moon rise over shocks of
corn that stood against the sky like the
plumed heads of Indian warriors! "Such
things are foolish, Mary," Miss Philly
said, her cheeks very pink. And while
Mary chattered on about Mrs. Semple's
book Philippa was silent, remembering
how yellow the great flat disk of the
moon had been in her dream; how it
pushed up from behind the black edge
of the world, and how, suddenly, the
misty stubble-field was flooded with its
strange light:--"you are going to have
a beau!"
Philippa wished she might see the
book, just to know what sort of things
were read to Mary. "It isn't right to
read them to the child," she thought;
"it's a foolish book, Mary," she said,
aloud. "I never saw such a book."
"I'll bring it the next time I come,"
Mary promised.
"Oh no, no," Philly said, a little
breathlessly; "it's a wrong book. I
couldn't read such a book, except--
except to tell you how foolish and wrong
it is."
Mary was not concerned with her
friend's reasons; but she remembered
to bring the ragged old book with her
the very next time her brother dropped
her at Mr. Roberts's gate to spend
an hour with Miss Philippa. There
had to be a few formal words between
the preacher and the sinner before
Mary had entire possession of her
playmate, but when her brother drove
away, promising to call for her later
in the afternoon, she became so
engrossed in the important task of
picking hollyhock seeds that she quite
forgot the dream-book. The air was hazy
with autumn, and full of the scent of
fallen leaves and dew-drenched grass
and of the fresh tan-bark on the garden
paths. On the other side of the road
was a corn-field, where the corn stood
in great shocks. Philly looked over at
it, and drew a quick breath,--her dream!
"Did you bring that foolish book?"
she said.
Mary, slapping her pocket, laughed
loudly. "I 'most forgot! Yes, ma'am;
I got it. I'll show what it says about
the black ox--"
"No; you needn't," Miss Philly said;
"you pick some more seeds for me, and
I'll--just look at it." She touched the
stained old book with shrinking fingertips;
the moldering leather cover and the
odor of soiled and thumb-marked leaves
offended her. The first page was folded
over, and when she spread it out, the
yellowing paper cracked along its ancient
creases; it was a map, with the signs
of the Zodiac; in the middle was a
single verse:
Mortal! Wouldst thou scan aright
Dreams and visions of the night?
Wouldst thou future secrets learn
And the fate of dreams discern?
Wouldst thou ope the Curtain dark
And thy future fortune mark?
Try the mystic page, and read
What the vision has decreed.
Philly, holding her red lip between
her teeth, turned the pages:
"MONEY. TO DREAM OF FINDING MONEY;
MOURNING AND LOSS.
"MONKEY. YOU HAVE SECRET ENEMIES.
"MOON." (Philippa shivered.) "A
GOOD OMEN; IT DENOTES COMING JOY. GREAT
SUCCESS IN LOVE."
She shut the book sharply, then
opened it again. Such books sometimes
told (so foolishly!) of charms which
would bring love. She looked furtively
at Mary; but the child, pulling down
a great hollyhock to pick the fuzzy
yellow disks, was not noticing Miss
Philly's interest in the "foolish book."
Philippa turned over the pages. Yes;
the charms were there!...
Instructions for making dumb-cake,
to cut which reveals a lover: "ANY NUMBER
OF YOUNG FEMALES SHALL TAKE A HANDFUL
OF WHEATEN FLOUR--" That was no use;
there were too many females as it
was!
"TO KNOW WHETHER A MAN SHALL HAVE THE
WOMAN HE WISHES." Philippa sighed.
Not that. A holy man does not
"wish" for a woman.
"A CHARM TO CHARM A MAN'S LOVE." The
blood suddenly ran tingling in Philly's
veins. "LET A YOUNG MAID PICK OF
ROSEMARY TWO ROOTS; OF MONK'S-HOOD--"
A line had been drawn through this
last word, and another word written
above it; but the ink was so faded,
the page so woolly and thin with
use, that it was impossible to decipher
the correction; perhaps it was
"mother-wort," an herb Philly did not know;
or it might be "mandrake"? It looked
as much like one as the other, the writing
was so blurred and dim. "It is
best to take what the book says," Philly
said, simply; "besides, I haven't those
other things in the garden, and I have
monk's-hood and rosemary--if I should
want to do it, just for fun."
"OF MONK'S-HOOD TWO ROOTS, AND OF THE
FLOWER OF CORN TEN THREADS; LET HER SLEEP
ON THEM ONE NIGHT. IN THE MORNING, LET
HER SET THEM ON HER HEART AND WALK BACKWARDS
TEN STEPS, PRAYING FOR THE LOVE OF HER
BELOVED. LET HER THEN STEEP AND BOIL THESE
THINGS IN FOUR GILLS OF PURE WATER ON WHICH
THE MOON HAS SHONE FOR ONE NIGHT. WHEN
SHE SHALL ADD THIS PHILTER TO THE DRINK OF
THE ONE WHO LOVES HER NOT, HE SHALL LOVE
THE FEMALE WHO MEETS HIS EYE FIRST AFTER
THE DRINKING THEREOF. THEREFORE LET THE
YOUNG MAID BE INDUSTRIOUS TO STAND BEFORE
HIM WHEN HE SHALL DRINK IT."
"There is no harm in it," said Philly.
CHAPTER III
"Somebody making herb tea and
stealing my business?" said William
King, in his kindly voice; he had
called to see old Hannah, who had
been laid up for a day or two, and he
stopped at the kitchen door to look
in. Henry Roberts, coming from the
sitting-room to join him, asked his
question, too:
"What is this smell of herbs, Philippa?
Are you making a drink for Hannah?"
"Oh no, father," Philly said, briefly,
her face very pink.
William King sniffed and laughed.
"Ah, I see you don't give away your
secrets to a rival," he said; and added,
pleasantly, "but don't give your tea
to Hannah without telling me what
it is."
Miss Philippa said, dutifully, "Oh no,
sir." But she did not tell him what
the "tea" was, and certainly she offered
none of it to old Hannah. All that day
there was a shy joyousness about her,
with sudden soft blushes, and once or
twice a little half-frightened laugh; there
was a puzzled look, too, in her face,
as if she was not quite sure just what
she was going to do, or rather, how she
was going to do it. And, of course,
that was the difficulty. How could she
"add the philter to the drink of one
who loved her not"?
Yet it came about simply enough.
John Fenn had lately felt it borne in
upon him that it was time to make another
effort to deal with Henry Roberts;
perhaps, he reasoned, to show concern
about the father's soul might touch the
daughter's hardened heart. It was when
he reached this conclusion that he
committed the extravagance of buying a
new coat. So it happened that that
very afternoon, while the house was
still pungent with the scent of steeping
herbs, he came to Henry Roberts's
door, and knocked solemnly, as befitted
his errand; (but as he heard her
step in the hall he passed an anxious
hand over a lapel of the new
coat). Her father, she said, was not
at home; would Mr. Fenn come in
and wait for him? Mr. Fenn said he
would. And as he always tried, poor
boy! to be instant in season and out of
season, he took the opportunity, while
he waited for her father and she brought
him a glass of wine and a piece of cake,
to reprove her again for absence from
church. But she was so meek that he
found it hard to inflict those "faithful
wounds" which should prove his friendship
for her soul; she sat before him
on the slippery horsehair sofa in the
parlor, her hands locked tightly
together in her lap, her eyes downcast, her
voice very low and trembling. She
admitted her backslidings: she acknowledged
her errors; but as for coming to
church--she shook her head:
"Please, I won't come to church
yet."
"You mean you will come, some-
time?"
"Yes; sometime."
"Behold, NOW is the accepted time!"
"I will come... afterwards."
"After what?" he insisted.
"After--" she said, and paused.
Then suddenly lifted bold, guileless
eyes: "After you stop caring for my
soul."
John Fenn caught his breath. Something,
he did not know what, seemed to
jar him rudely from that pure desire
for her salvation; he said, stumblingly,
that he would ALWAYS care for her soul!--
"for--for any one's soul." And was
she quite well? His voice broke with
tenderness. She must be careful to
avoid the chill of these autumnal
afternoons; "you are pale," he said,
passionately--"don't--oh, don't be so
pale!" It occurred to him that if she
waited for him "not to care" for her
salvation, she might die in her sins;
die before coming to the gate of heaven,
which he was so anxious to open to her!
Philippa did not see his agitation;
she was not looking at him. She only
said, softly, "Perhaps you will stay to
tea?"
He answered quickly that he would
be pleased to do so. In the simplicity
of his saintly egotism it occurred to
him that the religious pleasure of
entertaining him might be a means of grace
to her. When she left him in the dusk
of the chilly room to go and see to
the supper, he fell into silent prayer
for the soul that did not desire his care.
Henry Roberts, summoned by his
daughter to entertain the guest until
supper was ready, found him sitting in
the darkness of the parlor; the old man
was full of hospitable apologies for his
Philippa's forgetfulness; "she did not
remember the lamp!" he lamented; and
making his way through the twilight of
the room, he took off the prism-hung
shade of the tall astral lamp on the
center-table, and fumbled for a match to
light the charred and sticky wick; there
were very few occasions in this plain
household when it was worth while to
light the best lamp! This was one of
them, for in those days the office
dignified the man to a degree that is hardly
understood now. But Henry Roberts's
concern was not entirely a matter of
social propriety; it was a desire to
propitiate this young man who was
living in certain errors of belief, so that
he would be in a friendly attitude of
mind and open to the arguments which
were always burning on the lips of
Edward Irving's follower. He did not
mean to begin them until they were at
supper; so he and John Fenn sat in
silence waiting Philippa's summons to
the dining-room. Neither of them had
any small talk; Mr. Roberts was making
sure that he could trust his memory
to repeat those wailing cadences of the
Voice, and John Fenn, still shaken by
something he could not understand that
had been hidden in what he understood
too well--a sinner's indifference to grace--
was trying to get back to his serene,
impersonal arrogance.
As for Philippa, she was frightened
at her temerity in having invited the
minister to a Hannahless supper; her
flutter of questions as to "what" and
"how" brought the old woman from her
bed, in spite of the girl's half-hearted
protests that she "mustn't think of
getting up! Just tell me what to do,"
she implored, "I can manage. We are
going to have--TEA!"
"We always have tea," Hannah said,
sourly; yet she was not really sour, for,
like William King and Dr. Lavendar,
Hannah had discerned possibilities in
the Rev. John Fenn's pastoral visits.
"Get your Sunday-go-to-meeting dress
on," she commanded, hunching a shawl
over a rheumatic shoulder and motioning
the girl out of the kitchen.
Philippa, remorseful and breathless,
ran quickly up to her room to put on
her best frock, smooth her shining hair
down in two loops over her ears, and
pin her one adornment, a flat gold
brooch, on the bosom of her dress. She
lifted her candle and looked at herself
in the black depths of the little swinging
glass on her high bureau, and her
face fell into sudden wistful lines.
"Oh, I do not look wicked," she thought,
despairingly.
John Fenn, glancing at her across the
supper-table, had some such thought
himself; how strange that one who was
so perverted in belief should not betray
perversion in her countenance. "On
the contrary, her face is pleasing," he
said, simply. He feared, noticing the
brooch, that she was vain, as well as
indifferent to her privileges; he wondered
if she had observed his new coat.
Philippa's vanity did not, at any
rate, give her much courage; she scarcely
spoke, except to ask him whether he
took cream and sugar in his tea. When
she handed his cup to him, she said,
very low, "Will you taste it, and see
if it is right?"
He was so conscious of the tremor
of her voice and hand that he made
haste to reassure her, sipping his tea
with much politeness of manner; as he
did so, she said, suddenly, and with
compelling loudness, "Is it--agreeable?"
John Fenn, startled, looked at her
over the rim of his cup. "Very; very
indeed," he said, quickly. But he
instantly drank some water. "It is, perhaps,
a little strong," he said, blinking.
Then, having qualified his politeness for
conscience' sake, he drank all the bitter
tea for human kindness' sake--for
evidently Miss Philippa had taken pains
to give him what he might like. After
that she did not speak, but her face
grew very rosy while she sat in silence
listening to her father and their guest.
Henry Roberts forgot to eat, in the passion
of his theological arguments, but as
supper proceeded he found his antagonist
less alert than usual; the minister
defended his own doctrines instead of
attacking those of his host; he even
admitted, a little listlessly, that if the
Power fell upon him, if he himself spoke
in a strange tongue, then perhaps he
would believe--"that is, if I could be
sure I was not out of my mind at the
time," he qualified, dully. Philippa
took no part in the discussion; it would
not have been thought becoming in
her to do so; but indeed, she hardly
heard what the two men were saying.
She helped old Hannah carry away
the dishes, and then sat down by the
table and drew the lamp near her
so that she could sew; she sat there
smiling a little, dimpling even, and
looking down at her seam; she did not
notice that John Fenn was being worsted,
or that once he failed altogether to
reply, and sat in unprotesting silence
under Henry Roberts's rapt remembrances.
A curious blackness had settled
under his eyes, and twice he passed
his hand across his lips.
"They are numb," he said, in surprised
apology to his host. A moment
later he shivered violently, beads of
sweat burst out on his forehead, and
the color swept from his face. He
started up, staring wildly about him;
he tried to speak, but his words
stumbled into incoherent babbling.
It was all so sudden, his rising,
then falling back into his chair, then
slipping sidewise and crumpling up
upon the floor, all the while stammering
unmeaning words--that Henry Roberts
sat looking at him in dumb amazement.
It was Philippa who cried out
and ran forward to help him, then
stopped midway, her hands clutched
together at her throat, her eyes dilating
with a horror that seemed to paralyze
her so that she was unable to move to
his assistance. The shocked silence of
the moment was broken by Fenn's
voice, trailing on and on, in totally
unintelligible words.
Henry Roberts, staring open-mouthed,
suddenly spoke: "The VOICE!" he said.
But Philippa, as though she were
breaking some invisible bond that held
her, groaning even with the effort of
it, said, in a whisper: "No. Not that.
He is dying. Don't you see? That's
what it is. He is dying."
Her father, shocked from his ecstasy,
ran to John Fenn's side, trying to lift
him and calling upon him to say what
was the matter.
"He is going to die," said Philippa,
monotonously.
Henry Roberts, aghast, calling loudly
to old Hannah, ran to the kitchen and
brought back a great bowl of hot water.
"Drink it!" he said. "Drink it, I tell
ye! I believe you're poisoned!"
And while he and Hannah bent over
the unconscious young man, Philippa
seemed to come out of her trance;
slowly, with upraised hands, and head
bent upon her breast, she stepped backward,
backward, out of the room, out
of the house. On the doorstep, in the
darkness, she paused and listened for
several minutes to certain dreadful
sounds in the house. Then, suddenly,
a passion of purpose swept the daze
of horror away.
"HE SHALL NOT DIE," she said.
She flung her skirt across her arm
that her feet might not be hampered,
and fled down the road toward Old
Chester. It was very dark. At first
her eyes, still blurred with the lamplight,
could not distinguish the footpath,
and she stumbled over the grassy
border into the wheel-ruts; then, feeling
the loose dust under her feet, she ran
and ran and ran. The blood began to
sing in her ears; once her throat seemed
to close so that she could not breathe,
and for a moment she had to walk,--
but her hands, holding up her skirts,
trembled with terror at the delay.
The road was very dark under the
sycamore-trees; twice she tripped and
fell into the brambles at one side or
against a gravelly bank on the other.
But stumbling somehow to her feet,
again she ran and ran and ran. The
night was very still; she could hear her
breath tearing her throat; once she felt
something hot and salty in her mouth;
it was then she had to stop and walk
for a little space--she must walk
or fall down! And she could not
fall down, no! no! no! he would die
if she fell down! Once a figure loomed
up in the haze, and she caught the
glimmer of an inquisitive eye. "Say,"
a man's voice said, "where are you
bound for?" There was something in
the tone that gave her a stab of fright;
for a minute or two her feet seemed to
fly, and she heard a laugh behind her
in the darkness: "What's your hurry?"
the voice called after her. And still
she ran. But she was saying to herself
that she must STOP; she must stand still
just for a moment. "Oh, just for
a minute?" her body whimperingly
entreated; she would not listen to it! She
must not listen, even though her heart
burst with the strain. But her body
had its way, and she fell into a walk,
although she was not aware of it. In a
gasping whisper she was saying, over
and over: "Doctor, hurry; he'll die;
hurry; I killed him." She tried to be
silent, but her lips moved mechanically.
"Doctor, hurry; he'll--Oh, I MUSTN'T
talk!" she told herself, "it takes my
breath"--but still her lips moved. She
began to run, heavily. "I can't talk
--if--I--run--" It was then that she
saw a glimmer of light and knew that
she was almost in Old Chester. Very
likely she would have fallen if she
had not seen that far-off window just
when she did.
At William King's house she dropped
against the door, her fingers still
clinging to the bell. She was past speaking
when the doctor lifted her and carried
her into the office. "No; don't try to
tell me what it is," he said; "I'll put
Jinny into the buggy, and we'll get
back in a jiffy. I understand; Hannah
is worse."
"Not... Hannah--"
"Your father?" he said, picking up
his medicine-case.
"Not father; Mr.--Fenn--"
As the doctor hurried out to the
stable to hitch up he bade his wife put
certain remedies into his bag,--"and
look after that child," he called over his
shoulder to his efficient Martha. She
was so efficient that when he had brought
Jinny and the buggy to the door, Philly was
able to gasp out that Mr. Fenn was sick.
"Dying."
"Don't try to talk," he said again,
as he helped her into the buggy. But
after a while she was able to tell him,
hoarsely:
"I wanted him to love me." William
King was silent. "I used a charm. It
was wicked."
"Come, come; not wicked," said the
doctor; "a little foolish, perhaps. A
new frock, and a rose in your hair,
and a smile at another man, would be
enough of a charm, my dear."
Philippa shook her head. "It was
not enough. I wore my best frock, and
I went to Dr. Lavendar's church--"
"Good gracious!" said William King.
"They were not enough. So I used
a charm. I made a drink--"
"Ah!" said the doctor, frowning.
"What was in the drink, Miss Philly?"
"Perhaps it was not the right herb,"
she said; "it may have been 'mother-wort';
but the book said 'monk's-hood,'
and I--"
William King reached for his whip and
cut Jinny across the flanks. "ACONITE!"
he said under his breath, while Jinny
leaped forward in shocked astonishment.
"Will he live?" said Philippa.
Dr. King, flecking Jinny again, and
letting his reins hang over the dashboard,
could not help putting a comforting
arm around her. "I hope so,"
he said; "I hope so!" After all, there
was no use telling the child that probably
by this time her lover was either
dead or getting better. "It's his own
fault," William King thought, angrily.
"Why in thunder didn't he fall in love
like a man, instead of making the child
resort to--G'on, Jinny! G'on!"
He still had the whip in his hand
when they drew up at the gate.
CHAPTER IV
When Philippa Roberts had fled
out into the night for help, her
father and old Hannah were too alarmed
to notice her absence. They went hurrying
back and forth with this remedy
and that. Again and again they were
ready to give up; once Henry Roberts
said, "He is gone!" and once Hannah
began to cry, and said, "Poor lad,
poor boy!" Yet each made one more
effort, their shadows looming gigantic
against the walls or stretching
across the ceiling, bending and sinking
as they knelt beside the poor young
man, who by that time was beyond
speech. So the struggle went on. But
little by little life began to gain. John
Fenn's eyes opened. Then he smiled.
Then he said something-they could
not hear what.
"Bless the Lord!" said Henry Roberts.
"He's asking for Philly," said old
Hannah. By the time the doctor and
Philippa reached the house the shadow
of death had lifted.
"It must have been poison," Mr.
Roberts told the doctor. "When he
gets over it he will tell us what it was."
"I don't believe he will," said William
King; he was holding Fenn's wrist between
his firm fingers, and then he
turned up a fluttering eyelid and looked
at the still dulled eye.
Philippa, kneeling on the other side
of John Fenn, said loudly: "I will tell
HIM--and perhaps God will forgive
me."
The doctor, glancing up at her, said:
"No, you won't--anyhow at present.
Take that child up-stairs, Hannah,"
he commanded, "and put her to bed.
She ran all the way to Old Chester to
get me," he explained to Henry Roberts.
Before he left the house that night he
sat for a few minutes at Philippa's bedside.
"My dear little girl," he said, in
his kind, sensible voice, "the best thing
to do is to forget it. It was a foolish
thing to do--that charm business; but
happily no harm is done. Now say
nothing about it, and never do it again."
Philippa turned her shuddering face
away. "Do it again? OH!"
As William King went home he apologized
to Jinny for that cut across her
flanks by hanging the reins on the overhead
hook, and letting her plod along
at her own pleasure. He was saying
to himself that he hoped he had done
right to tell the child to hold her tongue.
"It was just tomfoolery," he argued;
"there was no sin about it, so
confession wouldn't do her any good; on
the contrary, it would hurt a girl's
self-respect to have a man know she
had tried to catch him. But what a
donkey he was not to see.... Oh yes;
I'm sure I'm right," said William King.
"I wonder how Dr. Lavendar would
look at it?"
Philippa, at any rate, was satisfied
with his advice. Perhaps the story of
what she had done might have broken
from her pale lips had her father asked
any questions; but Henry Roberts had
retreated into troubled silence. There
had been one wonderful moment when
he thought that at last his faith
was to be justified and by the
unbeliever himself! and he had cried out,
with a passion deferred for more than
thirty years: "The VOICE!" But behold,
the voice, babbling and meaningless, was
nothing but sickness. No one could
guess what the shock of that
disappointment was. He was not able even
to speak of it. So Philippa was asked
no awkward questions, and her
self-knowledge burned deep into her heart.
In the next few days, while the minister
was slowly recovering in the great
four-poster in Henry Roberts's guest-room,
she listened to Hannah's speculations
as to the cause of his attack, and
expressed no opinion. She was dumb
when John Fenn tried to tell her how
grateful he was to her for that terrible
run through the darkness for his sake.
"You should not be grateful," she
said, at last, in a whisper.
But he was grateful; and, furthermore,
he was very happy in those days
of slow recovery. The fact was that
that night, when he had been so near
death, he had heard Philippa, in his first
dim moments of returning consciousness,
stammering out those distracted
words: "Perhaps God will forgive me."
To John Fenn those words meant the
crowning of all his efforts: she had
repented!
"Truly," he said, lying very white
and feeble on his pillow and looking
into Philly's face when she brought
him his gruel, "truly,
"He moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform!"
The "mysterious way" was the befalling
of that terrible illness in Henry
Roberts's house, so that Philippa should
be impressed by it. "If my affliction
has been blessed to any one else, I am
glad to have suffered it," he said.
Philippa silently put a spoonful of
gruel between his lips; he swallowed it
as quickly as he could.
"I heard you call upon God for
forgiveness; the Lord is merciful and
gracious!"
Philly said, very low, "Yes; oh YES."
So John Fenn thanked God and took
his gruel, and thought it was very good.
He thought, also, that Miss Philippa was
very good to be so good to him. In
those next few days, before he was strong
enough to be moved back to his own
house, he thought more of her goodness
and less of her salvation. It was then
that he had his great moment, his
revealing moment! All of a sudden, at
the touch of Life, his honest artificiality
had dropped from him, and he knew
that he had never before known anything
worth knowing! He knew he
was in love. He knew it when he
realized that he was not in the least
troubled about her soul. "That is
what she meant!" he thought; "she
wanted me to care for her, before I
cared for her soul." He was so simple
in his acceptance of the revelation that
she loved him, that when he went to
ask her to be his wife the blow of her
reply almost knocked him back into his
ministerial affectations:
"No."
When John Fenn got home that evening
he went into his study and shut
the door. Mary came and pounded on it,
but he only said, in a muffled voice:
"No, Mary. Not now. Go away."
He was praying for resignation to what
he told himself was the will of God.
"The Lord is unwilling that my thoughts
should be diverted from His service by
my own personal happiness." Then he
tried to put his thoughts on that service
by deciding upon a text for his next
sermon. But the texts which suggested
themselves were not steadying to his
bewildered mind:
"LOVE ONE ANOTHER." ("I certainly
thought she loved me.")
"MARVEL NOT, MY BRETHREN, IF THE WORLD
HATE YOU." ("I am, perhaps, personally
unattractive to her; and yet I wonder why?")
He was not a conceited man; but,
like all his sex, he really did "marvel"
a little at the lack of feminine
appreciation. He marveled so much that
a week later he took Mary and walked out
to Mr. Roberts's house. This time
Mary, to her disgust, was left with
Miss Philly's father, while her brother
and Miss Philly walked in the frosted
garden. Later, when that walk was
over, and the little sister trudged along
at John Fenn's side in the direction of
Perryville, she was very fretful because
he would not talk to her. He was
occupied, poor boy, in trying again not
to "marvel," and to be submissive to the
divine will.
After that, for several months, he
refused Mary's plea to be taken to visit
Miss Philly. He had, he told himself,
"submitted"; but submission left him
very melancholy and solemn, and also
a little resentful; indeed, he was so low
in his mind, that once he threw out a
bitter hint to Dr. Lavendar,--who, according
to his wont, put two and two together.
"Men in our profession, sir," said
John Fenn, "must not expect personal
happiness."
"Well," said Dr. Lavendar,
meditatively, "perhaps if we don't expect
it, the surprise of getting it makes it
all the better. I expected it; but I've
exceeded my expectations!"
"But you are not married," the
young man said, impulsively.
Dr. Lavendar's face changed; "I hope
you will marry, Fenn," he said, quietly.
At which John Fenn said, "I am married
to my profession; that is enough
for any minister."
"You'll find your profession a mighty
poor housekeeper," said Dr. Lavendar.
It was shortly after this that Mr.
Fenn and his big roan broke through
the snow-drifts and made their way to
Henry Roberts's house. "I must speak
to you alone, sir," he said to the Irvingite,
who, seeing him approaching, had
hastened to open the door for him and
draw him in out of the cold sunshine.
What the caller had to say was brief
and to the point: Why was his daughter
so unkind? John Fenn did not feel now
that the world--which meant Philippa
--hated him. He felt--he could not
help feeling--that she did not even
dislike him; "on the contrary...." So
what reason had she for refusing him?
But old Mr. Roberts shook his head.
"A young female does not have 'reasons,'"
he said. But he was sorry for
the youth, and he roused himself from
his abstraction long enough to question
his girl:
"He is a worthy young man, my
Philippa. Why do you dislike him?"
"I do not dislike him."
"Then why --?" her father pro-
tested.
But Philly was silent.
Even Hannah came to the rescue:
"You'll get a crooked stick at the
end, if you don't look out!"
Philly laughed; then her face fell.
"I sha'n't have any stick, ever!"
And Hannah, in her concern, confided
her forebodings about the stick
to Dr. King.
"I wonder," William said to himself,
uneasily, "if I was wise to tell that child
to hold her tongue? Perhaps they might
have straightened it out between 'em
before this, if she had told him and
been done with it. I've a great mind
to ask Dr. Lavendar."
He did ask him; at first with proper
precautions not to betray a patient's
confidence, but, at a word from Dr.
Lavendar, tumbling into truthfulness.
"You are talking about young Philippa
Roberts?" Dr. Lavendar announced,
calmly, when William was half-way
through his story of concealed identities.
"How did you guess it?" the doctor
said, astonished; "oh, well, yes, I am.
I guess there's no harm telling you--"
"Not the slightest," said Dr. Lavendar,
"especially as I knew it already
from the young man--I mean, I knew
she wouldn't have him. But I didn't
know why until your story dovetailed
with his. William, the thing has
festered in her! The lancet ought to have
been used the next day. I believe she'd
have been married by this time if she'd
spoken out, then and there."
William King was much chagrined.
"I thought, being a girl, you know, her
pride, her self-respect--"
"Oh yes; the lancet hurts," Dr.
Lavendar admitted; "but it's better
than--well, I don't know the terms
of your trade, Willy-but I guess you
know what I mean?"
"I guess I do," said William King,
thoughtfully. "Do you suppose it's
too late now?"
"It will be more of an operation,"
Dr. Lavendar conceded.
"Could I tell him?" William said,
after a while.
"I don't see why not," Dr. Lavendar
said.
"I suppose I'd have to ask her permission?"
"Nonsense!" said Dr. Lavendar.
That talk between the physician of
the soul and the physician of the body
happened on the very night when John
Fenn, in his study in Perryville, with
Mary dozing on his knee, threw over,
once and for all, what he had called
"submission" and made up his mind to
get his girl! The very next morning he
girded himself and walked forth upon
the Pike toward Henry Roberts's house.
He did not take Mary with him,--but
not because he meant to urge salvation
on Miss Philly! As it happened, Dr.
King, too, set out upon the Perryville
road that morning, remarking to Jinny
that if he had had his wits about him
that night in November, she would
have been saved the trip on this May
morning. The trip was easy enough;
William had found a medical pamphlet
among his mail, and he was reading it,
with the reins hanging from the crook
of his elbow. It was owing to this
method of driving that John Fenn
reached the Roberts house before Jinny
passed it, so she went all the way to
Perryville, and then had to turn round
to follow on his track.
"Brother went to see Miss Philly,
and he wouldn't take me," Mary
complained to William King, when he drew
up at the minister's door; and the
doctor was sympathetic to the extent
of five cents for candy comfort.
But when Jinny reached the Roberts
gate Dr. King saw John Fenn down in
the garden with Philippa. "Ho-ho!"
said William. "I guess I'll wait and
see if he works out his own salvation."
He hitched Jinny, and went in to find
Philippa's father, and to him he freed
his mind. The two men sat on the
porch looking down over the tops
of the lilac-bushes into the garden,
where they could just see the heads of
the two young, unhappy people.
"It's nonsense, you know," said
William King, "that Philly doesn't
take that boy. He's head over heels
in love with her."
"She is not attached to him in any
such manner," Henry Roberts said;
"I wonder a little at it, myself. He is a
good youth."
The doctor looked at him wonderingly;
it occurred to him that if he had
a daughter he would understand her
better than Philly's father understood
her. "I think the child cares for him,"
he said; then, hesitatingly, he referred
to John Fenn's sickness. "I suppose
you know about it?" he said.
Philly's father bent his head; he
knew, he thought, only too well; no
divine revelation in a disordered digestion!
"Don't you think," William King
said, smiling, "you might try to make
her feel that she is wrong not to accept
him, now that the charm has worked,
so to speak?"
"The charm?" the old man repeated,
vaguely.
"I thought you understood," the
doctor said, frowning; then, after a
minute's hesitation, he told him the
facts.
Henry Roberts stared at him, shocked
and silent; his girl, his Philippa, to
have done such a thing! "So great a
sin--my little Philly!" he said, faintly.
He was pale with distress.
"My dear sir," Dr. King protested,
impatiently, "don't talk about SIN
in connection with that child. I wish
I'd held my tongue!"
Henry Roberts was silent. Philippa's
share in John Fenn's mysterious
illness removed it still further from that
revelation, waited for during all these
years with such passionate patience.
He paid no attention to William King's
reassurances; and his silence was so
silencing that by and by the doctor
stopped talking and looked down into
the garden again. He observed that
those two heads had not drawn any
nearer together. It was not John Fenn's
fault....
"There can be no good reason," he
was saying to Philippa. "If it is a bad
reason, I will overcome it! Tell me why?"
She put her hand up to her lips and
trembled.
"Come," he said; "it is my due,
Philippa. I WILL know!"
Philippa shook her head. He took
her other hand and stroked it, as one
might stroke a child's hand to comfort
and encourage it.
"You must tell me, beloved," he said.
Philippa looked at him with scared
eyes; then, suddenly pulling her hands
from his and turning away, she covered
her face and burst into uncontrollable
sobbing. He, confounded and frightened,
followed her and tried to soothe
her.
"Never mind, Philly, never mind!
if you don't want to tell me--"
"I do want to tell you. I will tell
you! You will despise me. But I will
tell you. I DID A WICKED DEED. It was
this very plant-here, where we stand,
monk's-hood! It was poison. I didn't
know--oh, I didn't know. The book
said monk's-hood--it was a mistake.
But I did a wicked deed. I tried to
kill you--"
She swayed as she spoke, and then
seemed to sink down and down, until
she lay, a forlorn little heap, at his
feet. For one dreadful moment he
thought she had lost her senses. He
tried to lift her, saying, with agitation:
"Philly! We will not speak of it--"
"I murdered you," she whispered.
"I put the charm into your tea, to make
you... love me. You didn't die.
But it was murder. I meant--I meant
no harm--"
He understood. He lifted her up
and held her in his arms. Up on the
porch William King saw that the two
heads were close together!
"Why!" the young man said. "Why--
but Philly! You loved me!"
"What difference does that make?"
she said, heavily.
"It makes much difference to me,"
he answered; he put his hand on her
soft hair and tried to press her head down
again on his shoulder. But she drew away.
"No; no."
"But--" he began. She interrupted
him.
"Listen," she said; and then, sometimes
in a whisper, sometimes breaking
into a sob, she told him the story of
that November night. He could hardly
hear it through.
"Love, you loved me! You will
marry me."
"No; I am a wicked girl--a--a--an
immodest girl--"
"My beloved, you meant no wrong--"
He paused, seeing that she was not
listening.
Her father and the doctor were coming
down the garden path; William
King, beaming with satisfaction at the
proximity of those two heads, had summoned
Henry Roberts to "come along
and give 'em your blessing!"
But as he reached them, standing now
apart, the doctor's smile faded--evidently
something had happened. John
Fenn, tense with distress, called to him
with frowning command: "Doctor! Tell
her, for heaven's sake, tell her that it
was nothing--that charm! Tell her she
did no wrong."
"No one can do that," Henry Roberts
said; "it was a sin."
"Now, look here--" Dr. King began.
"It was a sin to try to move by foolish
arts the will of God."
Philippa turned to the young man,
standing quivering beside her. "You
see?" she said.
"No! No, I don't see--or if I do,
never mind."
Just for a moment her face cleared.
(Yes, truly, he was not thinking of her
soul now!) But the gleam faded. "Oh,
father, I am a great sinner," she
whispered.
"No, you're not!" William King said.
"Yes, my Philippa, you are," Henry
Roberts agreed, solemnly.
The lover made a despairing gesture:
"Doctor King! tell her 'no!' 'no!'"
"Yes," her father went on, "it was
a sin. Therefore, Philippa, SIN NO MORE.
Did you pray that this young man's
love might be given to you?"
Philippa said, in a whisper, "Yes."
"And it was given to you?"
"Yes."
"Philippa, was it the foolish weed
that moved him to love?" She was
silent. "My child, my Philly, it was
your Saviour who moved the heart of
this youth, because you asked Him.
Will you do such despite to your Lord
as to reject the gift he has given in
answer to your prayer?" Philippa, with
parted lips, was listening intently: "The
gift He had given!"
Dr. King dared not speak. John
Fenn looked at him, and then at Philippa,
and trembled. Except for the
sound of a bird stirring in its nest overhead
in the branches, a sunny stillness
brooded over the garden. Then,
suddenly, the stillness was shattered
by a strange sound--a loud, cadenced
chant, full of rhythmical repetitions.
The three who heard it thrilled from
head to foot; Henry Roberts did not
seem to hear it: it came from his own
lips.
"Oh, Philippa! Oh, Philippa! I do
require--I do require that you accept
your Saviour's gift. Add not sin to
sin. Oh, add not sin to sin by making
prayer of no avail! Behold, He has
set before thee an open door. Oh, let
no man shut it. Oh, let no man shut
it...."
The last word fell into a low, wailing
note. No one spoke. The bird rustled
in the leaves above them; a butterfly
wavered slowly down to settle on a
purple flag in the sunshine. Philly's
eyes filled with blessed tears. She
stretched out her arms to her father
and smiled. But it was John Fenn who
caught those slender, trembling arms
against his breast; and, looking over
at the old man, he said, softly,
"THE VOICE OF GOD."
... "and I," said William King,
telling the story that night to Dr.
Lavendar--"I just wanted to say 'the
voice of COMMON SENSE!'"
"My dear William," said the old man,
gently, "the most beautiful thing in
the world is the knowledge that comes
to you, when you get to be as old
as I am, that they are the same
thing."
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