Bert Lloyd's Boyhood Part 31

And yet these people had souls to save, and even though they might seem sunken in sin beyond all hope of recovery, they had children that might be trained to better ways and a brighter future. It was these children that Dr. Chrystal had in mind when he spoke to Bert. A union mission school had lately been established in the very heart of this unattractive district, and it was sorely in need of workers.

Both Bert and Frank were quite competent to undertake work of this kind, did they but give their minds to it, and Dr. Chrystal was anxious to have their interest in it thoroughly aroused before he went away.

After a few moments' silence, during which his brain had been very busy with conflicting thoughts, Bert looked up into his pastor's face, and said, in a doubtful way:

"Don't you think, sir, that is rather hard work to put us at at first?"

Dr. Chrystal gave him a tender smile. "It is hard work, I know, Bert,"

said he. "I would not for a moment try to argue that it is anything else, but I am none the less desirous of seeing you engaged in it. You and Frank would make splendid recruiting sergeants for the little mission school, and you could be very helpful in keeping order, or even in teaching at the morning session. By doing this you would not interfere with either your church-going or your own Sunday school in the afternoon. I wish you would talk the matter over with Frank, and, of course, consult your parents about it."

Bert readily promised that he would do this, for although he, as was natural enough, shrank from undertaking what could not be otherwise than trying and difficult work, yet he felt that if his father fully approved of it, and Frank took it up heartily, he would be able at least to give it a trial. Dr. Chrystal was evidently well pleased with the result of the conversation, and in parting with Bert took his hand in his, and pressing it warmly, said:

"G.o.d's best blessings be upon you, Bert. You are fitted to do good work for Him. May you ever be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

Little did Bert imagine that these would be the last words Dr. Chrystal would address to him personally, or that, as he turned away with a seraphic smile upon his face, he would see him but once more alive.

The following Sunday was the last that Dr. Chrystal would spend with his congregation previous to his going away, and as he appeared before them at the morning service it was the general opinion that his abstention from work was taking place none too soon, for he certainly seemed to sorely need it.

In spite of evident weakness, he preached with unabated eloquence and fervour. Indeed, he was perhaps more earnest than usual, and his sermon made a profound impression upon the congregation that thronged the church. In the afternoon he visited the Sunday school, and said a word or two to each one of the teachers as he pa.s.sed up and down the cla.s.ses.

The evening service found the church filled to its utmost capacity, and a smile of inexpressible love and sweetness illuminated the pastor's pale face as he came out from the study, and beheld the mult.i.tude gathered to hear the Gospel from his lips.

"Doesn't he look like an angel?" whispered Bert to Frank, as the boys sat together in their accustomed place.

"He doesn't simply look like one. He is one," Frank whispered back, and Bert nodded his a.s.sent.

The service proceeded with singing, and prayer, and Bible reading, and then came the sermon. Dr. Chrystal was evidently labouring under strong emotion. His words did not at first flow with their wonted freedom, and some among his listeners began to think it would have been well if he had not attempted to preach. But presently all this hesitation pa.s.sed away, and he launched out into an earnest impa.s.sioned appeal to his people to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Although he did not say expressly that this might be the last time he would ever speak to them from the pulpit, there was something in his manner that showed this thought was present in his mind.

He had got about half through his sermon, and every eye in that congregation was fixed upon him, and every ear attent to his burning words, when suddenly he stopped. A deadly pallor took possession of his face; he pressed his left hand with a gesture of pain against his heart, while with the other he strove to steady himself in the pulpit. For a moment he stood there silent, and swaying to and fro before the startled congregation; and then, ere Mr. Lloyd, who had been watching him intently all through the service, could spring up the steps to his side, he fell back with a dull thud upon the cushioned seat behind him, and thence sank to the floor.

When Mr. Lloyd reached him, and bending down lifted him in his strong arms from the floor, Dr. Chrystal opened his eyes, looked upon his friend with a smile that seemed a reflection from heaven, breathed softly the words: "The Lord be with you," and then, with a gentle sigh, closed his eyes to open them again in the presence of the Master he had served so well.

It is not possible to describe the scene that followed, when all present became aware that their beloved pastor had gone from them upon a journey from which there could be no returning. They were so stunned, saddened, and bewildered that they knew not what to do with themselves. The men and women sat weeping in their seats, or wandered aimlessly about the aisles to speak with one another, while the children, not realising the full import of what had happened, looked on in fear and wonder. It was some time before the congregation dispersed. Dr. Chrystal's body was tenderly carried into the study, and there was nothing more to do; and yet they lingered about as if hoping that perhaps it might prove to be only a faint or trance, after all, for it seemed so hard to believe the dreadful truth.

As Bert and Frank walked home together, with hearts full to overflowing and tear-stained faces, Mr. Silver caught up to them, and pushing them apart, took an arm of each. For a few steps he said nothing; and then, as if musing to himself:

"'G.o.d buries His workmen, but His work goes on.' Our pastor has gone. He is not--because G.o.d has taken him--not dead, but translated. Upon whom will his mantle fall, boys?"

"I am sure I don't know, Mr. Silver," replied Bert. "But this I do know, that we can never have a better minister."

"No, I suppose not--according to our way of thinking, at all events; but we must not let that thought paralyse our energies. The vacant pulpit has its lesson for each one of us, boys," returned Mr. Silver.

"Yes, it means work, and it seems so strange that Dr. Chrystal should have spoken to me as he did the very last time he saw me," said Bert.

And then he proceeded to repeat the conversation concerning the city mission work.

"I am so glad he spoke to you about that," said Mr. Silver. "I had intended doing so myself, but it has been far better done now. You will do what you can, both of you?"

"Yes, we will," replied Bert and Frank together, in tones of unmistakable purpose.

"Perhaps, then," said Mr. Silver, reflectively, "the question I asked a moment ago may yet be answered by you, dear boys. Would you like to think that Dr. Chrystal's mantle should fall upon you, and that in due time you should take up the glorious work he has just laid down? To what n.o.bler career can a man aspire than that of being one of the Master's shepherds?"

The boys were silent. The thought was new to them, and altogether too great to be grasped at once. And Mr. Silver wisely did not press them for an answer before he bade them "Good-night, and G.o.d bless you both."

But his question remained in their minds. It proved a seed thought that in the case of one of them was later on destined to find itself in good ground, and to spring up and bear goodly fruit.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

A BOY NO LONGER.

Frank and Bert put their hearts into the city mission work, just as they did into everything else that they undertook, and it was well they did.

For surely nothing save genuine zeal, and fidelity to a strong purpose could have carried them through the experiences that awaited them. The mission school was still small and struggling. But for the almost heroic energies of its superintendent, a clerk in a city banking house, it could not have been carried on at all. He was a small, slight, fragile-looking man, but he had a heart big enough for a giant, and having consecrated his spare hours to this most unattractive of all phases of Christian work, he carried it on with a self-denying earnestness that no difficulties could dampen, nor obstacles appal. He was as ready with his purse, to the extent of its slender ability, as he was with his Bible, and his splendid unselfishness was so well appreciated by the dangerous degraded beings among whom he toiled, that alone and unprotected he might go among them at any hour of the day or night, and meet with nothing but respect and rude courtesy.

Such a man was David McMaster, under whose direction Bert and Frank lost no time in placing themselves; and a right glad welcome they had from him, his pale, thin face fairly glowing with pleasure at the addition to his force of two such promising recruits. With him they went the rounds of squalid tenements, hideous back alleys, and repulsive shanties, the tattered children gazing at them with faces in which curiosity was mingled with aversion, and their frousy parents giving them looks of enmity and mistrust, no doubt because they were so clean and well dressed.

But apparently noting nothing of this, Mr. McMaster led the way from one rookery to another, introducing his new workers to their wretched inhabitants with an easy grace that disarmed all suspicion, and made them feel that so long as he was the presiding genius of the school, they had nothing to fear in the worst locality.

The following Sunday morning they began work on their own account. The school was held at ten o'clock, closing just in time to permit the teachers to get to church, and the part a.s.signed to Bert and Frank was to go out into the highways and byways, and invite the children playing in the dirt to come to the school, or else to go to the homes, if such they could be called, of those whose names were already upon the roll, and secure their attendance at the service.

Then when the school opened they found plenty to do, distributing the hymn books, helping in the singing, keeping a sharp look-out for unruly behaviour, watching the door lest any scholar should take it into his head to bolt, insuring an equitable division of the picture papers, and so on until the hour came to close the school, and they turned their steps churchward, feeling with good reason that they had really been doing work for G.o.d, and hard work, too.

They soon grew to love Mr. McMaster as much as they admired his zeal. He was in many ways a quaint, curious character. His body seemed so small and insignificant, and his spirit so mighty. He knew neither fear nor despair in the prosecution of his chosen work, and it was impossible to be a.s.sociated with him without being infected by his unquenchable ardour. For some time no special incident marked their work, and then Bert had an experience that might have brought his part with it to an end had he been made of less st.u.r.dy stuff.

In company with Mr. McMaster he was making the usual round previous to the opening of the school, beating up unreliable scholars, and had entered a damp, noisome alley, lined on either side with tumble-down apologies for houses. Mr. McMaster took one side and Bert the other, and they proceeded to visit the different dwellers in this horrible place.

Bert had knocked at several doors without getting any response, for the people were apt to lie in bed late on Sunday morning, and then his attention was aroused by sounds of crying mingled with oaths, that came from the garret of a villainous-looking tenement. He could hear the voices of a woman and of a child raised in entreaty and terror, and without pausing to consider the consequences, sprang up the broken stairs to the room from which they issued.

On opening the door a scene presented itself that would have stirred the sympathies of a man of stone. Pat Brannigan, the big wharf labourer, had devoted the greater portion of his week's wages to making himself and his boon companions drunk with the vile rum dealt out at the groggery hard by. At midnight he had stumbled home, and throwing himself upon his bed sought to sleep off the effects of his carouse. Waking up late in the morning with a raging headache, a burning tongue, and bloodshot eyes, he had become infuriated at his poor, little girl, that cowered tremblingly in a corner, because she would not go out and get him some more drink. Half-crazed, and utterly reckless, he had sprung at the child, and might have inflicted mortal injury upon her had not the mother interposed, and kept him at bay for a moment, while she joined her shrieks to those the girl was already uttering.

It was just at this moment that Bert entered the room. As quick as a flash he sprang to Pat Brannigan's side, and seized his arm now uplifted to strike down the unhappy wife. With a howl of rage the big brute turned to see who had thus dared to interfere. He did not know Bert, and his surprise at seeing a well-dressed stranger in the room made him hesitate a moment. Then with an oath he demanded:

"Who may you be, and what's your business here?"

Bert looked straight into his eyes, as he answered, quietly:

"I heard the noise, and I came in to see what was the matter."

"Then you can just be taking yourself off again as fast as you like,"

growled the giant, fiercely.

Bert did not stir.

"Be off with you now. Do you hear me?" shouted Brannigan, raising his clenched fist in a way there was no mistaking.

Still Bert did not move.

"Then take that," yelled Brannigan, aiming a terrible blow at the boy.