The Minister's Charge Part 37

The other heard him. "Why, you hain't got to do anything! I'm on the reform, and you might leave everything layin' around loose, and I shouldn't touch it. Fact! You ask the ship's chaplain."

He laughed in the midst of his a.s.sertions of good resolutions, but sobered to the full extent, probably, of his face and nature, and tying Lemuel's cravat on at the gla.s.s, he said solemnly, "Mate, it's all right. I'm on the reform."

XXIII.

Lemuel's friend entered upon his duties with what may also be called artistic zeal. He showed a masterly touch in managing the elevator from the first trip. He was ready, cheerful, and obliging; he lacked nothing but a little more reluctance and a Seaside Library novel to be a perfect elevator-boy.

The ladies liked him at once; he was so pleasant and talkative, and so full of pride in Lemuel that they could not help liking him; and several of them promptly reached that stage of confidence where they told him, as an old friend of Lemuel's, they thought Lemuel read too much, and was going to kill himself if he kept on a great deal longer. The mate said he thought so too, and had noticed how bad Lemuel looked the minute he set eyes on him. But he asked what was the use? He had said everything he could to him about it. He was always just so, up at home. As he found opportunity he did what he could to console Lemuel with furtive winks and nods.

Lemuel dragged absently and haggardly through the day. In the evening he told Mrs. Harmon that he had to go round and see Mr. Sewell a moment.

It was then nine o'clock, and she readily a.s.sented; she guessed Mr.

Williams--he had told her his name was Williams--could look after the office while he was gone. Mr. Williams was generously glad to do so.

Behind Mrs. Harmon's smooth large form, he playfully threatened her with his hand levelled at his shoulder; but even this failed to gladden Lemuel.

It was half-past nine when he reached the minister's house, and the maid had a visible reluctance at the door in owning that Mr. Sewell was at home. Mrs. Sewell had instructed her not to be too eagerly candid with people who came so late; but he was admitted, and Sewell came down from his study to see him in the reception-room.

"What is the matter?" he asked at once, when he caught sight of Lemuel's face; "has anything gone wrong with you, Mr. Barker?" He could not help being moved by the boy's looks; he had a fleeting wish that Mrs. Sewell were there to see him, and be moved too; and he prepared himself as he might to treat the trouble which he now expected to be poured out.

"Yes," said Lemuel, "I want to tell you; I want you to tell me what to do."

When he had put the case fully before the minister, his listener was aware of wishing that it had been a love-trouble, such as he foreboded at first.

He drew a long and deep breath, and before he began to speak he searched himself for some comfort or encouragement, while Lemuel anxiously scanned his face.

"Yes--yes! I see your--difficulty," he began, making the futile attempt to disown any share in it. "But perhaps--perhaps it isn't so bad as it seems. Perhaps no harm will come. Perhaps he really means to do well; and if you are vigilant in--in keeping him out of temptation----" Sewell stopped, sensible that he was not coming to anything, and rubbed his forehead.

"Do you think," asked Lemuel, dry mouthed with misery, "that I ought to have told Mrs. Harmon at once?"

"Why, it is always best to be truthful and above-board--as a principle,"

said the minister, feeling himself somehow dragged from his moorings.

"Then I had better do it yet!"

"Yes," said Sewell, and he paused. "Yes. That is to say--As the mischief is done--Perhaps--perhaps there is no haste. If you exercise vigilance--But if he has been in prison--Do you know what he was in for?"

"No. I didn't know he had been in at all till we got to my room. And then I couldn't ask him--I was afraid to."

"Yes," said Sewell, kindly if helplessly.

"I was afraid, if I sent him off--or tried to--that he would tell about my being in the Wayfarer's Lodge that night, and they would think I had been a tramp. I could have done it, but I thought he might tell some lie about me; and they might get to know about the trial----"

"I see," said Sewell.

"I hated to lie," said Lemuel piteously, "but I seemed to have to."

There was another yes on the minister's tongue; he kept it back; but he was aware of an instant's relief in the speculation--the question presented itself abstractly--as to whether it was ever justifiable or excusable to lie. Were the Jesuitical casuists possibly right in some slight, shadowy sort? He came back to Lemuel groaning in spirit.

"No--no--no!" he sighed; "we mustn't admit that you _had_ to lie. We must never admit that." A truth flashed so vividly upon him that it seemed almost escape. "What worse thing could have come from telling the truth than has come from withholding it? And that would have been some sort of end, and this--this is only the miserable beginning."

"Yes," said Lemuel, with all desirable humility. "But I couldn't see it at once."

"Oh, I don't blame you; I don't blame _you_," said Sewell. "It was a sore temptation. I blame _myself_!" he exclaimed, with more comprehensiveness than Lemuel knew; but he limited his self-accusal by adding, "I ought to have told Mrs. Harmon myself what I knew of your history; but I refrained because I knew you had never done any harm, and I thought it cruel that you should be dishonoured by your misfortunes in a relation where you were usefully and prosperously placed; and so--and so I didn't. But perhaps I was wrong. Yes, I was wrong. I have only allowed the burden to fall more heavily upon you at last."

It was respite for Lemuel to have some one else accusing himself, and he did not refuse to enjoy it. He left the minister to wring all the bitterness he could for himself out of his final responsibility. The drowning man strangles his rescuer.

Sewell looked up, and loosened his collar as if really stifling. "Well, well. We must find some way out of it. I will see--see what can be done for you to-morrow."

Lemuel recognised his dismissal. "If you say so, Mr. Sewell, I will go straight back and tell Mrs. Harmon all about it."

Sewell rose too. "No--no. There is no such haste. You had better leave it to me now. I will see to it--in the morning."

"Thank you," said Lemuel. "I hate to give you so much trouble."

"Oh," said Sewell, letting him out at the street-door, and putting probably less thought and meaning into the polite words than they had ever contained before, "it's no trouble."

He went upstairs to his study, and found Mrs. Sewell waiting there.

"Well, _now_--what, David?"

"Now what?" he feebly echoed.

"Yes. What has that wretched creature come for now?"

"You may well call him a wretched creature," sighed Sewell.

"Is he really engaged? Has he come to get you to marry him?"

"I think he'd rather have me bury him at present." Sewell sat down, and, bracing his elbow on his desk, rested his head heavily on his hand.

"Well," said his wife, with a touch of compa.s.sion tempering her curiosity.

He began to tell her what had happened, and he did not spare himself in the statement of the case. "There you have the whole affair now. And a very pretty affair it is. But, I declare," he concluded, "I can't see that any one is to blame for it."

"No one, David?"

"Well, Adam, finally, of course. Or Eve. Or the Serpent," replied the desperate man.

Seeing him at this reckless pa.s.s, his wife forebore reproach, and asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I am going around there in the morning to tell Mrs. Harmon all about Barker."

"She will send him away instantly."

"I dare say."