The Rapids Part 31

It was mid-afternoon when the Evangeline, gliding smoothly over the polished surface of the bay, drew in towards the Consolidated dock, and Clark, watching from the shadow of a mountain of bales of pulp a.s.sembled for shipment, saw the Indian pilot amidship at the wheel and the bishop, in a big, coa.r.s.e, straw hat, standing in the slim bow, a coil of rope in his hands and a broad smile on his big sunburnt face.

"Catch!" The bight of the rope whistled through the air and struck smartly at his guest's feet.

The latter laughed, picked it up and made fast. It struck him suddenly that it was curious the bishop should be throwing him a rope. Then he reflected that it was the bishop and not himself who needed help.

The former was very gay, his kindly face alight with amus.e.m.e.nt and antic.i.p.ation. Presently came a throb from the engine room, and the Evangeline sheered off down the river, past the new St. Marys where staring red brick buildings shouldered up out of the old time houses, past the See Mouse, while a flag fluttered jerkily down from the tall mast at whose top it flew when the bishop was at home, past the American side, where Clark's big power house stretched its gray length at the edge of the river, and on till they came to the long point that closes the upper reach, and just then both men turned and looked up stream at the vanishing bulk of the huge structures beside the rapids, and the flat line of tremulous foam that marked the rapids themselves.

The voice of them was, at this distance, mute.

The yacht glided on and still neither spoke, Clark was full of the thought that, for the second time in seven years, he had deliberately left his work. Four hours ago the thing would have seemed grotesque, but glancing at the bishop's broad back, he realized that here was a friendly interceptor to whom he had been wise to yield. The miles slid smoothly by, and still neither talked. Each was busy with the contented reflection that in the other he had found one who possessed the gift of understanding silence.

The Evangeline rested that evening not far from where Clark had anch.o.r.ed so recently. He sat motionless, breathing in the welcome benison of the spot, till the Indian pilot put out port and starboard lamps whose soft red and green shone steadily into the gathering dusk.

"Is there a mission here?" asked the visitor presently.

"No, but there's the best ba.s.s fishing in Lake Huron," grunted the bishop placidly, already busy with rods and bait. "The mission is ten miles on. Now we're going to catch our breakfast--there's an excellent spot just opposite that big cedar."

Clark had not fished much, but he loved it, like most men of intellect, and discovered that he had been steered straight into the best fishing he had ever known. They were small mouthed ba.s.s, deep of belly and high of back, and they fought in the brown water over the twitching minnows that dangled from the Evangeline bow and stern.

"I'm glad you came." The bishop smoothed down the spines of a big three pounder ere he gripped it.

"Best thing I ever did. Fishing is a clerical pursuit, isn't it?"

The bishop nodded without turning his head. "Yes, but it's not always for money. We have to bait our hooks according to the season of men's minds. By the way, some of my best friends are in your country."

"Yes?"

"Had a church in Chicago for ten years,--there at the time of the great fire--it stopped a few blocks from my house. I had to marry a devoted couple a day or two later and the wedding fee was a bunch of candles.

Glad to get them; whole city in darkness and it seemed suitable that the parson's house should reflect light. You remind me of one of my friends at that time."

"Why and how?" said Clark. He knew so little of himself as appearing in other people's minds.

"This man was a big Chicago importer--look out, you've got another ba.s.s--and he was in New York at the time of the fire--heard his warehouses were threatened and bought trainloads of stuff and rushed it through. It arrived while the other stuff was still smoking, and he made much more than he-- My dear sir, that's the best fish of the evening, let me look at him."

Clark laid the twitching body of a ba.s.s on the teak deck, while the big man came aft, trailing his bait and slowly reeling up his line. As the minnow glimmered in towards the yacht's black side, there came a heavy plunge, the bishop's rod bent double, and the line sang off his reel.

He was a famous fisherman, and Clark watched him admiringly. To every ounce of pliant bamboo on his six ounce rod there was, down in the brown water, a pound of savagely fighting weight. Deeper went the big fish and further, but ever the taut line yielded by fractions, and the nearly doubled rod kept up a steady insidious strain. As the ba.s.s dashed back, the bishop recovered his nearly spent line while his lips pressed tight and the light of battle shone in his large eyes. For a quarter of an hour the fight lasted, till the great fish floundered once or twice with heavy weariness on the surface, and the angler worked him toward the yacht. Then a bare brown arm shot a landing net underneath his h.o.r.n.y shoulder and, with a dexterous twist, the Indian pilot landed him on the deck in a thumping tangle of line, leader and net.

"And that," said the bishop with a deep sigh of content, "will do.

We've got supper and breakfast as well."

The night deepened, and in the little saloon host and guest sat down to a supper of fried fish, blueberries and cream. The small, red curtains were drawn, and over the tiny fireplace a binnacle lamp glowed softly.

Forward in the bows, the Scotch engineer and the Indian pilot sat conversing in deliberate monosyllables, and in the east a horned moon floated just clear of the ragged tops of encircling pine trees. Clark ate slowly and felt the burden slipping from his shoulders. It was a strange sensation. Across the narrow table towered the bishop, the genius of the place. He was still reminiscent of American experiences and talked as talks a man who is comfortably sure of himself and his companion.

"I don't believe I have any very close personal friends," said Clark presently. "I've moved about too quickly to make them. One meets people in the way of work, and so far as my own employees are concerned, I see them chiefly through their work. I can't let the personal element intrude."

The bishop smiled, remembering something similar he had said himself.

"Well, I must say I'm particularly drawn to Americans. Perhaps it's because they suit the Irish, but I seem to find in them a certain intellectual generosity one recognizes at once and appreciates. There aren't so many fences to climb over. And, besides, they appear to understand my cloth."

"Yes?" Clark looked up, keenly interested. He had not thought much about the clerical profession.

"It's quite true. They realize that a parson is a man of like predilections and impulses and weaknesses with themselves, and that a ca.s.sock does not stifle the natural and healthy ambitions of the male mammal. Nothing is more trying for the cleric than to be put aside as though he were some emasculated ascetic who was unattracted by merely natural things."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Very few people have, except the cleric; and he thinks of it a good deal. There is even the tendency to believe that the parson, because he is a spiritually minded man, is incapable of horse sense in practical and public affairs. By the way, don't you smoke?"

Clark smiled and shook his head. "I've never wanted to."

"I did once," chuckled the prelate. "It was a big, black cigar inside a hedge about three miles out of Dublin. I've never smoked since.

Now, if I may go back to the clerical question, you'll probably realize that a great many mistakes are made."

"I hadn't thought much about that either."

"Probably not, but it's without question that a good many parsons realize in a year or so that they're not up to their job, especially if it's a city congregation. The young and over enthusiastic rector addressing a church full of shrewd, experienced men of affairs is often in a grievous case. I've sat in the chancel and listened and writhed myself. There's many a poor parson who would make a good engineer, and he knows it."

"Then why shouldn't he change over?" Clark was getting new avenues opened for him in hitherto unexplored directions.

"Because he's ashamed to, and the world has the habit of thinking that the man who has once been a parson is not available for anything else.

Suppose one of my missionaries came to you for a job--what would happen?"

"I'd send him to you for a letter of recommendation and then put him to work."

"I believe you would, now, but not a month ago."

"That's quite possible."

"Well, you have no conception that envy may, and sometimes does, exist in a black coated breast."

"But why envy?"

"Because devotion to one cause does not stifle natural aspirations in another. For instance I've often longed for time to do some writing, on my own account. One of my traveling preachers has invented a railway switch and I know he dreams of it and makes sketches on the margin of his sermons. No, my dear sir, the public has doubtless cla.s.sified us, and possibly correctly, but we are still fanciful, and--" the bishop hesitated and broke off.

"Go on, please." Clark's gray eyes were very penetrating and understanding.

"Possibly I've talked too much about the parson, but there's one thing that is often denied him and he longs for it intensely--companionship with his fellow men. The sacrifice of that one thing hurts more than any other privation. And now that this one-sided symposium on the parson must have taxed your good nature, let's go to bed. We lift anchor at seven-thirty, and I go over the side at seven. There's fifteen feet of water here and a sandy bottom, and if you like we'll get a few more ba.s.s first. Good night! I think you'll find everything you want in your cabin. Sleep well."

A little later Clark stepped out on deck and breathed in the ineffable serenity of the scene. A ray of moonlight lay along the inlet like a silver line. As he went down to his cabin he noticed that the other's door had swung open. Inside the bishop was kneeling by his narrow bunk, his face buried in his hands, his broad shoulders bent forward in prayer. Clark's breath came a little quickly at the strangeness of it all and, moving on tip toe, he turned the handle softly. In his own cabin, he lay for an hour staring out of the porthole at the dim world beyond. He tried to think of the works, but they receded mysteriously beyond the interlocking branches of the neighboring pines. They seemed, somehow, less imposing than formerly, and Wimperley and Stoughton and the rest of them were a long way off. There came to him the lullulant lapping of water along the smooth black side of the Evangeline. Presently he dropped into the abyss of sleep, dreamless and profound.

XIX.--THE WEB OF LACHESIS

The sun was shining level through the tree-tops when they began to fish. In fifteen minutes the bishop called a halt, dipped a bucket of water and washed his hands. Clark, still under the spell of this new friendship, saw the great amethyst of the episcopal ring gleaming softly amid the glint of fish scales, and dimly remembered the story of the Man and the Galilean fisher folk whose catch was poor till He told them where to cast. Presently the bishop stripped and went overboard into the brown water with a clean schloop, where he was instantly followed by his guest.

Here they played like schoolboys, shouting and blowing in utter physical abandonment, while the copper colored pilot stared at them with expressionless eyes and wondered mutely why people wanted to get so wet.

The bishop was like an otter, swimming under water a long way to reappear with a sharp whistle in an unexpected place. Soon the first flush of Clark's enjoyment pa.s.sed. He felt suddenly tired and turned toward the Evangeline, where a small wooden ladder had been let down just athwart the cabin c.o.c.kpit. And in that instant he felt a sharp and agonizing pain.

"Help!" he called. "Help!!" A deadly stiffness was stealing from foot to knee.