The Witness Part 4

"Well, he won't strike a good preacher. There isn't one nowadays. There are orators in the pulpit, plenty of them, but they're all preaching about politics these days, or raving about uplifting the ma.s.ses, and that sorta thing won't hurt Court. Most of 'em are dry as punk. If Court keeps awake through the service he won't go again, mark my words."

They chose a church at random, these two who had decided to go up to the house of G.o.d. High-arched and Gothic were its ma.s.sive walls, with intricate carving like lace in the stonework. Softly swung leather doors shut the sanctuary from the outer world. The fretted gold-and-blue-and-scarlet ceiling stretched away miles, as it were, in the s.p.a.ce above them, and rich carvings in dark, costly wood met the wonderful frescoes at lofty heights. The carpets were soft, and the pews were upholstered in tones to match. A great silence brooded over the place, making itself felt above and beneath the swelling tones of the wonderful organ. People trod the aisles softly, like puppets playing each his part. They bent in form of prayer for a moment and settled into silence. The minister came stiffly into the pulpit, casting a furtive eye about his congregation.

They noticed almost at once that the most unpopular professor in the university was acting as usher on the other side of the church. Tennelly frowned and looked at Courtland, who sat watching the aforesaid usher as he showed people to their seats, wondering if that man had a thing he called religion, and if he was in any way related to Stephen Marshall's Christ. This was a voyage of discovery for Courtland, this visit to a Christian church. He had scarcely been to religious services since he entered the university. He had considered them a waste of time. Now he had come to see if there was really anything in them. It did not occur to him that they had a real connection with those verses he had read in the Bible about "doing the will," or that the going or staying away from them was in any wise obligatory upon one who had allied himself with Christ. The church stood to him as to many other young pagans such as he was, for a man-made inst.i.tution, to be attended or not as one chose.

The music was not uplifting. It was well done by a paid choir, who had good voices and sang wonderful music, but they had no heart in their singing. The congregation attempted no more than a murmur of the hymns.

There was not a large congregation.

The sermon was a dissertation on the Book of Jonah, a sort of resume of all the argument, on both sides, that has torn the theological world in these latter days. Not a word of Stephen Marshall's Christ, save a sort of side reference to a verse about Jonah being three days and three nights in the whale, and the Son of Man being three days in the heart of the earth. Courtland wasn't even sure that this reference meant the Christ, and it never entered his head that it touched at the heart of the great doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. As far as he could understand the reverend gentleman the arguments he quoted against the Book of Jonah were far stronger and more plausible than those put forth in its defense. What was it all about, anyway? What did it matter whether Jonah was or was not, or whether anybody accepted the book? How could a thing like that affect the life of a man?

Tennelly watched the expressive face beside him and decided that perhaps Bill Ward had been half right, after all.

On their way back to the university they met Gila Dare. Gila all in gray like a dove, gray suit of soft, rich cloth, gray furs of the depth and richness of smoke, gray suede boots laced high to meet her brief gray skirts, silver hat with a single velvet rose on the brim to match the soft rose-bloom on her cheeks. Gila with eyes as wide and innocent as a baby's, cupid mouth curved sweetly in a gracious, shy smile, and dainty little prayer-book done in gray suede held devoutly in her little gloved hand.

"Who's that?" growled Tennelly, admiringly, when they had pa.s.sed a suitable distance.

"Why, that's Bill Ward's cousin, Gila Dare," announced Courtland, graciously. He was still basking in the pleasure of her smile, and thinking how different she looked from last evening in this soft, gray, silvery effect. Yes, he had misjudged her. A girl who could look like that must be sweet and pure and unspoiled. It had been that unfortunate dress last night that had reminded him unpleasantly of the scarlet woman and the awful night of the fire. If he ever got well enough acquainted he would ask her never to wear red again; it made her appear sensual; and even she, delicate and sweet as she was, could not afford to cast a thought like that into the minds of her beholders. It was then he began to idealize Gila.

"Gila Dare!" Tennelly straightened up and took notice. So that was the invincible Gila! That little soft-eyed exquisite thing with the hair like a midnight cloud.

"Some looker!" he commented, approvingly, and wished he were in Courtland's shoes.

"She's got in her work all right," he commented to himself. "Old Court's fallen already. Guess I'll have to buy a straw hat, it'll be more edible."

Courtland was like his gay old self when he got back to the dormitory.

He joked a great deal. His eyes were bright and his color better than it had been since he was sick. He said nothing about the morning service, and by and by Bill Ward ventured a question: "What kind of a harangue did you hear this morning?"

"Rotten!" he answered, promptly, and turned away. Somehow that question recalled him to the uneasiness within his soul for which he had sought solace in the church service. He became silent again, and, strolling away into Stephen's room and closing the door, sat down.

There was something strange about that room. The Presence seemed always to be there. It hadn't made itself felt in the church at all, as he had half hoped it would. He had taken Tennelly with him because he wanted something tangible, friendly, sane, from the world he knew, to give him ballast. If the Presence had been in the church, with Tennelly by his side, he would have been sure it was not wholly a hallucination connected with his memory of Stephen.

It was strange, for now that he sat there in that quiet room that had once witnessed the trying out of a manly soul, and saw the calm eyes of the plain mother on the wall opposite, and the true eyes of the dowdy school-boy on the other wall, he was feeling the Presence again!

Why hadn't he felt its power in the church? Was it because of the presence of such people in the temple as that little mean-souled professor, whom everybody knew to be insincere from the crown of his head to the soles of his sly little feet? Was it because the people were cold and careless and didn't sing even with their lips, let alone their hearts, but hired it all done for them?

And then there had been that call of his name when he was with Gila Dare, as clear and distinct, like a friend he had left outside who had grown tired of waiting, and worried about him. Why hadn't the sense of the Presence gone with him into the room? Would a Presence like that be afraid of hostile influences? No. If it was real and a Presence at all it would be more powerful than any other influence in the universe. Then why?

Could it be that he had gone deliberately into an influence that would make it impossible for the Presence to guide?

Or was it possible that his own att.i.tude toward that girl had been at fault? He had gone to see her regarding her somewhat lightly. As a gentleman he should regard no woman with disrespect. Her womanhood should be honored by him even if she chose to dishonor it herself. If he had gone to see Gila with a different att.i.tude toward her, expecting high, fine things of her, rather than merely to be amused by one whom he scarcely regarded seriously, perhaps all this strange mental phenomena would not have come to pa.s.s.

Finally he locked the door and knelt down with his head upon the worn Bible. He had no idea of praying. Prayer meant to him but a repet.i.tion of a form of words. There had been prayers in his childhood, brought about by the maiden aunt who kept house for his father after his mother's death, and a.s.sisted in bringing him up until he was old enough to go away to boarding-school. They were a good deal of a bore, coming as they did when he was sleepy. There was a long, vague one beginning, "Our Father which art," in which he always had to be prompted. There was, "Now I lay me," and "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless the bed I lie upon; Wish I may, wish I might, get the wish I wish to-night!" Or _was_ that a prayer? He never could remember as he grew older.

He did not know why he was drawn to kneel there with his eyes closed and his cheek upon that Bible. Strange that when he was in that room all doubt about the Presence vanished, all uneasiness about reconciling it with realities, laws, and science fled away.

Later he stood in his own room by the window, watching the great red sun go down in the west and light a ruby fire behind the long line of tall buildings that stretched beyond the campus. The glow in no wise resembled, but yet reminded him, of the fire in the glowing grate of the Dare library. Why had that room affected him so strangely? And Gila, little Gila, how sweet and innocent she had looked when they met her that morning with her prayer-book. How wrong he must have been to take the idle talk that people chattered about her and let it influence his thoughts of her. She could not be all that they said, and yet look so sweet and innocent. What had she reminded him of in literature? Ah! he had it. Solveig in _Peer Gynt_!

How fair! Did ever you see the like?

Looked down at her shoes and her snow-white ap.r.o.n!-- And then she held on to her mother's skirt-folds, And carried a psalm-book wrapped up in a 'kerchief!--

That ample purple person by her side, with the dark eyes, the double chin, and the hard lines in her painted face, must be Gila's mother!

Perhaps people talked about the daughter because of her mother, for _she_ looked it fully! But then a girl couldn't help having a foolish mother! She was to be pitied more than blamed if she seemed silly and frivolous now and then.

What a thing for a man to do, to teach her to trust him, and then guide her and help her and uplift her till she had the highest standards formed! She was so young and tiny, and so sweet at times! Yes, she was, she must be, like Solveig.

If a man with a good moral character, a tolerably decent reputation for good taste and respectability, no fool at his studies, no stain on his name, should go with her, help her, get her to give up certain daring things she had the name of doing--if such a fellow should give her the protection of his friendship and let the world see that he considered her respectable--wouldn't it help a lot? Wouldn't it stop people's mouths and make them see that Gila wasn't what they had been saying, after all?

It came to him that this would be a very pleasant mission, for his leisure hours during the rest of that winter. All thought of any danger to himself through such intercourse as he was suggesting to his thoughts had departed from his mind.

Half a mile away Gila was pouring tea for two extremely ardent youths who scarcely occupied half of her mind. With the other half she was planning a little note which should bring Courtland to her side early in the week. She had no thoughts of G.o.d. She was never troubled with much pondering. She knew exactly what she wanted without thinking any further about it, and she meant to have it.

CHAPTER V

It was a great source of question with Courtland afterward, just why it should have been he that happened to carry that telegram over to the West Dormitory to Wittemore, instead of any one of a dozen other fellows who were in the office when it arrived and might just as well have gone.

Did anything in this world _happen_, he wondered?

He could not tell why he had held out his hand and offered to take the message.

It was not because he was not trying hard, and studying for all he was worth, that "Witless Abner," as Wittemore had come to be called, had won his nickname. He worked night and day, plunged in a maze of things he did not quite understand until long after the rest of the cla.s.s had pa.s.sed them. He was majoring in sociology through the advice of a faddist uncle who had never seen him. He had told Abner's mother that sociology was the coming science, and Abner was faithfully carrying out the course of study he suggested. He was floundering through hours of lectures on the theory of the subject, and conscientiously working in the college settlement to get the practical side of things. He had the distressed look of a person with very short legs who is trying to keep up with a procession of six-footers, although there was nothing short about Abner. His legs were long, and his body was long, his arms were long, too long for most of his sleeves. His face was long, his nose and chin were painfully long, and were accompanied by a sensitive mouth that was always on the quiver with apprehension, like a rabbit's, and little light eyes with whitish eyelashes. His hair was like licked hay.

There was absolutely nothing attractive about Wittemore except his smile, and he so seldom smiled that few of the boys had ever seen it. He had almost no friends.

He had apparently just entered his room when Courtland reached his door, and was stumbling about in a hurry to turn on the light. He stopped with his lips aquiver and a dart of fear in his eyes when he saw the telegram. n.o.body but his mother would send him a telegram, and she would never waste the money for it unless there was something dreadful the matter. He looked at it fearfully, holding it in his hand and glancing up again at Courtland half helplessly, as if he feared to open it.

Then, with that set, stolid look of prodding ahead that characterized all Abner's movements he clumsily tore open the envelope.

"Your mother is dying. Come at once," were the terse, cruel words that he read, signed with a neighbor's initials.

The young man gave the gasp of a hurt thing and stood gaping up at Courtland.

"Nothing the matter, I hope," said Courtland, kindly, moved by the gray, stricken look that had come over the poor fellow's face.

"It's mother!" he gasped. "Read!" He thrust the telegram into Courtland's hand and sank down on the side of his bed with his head in his hands.

"Tough luck, old man!" said Courtland, with a kindly hand on the bowed shoulder. "But maybe it's only a scare. Sometimes people get better when they're pretty sick, you know."

Wittemore shook his head. "No. We've been expecting this, she and I.

She's been sick a long time. I didn't want to come back this year! I thought she was failing! But she would have it! She'd got her heart so set on my graduating!"

"Well, cheer up!" said Courtland, breezily. "Very likely your coming will help her to rally again! What train do you want to get? Can I help you any?"

Wittemore lifted his head and looked about his room helplessly. It was plain he was dazed.

Courtland looked up the train, 'phoned for a taxi, went around the room gathering up what he thought would be necessities for the journey, while Wittemore was inadequately trying to get himself dressed. Suddenly Wittemore stopped short in the midst of his ineffective efforts and drew something out of his pocket with an exclamation of dismay.

"I forgot about this medicine!" he gasped. "I'll have to wait for the next train! Never mind that suit-case. I haven't time to wait for it!