The Witness Part 7

"Any special clergyman?" asked the doctor, kindly.

She shook her head sadly. "We hadn't been to church yet. I was too tired. If you know of a minister who would come."

"It's tough luck," said the doctor again as they went down-stairs together, "to see a nice, likely little chap like that taken away so.

And I operated this afternoon on a hardened old reprobate around the corner here, that's played the devil to everybody, and he's going to pull through! It does seem strange. It ain't the way I should run the universe, but I'm thundering glad I 'ain't got the job!"

Courtland walked on through the busy streets, thinking that sentence over. He had a dim current of inner perception that suggested there might be another way of looking at the matter; a possibility that the wicked old reprobate had yet something more to learn of life before he went beyond its choices and opportunities; a conviction that if he were called to go he had rather be the little child in his purity than the old man in his deviltry.

The sudden cutting down of this lovely child had startled and shocked him. The bereavement of the girl cut him to the heart as if she had belonged to him. It brought the other world so close. It made what had hitherto seemed the big worth-while things of life look so small and petty, so ephemeral! Had he always been giving himself utterly to things that did not count, or was this a perspective all out of proportion, a distorted brain again, through nervous strain and over-exertion?

He came presently to a well-known undertaker's, and, stepping in, felt more than ever the borderland-sense. In this silent house of sadness men stepped quietly, gravely, decorously, and served you with courteous sympathy. What was the name of the man who rowed his boat on the River Styx? Yes! Charon! These wise-eyed grave men who continually plied their oars between two worlds! How did they look on life? Were they hardened to their task? Was their gentle gravity all acting? Did earthly things appeal to them? How could they bear it all, this continual settled sadness about the place! The awful hush! The tear-stained faces! The heavy breath of flowers! Not all the lofty marble arches, and beauty of surroundings, not all the soft music of hidden choirs and distant organ up in one of the halls above where a service was even then in progress, could take away the fact of death; the settled, final fact of death! One moment here upon the curbstone, golden hair afloat, eyes alight with joyous greeting, voice of laughter; the next gone, irrevocably gone, "and the place thereof shall know it no more," Where had he heard those words? Strange, sad house of death! Strange, uncertain life to live.

Resurrection! Where had he caught that word in carven letters twined among lilies above the marble staircase? Resurrection! Yes, there would need to be if there was to be any hope ever in this world!

It was a strange duty he had to perform, strange indeed for a college boy to whom death had never come very close since he had been old enough to understand. It came to him to wonder what the fellows would say If they could see him here. He felt half a grudge toward Wittemore for having let him in for all this. Poor Wittemore! By this time to-morrow night Wittemore might be doing this same service for his own mother!

Death! Death! Death! Everywhere! It seemed as if everybody was dying!

He made selections with a memory of the girl's beautiful, refined face.

He chose simple things and everything all white. He asked about details and gave directions so that everything would move in an orderly manner, with nothing to annoy. He even thought to order flowers, valley-lilies, and some bright rosebuds, not too many to make her feel under obligation. He took out his check-book and paid for the whole thing, arranging that the girl should not know how much it all really cost, and that a small sum might be paid by her as she was able, to be forwarded by the firm to him; this to make her feel entirely comfortable about it all.

As he went out into the street again a great sense of weariness came over him. He had lived--how many years had he lived!--in experience since he left the university at half past five o'clock? How little his past life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances, and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, and bounded on every hand by death! The walk from where he was up to the university looked like an impossibility. There was a store up in the next block where he was known. He could get a check cashed and ride.

He found himself studying the faces of the people in the car in a new light. Were they all acquainted with sorrow? Yes, there were more or less lines of hardship, or anxiety, or disappointment on all the older faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to think of it life was a terrible thing! Take that girl now, Miss Brentwood--Miss R.B. Brentwood the address had been. The name her brother had called her fitted better, "Bonnie." What would life mean to her now?

It occurred to him to wonder if there would be any such sorrow and emptiness of life for any one if he were gone. The fellows would feel badly, of course. There would be speeches and resolutions, a lot of black drapery, and all that sort of thing in college, but what did that amount to? His father? Oh yes, of course he would feel it some, but he had been separated from his father for years, except for brief visits in vacations. His father had married a young wife and there were three young children. No, his father would not miss him much!

He swung off the car in front of the university and entered the dormitory at last, too engrossed in his strange new thoughts to remember that he had had no supper.

"h.e.l.lo, Court! Where the deuce have you been? We've looked everywhere for you. You didn't come to the dining-hall! What's wrong with you? Come in here!"

It was Tennelly who hauled him into Bill Ward's room and thumped him into a big leather study-chair.

"Why, man, you're all in! Give an account of yourself!" he said, tossing his hat over to Bill Ward, and pulling away at his mackinaw.

"P'raps he's in love!" suggested Pat from the couch where he was puffing away at his pipe.

"P'raps he's flunked his Greek exam.," suggested Bill Ward, with a grin.

"He looks as if he'd seen a ghost!" said Tennelly, eying him critically.

"Cut it out, boys," said Courtland, with a weary smile. "I've seen enough. Wittemore's called home. His mother's dying. I went an errand for him down in some of his slums and on the way back I just saw a little kid get killed. Pretty little kid, too, with long curls!"

"_Good night nurse!_" said Pat from his couch. "Say, that is going some!"

"Ferget it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bill Ward, coming to his feet. "Had your supper yet, Court?"

Courtland shook his head.

"Well, just you sit still there while I run down to the pie-shop and see what I can get."

Bill seized his cap and mackinaw and went roaring off down the hall.

Courtland's eyes were closed. He hadn't felt so tired since he left the hospital. His mind was still grappling with the questions that his last two hours had flung at him to be answered.

Pat sat up and put away his pipe. He made silent motions to Tennelly, and the two picked up the unresisting Courtland and laid him on the couch. Pat's face was unusually sober as he gently put a pillow under his friend's head. Courtland opened his eyes and smiled.

"Thanks, old man," he said, and gripped his hand understandingly. There was something in Pat's face he had never noticed there before. As he dropped his eyelids shut he had an odd sense that Pat and Tennelly and the Presence were all taking care of him. A sick fancy of worn-out nerves, of course, but pleasant all the same.

Down the hall a nasal voice tw.a.n.ged at the telephone, shouting each answer as though to make the whole dormitory hear. Then loud steps, a thump on the door as it was flung open:

"Court here? A girl on the 'phone wants you, Court. Says her name is Miss Gila Dare."

CHAPTER VII

The messenger had imitated Gila Dare's petulant childish accent to perfection. At another time the three young men would have shouted over it. Now they looked at one another in silence.

"Sha'n't I go and get a message for you, Court?" asked Tennelly. For Courtland's face was ashen gray, and the memory of it lying in the hospital was too recent for him not to feel anxious about his friend. He had only been permitted to return to college so quickly under strict orders not to overdo.

"No, I guess I'll go," said Courtland, indifferently, rising as he spoke.

They listened anxiously to his tones as he conversed over the 'phone.

"h.e.l.lo!... Yes!... Yes!... Oh! Good evening!... Yes.... Yes....

No-o-o--it won't be possible!... No, I've just come in and I'm pretty well 'all in.' I have a lot of studying yet to do to-night. This is exam. week, you know.... No, I'm afraid not to-morrow night either....

No, there wouldn't be a chance till the end of the week, anyway.... Why, yes, I think I could by that time, perhaps--Friday night? I'll let you know.... Thank you. Good-by!"

The listeners looked from one to the other knowingly. This was not the tone of one who had "fallen" very far for a girl. They knew the signs.

He had actually been indifferent! Gila Dare had not conquered him so easily as Bill Ward had thought she would. And the strange thing about it was that there was something in the atmosphere that night that made them feel they weren't so very sorry. Somehow Courtland seemed unusually close and dear to them just then. For the moment they seemed to have perceived something fine and high in his mood that held them in awe.

They did not "kid" him when he came back to them, as they would ordinarily have done. They received him gravely, talking together about the examination on the morrow, as if they had scarcely noticed his going.

Bill Ward came back presently with his arms laden with bundles. He looked keenly at the tired face on the couch, but whistled a merry tune to let on he had not noticed anything amiss.

"Got a great spread this time," he declared, setting forth his spoils on two chairs alongside the couch. "Hot oyster stew! Sit by, fellows! Cooky wrapped it up in newspapers to keep it from getting cold. There's bowls and spoons in the basket. Nelly, get 'em out! Here, Pat, take that bundle out from under my arm. That's celery and crackers. Here's a pail of hot coffee with cream and sugar all mixed. Lookout, Pat! That's jelly-roll and chocolate eclairs! Don't mash it, you chump! Why didn't you come with me?"

It was pleasant to lie there in that warm, comfortable room with the familiar sights all around, the pennants, the pictures, the wild arrangements of photographs and trophies, and hear the fellows talking of homely things; to be fed with food that made him begin to feel like himself again; to have their kindly fellowship all about him like a protection.

They were grand fellows, each one of them; full of faults, too, but true at heart. Life-friends he knew, for there was a cord binding their four hearts together with a little tenderer tie than bound them to any of the other fellows. They had been together all the four years, and if all went well, and Bill Ward didn't flunk anything more, they would all four go out into the world as men together at the end of that year.

He lay looking at them quietly as they talked, telling little foolish jokes, laughing immoderately, asking one another anxiously about a tough question in the exam. that morning, and what the prospects were for good marks for them all. It was all so familiar and beloved! So different from those last three hours amid suffering and sorrow! It was all so natural and happy, as if there were no sorrow in the world. As if this life would never end! But he hadn't yet got over that feeling of the Presence in the room with them, standing somewhere behind Pat and Tennelly. He liked to feel the consciousness of it in the back of his mind. What would the fellows say if he should try to tell them about it?

They would think he was crazy. He had a feeling that he would like to be the means of making them understand.

He told them gradually about Wittemore; not as he might have told them directly after seeing him off, nor quite as he had expected to tell them. It was a little more full; it gave them a little kinder, keener insight into a character that they had hitherto almost entirely condemned and ignored. They did not laugh! It was a revelation to them.

They listened with respect for the student who had gone to his mother's dying bed. They had all been long enough away from their own mothers to have come to feel the worth of a mother quite touchingly. Moreover, they perceived that Courtland had seen more in Wittemore than they had ever seen. He had a side, it appeared, that was wholly unselfish, almost heroic in a way. They had never suspected him of it before. His long, horse-like face, with the little light china-blue eyes always anxious and startled, appeared to their imaginations with a new appeal. When he returned they would be kinder to him.

"Poor old Abner!" said Tennelly, thoughtfully. "Who would have thought it! Carrying medicine to an old bedridden crone! And was going to stick to his job even when his mother was dying! He's got some stuff in him, after all, if he hasn't much sense!"