The Witness Part 16

The office clock chimed softly out the hour of three o'clock. It was Sunday morning. Should he go to church again and search for the Presence, or make up his mind that the churches were out of it entirely and that it was only in places of need and sorrow and suffering that He came? Still, that was not fair to the churches, perhaps, to judge all by one. What an experience the night had been! Did Wittemore, majoring in philanthropy, ever spend nights like this? If so, there must be depths to Wittemore's nature that were worth sounding.

He drew his handkerchief from his inner pocket, and as he did so a whiff of violets came remindingly, but he paid no heed. Gila's letter lay in his pocket, still unread. The antiseptics were at work upon his senses and the violets could not reach him.

There were dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was in a tumble, but he looked good to Nurse Wright as she came down the hall at last to give him her report. She almost thought he was good enough for her Bonnie girl now. She wasn't given to romances, but she felt that Bonnie needed one most mightily about now.

"She didn't wake up except to open her eyes and smile once," she reported, rea.s.suringly. "She coughs a little now and then, with a nasty sound in it, but I hope we can ward off pneumonia. It was great of you to put your overcoat around her. That saved her, if anything can, I guess. You look pretty well used up yourself. Wouldn't you like the doctor to give you something before you go home?"

"No, thank you. I'll be all right. I'm hard as nails. I'm only anxious about her. You see, she's had a pretty tough pull of it. She started to walk to the city! Did you know that? I fancy she'd gone about two miles.

It was somewhere along near the river I found her. It seems she got "all in" and sat down on a door-step to rest. She must have fallen asleep.

Some tough fellows came out of a saloon--they were full, of course--and they discovered her. I heard her scream, and we had quite a little scuffle before we got away. She's a nervy little girl. Think of her starting to walk to the city at that time of night, without a cent in her pocket!"

"The poor child!" said Nurse Wright, with tears in her kind, keen eyes.

"And she left her last cent here to pay for her room! My! When I think of it I could choke that smart young sn.o.b that called on her in the afternoon! You ought to have heard her sneers and her insinuations.

Women like that are a blight on womanhood! And she dared to mention your name--said you had sent her!"

The color heightened in Courtland's face. He felt uncomfortable. "Why, I--didn't exactly send her," he began, uneasily. "I don't really know her very well. You see, I'm just a student at the university and of course I don't know a great many girls in the city. I thought it would be nice if some girl would call on Miss Brentwood; she seemed so alone.

I thought another girl would understand and be able to comfort her."

"She isn't a _girl_, that's what's the matter with her; she's a little _demon_!" snapped the nurse. "You meant well, and I dare say she never showed _you_ the demon side of her. Girls like that don't--to young _men_. But if you take my advice you won't have anything more to do with _her_! She isn't worth it! She may be rich and fas.h.i.+onable and all that, but she can't hold a candle to Miss Brentwood! If you had just heard how she went on, with her nasty little chin in the air and her nasty phrases and insinuations, and her patronage! And then Miss Brentwood's gentle, refined way of answering her! But never mind, I won't go into that! It might take me all night, and I've got to go back to my patient. But you are not to blame yourself one particle. I hope Miss Brentwood's going to get through this all right in a few days, and she'll probably have forgotten all about it, so don't you worry. I think it would be a good thing if you were to come in and see her to-morrow afternoon a few minutes. It might cheer her up. You really have been fine, you know! No telling where she might have been by this time if you hadn't gone out after her!"

The young man shuddered involuntarily, and thought of the faces of the five young fellows who had surrounded her.

"I saw a little girl in the morgue to-night, drowned!" he said, irrelevantly. "She wasn't any older than Miss Brentwood."

The nurse gave an understanding look. On her way back to her rounds she said to herself: "I believe he's a _real man_! If I hadn't thought so I wouldn't have told him he might come and see her to-morrow!"

Then she went into Bonnie's room, took the letter with the Western postmark, and stood it up against a medicine-gla.s.s on the little table beside the bed, where Bonnie could see it the first thing when she opened her eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

A little after four o'clock, when Courtland came plodding up the hall of the dormitory to his room, a head was stuck out of Tennelly's door, followed by Tennelly's shoulders attired in a bath-robe. The hair on the head was much tumbled and the eyes were full of sleep. Moreover, there was an anxious, relieved frown on the brows.

"Where in thunder've you been, Court? We were thinking of dragging the river for you. I must say you're the limit! Do you know what time it is?"

"Five minutes after four by the library clock as I came up," answered Courtland, affably. "Say, Nelly, go to church with me again this morning? I've found another preacher I want to sample."

"Go to thunder!" growled Tennelly. "Not on your tin-type! I'm going to get some sleep. What do you take me for? A night nurse? Go to church when I've been up all night hunting for you?"

"Sorry, Nelly," said Courtland, cheerfully, "but it was an emergency call. Tell you about it on the way to church. Church don't begin till somewhere round 'leven. You'll be calm by that time. So long! See you in church!"

Tennelly slammed his door hard, and Courtland went smiling to his room.

He knew that Tennelly would go with him to church. For Courtland had seen among the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the trolley on his way back to the university, the notice of a service to be held in a church away down in the lower part of the city, to be addressed by the Rev. John Burns, and he wanted to go. It might not be _the_ John Burns of course, but he wanted to see.

Worn out with the events of the night, he slept soundly until ten. Then, as if he had been an alarm-clock set for a certain moment, he awoke.

He lay there for a moment in the peace of the consciousness of something good that had come to him. Then he knew that it was the Presence. It was there, in his room. It would always be his. There might be laws attending its coming and going--perhaps in some way concerned with his own att.i.tude--but he would learn them. It was enough to know the possibility of that companions.h.i.+p all the days of one's life.

He couldn't reason out why a thing like that should give him so much joy. It didn't seem sensible in the old way of reasoning--and yet, didn't it? If it could be proved to the fellows that there was really a G.o.d like that, companionable, reasonable, just, loving, forgiving, ready to give Himself, wouldn't every one of them jump at the chance of knowing Him personally, provided there was a way for them to know Him?

They claimed it had never been proved, never could be. But he knew it could. It had been proved to him! That was the difference. That was the greatness of it! And now he was going to church again to find out if the Presence was ever there!

With a bound he was out of bed, shaved and dressed in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, and, shouting to Tennelly, who took his feet reluctantly from the window-seat, lowered the Sunday paper, and replied, sulkily:

"Thunder and blazes! Who waked you up, you nut! I thought you were good for another two hours!"

But they went to church.

Tennelly sat down on the hard wooden bench and accepted the worn hymn-book that a small urchin presented him, with an amused stare which finally bloomed into a full grin at Courtland.

"What's eating you, you blooming idiot! Where in thunder did you rake up this dump, anyway? If you've got to go to church, why in the name of all that's a bore can't you pick out a place where the congregation take a bath once a month whether they need it or not?" he whispered, in a loud growl.

But Courtland's eyes were already fixed on the bright, intelligent face and red hair of the man who stood behind the cheap little pulpit. He was the same John Burns! A window just behind the platform, set with crude red and blue and yellow lights of cheap gla.s.s, sent its radiance down, upon his head, and the yellow bar lay across his hair like a halo; behind him, in the colored lights, there seemed to stand the Presence.

It was so vivid to Courtland at first that he drew in his breath and looked sharply at Tennelly, as if he, too, must see, though he knew there was nothing visible, of course, but the lights, the glory, and the little, freckled, earnest man giving out a hymn.

And the singing! If one were looking for discord, well, it was there, every shade of it that the world had ever known! There were quavering old voices, and piping young ones; off the key and on the key, squeaking, grating, screaming, howling, with all their earnest might, but the melody lifted itself in a great voice on high and seemed to bear along the spirit of the congregation.

"I need Thee every hour.

Stay Thou near by; Temptations lose their power When Thou art nigh.

I need Thee, oh I, need Thee, Every hour I need Thee; O bless me now, my Saviour, I come to Thee!"

These people, then, knew about the Presence, loved it, longed for it, understood its power! They sang of the Presence and were glad! There were, then, others in the world who knew, besides himself and Stephen and Stephen Marshall's mother! Without knowing what he was doing, Courtland sang. He did not know the words, but he felt the spirit, and he groped along in syllables as he caught them.

Tennelly sat gazing around him, highly amused, not attempting to suppress his mirth. His eyes fairly danced as he observed first one absorbed wors.h.i.+per, and then another, intent upon the song. He fancied himself taking off the old elder on the other side of the aisle, and the intense young woman with the large mouth and the feather in her hat. Her voice was killing. He could make the fellows die laughing, singing as she did, in a high falsetto.

He looked at Courtland to enjoy it with him, and lo! Courtland was singing with as much earnestness as the rest; and upon his face there sat a high, exalted look that he had never seen there before. Was it true that the fire and the sickness had really affected Court's mind, after all? He had seemed so like his old self lately that they had all hoped he was getting over it.

During the prayer Courtland dropped his head and closed his eyes.

Tennelly glanced around and marveled amusedly at the serious att.i.tude of all. Even a row of tough-looking kids on the back seats had at least one eye apiece squinted shut during the prayer, and almost an atmosphere of reverence upon them.

Tennelly prided himself upon being a student of human nature, and before he knew it he was interested in this ma.s.s of common people about him.

But now and again his gaze went uneasily back to Courtland, whose eyes were fixed intently upon the preacher, as if the words he spoke were of real importance to him.

Tennelly sat back in wonder and tried to listen. It was all about a mysterious companions.h.i.+p with G.o.d, stuff that sounded like "rot" to him; uncanny, unreal, mystical, impossible! Could it be true that Court, their peach of a Court, whose sneer and criticism alike had been dreaded by all who came beneath them--could it be that so sensible and scholarly and sane a mind as Court's could take up with a superst.i.tion like that?

For it was to Tennelly foolishness.

He owned to a certain amount of interest in the emotional side of the sermon. It was true that the little man could sway that uncouth audience mightily. He felt himself swayed in the tenderer side of his nature, but of course his superior mind realized that it was all emotion; interesting as a study, but not to be taken seriously for a moment. It wasn't a healthy thing for Court to see much of this sort of thing. All this talk of a cross, and one dying for all! Mere foolishness and superst.i.tion! Very beautiful, and perhaps allegorical, but not at all practical!

The minister was down by the door before they got out, and grasped Courtland's hand as if he were an old friend, and then turned and grasped Tennelly's. There was something so genuine and sincere about his face that Tennelly decided that he must really believe all that junk he had been preaching, after all. He wasn't a fake, he was merely a good, wholesome sort of a fanatic. He bowed pleasantly and said a few commonplaces as he pa.s.sed out.

"Seems to be a good sort," he murmured to Courtland. "Pity he's tied down to that sort of thing!"

Courtland looked at him sharply. "Is that the way you feel about it, Nelly?" There was something half wistful in his tone.

Tennelly looked at him sharply. "Why, sure! I think he's a bigger man than his job, don't you?"