Captain Pott's Minister Part 7

Elizabeth met the doctor as he came down the stair.

"Miss Fox, will you be kind enough to tell me if your father has had bad news, or sudden grief?"

"Not that I know of, Doctor. Harold had just told him that he must start for Australia to-morrow when Father nearly fainted. That is all that happened."

"Then, I see no occasion for this. There is nothing organically wrong so far as I can discover. But I shall take his blood pressure to-morrow just to be on the safe side. Call me any time during the night if anything out of the ordinary happens. Keep him perfectly quiet. Good night."

Harold called Elizabeth from the head of the stair.

"Excuse me, Mr. McGowan. I shall send my brother right down."

"Please, don't do that. Your father will need you both. I shall be going."

"I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, offering her hand. "You will come again, very soon, won't you?"

"I shall call in the morning to inquire about your father."

"Thank you. Good night."

"Good night."

Mr. McGowan took his hat from the hall-tree and left the house. As he walked very slowly through the avenue of trees a strange pa.s.sage from the Bible kept tantalizing his attention. "Behold, a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone.... Then there was no breath in them.... Then from the four winds the breath came into them, and they lived."

Half provoked for allowing these words to arouse suspicion, he tried to cast them out. But the effect of them remained. He had witnessed the coming together of the dry bones of a past. Were the four winds from the four corners of the earth to give them life? Had he unwittingly helped to furnish the dry bones with breath?

He had gone but a short distance when he heard footsteps behind him.

CHAPTER IV

"One minute, Mr. McGowan," called Harold Fox. "Come with me, please."

He drew the minister aside into the path that led into the lower gardens. Once in the deeper shadows, Harold stopped.

"What have you to do with this man Phillips?" he demanded.

"What's that? Why, Mr. Fox----"

"I'd no sooner got Dad to his room than he began to mumble that you were to blame for his condition," cut in the lawyer. "He connected you in no favorable way with some woman in Australia. This man Phillips was involved, too, from what I could gather. I was questioning him when the doctor arrived, and after he was gone I could get nothing more out of him. I hate to go to Australia with him like this, and I have every reason to surmise that I won't need to go if you tell me all you know."

"I'm very sorry for your father's condition, but I see no way to help you. I don't see why he should connect me with his condition. How long ago did all this happen to your client?"

"About twenty-five years ago."

"Then it's ridiculous to a.s.sociate me with any such trouble. I was not more than born, if, indeed, that. In what way does it all affect your father, anyway?"

"That I don't know. It's a mystery to me."

"I should gladly give you aid if it were possible."

"I'm only asking that you tell me all you know."

"All an infant in arms would know would be of little value, I fear."

"But you must know something by hearsay. Father would not take this turn out of a clear sky. There must be a little moisture where there are so many clouds."

"But, Mr. Fox, I've told you----"

"See here, Mr. McGowan," broke in Harold impatiently, "don't think me thickheaded. I've been practising law long enough to smell a rat when it's round. Father knows something, and he knows you know something. In some way it involves him. His trouble to-night was purely mental."

"Suppose I am connected with all this mystery in some way, how on earth can a man call on a child's empty memory----"

"You're stalling, Mr. McGowan. Don't try that alibi stuff with me. It simply won't go."

"You refuse to accept my statement of ignorance concerning this man?"

"I most certainly do. You and Dad are pa.s.sing the buck. I thought from all reports that you would stand up to any proposition like a man, no matter how unpleasant."

"There is nothing for me to stand up to, Mr. Fox."

"You absolutely refuse to tell me what you know?"

"I absolutely refuse, for I know absolutely nothing."

Harold Fox studied the set features of the minister in the dim light of the moon. He then cordially extended his hand.

"Pardon me, sir. I believe you. But there's something d.a.m.ned crooked somewhere, and I intend to ferret it out. If Dad's in it----Well, I hope to the Lord he isn't. You'd better watch your p's and q's pretty close, for Dad mentioned the fact that Mr. Means has it in for you, and the two of them can make it h.e.l.l for you. I'm sorry to say that, but it's G.o.d's truth. I wouldn't trust Means with a pet skunk. I never have liked the fellow. I've said too much. Good night, and good luck."

Harold abruptly left, and Mr. McGowan walked slowly and heavily from the garden into the road that led toward the sea.

Following that night, things began to happen with lightning-like rapidity. A spirit of distrust and suspicion sprang up among the members of the little church over night. The congregations dwindled down, till within a month they were not one-half their original size. But in spite of the friction that was grinding at the religious machinery, Mr.

McGowan went on steadily about his work. He visited the Inn more frequently, and won no little renown among the members of the club. But here he also had his enemies, and they were becoming bolder in proportion as the church grew more hostile toward its minister. Sim Hicks, the keeper of the Inn, began an open fight against Mr. McGowan's intrusions, declaring he would make good a former threat to oust the "Psalm-singer" from the village.

One evening Mr. McGowan returned to his study deeply perplexed. What was the meaning in the unjust persecution? Not that he complained; his difficulty was rather his inability to get at the bottom of it all. He stood before his window gazing absently out into the gathering dusk, when Captain Pott quietly opened the door and entered.

"Can I come in, Mack?"

"I'd love to have you. I need company."

"Anything special wrong? I've been noticing you're getting awful thin of late. Ain't Eadie's cooking agreeing with you?"

"I'm afraid that food cooked to the queen's taste wouldn't agree with me these days."