August First Part 5

"No such person ever been in town," he answered coldly, after a moment's staring. The man who had hurried a thousand miles to ask the question, set his bag on the floor and faced the postmaster grimly.

"He must have been," he stated. "I sent a lot of letters to him last year, and they reached him."

"Oh--last year," the official answered stonily. "He might 'a' been here last year. I only came January." And he turned with insulted gloom to his labors.

McBirney leaned as far as he might into the little window. "Look here," he adjured the man inside, "do be a Christian about this. I've come from the East, a thousand miles, to find Halarkenden, and I know he was here seven months ago. It's awfully important. Won't you treat me like a white man and help me a little?"

Few people ever resisted Geoffrey McBirney when he pleaded with them.

The stolid potentate turned back wondering, and did not know that what he felt stirring the dried veins within him was charm. "Why, sure," he answered slowly, astonished at his own words, "I'll help you if I can.

Glad t' help anybody."

There was a c.o.c.k-sure a.s.sistant in the back of the dirty sanctum, and to him the friend of mankind applied.

"Halarkenden--Robert," the a.s.sistant snapped out. "'Course. I remember. Gardener up to the Edward Reidses," and McBirney thrilled as if an event had happened. "Uncle Ted" was "the Edward Reidses." It might be her name--Reid.

"He went away six or seven months ago, I think," McBirney suggested, breathing a bit fast. "I thought he might be back by now."

"Nawp," said the c.o.c.k-sure one. "I remember. 'Course. Family broke Up. Old man died."

"No, he didn't," the parson interrupted tartly. "He went to Germany."

"Aw well, then, 'f you know mor'n I do, maybe he did go to Germany.

Anyhow, the girl got married. And Halarkenden, he ain't been around since. Leastaways, ain't had no letters for him." There was an undue silence, it appeared to the officials inside the window. "That all?"

demanded c.o.c.ksure, thirsting to get back to work.

"What 'girl' do you speak of--who was married?" McBirney asked slowly.

"Old man's niece. Miss----"

But the name never got out. McBirney cut across the nasal speech. He would not learn that name in this way. "That's all," he said quickly.

"Thank you. Good-by."

So Geoffrey McBirney went back to St. Andrews. And the last state of him was worse than the first.

WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House, May 26th.

RICHARD MARSTON, ESQ.

C/r Marston & Brooks, Consulting Engineers, Boston.

DEAR d.i.c.k--

Of course I'll go, unless something happens, as per usual. I've got the last three weeks of June, and nowhere in particular to waste them at. Shall I come to Boston, or where do we meet? Let me know when we're to start; likewise what I am to bring. Do you take a trunk, or do we send the things ahead by express? I've never been on a long motor trip before. I'm mighty glad to go; it's just what I would have wanted to do, if I'd wanted to do anything. Doesn't sound eager, does it? What I mean is, it will be out-of-doors and I need that a good deal; and it will be with you, which I need more.

The chances are you won't find me gay. It's been a rotten winter, mostly, and it's left me not up to much. Not up to anything, in fact.

Things have happened, and the bottom dropped out last autumn.

The fact is, I'm going to clear out. Try something else. I want to talk to you about that--I mean about the new job. I'd thought, maybe, of a school up in the country. I like youngsters. You remember that Scotch lad--the one with the money? I wrote you--I tutored him in Latin. That's where I got the notion. I had luck with him, And I've missed him a lot since. So maybe that's the thing. I don't know.

We'll talk. Anyhow, this is ended.

I never let out what I thought about your being so decent, that night at college, when I said I was going to be a parson; the chances are I never will. But that's largely why I'm telling you this. I'm flunking my job--I have flunked it; the letter to the rector is written--he's to get it at the end of his holiday. I think I've stopped caring what other people will say, but I hate to hurt him. But you see, I thought it through, and it's the only thing to do--just to get out. I picked one definite job, for a sort of test, and it fell through. That settled it.

I wanted to tell you for old sake's sake. Besides, I somehow needed to have you know. And so now I'm going motoring with you. Write me about the trunk, and about when and where.

As ever, MAC.

P. S. We needn't see people, need we?

The automobile with the two young men in the front seat sped smoothly over June roads. For a week they had been covering ground day after day; to-night they were due at d.i.c.k Marston's cousin's country house to stop for three days before the return trip through the mountains.

"d.i.c.k," reflected Geoffrey McBirney aloud, "consider again about dropping me in Boston. I'll be as much good at a house-party as a c.r.a.pe veil at a dance. You're an awful a.s.s to take me."

"That's up to me," remarked d.i.c.k. "Get your feet out of the gears, will you? The Emorys are keen for you and I said I'd bring you, and I will if I have to do it by the scruff of the neck. Don Emory is away but will be back to-morrow."

"Splendid!" said McBirney, and then, "I won't kick and scream, you know. I'll merely whine and sulk," he went on consideringly. "I'll hate it, and I'll be ugly-tempered, and they'll detest me. Up to you, however."

"It is," responded Marston, and no more was said. So that at twilight they were speeding down the long, empty ocean drive with good salt air in their faces, and lights of cottages spotting the opal night with orange blurs. It was a large, gay house-party, and the person who had been called, it was told from one to another, "the young Phillips Brooks," a person who brought among them certain piquant qualities, was a lion ready to their hand. With the general friendliness of a good man of the world, there was something beyond; there was reality in the friendliness, yet impersonality--a detached att.i.tude; the man had no axes to grind for himself; one felt at every turn that this important universe of the _haute monde_ was unimportant to him. Through his civility there was an outcropping of savage honesty which made the house-party sit up straight, more than once. Emerson says, in a better-made sentence, that the world is at the feet of him who does not want it. Geoffrey McBirney had taken a long jump, years back, and cleared the childishness, lifelong in most of us, of wanting the world.

There is an attraction in a person who has done this and yet has kept a love of humanity. Witness St. Francis of a.s.sisi and other notables of his ilk.

The people at Sea-Acres felt the attraction and tried to lionize the dark, tall parson with the glowing, indifferent eyes. But the lion would not roar and gambol; the lion was a reserved beast, it seemed, with a suggestion of unbelievable, yet genuine, distaste under attentions. That point was alluring. One tried harder to soften a brute so worth while, so difficult. Three or four girls tried. The lion was outwardly a gentle lion, pleasant when cornered, but seldom cornered. He managed to get off on a long walk alone when Angela, of nineteen, meant him to have played tennis, on the second day.

The June afternoon was softening to a rosy dimness as he came in, very tired physically, hot and grimy, and sick of soul. "Glory be, tea-time's over, and they'll be dressing for dinner," he murmured, and turned a corner on eight of "them." A glance at the gay group showed two or three new faces. More guests! McBirney set his teeth. But he had no s.p.a.ce to take note of the arrivals, for Angela spoke.

"Just in time, Mr. McBirney," Angela greeted him. "Don Emory's coming--see!" A car was spinning up the drive.

"Is he?" he answered perfunctorily. And the two words were clipped from history even as they were spoken, by a cry that rang from the group of people. Tod Winthrop ought to have been in bed. It was six-thirty, and he was four years old, but his mother had forgotten him, and his nurse had a weakness for the Emorys' second man; it was also certain that if a storm-centre could be found, he would be its nucleus. Out he tumbled from the shrubbery, exactly in front of the incoming automobile, as unpleasant a spoiled infant as could be imagined, yet a human being with a life to save. McBirney, standing in the drive, whirled, saw the small figure, ten feet down the drive, the machine close upon it; there was time for a man to spring aside; there was no time to rescue a child. A lightning wave of repulsion flooded him. "Have I got to throw myself down there and get maimed--for a fool child whom everybody detests?" Without words the thought flooded him, and then in a strong defiance, the utter honesty of his soul caught him. "I won't! I won't!" he shouted, and was conscious of the clamor of many voices, of a rus.h.i.+ng movement, of a man's scream across the tumult: "It's too late--for G.o.d's sake _don't_!"

It was a day later when he opened his eyes. d.i.c.k Marston sat there.

"Shut up," ordered d.i.c.k.

"I haven't----"

"No, and you won't--you're not to talk. Shut up. That's what you're to do."

The eyes closed; he was inadequate to argument. In five minutes they opened again.

"None of your eloquence now," warned d.i.c.k.

"One thing----"

"No," firmly.

"But, d.i.c.k, it's torturing me. Was the child killed?"

d.i.c.k Marston's face looked curious. "Great Scott! don't you know what you----"

McBirney groaned inwardly. "Yes, I know. I was a coward. But I've got to know if--the kid--was killed."