All for a Scrap of Paper Part 18

It was a man's voice, raucous and brutal.

"No, no, you may kill me if you like, but I won't," a woman's voice replied.

Bob saw the man lift his hand to strike her, but before it fell he had rushed upon him, and hurled him aside.

"Who are you, and what do yer want?" cried the fellow, interlarding his question with foul epithets.

"No matter who I am, or what I want," replied Bob. "Leave that woman alone."

The man eyed Bob for a moment, stealthily, and then without warning rushed upon him.

A minute later the two men were struggling wildly. The man was strongly but clumsily built, and lacked the agility and muscular force of the young athlete. But Bob's victory did not come easily. Again and again the fellow renewed his attack, while the woman stood by with a look of terror in her eyes.

"Save me," she cried, again and again, "or he will kill me."

At length, by a well-planted blow, Bob sent his opponent staggering to the ground. The man was stunned for a second, but only for a second.

He raised himself to his feet slowly.

"All right, guv'ner, you have beaten me," he said. "It wasn't my fault; if she weren't so b---- obstinate, there would have been no trouble."

Then evidently hearing some one near by, he shouted aloud: "I say, Bill, come here;" and Bob realised that a new danger was at hand.

"Wait a minute, guv'ner," said the fellow, "I just want to ask your advice." But Bob was too alert to be caught in this way. Believing that there must be a police station in the village, he, too, shouted aloud.

"Help!--help!"

A minute later he found his position doubly dangerous. The one man he, after a severe struggle, had been able to overcome, but he knew that he would be no match for the two, and that the woman would be at their mercy.

"Get away while you can," he said to her; but the woman did not appear to heed him--she seemed spellbound by what was taking place.

Both men rushed on him madly, and only by a trick which he had learned as a boy did he save himself. Tripping one of them up, he was able at the same time to parry the other's blow, and keep him at bay.

His position, however, was desperate, for the second man had again risen to his feet, and prepared for another attack.

Then suddenly it was all over, the heavy thud of a policeman's truncheon was heard, and a few minutes later, with Bob's help, the two men were led away to the police station.

"Lucky for you I was near by, sir," said the constable.

"Lucky for the poor woman too," was Bob's rejoinder.

"I've had my eye on these two blackguards for a day or two," replied the policeman. "They are a bad lot, and I do not think the woman is much better than they are. Tell me exactly what happened, sir?"

The policeman nodded his head sagely when Bob had finished his story.

"Yes, sir," he said, "you have done a good night's work. I am afraid I shall have to take your name and address, because you will be called upon as witness against them. You have helped me to put my hand upon a nice little plot, and if these fellows don't get six months, I am very much mistaken."

When Bob got back to his hotel that night, and was able to think calmly of what had taken place, he was considerably perturbed.

Of course the incident in itself was sordid enough. The woman was supposed to be the wife of one of these men, and Bob by his intervention had hindered what might have been a brutal tragedy.

But that wasn't all. The thing was a commentary on his conversation with Dr. Renthall.

Two days later Bob appeared at the police court against these men, and heard with satisfaction the Magistrates sentence them both to severe punishment.

There is no need for me to tell the whole story here, a story of cruelty and theft. The fellows received less than their due in the sentence that was p.r.o.nounced, and Bob felt that he had freed society, for some time at all events, of two dangerous characters.

The local papers made quite a feature of the case and spoke with great warmth of Bob's courage, and the benefit he had rendered the community.

"I say, Nancarrow," said Dr. Renthall, when next they met, "they are making quite a hero of you. I must congratulate you."

"On what?" asked Bob.

"On the part you played in that affair."

"I am all at sea," was the young man's rejoinder. "It seems to me that according to Christian principles I should have done nothing. If I had literally interpreted the dictum: 'If a man strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also,' I should have allowed the fellow to work his will without opposition. But you see, I could not stand by and see that fellow ill-treat the woman. That was why, before I knew what I was about, I was fighting for life. Do you think I did right?"

"I see what you are driving at," replied the Professor, "and I admit you were in a difficult position."

"You said the other night," said Bob, "that force was no remedy.

Perhaps it is not a remedy, but it seems to me necessary. After all, if you come to think about it, the well-being of the community rests upon force. But for force that brute would perhaps have killed the woman. But for force the two fellows would have killed me, but it so happened that the police came up and saved me, and a policeman represents force, both moral and physical. No, force may not be a remedy, but without it, while society is as it is, everything would be chaos and mad confusion."

"You are thinking about the war, I suppose," said Dr. Renthall.

"One can scarcely think about anything else," replied Bob. "I am all at sea, Professor--simply all at sea. Oh! I confess it frankly--I admit that I acted on impulse the other night. My one thought was to master that fellow, and if I had been driven to extremes, I should have stopped at nothing, to keep him from harming the woman. For the moment there was no thought of love, no thought of brotherly feeling in my heart, I simply yielded to the impulse of my nature. The man threatened to kill his wife, and if I had not defended her I should have been unworthy to be called a man. How does that square with Christianity? Was I wrong?"

"I think you were right," said the Professor slowly. "Yes, I am sure you were."

"Then, if I were right," replied Bob, "and Germany is acting in the same spirit as that fellow was acting, is not England right in going to war? We promised to defend the Belgians, and Germany with brutal arrogance swept into their country."

"Yes," replied Renthall; "but would it not have been better for Belgium to have acted on the spirit of non-resistance? If they had, Liege would never have been bombarded. All the atrocities at Louvain would never have been heard of."

"You mean, then," said Bob, "that they should have allowed a bully like Germany to have swept through their country, without resistance, in order that they might crush France? Don't you see? If it were right for me to defend the woman against a brute; if I were right in knocking down that fellow; if the police were right in taking them both to the police station; if the Magistrates were right in sending them to prison; was not England right in attacking Germany? Nay, was she not acting in a Christian spirit in saying: 'This bully shall be crushed.'"

"Have you read the papers to-day?" asked the Professor.

"Yes."

"Did you come across that account of the correspondent who described what he had seen on the stricken field? Did you get at the inwardness of it all? You are a fellow with imagination, Nancarrow; didn't you feel a ghastly terror of war?"

"Yes," replied Bob, "but that does not clear up the question.

Meanwhile, Germany is marching towards Paris and Lord Kitchener is calling for more men. What ought I to do?"

"Read your New Testament," said the Professor, "remember the words of our Lord just before He was crucified, 'My Kingdom is not of this world, else would My servants fight.'"

"Yes," cried Bob, "but----"

"I really cannot stay any longer now," interrupted the Professor, and he slipped away, leaving Bob alone.