Friar Tuck Part 6

As soon as the Friar had finished tyin' up the wound, he turned and walked up to Ty Jones. "Friend," he said, "I don't bear you a grain o'

malice, and nothing you can ever do to me will make me bear you a grain o' malice. I know a lot about medicine, and perhaps I can help you that way sometime. I want to get a start with you some way; I want to be welcome here, and I wish 'at you'd give me a chance."

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" sneered Ty Jones. "Do you think you can soft-soap me as easy as you did the boys? You're not welcome here now, and you never will be. I've heard all this religious chatter, and there's nothin' in it. The world was always held by the strong, by the men who hated their enemies and stamped them out as fast as they got a chance; and it always will be held by the strong. Your religion is only for weaklings and hypocrits."

The Friar's face lighted. "Will you discuss these things with me?" he asked. "I shall not eat until this scratch is healed, I have my own bed and will not bother you; won't you just be decent enough to invite me to camp here, give me free use of water, and gra.s.s for my hosses, while you and I discuss these things fully?"

"I told you I didn't want you about, and I don't," sez Ty. "The's nothin' on earth so useless as a preacher, and I can't stand 'em."

"Let me work for you," persisted the Friar. "All I ask is a chance to show 'at I'm able to do a man's work, and all the pay I ask is a chance to hold service here on Sundays. If I don't do my work well, then you can make me the laughin' stock o' the country; but I tell you right now that if you turn me away without a show, it will do you a lot more harm than it will me."

Ty thought 'at probably the Friar had got wind o' some of his devilment, and was hintin' that his own neck depended on his men keepin' faith with him; so he stared at the Friar to see if it was a threat.

The Friar looked back into his eyes with hope beamin' in his own; but after a time Ty Jones scowled down his brows an' pointed the way 'at the Friar had come. "Go," sez he, stiff as ever. "The' ain't any room for you on the Cross brand range; and if ya try anything underhanded, I'll hunt ya down and put ya plumb out o' the way."

So the Friar he caught his ponies and hit the back trail; but still it had been purty much of a drawn battle, for Ty Jones's men had used their eyes and their ears, and they had to give in to themselves 'at the preacher had measured big any way ya looked at him; while their own boss had dogged it in the manger to a higher degree 'n even they could take glory in.

As the Friar rode away, he sagged in his saddle with his head bent over; and they thought him faint from his wound; but the truth was, that he was only a little sad to think 'at he had lost. He was human, the Friar was; he used to chide himself for presumptin' to be impatient; but at the same time he used to fidget like a nervous hoss when things seemed to stick in the sand; and he didn't sing a note as long as he was on the Cross brand range-which same was an uncommon state for the Friar to be in, him generally marchin' to music.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE HOLD-UP

This was the way the Friar started out with us; and year after year, this was the way he kept up. He was friendly with every one, and most every one was friendly with him. Some o' the boys got the idea that he packed his guns along as a bluff; so they put up a joke on him.

They lay in wait for him one night as he was comin' up the goose neck.

I, myself, didn't rightly savvy just how he did stand with regard to the takin' of human life in self-defence; but I knew mighty well 'at he wasn't no bluffer, so I didn't join in with the boys, nor I didn't warn him; I just scouted along on the watch and got up the hill out o'

range to see what would happen.

He came up the hill in the twilight, singin' one of his favorite marchin' songs. I've heard it hundreds of times since then, and I've often found myself singin' it softly to myself when I had a long, lonely ride to make. That was a curious thing about the Friar: he didn't seem to be tampin' any of his idees into a feller, but first thing the feller knew, he had picked up some o' the Friar's ways; and, as the Friar confided to me once, a good habit is as easy learned as a bad, and twice as comfortin'.

Well, he came up the pa.s.s shufflin' along at a steady Spanish trot as was usual with him when not overly rushed, and singin':

"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah!

Pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but Thou art mighty; Hold me with Thy powerful hand."

He came up out of the pa.s.s with his head thrown back, and his boy's face s.h.i.+nin' with that radiatin' joy I haven't ever seen in another face, exceptin' it first caught the reflection from the Friar's; and the notion about died out o' the boys' minds. They were all friends of his and wouldn't have hurt his feelin's for a lot; but they had itched about his weapons for such a spell that they finally had to have it out; so when he rounded a point o' rock, they stepped out and told him to put his hands up.

They were masked and had him covered, and his hands shot up with a jerk; but he didn't stop his singin', and his voice didn't take on a single waver. Fact was, it seemed if possible a shade more jubilant.

He had reached the verse which sez:

"Feed me with the heavenly manna In this barren wilderness; Be my sword and s.h.i.+eld and banner, Be the Lord my Righteousness";

and as he sang with his hands held high above his head, he waved 'em back and forth, playin' notes in the air with his fingers, the way he did frequent; and it was one o' the most divertin' sights I ever saw.

Those blame scamps had all they could do to keep from hummin' time to his song; for I swear to you in earnest that the Friar could play on a man's heart the same as if it was a fiddle. He kept on an' finished the last verse while I crouched above 'em behind a big rock, and fairly hugged myself with the joy of it. Ol' Tank Williams was a big man and had been chosen out to be the leader an' do the talkin', but he hadn't the heart to jab into the Friar's singin'; so he waited until it was all over. Then he cleared his throat as though settin'

off a blast of dynamite, and growls out: "Here, you, give us your money."

Ten six-shooters were pointin' at the Friar, but I reckon if he had known it would of exploded all of 'em, he'd have had to laugh. He threw back his head and his big free laugh rolled out into the hills, until I had to gnaw at a corner o' the stone to keep from joinin' in.

"My money!" sez he as soon as he could catch his breath. "Well, boys, boys, whatever put such a notion as that into your heads. Take it, take it, you're welcome to it; and if you are able to find more than two bits, why, I congratulate you most hearty; because two bits was all I could find this morning, and that will only be a nickle apiece, and five cents is small pay for robbin' a volunteer missionary."

Ol' Tank Williams was a serious-minded old relic, and he was feelin'

so sheepish just then that it seemed to him as though the Friar had imposed on him by lurin' him into such a fix; so he roars out in earnest: "If you ain't got no money, why the deuce do ya tote those guns about with ya all the time?"

"Would you just as soon tie me to a tree, or take some other measures of defence?" asked the Friar politely. "My arms are gettin' weary and I could talk more comfortable with 'em hanging' down."

"Aw put 'em down, and talk on," sez George Hendricks.

"Thank you," sez the Friar. "Well, now, boys, the man who doesn't take the time to put a value on his own life, isn't likely to make that life very much worth while. He mustn't overvalue it to such an extent that he becomes a coward, nor he mustn't undervalue it to such an extent that he becomes reckless-he must take full time to estimate himself as near as he is able.

"I don't know that I can allus keep from judgin' my fellow men; but I am sure that I would not judge one to the extent of sayin' that my life was worth more than his, so I should never use a gun merely to save my own life by takin' away the life of another man-much less would I use a gun in defence of money; but I am a purty good shot, and sometimes I can get a man interested by shootin' at a mark with him.

This is why I carry firearms. Do you want the two bits?"

"Aw, go on," yells ol' Tank, madder at himself 'n ever. "We didn't intend to rob ya. All we wanted was to hear ya sing and preach a bit"; and he pulled off his mask and shook the Friar's hand. All the rest o'

the boys did the same; and I clumb up on my rock, flapped my wings, and crowed like a rooster.

Well, we sat on the ground, and he sang for us; and then he sobered and began to talk about cussin'. It used to hurt the Friar to hear some o' the double-jointed swear words we used when excited. He tried not to show it, because he didn't want anything to shut us away from him at any time; but whiles his face would wrinkle into lines of actual pain.

"Now, boys," he began, "I know, 'at you don't mean what you say in a profane way. You call each other terrible names, and condemn each other to eternal punishment; and if a man said these things in earnest, his life would be forfeit; but you take it merely as a joke.

Now, I do not know just how wicked this is. I know that it is forbidden to take the name o' the Lord thy G.o.d in vain; so it is a dangerous thing to be profane even in thoughtlessness; but I have heard the Lord's name used by the perfectly respectable in a way which must have hurt his tender nature more.

"Once in the crowded slum district of a large eastern city, I saw a freight car back down on a child and kill it. The mother was frantic; she was a foreigner and extra emotional, and she screamed, and cursed the railroad. A man had come to comfort her, and he put his hand on her arm and said, 'My dear woman, you must not carry on this way. We must always bow our heads in submission to the Lord's will.'

"For years the poor people o' that neighborhood had begged protection for their children; and I cannot believe that it was the Lord's will that even one o' the least of 'em should have been slain in order to drive the lesson a little deeper home; so, as I said before, I am not going to talk to you of the wickedness of swearing-but I am goin' to talk about its foolishness, its vulgarity, and its brutality."

He went on showin' that swearin' was foolish because it wasn't givin'

a man's thought on things in a man's way; but merely howlin' it out the way wolves and wild-cats had to, on account o' their not havin' a civilized language with which to express the devilment which was in 'em. He showed how it made a feller lazy; because instead of tryin' to sort out words which would tell exactly what he meant, he made a lot of noises which had no more real meanin' than a bunch o'

fire-crackers.

Then his voice got low and serious, and he said 'at the worst thing about cussin' was, that it led a feller into speakin' lightly about the sacred things of life. "When you speak the word 'son,'" he said, "you are bound to also call up the thought of 'mother'; and I want to say to you right now that any one who can be coa.r.s.e and nasty in thinkin' or speakin' about maternity, is not a man at all-or even a decent brute-but has some sort of soul-sickness which is more horrible than insanity. Always be square with women-all women, good and bad. I know your temptations, and I know theirs. Woman has a heavy cross to carry, and the least we can do, is to play fair."

Then he sprang some of his curious theories on us: told us how the body was full of poisons and remedies; and it depended on our plan of livin', whether we used the one or the other. He said he allus cut out food and tobacco on Fridays, and if he didn't feel bright and clear and bubblin' over with vitality, he fasted until he felt able to eat a rubber boot, and then he knew he had cleaned all the waste products out of him, and could live at top speed again. He finished up by tellin' of a cross old doctor he once knew, who used to say 'at cattle and kings didn't have to control themselves; but all ordinary men had to use self-denial, even in matters of pleasure.

It was more the way the Friar said things than what he said; his voice and his eyes helped a lot; but the thing 'at counted for most was the fact 'at you knew it wasn't none of it put on. He loved to joke when it was a jokin' matter; but he was stiff as stone with what he called the foundations of life. A man, you know, as a rule, is mighty timid about the things which lie close to his heart, no matter how bold and free he'll talk about other things; but the Friar was like a little child, an' he'd speak out as bold and frank as one, about the things he loved and hated, until he finally put a few drops o' this queer brand o' courage into our own hearts.

Of course we didn't get to be troubled with wing-growth or anything like that; but a short time after this fake hold-up, ol' Tank Williams went in to fill up with picklin'-fluid, and he started in on Monday and kept fightin' it all that week until Friday. Then he said that he wouldn't neither eat, drink, nor smoke on that day; and they couldn't make him do it. He started in on Sat.u.r.day to continue what had started out to be one o' the best benders he had ever took; but the first quart made him sick as a dog, and he came out to the ranch and said 'at the Friar had made him a temperate man, and for the rest of his life he intended to set aside one day a week in the Friar's favor.

After the boys had started for the ranch, the Friar invited me to spend the night with him; so we unpacked his bed from the lead-hoss and we built a little fire and had a right sociable time of it. Me and him was good pals by this time. He had said to me once: "Happy, you do more general thinkin' than some varsity men I've known."

"I reckon," sez I, modest as I could, "that a man who has bossed a dozen men and ten thousand cattle through a three days' blizzard, has to be able to think some like a general."

Then he explained to me that general thinkin' meant to think about stars an' flowers an' the human race an' the past an' the future, an'

such things, and not to be all the time lookin' at life just from the way it touched a feller himself. This was another thing I liked about him. Most Easteners is so polite that they haven't the heart to set a feller right when he has the wrong notion; but the Friar would divvy up on his knowledge as free as he would on his bacon or tobacco; so I opened myself up to him until he knew as much about me as I did myself.

He didn't have much use for the shut-eye this night, nor he wasn't as talky as common; so we sat smokin' and lookin' into the fire for a long time. Once in a while he'd speak a verse about some big deed a man had done years ago, or else one describin' the mountains or something like that; until finally I asked him how it came that a man who loved adventure an' fightin' an' feats of skill, the way he did, had selected to be a preacher.