Flamsted quarries Part 44

III

The brewery team made its way slowly up from the ferry owing to the drifting snow and icy pavements. From time to time a plough ran on the elevated, or on the trolley tracks, and sent the snow in fan-like spurts from the fender. The driver drew rein in a west-side street off lower Seventh Avenue. It was a brotherhood house where the priest had taken a room for an emergency like the present one. He knew that within these walls no questions would be asked, yet every aid given, if required, in just these circ.u.mstances. The man beneath the horse-blankets was still unconscious when they lifted him out, and carried him up to a large room in the topmost story. The detective, after removing the handcuffs, asked if he could be of any further use that night. He stepped to the side of the cot and looked searchingly into the pa.s.sive face on the pillow.

"No; he's safe here," Father Honore replied. "You will notify the police and the other detectives. I will go bail for him if any should be needed; but I may as well tell you now that the case will probably never come to trial; the amount has been guaranteed." He wrote a telegram and handed it to the man. "Would you do me the favor to get this off as early as you can?"

"Humph! Poor devil, he's got off easy; but from his looks and the tussle we had with him, I don't think he'll be over grateful to you for bringing him through this. I've seen so much of this kind, that I've come to think it's better when they drop out quietly, no fuss, like as he wanted to."

"I can't agree with you. Thank you for your help."

"Not worth mentioning; it's all in the night's work, you know. Good night. I'll send the telegram just as soon as the wires are working. You know my number if you want me." He handed him a card.

"Thank you; good night."

When the door closed upon him, Father Honore drew a long breath that was half a suppressed groan; then he turned to the pa.s.sive form on the cot.

There was much to be done.

He administered a little stimulant; heated some water over a small gas stove; laid out clean sheets, a s.h.i.+rt, some bandages and a few surgical instruments from a "handy closet," that was kept filled with simple hospital emergency requirements, and set to work. He cut the shoes from the stockingless feet; cut away the stiffened clothing, what there was of it; laid bare the bandaged arm; it was badly swollen, stiff and inflamed. He soaked from a clotted knife-wound above the elbow the piece of cloth with which it had first been bound. He looked at the discolored rag as it lay in his hand, startled at what he saw: a handkerchief--a small one, a woman's! With sickening dread he searched in the corners; he found them: A. A., wreathed around with forget-me-nots, all in delicate French embroidery.

"My G.o.d, my G.o.d!" he groaned. He recalled having seen Aileen embroidering these very handkerchiefs last summer up under the pines.

One of the sisterhood, Sister Ste. Croix, was with her giving instruction, while she herself wrought on a convent-made garment.

What did it mean? With multiplied thoughts that grasped helplessly hither and thither for some point of attachment, he went on with his work. Two hours later, he had the satisfaction of knowing the man before him was physically cared for as well as it was possible for him to be until he should regain consciousness. His practised eye recognized this to be a case of collapse from exhaustion, physical and mental. Now Nature must work to replenish the depleted vitality. He could trust her up to a certain point.

He sat by the cot, his elbows on his knees, his head dropped into his hands, pondering the mystery of this life before him--of all life, of death, of the Beyond; marvelling at the strange warp and woof of circ.u.mstance, his heart wrung for the anguish of that mother far away in the quarries of The Gore, his soul filled with thankfulness that she was spared the sight of _this_.

The gray November dawn began to dim the electric light in the room. He went to a window, opened the inner blinds and looked out. The storm was not over, but the wind had lessened and the flakes fell spa.r.s.ely. He looked across over the neighboring roofs weighted with snow; the wires were down. A m.u.f.fled sound of street traffic heralded the beginning day.

As he turned back to the cot he saw that Champney's eyes were open; but the look in them was dazed. They closed directly. When they opened again, the full light of day was in the room; semi-consciousness had returned. He spoke feebly:

"Where am I?"

"Here, safe with me, Champney." He leaned over him, but saw that he was not recognized.

"Who are you?"

"Your friend, Father Honore."

"Father Honore--" he murmured, "I don't know you." He gave a convulsive start--"Where are the Eyes gone?" he whispered, a look of horror creeping into his own.

"There are none here, none but mine, Champney. Listen; you are safe with me, safe, do you understand?"

He gave no answer, but the dazed look returned. He moistened his parched lips with his tongue and swallowed hard. Father Honore held a gla.s.s of water to his mouth, slipping an arm and hand beneath his head to raise him. He drank with avidity; tried to sit up, but fell back exhausted.

The priest busied himself with preparing some hot beef extract on the little stove. When it was ready he sat down by the cot and fed it to him spoonful by spoonful.

"Thank you," Champney said quietly when the priest had finished his ministration. He turned a little on his side and fell asleep.

The sleep was that which follows exhaustion; it was profound and beneficial. Evidently no distress of mind or body marred it, and for every sixty minutes of the blessed oblivion, there was renewed activity in nature's ever busy laboratory to replenish the strength that had been sacrificed in this man's protracted struggle to escape his doom, and, by means of it, to restore the mental balance, fortunately not too long lost....

When he awoke, it was to full consciousness. The sun was setting. Behind the Highlands of the Navesink it sank in royal state: purple, scarlet, and gold. Upon the crisping blue waters of Harbor, Sound, and River, the reflection of its transient glory lay in quivering windrows of gorgeous color. It crimsoned faintly the snow that lay thick on the mult.i.tude of city roofs; it blazoned scarlet the myriad windows in the towers and skysc.r.a.pers; it filled the keen air with wonderful fleeting lights that bewildered and charmed the unaccustomed eyes of the metropolitan millions.

Champney waited for it to fade; then he turned to the man beside him.

"Father Honore--" he half rose from the cot. The priest bent over him.

Champney laid one arm around his neck, drew him down to him and, for a moment only, the two men remained cheek to cheek.

"Champney--my son," was all he could say.

"Yes; now tell me all--the worst; I can bear it."

"I can't see my way, yet." These were the first words he spoke after Father Honore had finished telling him of his prospective relief from sentence and the means taken to obtain it. He had listened intently, without interruption, sitting up on the cot, his look fixed unwaveringly on the narrator. He put his hand to his face as he spoke, covering his eyes for a moment; then he pa.s.sed it over the three weeks' stubble on his cheeks and chin.

"Is it possible for me to shave here? I must get up--out of this. I can't think straight unless I get on my feet."

"Do you feel strong enough, Champney?"

"I shall get strength quicker when I'm up. Thank you," he said, as Father Honore helped him to his feet. He swayed as if dizzy on crossing the room to a small mirror above a stand. Father Honore placed the hot water and shaving utensils before him. He declined his further a.s.sistance.

"Are there--are there any clothes I could put on?" He asked hesitatingly, as he proceeded to shave himself awkwardly with his one free hand.

"Such as they are, a plenty." Father Honore produced a common tweed suit and fresh underwear from the "handy closet." These together with some other necessaries from a drawer in the stand supplied a full equipment.

"Can I tub anywhere?" was his next question after he had finished shaving.

"Yes; this bath closet here is at your disposal." He opened a door into a small adjoining hall-room. Champney took the clothes and went in. While he was bathing, Father Honore used the room telephone to order in a substantial evening meal. After the noise of the splas.h.i.+ng ceased, he heard a half-suppressed groan. He listened intently, but there was no further sound, not even of the details of dressing.

A half-hour pa.s.sed. He had taken in the tray, and was becoming anxious, when the door opened and Champney came in, clean, clothed, but with a look in his eyes that gave the priest all the greater cause for anxiety because, up to that time, the man had volunteered no information concerning himself; he had received what the priest said pa.s.sively, without demonstration of any kind. There had been as yet no spiritual vent for the over-strained mind, the over-charged soul. The priest knew this danger and what it portended.

He ate the food that was placed before him listlessly. Suddenly he pushed the plate away from him across the table at which he was sitting.

"I can't eat; it nauseates me," he said; then, leaning his folded arms on the edge, he dropped his head upon them groaning heavily in an agony of despair, shame, remorse: "G.o.d! What's the use--what's the use!

There's nothing left--nothing left."

Father Honore knew that the crucial hour was striking, and his prayer for help was the wordless outreaching of every atom of his consciousness for that One more powerful than weak humanity, to guide, to aid him.

"Your manhood is left." He spoke sternly, with authority. This was no time for pleading, for sympathy, for persuasion.

"My manhood!" The bitterest self-contempt was voiced in those two words.

He raised his head, and the look he gave to the man opposite bordered on the inimical.

"Yes, your manhood. Do you, in your supreme egotism, suppose that you, Champney Googe, are the only man in this world who has sinned, suffered, gone under for a time? Are you going to lie down in the ditch like a craven, simply because you have failed to withstand the first a.s.saults of the devil that is in you? Do you think, because you have sinned, there is no longer a place for you and your work in this world where all men are sinners at some time in their lives? I tell you, Champney Googe,--and mark well what I say,--your sin, as sin, is not so despicable as your att.i.tude towards your own life. Why, man, you're alive--"

"Yes, alive--thanks to you; but knocked out after the first round," he muttered. The priest noted, however, that he still held his head erect.

He took fresh courage.

"And what would you say of a man who, because he has been knocked out in the first round, does not dare to enter the ring again? So far as I've seen anything of life, it is a man's duty to get on his feet as quickly as he can--square away and at it again."

"There's nothing left to fight--it's all gone--my honor--"