Читать книгу Lantern Marsh - Beaumont Sandfield Cornell - Страница 5

As his glance shifted over the mass of upturned faces, Mauney fancied he paused perceptibly as he looked his way.

“It is to you, who are in sin, that we bring a message of hope. You have only to take God at his word, who sent His Son to save that which was lost.”

“Amen!” came a vigorous response from an old man in the front pew.

“You have only to believe on Him who is righteous and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

“Amen!” from near the back.

“Amen!” also, from the side, half-way up.

At this juncture a woman in the body of the auditorium burst forth, in good voice, singing the first verse of “Though your sins be as scarlet,” whereat the preacher indulgently acquiesced, and waved for the congregation to join her. At the end of the first stanza he raised his hand.

“The lesson for to-night is taken from the first chapter of the beloved Mark.” As he carefully read the passage of scripture the ushers were busy leading in more people, so that, when he finished, the floor was entirely filled save for two narrow aisles, one on either side, leading from the back to the altar railing.

The Reverend Francis Tooker, as he walked confidently forward, was seen to be tall and thin, with a long, florid face and a great mass of stiff, black hair. He raised his large, bony hand.

“Let every head be bowed!” he commanded, sharply.

After a short invocation he commenced his discourse. He dealt at length with the experiences of the prodigal son, pictured in adequate language the depths of profligacy to which he had sunk, stressed the moment of his decision to return home, and waxed touchingly eloquent over the reception which his father accorded him.

“And now, people,” he said more brusquely, as he slammed shut the big pulpit Bible and ran his long fingers nervously through his hair. “You’ve got a chance to do what that boy did. You’ve been acting just the way he acted—don’t dare deny it! You’ve been wallowing in the dirt with the pigs, and you’re all smeared up. What are you going to do about it?”

The audience, keyed up to the former flow of his unfaltering eloquence, were now mildly shocked by the informality of his pointed question. He walked to the very edge of the platform while his eyes grew savage and his face red.

“What are you going to do about it?” he shouted, clenching his fists and half-squatting. Then, rising quickly, he hastened to the other side of the pulpit. “Are you going to arise and go to your Father? Or are you going to keep on mucking about with the pigs? Don’t forget that for anyone of you this night may be your last. To-night, perhaps you” (he pointed), “or you,” (he pointed again) “may be required to face God. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to die forgiven of your sins like a man, or are you going to shut your ears to the word of God and die like any other pig?”

No sound interrupted the intense silence. No one moved. Even the flickering lamps seemed to steady their illumination to a glaring, yellow uniformity.

Suddenly his manner altered. Moving to a position behind the pulpit he rested his elbows on the Bible and folded his hands together out over the front edge of the book-rest, while his voice assumed a quiet, conversational tone.

“Remember that on this night, the twentieth day of April, 1914, you were given an opportunity to come out full-breasted for God. I have discharged my duty. The rest remains for you to do. If you are sorry for your sins, say so. If you regret the kind of life you’ve been leading, confess it. Come out and get washed off clean. The invitation is open. The altar awaits to receive you.”

As he pointed to the altar railing, his black eyes flashed hypnotically.

“Those who have sinned, but are repentant and seek redemption, please stand.”

For about ten seconds a great inertia possessed the seated congregation. Then two men stood up near the front of the pews, followed soon after by groups of both men and women in various parts of the auditorium, until, at length, only a sporadic rising here and there marked a new mood of hesitancy.

“While the choir sings,” the preacher said softly, “I will ask you to steal away to the foot of the altar. The choir will please sing the first two verses of ‘Come Ye Disconsolate,’ and you who have, by standing, thus signified your desire for salvation, will move quietly forward and kneel by the railing.”

As the slow, full chords of the hymn began the preacher’s voice kept calling “Come away, Brother,” and the standing penitents sought the narrow aisles and moved slowly forward to kneel with their heads touching the oaken railing. The Rev. Archibald Gainford and the Rev. Edmund Tough descended from the platform to the crescent-shaped altar space and, bending down, spoke words of comfort to the suppliants.

As the choir stopped and the organ notes faded, the exhorter produced a silver watch and examined it, hurriedly.

“If we had more time,” he said, “how many more would like to come forward? Please stand.”

A dozen or more rose to their feet.

“Well,” he said, with a smile, as he returned his watch to his pocket, “we have plenty of time. Come out, brother!”

Caught by this subtle snare, many of the presumably wavering individuals found it impossible to refuse his invitation, while a few sat down again.

When the meeting eventually drew to a close, after a long hymn, sung with the same exciting rhythm as the first one, Mauney rose with the rest and moved impatiently toward the door, walking beside Jean Byrne and talking to her of obvious matters. Her face, he noticed, was flushed and her eyes shining with unusual brightness from delicately moist lids, while her voice seemed husky and uncertain. The auditorium emptied slowly. The steps leading down from the front doorway to the walk presented the customary Sunday night groups of village beaux waiting to accompany their sweethearts home, or perhaps stroll with them through quiet, moonlit streets.

Beulah village council, anxious to keep taxes at a minimum, had never provided street-lighting, so that pedestrians, on dark nights, carried lanterns, unless they were lovers, in which case they relied either on moonlight or familiarity with the local geography.

Jean Byrne had come to the village in the buggy of Mr. and Mrs. Fitch with whom she boarded on the Lantern Marsh road, but Mauney, being alone, invited her to drive down with him. She accepted and soon they were off together.

“I could have kicked over a pew in there to-night,” said Mauney at length, tersely.

“I knew you wouldn’t like it,” she said. “Personally I think it’s very unreal. Perhaps some people derive good from it, though.”

“Perhaps. But it hasn’t any connection with real life, Miss Byrne. I can’t help feeling you’ve got to let the common daylight into things.”

“That’s good.”

“It’s easy enough to see how they get pulled into it,” he went on. “There’s a sort of excitement about it. I don’t think one person by himself could get so excited.”

“You mean there’s a mob consciousness?”

“Yes, exactly—a lot of minds rubbing each other, like.”

“I believe you’ve hit it, Mauney,” she said. “I never thought of it like that before. How did you manage to think that out?”

“Well, I’ve always noticed, if I’m in a crowd, that it’s hard for me to stay just as I am when I’m alone. Now, I hate people who are always chirping like chipmunks—you’ll meet them at socials and dances. They don’t say anything that matters and might better keep their mouths shut. But if I get with them I’ll notice how it affects me, for after I leave I feel sort of weak.”

“You must enjoy observing things like that, Mauney.”

“No, I don’t enjoy it,” he replied. “That’s just what I’m up against the whole time at home. My father and brother and the hired girl keep up an endless rattle of talk, all the time, about things that aren’t important. I keep quiet on purpose because I don’t want to talk about them.”

“What sort of things do they discuss?”

“Oh—the price of eggs, what somebody did with a certain horse, who married so-and-so and who she was before she did it, and whether the preacher’s wife is human, and then they’re always teasing Snowball; but he isn’t such a fool as they think he is.”

For a moment Miss Byrne studied Mauney’s face, bright with moonlight.

“Well, what kind of things do you think are important?” she asked. “I mean what would you like to discuss, if you had your own way at home?”

“I couldn’t say exactly,” he said, reflectively. “But I’m discontented all the time, and feel ignorant. I want an education. I’m interested in history, most.”

While she listened to his words, Miss Byrne was enjoying the landscape as they drove slowly along. It was no new thing for her to feel fresh attractions toward Mauney, but to-night, for some reason that she did not seek, she felt uncomfortably warm toward him, and presently her soft, gloved hand pressed his hand tenderly, and remained holding it. It came as a surprise to him, and he glanced quickly at her face, across which the sharp shadow of her hat formed a line just above her lips. He could distinguish her eyes turned away in the direction of the moonlit fields she was admiring, and her pretty lips, vivid and tender, sent a strange thrill through his body. Although he made no effort to draw away his hand, he disliked the situation as something he could not grasp. Lying helplessly captured, his fingers felt the heat of her hand. She had stopped talking and he noticed her bosom moving as deeply as if she were asleep, but more quickly. He had the same feeling, for an instant, as in the meeting, of an outside power insidiously exciting his mind, but noticed with a definite sense of relief that they were nearing Fitch’s gate. In a moment he freed his hand from hers and pulled up the horse.

“Mauney!”

She spoke his name in a low, unsteady voice and pressed her hand against his arm. That she was not warning him of some sudden obstacle in their way, was clear, for, on looking toward the road, he saw nothing. When he turned to her, her hat was hiding her bowed face and her hand was relaxing slowly—so very slowly—and falling from his arm. The emotion that caused her breathing to be broken by queer, jerky pauses mystified him.

“Are you ill, Miss Byrne?” he ventured to ask, and noticed that his own voice was tremulous.

She shook her head slowly and began to climb out of the buggy. “No, Mauney boy,” she replied softly. “I was just lonesome, I guess. Goodnight!” He was puzzled. As he drove along he grew exceedingly impatient. There were so many things, he thought, beyond his comprehension.