Читать книгу Rejected of Men - Говард Пайл - Страница 6

WITH the dispersion of the great crowd of poor ignorants who had gathered about John the Baptist, we thought that the agitation was ended.

We were mistaken.

For a time nothing more was heard of the Christ whom John had baptized. Then, suddenly, there came rumors, first from one side and then from another; fugitive words telling of a renewed excitement that had begun to ferment obscurely in that same nether class that had followed John to his baptism. Gradually these rumors became more and more dominant, and every day more people heard of and became interested in what was said. The interest was not very great with us, but it was sufficient to keep alive the observation of the daily papers.

The Messiah who had been baptized by John had reappeared, and many people of the poorer classes were gathering about Him in numbers to hear His teachings and to receive His word. These poor people asserted that He performed many miracles; that He could heal the sick and diseased by merely touching them with His hand; that He caused the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see. It was said that many miraculous cures had already been performed by Him.

It happened at this time that a party of men of the literary and artistic world had chartered a vessel and had fitted it up as a floating studio, adorning it with antique furniture, rugs, hangings, and bric-à-brac.

It was a very merry party–a party of sadducees who strenuously believed in no resurrection. There was Archibald Redfern, the writer-artist-man-about-town; Corry King, assistant editor and business manager of the Aurora; Marcey, the architect; Chillingham Norcott, the artist; Allington, of the publishing-house of Richard White & Co.; Dr. Ames, Pinwell, and others. During the cruise, Norcott, Pinwell, and Redfern had enriched the panels of the cabin with marines and landscapes and decorative pieces until the interior looked almost like a picture-gallery. Everything was as luxurious as possible. They had engaged Pierre Blanc to go with them and to cook for them, and they paid him six hundred dollars for the three or four weeks of the cruise. When it is said that Dr. Ames himself selected the wines and liquors, nothing more need be said concerning the provisioning of the expedition.

The cruise had been a complete success, and now they were about returning to the metropolis again. They had run short of ice, and had put in at a small coast town for a fresh supply.

Redfern, who had arrogated to himself the position of head-steward, had gone ashore in the boat with the steward de facto. There he heard strange and wonderful reports of miracles that were being performed in the neighborhood.

As the boat, returning from the shore, touched the side of the schooner, Redfern came scrambling aboard, and almost immediately his loud, brassy voice was heard from end to end of the vessel, telling of wonders performed and of miracles wrought.

Some of the party were mildly gambling at poker under the awning, waiting Redfern’s return with the ice. Corry King lay stretched out upon a couch in his shirt-sleeves reading a magazine, a tall glass of brandy-and-soda at his elbow. Norcott was sketching listlessly; the others were talking together. They all looked up at the sound of Redfern’s loud voice. There was nothing funny in what he said, but they all laughed.

“And you have returned cured of body and sound of soul, I suppose,” said Ames.

“It isn’t of myself I’m thinking,” said Redfern, in his strident, insistent voice, a voice that almost stunned the hearer if he were near by and not used to it. “It’s not of myself I’m thinking. I’m thinking of you. I tell you, boys, this is the chance of your life. I’m going to take you all ashore this afternoon. Your souls have run down during this cruise, and what you want is to get a good brace of salvation before you get back home again.”

They all went ashore in the afternoon. The town appeared to be singularly deserted. A few guests hung about the third-class summer hotel porch, sitting uncomfortably on the hard, wooden chairs in the shade. An occasional inhabitant appeared here and there on the hot, sandy stretch of street, but everywhere there was a feeling of dull and silent depletion. The party inquired at the hotel office and found that He whom they sought was then supposed to be at a certain place about six miles below the town where there was a high and rocky hill. They found that they could obtain a conveyance, and, after a good deal of jocular chaffing with the fat and grinning hackman, the vehicle was ordered, and a team of four horses. It was a dusty, rattletrap affair, and the party piled in with much noisy confusion, struggling for seats, and sitting in one another’s laps. The hotel guests sat looking on with a sort of outside interest and amusement. Then the hack drove away with a volley of cheers and a chorus of mimic coach-horns.

“Look here, boys,” called out Corry King, “what I want to know is whether Redfern’s taking us down here for our sakes or for his own? Either he has got to take this thing seriously or else we have.”

“It’s all for your sake, my boy! For your sake!” cried out Redfern’s brazen, dominant voice. “I made up my mind last night when I saw the way you bucked up against Marcy’s luck in that last jack-pot that you needed some sort of salvation to pull you through till we get you home again.”

It was three o’clock before they approached their destination. As they drew near they found that everywhere vehicles of all sorts were standing along the road, the horses hitched to the fence at the road-sides. They could see from a distance as they approached that the hill was covered with a restless, swaying mass of people, and then they saw that the crowd was moving voluminously all in one direction–away from the crest.

“I’m afraid you’re too late to hear Him, gentlemen,” said the driver, and he urged the horses forward with greater speed.

It was true; they were just too late to hear that sermon which voiced the sublimest code of ethics the world has ever heard–sublime, but, in our opinion, impracticable.

Presently they were met, almost suddenly, by the broken, ragged outskirts of the moving crowd that was beginning to pour away from the hill. They had not, until then, any idea how great was the agitation centring around this strange being.

Then, almost in a moment, the crowd became so dense that the hack could make no further progress. “I reckon we’ll have to pull out of the way,” said the driver.

“All right,” said Redfern; “pull away.”

And now the crowd was so thick about them that it was with some difficulty that the driver could edge his horses over to the side of the road. And every instant the mass of men and women grew more and more dense. “Look out where you’re going! Look out there!” cried a chorus of voices, as the crowd melted and dissolved before the horses, closing again around the hack. And now the road was suddenly filling with a great press of people moving all in one direction; the air was made dense and darkened with clouds of dust. Then the party in the hack saw approaching along the road the nucleus of this denser crowd which so centred about a single point. “Yonder He is,” cried the driver, standing up and pointing with his whip. “That’s Him, there.”

The men were all standing up in the hack.

“Where?” said Redfern.

“That’s Him–that tall man,” said the driver.

The crowd were surging all about them, pushing against the wheels of the hack. The air was full of the tumult of many voices. The horses shrank to one side as the moving mass eddied around them. Then there came a little group of rough men, apparently fishermen. In the midst of them was a tall man. His face was wet with sweat, and drops of sweat ran down His cheeks. He gazed straight before Him and seemed oblivious to everything about Him. The men in the hack all knew that that must be He, and they stood up looking at Him.

Then they saw a miracle.

Suddenly, almost alongside them, there was a commotion and an outcry of voices. The crowd parted, and as those in the hack looked down, they saw a man struggling out of it and panting and gasping. It was a dreadful sight. He was covered over with hideous, scrofulous sores. No wonder the crowd parted to make way for him. Through his panting he was shouting, hoarsely, “Make me clean! Make me clean!” The crowd surged and swayed with an echoing outcry of voices, and for a moment the man was shut out from the sight of those sadducees. Then they could see that the diseased man was kneeling in the road.

“I will,” said a loud, clear voice that dominated the disturbance. “Be clean!” They could see that He upon whom they were looking had reached out His hand. They could not see what He did, but He appeared to touch the kneeling man. Instantly there was a great shout, and the crowd surged and swept and heaved more tumultuously than ever. They could not see what had happened.

“My God!” cried out the driver, “did you see that?”

“See what?” said Corry King, who stood next him. In spite of himself he felt thrilled with a sympathetic excitement.

“Didn’t you see it? He cured him.”

“Cured him?” said King. “Who? Where is he?”

“Now–don’t you see him? There he is.”

Had they really beheld a miracle? No; they had not. Archibald Redfern burst out laughing. “Didn’t you see it, King?” he jeered. “Where are your eyes?”

That evening it was said that He would heal the sick who would come to Him. The boat party, interested in what they had already heard, went ashore again after dark. The town that had seemed to be dead and empty when they were there before, was now full of people. There were crowds everywhere. The night was hot and oppressive. The sadducees followed whither the crowd seemed to move, the press growing ever thicker and thicker, until, by-and-by, they reached a street densely packed with the throng.

It was a dark and narrow street in the suburbs. It was packed full of people, and it was only after much difficulty they were able to reach a point of vantage–a broad flight of wooden steps that led up to the door of a frame church. Thence they could see over the heads of the mob of men and women who filled the street beyond. They could see that the people were bringing the sick through the crowd. Near them was a man carrying a little child in his arms. Its poor little legs were twisted into a steel frame. A woman followed close behind the man. The child lay with its head upon the man’s shoulder and appeared to be crying, though it was too dark to see clearly. The man moved, step by step, forward, and presently was swallowed into the dark mass of humanity beyond. In the distance was a doorway in which stood a figure of a man, black against the dull light of the lamp behind. There appeared to be a number of other figures crowded in the passageway behind Him. People were looking out of the windows of the neighboring houses. They could not see from the church-steps where they stood what He was doing, but He was constantly moving and stooping forward. The tumult and din were dreadful. It appeared a pandemonium of wild, unmeaning excitement. As in the afternoon, it was an excitement that was contagious. “Do you suppose He really is curing them?” said Norcott, and again Archibald Redfern burst out laughing.

“Why, of course He is,” said he.

He had seen no miracle and could see none. How was it possible for a sadducee, who believed in no resurrection, to see a miracle? The wisest sadducee that ever lived, had he seen a miracle, would not have believed it. Had the Almighty blotted out the sun and the moon and written the sign of His Truth in letters of fire all across the blackened canopy of the heavens, Redfern or Corry King would not have believed–they would have misdoubted their own eyesight.