IT seemed to Bishop Caiaphas that the new rector of the Church of the Advent was disposed to take on himself almost over-zealously the office of a new broom, and to sweep out the corners of the parish so cleanly and so thoroughly that even many of the little pet negligences of his own were likely to be cleared away with other things that could be better spared.
There was, for instance, a poor family in the parish named Kettle. It consisted of a father, a mother, and a blind son. The father, Joseph Kettle, had been a cobbler by trade, but he had become almost completely crippled by rheumatism. The wife, Martha Kettle, Bishop Caiaphas had every reason to think, was a very industrious, worthy, honest woman. She was a particular pensioner of Mrs. Caiaphas’s, who used to give the poor woman her cast-off dresses. In these dresses Martha always looked the perfection of neatness and respectability, and Mrs. Caiaphas felt the pleasantness of doing a worthy charity in giving away her cast-off garments to one who looked so well in them. Martha Kettle used to do the greater part of the washing and the finer laundry work for the rectory, and, altogether, the Kettles were quite a part of the family dependants.
The only apparent blot upon the otherwise fair surface of respectability of the Kettle family was the son of this worthy pair, one Tom Kettle, who had been blind from his birth. He was thoroughly bad.
Why the children of apparently respectable poor people so often degenerate into that class of the poor who are not respectable is one of the mysteries of that Providence that so arranges these factors of its divine paradox. The sons of rich people oftentimes fall away from grace, but they are rarely allowed to be altogether lost, no matter how dissipated they may become. The sons of poor people, when they fall away from grace, do generally go altogether to the bad.
Tom Kettle was just such a degeneration from the poor respectability of his parents. He was one of that kind with whom you feel you can do nothing to help them–that they have nothing you can take hold of. They do not seem to have any real affection for you, or any feeling for the kindnesses you do them; they not only do not seem to feel any gratitude, but they do not seem to feel any responsiveness to personal kindness; they do not seem to understand any of the usual requirements of duty or obedience or common honesty. They accept all you do for them with a certain half-sullen acquiescence, but they make no return by becoming better–they do not even attempt to improve themselves. Such a one was Tom Kettle. Bishop Caiaphas had known him for all the twenty odd years that he had been rector of the Church of the Advent, but in all that time he did not feel that he had found anything of Tom Kettle’s nature that he could grasp. He used to confess, almost with despair, “I cannot understand him.”
When Dr. Caiaphas had first come into the parish the boy was about eight or ten years old. He was a rather fine-looking little fellow at that time, and his mother always kept him well dressed. Dr. Caiaphas was at once very much interested in him, for the misfortune into which the boy had been born appealed very strongly to his sympathies. He managed to get him entered into the public asylum for the blind, there to be educated.
Dr. Caiaphas did not know then, as he afterwards discovered, that Tom was an essentially dishonest boy, mischievous, a liar, and very profane. He saw that he was wilful, but then he felt that much must be forgiven to one who was so afflicted. Tom Kettle did not refuse to go to the asylum, but within two weeks he had run away. Dr. Caiaphas was very angry, for he had been at much trouble to get him entered at the institution. He scolded, and Tom listened sullenly. “I ain’t a-goin’ back again,” said he; “the bread was sour twict, and they don’t give you but one help of butter.”
Then Tom’s mother began pleading for him, and the upshot of it was that he was not returned to the asylum–and the authorities were very willing that he should not be again sent to them.
Perhaps, if Tom Kettle had had his eyesight he would have been a professional thief; as it was, he had become a professional beggar. He was away from home more than half the time, and no one knew how he was living or what he was doing. His mother used to cry over his transgressions.
Such as this was the man blind from his birth who sat begging by the road-side when Christ passed by.
Christ opened his eyes, for the divine mercy draws no distinction between the righteous and the sinner–unless it be to pity the sinner.
One day Dr. Dayton almost burst in upon Bishop Caiaphas as he sat in his study.
“Bishop,” he said, “do you know a fellow named Tom Kettle?”
The bishop leaned back in his well-worn, leather chair almost with a sigh. He felt that the new broom was about to begin sweeping again. “Tom Kettle, the blind man?” he asked.
“Blind?” said Dr. Dayton. “Are you sure he ever was blind?”
“Why, yes,” said the bishop. “I am as morally sure of it as I can be of anything.”
“To be morally sure and actually sure are two very different things,” said Dr. Dayton. “What do you really know of this man and his family?”
Dr. Dayton often catechised Bishop Caiaphas in this way, and the bishop did not like it. It did not seem right that he should be so questioned and cross-questioned by the man whom he himself had installed in the vacant pulpit of the Church of the Advent; but he answered very patiently. “I am afraid that Tom Kettle is a sad black sheep. As for his parents, I have always found them good, decent, respectable people. We–Mrs. Caiaphas and I–have known them almost ever since we have come here.”
“Have you often given clothes to them?” pursued Dr. Dayton, remorselessly.
The bishop winced uncomfortably. He fingered the papers on his desk. “I believe,” he said, “now and then Mrs. Caiaphas has given clothes to Martha Kettle.”
Dr. Dayton laughed. “I am sure she has,” he said. “As for Mrs. Kettle, she is, indeed, a very thrifty woman. Perhaps you do not know, bishop, that for some time past she has been habitually selling the clothes that Mrs. Caiaphas has given to her. She sells them to the poorer neighbors in the house in which she lives. She cleans them and mends them, and then sells them.”
Bishop Caiaphas could not believe this. “Oh, doctor,” he said, “surely you are mistaken in this. I have known Martha Kettle intimately for years, and I cannot believe she would do such a thing.”
Dr. Dayton laughed again. “My dear friend,” he said, laying his hand on the bishop’s shoulder, “the fact is that your warmly affectionate nature lays you peculiarly open to the attacks of designing people. Only yesterday this woman sold a black dress that Mrs. Caiaphas had given her to a poor sewing-woman on the flat above. A great many little things make me think that these Kettles are more sly than simple. The poor people in the parish have seen that they were–if I may so phrase it–pets of yours and of Mrs. Caiaphas’s, and many things that you might have known have been kept from you because they were afraid to tell.”
Poor Bishop Caiaphas felt that the new broom had swept out a corner that was especially dear to him. Added to this was that singular bitterness that one feels in finding that one’s impulses of charity and generosity have been imposed upon. He tried to excuse Martha Kettle, but he felt that if what Dr. Dayton said were true, Martha could never be the same to him again. “Well,” he said, after a pause, “I don’t quite see the heinousness of this offence. The clothes were given to her, and she could do as she chose with them. I had rather she had worn them herself, but, after they were given to her, I don’t see that I could dictate what she should do with them.”
“Just so,” said Dr. Dayton; “but, if you will forgive me, I think it would have been wiser not to have given her so much. However, that is only a little matter–a straw that may show the drift of the wind. What I chiefly came to you about was concerning this man Tom Kettle. I have only spoken of this other little thing because I have questioned in my own mind whether this family that you have helped so liberally, and who have deceived you so entirely in small things, may not have deceived you in great things. This is why I asked you if you were sure that Tom Kettle was really blind. Day before yesterday he met this Healer that the poor people are making such a hubbub about. He came back with his eyesight as sharp as is mine at this very minute. He claims that he was miraculously cured. Is it not possible that these people have been deceiving you all this time, and that the man never was blind? I don’t know how you yourself feel about all this business, bishop,” he continued, “but to me such trifling with things sacred is very revolting.”
“Very,” said Bishop Caiaphas. Then he sat in thoughtful silence for a while. “This is very dreadful to me, Dayton,” he said, at last–“very dreadful, indeed. I cannot even yet believe that the parents of this man are really as deceitful as you suspect them to be. I think they erred in turning my charity into a matter of sordid gain, but I do not think they could have deceived me in such a thing as Tom’s blindness. I confess, however, that you have sadly shaken my confidence in them.”
“You do not believe this man’s story, do you? You don’t believe that Tom Kettle has been miraculously cured?”
“I cannot believe it–of course, I cannot believe it.”
“Then what other alternative is there but to believe that these people have been deceiving you all these years? Tom Kettle himself is a thorough-going rogue. He is doing a great mischief now, for I find the poor people throughout the parish are actually inclined to listen to his story. I find they are talking a great deal about it, and it is my opinion that if some immediate means are not taken to deal very drastically with this case that is so palpably thrust upon us, we shall have still more of these poor, misguided people flocking away from the Church to follow after Christ.”
The bishop still sat thoughtfully. “What would you recommend?” he said, after a while.
“Well, if you ask my advice, I should recommend that you appoint a committee to examine into this man’s story; and if we find–as I am sure we shall find–that he is playing a trick upon the community, that he–and, if need be, his parents–be dismissed from the communion of the Church.”
“Oh, Dayton,” said the bishop, “could you do such a thing as that? Could you come between a man and his God?”
“No,” said Dr. Dayton, “but I would thrust myself between a rotten sheep and my wholesome flock, that may else become contaminated, even if, in doing so, that one sheep should be sacrificed.”
Again the bishop sat for a while in moody silence. He was turning a lead-pencil around and around between his fingers. “Very well,” he said, at last, “I shall appoint a committee, as you recommend. How would day after to-morrow do for them to meet?”
“At what time?”
“Well, say nine o’clock in the evening, here at the rectory.”
“Very well; that will suit me.”
After the visitor had gone, the bishop went straight to his wife and told her what he had heard about Martha Kettle.
“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Caiaphas, promptly.
“I am afraid it is true,” said the bishop.
“If it is,” said Mrs. Caiaphas, “I will never give her another stitch as long as I live.”
The evening that the committee was to meet at the rectory, Gilderman and his wife dined with the bishop and Mrs. Caiaphas. After the dinner Gilderman was to go up to the club. A reception was to be given to Secretary Titus, and he was one of the committee appointed to receive the guest of the club.
When Gilderman had married Dr. Caiaphas’s daughter it had provoked no small degree of talk in the particular social set to which he belonged. It was regarded as a distinct mésalliance upon his part, and his aunt, Mrs. de Monteserrat, had been so offended that she had refused to attend the wedding, and had not even yet fully taken him with his wife into her favor again.
Dr. Caiaphas maintained a very philosophical attitude concerning his daughter’s exalted marriage. “I believe Henry is a good, kind man,” he had been heard to declare, “or else I would not have trusted so precious a gift as my dear daughter into his keeping.”
Nevertheless, in his heart of hearts he was enormously elated at her great good-fortune; for a family alliance of an ecclesiastic of even so high a position as Dr. Caiaphas enjoyed, with a young Roman of such an exalted altitude as Gilderman, was a matter to bring great glory not only upon the young wife herself, but upon her entire family. It meant that the ægis of his power and wealth and influence was to be extended over all the other sons and daughters–it made possible opportunities of the highest advancement for the young men, and possible alliances of the same social magnitude for the girls.
Dr. Caiaphas was very paternal towards his son-in-law, and the young man was very filial towards his wife’s father. Nevertheless, when Gilderman came occasionally with his wife to the rectory–to dine, perhaps, with the family–it was as though he descended, bringing her with him, from an exalted altitude to a plane of a lower atmosphere.
He was very dutiful, very kind, very docile, but there was, nevertheless, a certain air of remoteness about him, and neither he nor they forgot that he was Henry Herbert Gilderman, the grandson of James Quincy Gilderman.
Upon this occasion Gilderman sat with the family in the library for a while after dinner.
Already the house was beginning to assume that cluttered appearance that foreshadows the actual time for moving.
“It is dreadful,” said Mrs. Gilderman, “to think of leaving the dear old home. I cannot remember any but this. Horace”–Horace was Mrs. Gilderman’s brother and the bishop’s eldest son–“Horace himself was only eight years old when papa and mamma moved here.”
“By-the-way,” said Gilderman, “when do you expect Horace?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Caiaphas. “We hoped that he would be here some time during the latter part of the month, but I doubt now if he will be on until May. He says these fishery negotiations are keeping them all very busy just now.”
Gilderman laughed. “I dare say,” he said, “that the government might dispense with Horace for a few weeks if he would make a special point of it.”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Caiaphas; “he writes that he’s very busy.”
The two younger daughters, Ella and Frances–slim, angular girls–the one of twelve, the other of fourteen, were sitting under the light of the table-lamp reading. Ella, the elder of the two, kept her finger-tips corked tightly in her ears to shut out the conversation while she read. The others sat by the fire, Mrs. Caiaphas shading her face from the blaze with a folded newspaper. The bishop appeared to be very preoccupied. Every now and then Mrs. Caiaphas glanced towards him from behind the newspaper. “Don’t worry so much about those Kettles, Theodore,” said she.
He looked up, almost with a start. Then he laughed. “Why, I don’t think that I was worrying about the Kettles,” he said. “I was thinking about raising money to finish that central light of the great chancel window at the cathedral. Mrs. Hapgood had promised fifty thousand dollars towards it before she died, but she left no provision for it in her will, and her heirs do not seem willing to carry out her intentions.”
“How much will it cost to finish it?” said Gilderman.
“Well,” said the bishop, “according to the plan of White & Wall it will cost between sixty and eighty thousand dollars.”
“Whew!” whistled Gilderman. Then presently he asked: “Couldn’t it be done for less than that?”
“It might,” said the bishop; “but White & Wall’s design is very beautiful.”
“It ought to be,” said Gilderman. “Look here, sir; why don’t you get a lot of your friends together–Dorman-Webster and the rest of those old fellows–and put it to them? I dare say you could raise it in that way.”
“Well, you see,” said the bishop, “they’ve all contributed so liberally lately that I don’t like to press them too far.” Then he turned to Gilderman. “You, for instance–how much would you be willing to contribute?” he said.
Gilderman laughed. He, too, had given a good deal of money to the church of late, and he did not want to give any more just now. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind giving you two or three thousand.”
The bishop smiled. “That wouldn’t go far,” he said, “and I rather fancy that others may feel as you do.” He looked up at the clock. “Will the study be ready for the committee, my dear?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Caiaphas. “I told John to have it cleared as soon as we were through dinner.”
The committee began arriving a few minutes after the hour. The first arrival was Dr. Dayton. He came directly into the library, almost with the air of ownership. Indeed, the house was really his now, and the bishop was only there on sufferance until the late bishop’s family should vacate at the temple quadrangle house. After the first few words of greeting, he and the bishop presently began talking about the matter in hand. Gilderman sat listening to them.
“But these poor people believe these things,” said Gilderman, cutting in at one point of the conversation.
“If they believe they must be taught to disbelieve,” said Dr. Dayton. “All this insane and irrational enthusiasm of religion,” he continued, “is very revolting to me.” He stood before the fire as he spoke, his legs a little apart and his hands clasped behind his back. “Surely,” he continued, “as we are images of God we must know that God is the perfection of rationality. What pleasure, then, can such senseless irrationality be to Him? That which delights God is the offering of common-sense.”
So spoke Dr. Dayton very positively, as though he knew exactly what God liked and what He did not like.
Presently others of the committee began to come, and then the bishop and Dr. Dayton went into the dining-room.
Gilderman sat for a while listening to the intermittent talk between mother and daughter. The time was drawing very near when Mrs. Gilderman should be confined, and Gilderman was at times almost startled at the directness of the talk between the two. “I wonder if they would object,” he said, after a while, “if I went into the dining-room? I would like very much to hear this examination of Tom Kettle.”
“Why, no, Henry,” said Mrs. Caiaphas. “I am sure they wouldn’t object at all.”
Gilderman hesitated for a moment or two; then he got up and sauntered out of the room.
When he came into the dining-room, he found the company all seated around the table, and Tom Kettle standing before them. He was a rather short, thick-set man, with a heavy, sullen, if not lowering countenance. His eyes were small and set far apart, his cheek-bones wide, and his face short, giving him somewhat the look of a male cat. He winked and blinked in the light, as though his eyes were still weak and his sight tender.
Joseph and Martha Kettle sat in the farther part of the room, close against the wall. Mrs. Caiaphas had given Martha Kettle a “talking-to,” and they were both subdued, almost frightened. Bishop Caiaphas was conducting the examination. He had evidently just asked Tom Kettle how it was he had received his sight. “He put clay on my eyes,” said Tom, briefly, almost sullenly. “Then I went and washed as He told me, and now I can see.”
“How long had you been blind before this happened to you?” asked Dr. Dayton.
“Why,” said Kettle, “that you know as well as I do. I always was blind–I never did see.”
“And do you mean to say,” said Dr. Dayton, “that Christ cured you by simply rubbing dirt on your eyes?”
“Yes, sir,” said the man.
“And you think it was a miracle?”
“You see it’s a miracle,” said the man. “I couldn’t see before, and now I do see.”
“That is not possible,” said Dr. Dayton. “A man who consorts, as this Man does, with sinners and harlots and outcasts of all kinds could not do such a thing. Such as He could have no power from God, and so He could not cure you as you say He did.”
Perhaps all of the committee thought that Dr. Dayton was taking too much on himself in the conduct of the examination. He was a newcomer among them, and it was not becoming that he should arrogate to himself the conduct of the meeting, even though the case did come within the jurisdiction of his own parish.
Mr. Goodman, Mr. Bonteen’s assistant at the temple, was one of the committee. He was a man of very broad and liberal opinions–too broad and liberal most people thought. “Stop a bit, doctor,” he said, “let us be fair. The fact that Christ’s associates are of such a sort does not proclaim Him Himself to be abandoned. If He had really been sent from God to regenerate mankind He would naturally begin with those people who underlie society, would He not?”
“I don’t know about that,” said Dr. Dayton, crossly. “My own observation teaches me that a man cannot be good with evil associates. You know yourself what the Divine Word says–‘With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure, with the froward thou wilt show thyself froward.’”
“That is very true,” said Mr. Goodman, “but, after all, this question of good and evil is entirely relative. What these people see as being evil we do not see as being evil; what they see as being good we do not. Do you not think it is a matter for serious question?”
“It is a matter of common-sense,” said Dr. Dayton, almost brusquely.
Mr. Goodman smiled and shrugged his shoulders, but his cheeks grew a little flushed. The other members of the committee felt very uncomfortable.
“What do you say of this Man that cured you?” said Bishop Caiaphas.
“I say he’s a prophet,” said the man.
Dr. Dayton laughed. “I think it’s much more likely that you’re a rogue, my friend. The age of miracles is past and done. In this day of light we do not see miracles, nor does God operate in any other way than according to His divine law of order and of common-sense. When a man who is blind receives his sight, he does it through an orderly change of his body, that is just as perfect and just as slow and according to divine order as the creation of light itself is according to divine order. Health and disease must always be according to order, and cannot be in any other way.”
The man looked steadily at Dr. Dayton as he was speaking. “I don’t know just what you mean,” he said, “but if you mean that I wasn’t blind before, I only know that I was blind. Here are my father and mother–you can ask them.”
The man and his wife were sitting at the far end of the room, as close to the wall as possible, and side by side. Seeing the eyes of the committee fixed upon them, the father slowly arose, holding his cane somewhat tremulously in his hand. He had a weak face and a retreating chin and a twitching movement about the jaw.
“Is this man your son?” said Dr. Hopkinson, of St. David’s Church.
“Yes, sir, he be,” said the man. The woman also had risen and stood close to her husband, but a little behind him.
“Are you sure he has been blind for all these years?”
“Yes, sir,” said the father, “I am sure of that. You see, he couldn’t pretend to be blind all these years and me and his mother not know it.”
“Do you know how it is that he is now able to see?”
The man wiped a tremulous hand across his mouth; the fingers were knotted and twisted with rheumatism. He looked hesitatingly around upon the circle of eyes fixed upon him. “I don’t know, gentlemen,” he said, “about it at all. I know the man’s our son, gentlemen, and I know he was born blind. But how he comes to see now, and who it was that opened his eyes, I don’t know nothing about. He is of age, gentlemen all; ask him. He will speak for hisself.”
It was very plain that the man was afraid of the committee.
Dr. Dayton turned to Tom Kettle. “My friend,” he said, “give to God the glory and the praise for this wonderful thing that has happened to you. As for this Man–we all know He is a sinner.”
Tom Kettle listened sullenly. “I don’t know about that,” he said, “whether He is a sinner or not. One thing I do know: I was blind before, and now I see.”
“Come,” said another minister–a Mr. Parker–“come, my friend, tell us truly what the Man did to you.”
The man turned his face towards the last speaker, winking quiveringly as the bright light fell upon his eyes. “I’ve told you,” he said, with a sudden burst of irritation–“I’ve told you before what the Man did to me. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to go and be His disciples?”
“You forget yourself, my fine fellow,” said Dr. Dayton, “and you forget where you are. We are the disciples of God. As for this Fellow–who is He?”
The man looked impudently into Dr. Dayton’s face. “Why,” said he, “here is a strange thing. You do not know where this Man comes from, and yet He opened my eyes, and just because He did that you say He’s a sinner. Did you ever hear of any other man opening the eyes of a man born blind? How could this Man do it if He wasn’t from God?”
“You were born in sin and you live in sin,” said Dr. Dayton; “do you, then, mean to teach us–ministers of God?”
“Come, come, Tom, that’ll do,” said the bishop; “don’t say anything more. It doesn’t do any good.”
Gilderman stood looking on at all this scene. It seemed to him that Dr. Dayton was very disagreeable, and he disliked him exceedingly. Just then a servant came in and whispered to Gilderman, from Mrs. Gilderman, that the carriage was waiting. “All right,” said Gilderman, “tell her I’ll be there immediately.”
He was curious to see the result of the meeting. He lingered for a few moments, but the members of the committee were talking together. Tom Kettle still stood sullenly at the head of the table. Gilderman was very curious to hear from the man’s own lips just what had happened to him, but there were no more questions asked, and he did not have an opportunity to speak to him.
When Gilderman came out to the carriage with his wife the Kettles had just quitted the rectory. They were walking up the drive to the street and they did not at first know that Mr. and Mrs. Gilderman were so near. Tom Kettle was talking in a loud, violent voice, and his parents were trying in vain to silence him. “I don’t care a damn,” he was saying; “I don’t care if they do turn me out of the Church–what do I care?”
“Hush, hush, Tom!” said the mother; “don’t talk so loud; they’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care if they do hear me,” said he. “They ain’t done nothing for me. He made me see. I know that, and they can’t make me say nothing else. They may go to hell! I know what He did to me.”
“Hush, hush, Tom!” they could hear Mrs. Kettle saying. “There’s Mr. Gilderman.”
“Isn’t it dreadful!” said Mrs. Gilderman. She and Gilderman were standing under the porte-cochère.
“Yes–yes; I suppose it is,” said Gilderman. Then he suddenly called out: “Here, Tom; come here a minute. I want to speak to you.”
Although Tom Kettle had said that he did not care for any of them, he had ceased his loud, violent talking. He did not come at Gilderman’s bidding. “If you want to speak to me,” he said, “you can come to me–I’m not coming to you.”
“Very well,” said Gilderman, “I will come.” He went down the steps and along the driveway to where the three figures stood in the gloom beyond the verge of light of the electric lantern. They made no attempt to escape, but it seemed to him that they shrank at the approach of his powerful presence.
“It ain’t our fault, Mr. Gilderman,” said Martha Kettle, almost crying. “He will talk, and I can’t stop him.”
“No, you can’t,” said Tom Kettle, sullenly but defiantly.
“That’s all right, Martha,” said Gilderman. “Look here, Tom; I want you to tell me all the truth about this. What did Christ do to you?”
The man looked stubborn and lowering. “You heard me tell ’em in yonder, didn’t you?” said he. “Why do you ask me again?”
“Because I want to know. How did He do it? What did He do to you?”
Tom Kettle looked at him suspiciously for a little space. Then a sudden impulse seemed to seize him to tell the story. “All right; I’ll tell you,” he said. “I was sitting alongside the road, and I heard Him coming. I knew He was somewheres about, and I knew it was Him as soon as I heard Him coming.”
“How did you know it?”
“I don’t know–I just knew it. The people were all saying, ‘Here He is’ and ‘There He goes.’I just thought maybe He can cure me of my blindness. I called out to Him, ‘Have mercy on me!’They told me to be still, but I wouldn’t. I just kept on calling, ‘Have mercy on me!’”
“What did you do that for?”
“I don’t know. Well, He stopped by-and-by and He says, ‘What do you want me to do to you?’I says, ‘Open my eyes.’”
“What did He do then?”
“He talked with the people for a while. I don’t remember what He said; then, after a little bit, I felt Him rub something on my eyes that felt like wet dirt. Then He said to me, ‘Go wash yourself.’There was a stream of water running there, and a bank down from the road. I went down the bank and acrost a bit of field. I kneeled down by the water. One of my hands was in the water–it was that cold it cut like a knife. Then I washed my face. I thought I had gone crazy.”
“Could you see then?”
“I could, indeed, Mr. Gilderman–so help me God, I could! I didn’t know what had happened to me at first. It just seemed as though my eyes was all broke up into pieces, and they moved about as I moved. I got up and ran away, and as I did so all these pieces seemed to move about. I thought I’d gone crazy.”
“Come, Henry!” called Mrs. Gilderman.
“In a moment, dear. Where was this?”
“Over yonder.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to find Him if I can.”
“Who? The Man who healed you?”
“Yes.”
Gilderman had been feeling in his vest pocket. “Here, Tom,” he said, “take this.”
Kettle shrank back. “I don’t want your money,” he said, resentfully, and then he turned away.
Gilderman, as he went back to the carriage, wondered passively why Tom Kettle did not take the money. He felt that he could not just understand the workings of the man’s soul.
THE De Witts were cousins of the Gildermans. Nearly all the great metropolitan plutocratic families were either allied or connected with one another, and the De Witts and the Gildermans were doubly connected by marriage in the generation of Gilderman’s father.
The De Witts had been building a country-house some little distance out of the city and not far from the water. The architects and builders and landscape gardeners had been at work upon it for over a year. It was now about completed, and it was the intention of the family to open the house in May. It was not even yet quite furnished, but it was so nearly so that it was practically inhabitable. The stables had been filled, and a corps of servants had been sent down under Mrs. Lukens the housekeeper and Dolan the head-groom. Halliday, the gardener, already had the green-houses and the palm-house looking as though they had been in operation for twenty years. The grounds, under the direction of Mr. Blumenthal, had been laid out in a rather elaborate imitation of a foreign park. He had planted clumps of oak-trees nearly full-grown, which he had transplanted at an enormous cost of money and labor. The arrangement of the clumps of rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs was, indeed, a work of art. The great park, together with the paddock and the kitchen-garden, occupied nearly a mile square of ground that had become very valuable as suburban property. The estate included several acres of ground in the northwestern suburb of the neighboring town.
There was very delightful society in the neighborhood: the Laceys, the Morgans and the Ap-Johns all had country-houses in the immediate neighborhood.
The De Witts were going down to Brookfield for a last look at the house before its completion. They had asked Gilderman to go along. He was not especially interested in the new house; indeed, he had become rather bored by all the talk and discussion concerning it in the De Witt household for a year past. He had at first declined to go, and then had accepted, having nothing else that morning especially to interest or to occupy him. The party who went down consisted of Tom De Witt and his mother and two sisters and Sam Tilghman. Tilghman was engaged to be married to Bertha De Witt, the younger daughter.
Nearly all the trains stopped at Brookfield Junction, so that one had practically the choice of any time to reach there. It was this accessibility to the metropolis that made the place so valuable for suburban-residence purposes. The party went down on the eleven o’clock express. De Witt had engaged the whole forward section of the parlor-car, and they were entirely secluded from all the rest of the train. They saw nobody at all but themselves, excepting the negro porter; for the conductor collected the tickets of the party from De Witt’s man outside.
Almost as soon as they were safely ensconced in their compartment, Tom De Witt frankly took out a newspaper from his overcoat pocket and began to skim through it. He glanced up from it as the train began moving out of the station, and then instantly resumed his perusal. It took twenty minutes or more to run down to Brookfield, and De Witt read his paper nearly all the while. The rest of the party talked together in a dropping, intermittent sort of a fashion. The De Witt girls had a bored, tired expression that was habitual with them, and which was due, perhaps, to the heavy droop of their eyelids and the slight parting of their lips. They looked very much alike, and were both handsome after a certain fashion.
The train made no stop short of Brookfield Junction. As it whirled swiftly and tumultuously past the several stations nearer and nearer to Brookfield, Gilderman, looking out of the broad plate-glass windows, could see that the platforms were nearly all more or less crowded with people.
“I wonder what all the people are waiting for?” he said, at last. “Do you suppose it has anything to do with that Man they are making such a stir about?”
“I suppose so,” said Tilghman.
“Isn’t it dreadful?” said Clara De Witt. “There’s Brookfield, such a nice, quiet place, and now it is all full of these dreadful crowds who come just to see the Man and to hear Him preach. I think it’s perfectly dreadful. It ought to be stopped; indeed, it ought.”
“How the deuce would you stop it, Clara?” said De Witt, looking around the edge of his newspaper. “The people have a right to go where they please, so long as they behave themselves.”
“I don’t care,” said Miss De Witt. “If I were in Pilate’s place I wouldn’t let these wretched people come crowding after that Man the way they do. It’s dreadful; that’s what it is.”
Sam Tilghman burst out laughing. “Well, Clara,” he said, “we’ll put you up for nomination next time. If we only had you now in the place of poor old Herod, you’d make things hum, and no mistake, and you’d be ever so much more proper.”
Gilderman listened to the silly, vapid words as though they were removed from him. He was thinking about the Man himself. How very interesting it would be if he could really see Him and hear Him speak. If he chose to go to see Him he might perhaps behold one of those miraculous cures, and could know for himself whether they were real or whether they were false.
“Hullo, Henry!” said Tom De Witt, suddenly. “Here’s an editorial about that blind man you were telling us about the other day–that fellow they turned out of the Church.”
“What does it say?” said Gilderman.
De Witt did not offer the paper to Gilderman. He ran his eye down the editorial. “It doesn’t seem to be very complimentary to the bishop,” he said. “The editor fellow seems to think it was no fault of the fellow’s own that he was cured, and that they oughtn’t to have turned him out of the Church just because he got his eyesight back again.”
“That wasn’t the reason,” said Gilderman.
“It’s a deuced pretty state of affairs, anyhow,” said Tilghman, “if the bishop isn’t fit to decide who’s fit to belong to the Church and who’s not fit. If the bishop isn’t able to decide, who is able to decide? Ain’t that so, Gildy?”
“I don’t know,” said Gilderman.
They were coming nearer and nearer to Brookfield. The scattered frame houses, some of them pretentiously villa-like, grew more and more frequent. Here and there were newly projected streets sliced out across the fields.
“You get the first view of the house just beyond here,” said Mrs. De Witt.
Gilderman leaned forward to look out of the window in the direction she had indicated. The train was passing through a railroad cut through the side of a little hill. As it swept rapidly out from the cut Gilderman saw the distant slope of the hill, scattered over with clumps of trees and bushes. In a thicker cluster of trees at the top of the rise he could see the white gables and the long façade of the house, with a glimpse of the conservatories behind it. As he stooped forward, looking, a thicker cluster of frame houses arose and shut out the view.
The engine whistled hoarsely. Tom De Witt was folding up his newspaper. The train began to slacken its speed and there was a general bustle of preparation. De Witt’s man came in the car and held his top-coat for him while he slipped into it. Then he helped Gilderman and then Sam Tilghman. As Gilderman settled himself into his overcoat and took out his gloves, he could see through the window the quick-passing glimpse of streets and thicker and thicker cluster of houses. Now there would be an open field-like lot and then more houses. There were everywhere groups of people. They looked up at the train as it rushed past with a gradually decreasing speed. There was a shrieking of the brakes and a shuddering of the train as it rapidly approached the station.
“This is Brookfield,” said the negro porter, as he flung open the door with a crash.
With a final shudder and strain, the train stopped in front of a somewhat elaborately artistic station, the platform of which was filled with a restless throng of people.
“Oh, what a horrid crowd!” said Bertha De Witt.
“I suppose it’s got something to do with that Man we hear so much about,” said Miss De Witt.
“You can’t help that,” said Tom De Witt. “They have a right to go where they please, and to crowd as they choose, and so you must just put up with it.”
The colored porter placed a carpet-covered step for them, and helped the ladies officiously down to the platform. He touched his hat and bowed elaborately as Gilderman gave him a dollar. The crowd stared at them as the party descended from the coach. De Witt’s man made a way for them through the throng, and they followed after him across the platform and through the station and out upon another covered platform beyond.
“Fetch up the traps as quick as you can, Simpkins,” said Tom De Witt.
“Yes, sir,” said the man, tipping his hat.
There were a number of hacks and wagons and ’busses occupying the space in front of the platform. De Witt’s landau and dog-cart stood on the other side of the station in front of a greenstone building that seemed to be a drug-store and grocery-store combined. De Witt’s man bustled about urging the drivers of the hacks and ’busses to move them out of the way to make room by the side of the platform. The De Witt party stood in a little group crowded close together. They talked with one another in low tones, and the people stood about staring remotely at them. Mrs. De Witt put up her lorgnette to her eyes and stared back sweepingly at the crowd. Presently the landau drew up to the platform with a jingle and clinking of polished chains and bits, a pawing of hoofs, and a switching of cropped tails. The footman, with breeches so tight to his legs that they fairly seemed to crack, jumped down and opened the door.
“You’ll go over with the ladies, Sam,” said Tom De Witt to Tilghman. “I’ll drive Gilderman myself in the dog-cart.”
“All right,” said Tilghman, and he stepped briskly in after Bertha De Witt. The door closed with a crash, the footman jumped up in his place, and the coach swung out of the way with another jingle of chains to make room for the dog-cart.
They were all perfectly oblivious of the surrounding crowd, who stood looking on.
The groom stood at the horse’s head while Gilderman stepped into the cart. De Witt followed him; he swung the horse’s head around, and the groom ran and scrambled up behind into the cart as it rattled away. The train had begun to draw off from the station. The horse pulled strongly at the reins, and De Witt drew him in with a flush of red in his thin cheeks. Gilderman looked back at the station. It appeared flat and low from the distance, its platform crowded with people. As the train moved more and more swiftly, the horse began prancing. “Whoa!” said De Witt. He gave the animal a sharp cut with the whip that made it spring with a jerk. Then they rattled away briskly and steadily.
From the suburbs you could just catch a glimpse of the ell of the house. It was surrounded by trees, which were intended in the summertime to shut out the view of the town entirely. The house looked out upon the open country and across the low hills towards the wide water.
“That’s the Ap-Johns’ place,” said De Witt, pointing with his whip. Gilderman could see a brown villa in the extreme distance.
Then they rattled down the hill and through the great park gates. Two large linden-trees, which Mr. Blumenthal had had transplanted, stood on either side of the great gateway and shaded the two gate-houses. There was a transplanted hedge and a bit of an old wall with carved stone copings. Mr. Blumenthal had made the gate and the surroundings look as though they had been standing for a hundred and fifty years.
“How do you like it?” said De Witt.
“Stunning!” said Gilderman.
Tilghman and the ladies were just getting out of the landau as the dog-cart rattled up to the portico of the main front. Gilderman jumped out and stood looking about him. The view was beautiful. He had not seen it since the summer before. He was surprised at the change. When he had last been there he had looked out upon a rather garish, sloping meadow open to the sky. There had been a great deal of lumber scattered about, and the earth was trampled naked and bare. There had been a mortar-bed, and beyond, down the slope, there had been a fence and a field, shaggy with long, rusty, feathery grass. Now everything was trim and neat. A long gravel roadway circled in a great sweep around a wide spread of lawn, framed in by clumps and clusters of trees and rhododendron bushes. You got a glimpse of the stream at the bottom of the slope and a fringe of willows; beyond that a strip of lawnlike paddock, another hill, and then, far away, a thread of the broad stretch of water.
The trees were bare of leaves as yet, but Gilderman could see that it would all be very beautiful in the later spring and summer. They stood for a while enjoying the view. Then they all went into the house. Marcy, who was the architect, met them in the hall. With fine tact, he had not intruded his presence upon them until now. He was a soft, refined, gentle-spoken man, with a delicate, sensitive, almost effeminate face. His hair was parted in the middle, and his beard trimmed to a point. “Well, Mr. De Witt,” he said, “I hope you are satisfied with the final result.”
“Yes, indeed, Marcy,” said De Witt.
“You have done admirably, Mr. Marcy,” said Mrs. De Witt, in her stateliest manner. Mr. Marcy smiled indefinitely, with another flash of his white teeth under his brown mustache.
“This hall is stunning,” said Gilderman, looking about him.
Marcy turned towards him. “I’m glad you like it, Mr. Gilderman,” he said. “It’ll be very much improved when the paintings are hung. I think the stairway and the landing above is rather a happy inspiration, if I may say so.”
“Stunning!” said Tilghman.
“Where did you get those chairs, De Witt?” said Gilderman.
“Inkerman picked them up for me at the Conti sale. They came from the Pinazi Palace, you know. Good, ain’t they?” and De Witt passed his hand over the tapestried upholstery almost affectionately.
Just then the housekeeper appeared and dropped a courtesy as she came in at the library doorway.
“Oh, Mrs. Lukens,” said Mrs. De Witt, “I wish you’d have luncheon promptly at one o’clock. Mr. Gilderman wants to go back to town on the half-past two o’clock train.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Mrs. Lukens, dropping another courtesy, and again Mr. Marcy smiled with a flash of his beautiful white teeth.
“I’d like to begin by taking you up-stairs, Mr. De Witt,” he said.
“Very well,” said De Witt. And then the whole party moved across the hall to begin the inspection of the house.
Gilderman rode back to the station behind the same smart horse, and with the same groom that had brought him over. The groom drove the horse very much faster than Tom De Witt had done. As they spun along the level stretch of road, Gilderman put up his hand, holding his hat against the wind, the smoke from his cigar blowing back in his eyes.
The groom checked the horse to a walk as they ascended the steep hill beyond which lay the town. “By-the-way, John,” said Gilderman, suddenly, “there seems to be a good deal of interest hereabouts about that Man they’re talking so much of just now.”
The groom glanced quickly, almost suspiciously, at Gilderman, and then back at the horse again. “Yes, sir,” he said. “They do be running after Him a lot, one way and another, about here.”
“What do you think about Him yourself, John?” said Gilderman, curiously.
The man was plainly disinclined to talk. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. “I don’t know that I think anything at all about Him. It ain’t no concern of mine, sir.”
“Then you don’t believe in Him?” said Gilderman. “I’d really like to know.”
Again the man glanced swiftly at Gilderman. “I don’t know, sir,” he said. And then, after a pause, somewhat cautiously: “He have done some mighty strange things, sir.”
“What do you mean?” said Gilderman, forbearing to look at him.
“Oh, I don’t know; but He have been doing some strange things, sir. There was a man down here a week ago last Sunday as was blind. He just rubbed some dirt over his eyes, and they do say it cured him.”
Gilderman did not say anything as to his knowledge of Tom Kettle.
Presently the groom continued: “There was a man down here was a great friend of His’n. He died last Tuesday, and they say he wouldn’t have died if He had been here. But He was away and the man died kind of sudden like. He had been sick, but nobody knowed he was that sick. They do say the Man could bring him back to life if He chose. I don’t believe in it myself, sir; but that’s what they do say. They’ve got the dead man in a vault over at the cemetery, and they won’t bury him till the Other has seen him.”
“Oh, then He isn’t hereabouts?” said Gilderman.
“He was here,” said the man; “but He went away last Sunday. They say He’s going down to the city some day soon, and He’s making His plans for it. He was to come back here by noon to-day.”
“Oh, then that’s why all those crowds were waiting at the stations, I suppose,” said Gilderman.
“Yes, sir,” said the groom. “They was waiting to see Him.”
“Who was the man who died?” said Gilderman, after a little pause.
“Why, sir, to tell you the honest truth,” said the groom, “I’ve often seen him, but I don’t know much about him. He lived down in yon part of the village”–pointing with his whip–“with his two sisters. One of the women appears to be good enough, and nobody says anything against her, but the other–well, sir, she’s been a pretty bad lot, and that’s the truth. They tell me they used to do all they could to keep her to home, but she wouldn’t stay. She’s at home now, but she was down in the city nigh all last winter. Her brother didn’t try to make her stay at home, and he couldn’t make her stay if he tried–she’s just a bad lot, and that’s all there is of it. They do say she’s different now, but you know what that amounts to with that kind.”
Gilderman laughed. The man, now that he was started, was disposed to be loquacious. The groom shot a quick look at him. They had already reached the top of the hill. The declivity upon the side stretched away down to the town, and in the extreme distance Gilderman could see the low, flat roof of the station. He looked at his watch; it was twenty-seven minutes past two.
“I’ll get you there in good time, sir,” said the groom. Then he chirruped to the horse. The animal gathered itself up with a start and then sped away down the road past the scattered houses and the embryo streets staked out across the open fields.
“Did you ever see the Man yourself, John?” said Gilderman, suddenly.
“Yes, sir,” said the groom. “Me and Jackson was down in the town last Wednesday night a week ago. He was teaching there in front of an old frame church.”
“What sort of looking man is He?” said Gilderman; and John, the groom, answered almost exactly as Latimer-Moire had done one time before.
“Oh, I don’t know; He just looks like any other man.”
Then they were at the platform of the railroad station. Gilderman jumped out of the cart. He drew a dollar out of his pocket and gave it to the man. “Thankee, sir,” said the groom, touching his hat with the finger that held the whip. He waited a little while till Gilderman had walked away across the platform, then he turned the horse and drove away.
There were a few scattered people waiting for the train, which was late. The day, which had been so clear in the morning, had become overcast and threatening. The wind had become cold and raw. Gilderman turned up the collar of his overcoat as he walked up and down the platform.
Suddenly it entered his mind that he would stay over another train. He might never again have such an opportunity of seeing this Man whom nearly all the nether world now believed to be divine. He would have made up his mind to stay only for the latent shame of changing his plans for such an object. But, after all, if he choose to indulge his curiosity no one need know. Finally he concluded if there was another train by a quarter-past three he would stay; if not he would go back home as he had intended. He would let that decide the question. He went up to the ticket-office. “What time is the next train for New York?” he asked.
“Three-twenty-two,” said the clerk, without looking up.
Three-twenty-two! Well, that decided it; he would go back to the city. As he came out upon the platform he heard the thunder of the approaching train. Then it appeared, coming around the curve. The brass-work on the huge engine twinkled as it came rushing forward. There was a screaming of the brakes as the train drew shudderingly up to the platform. Then there was an instant bustle of people getting aboard. Gilderman walked forward along the platform to the parlor-car. “Chair in the parlor-car, sir?” said the conductor, and he nodded his head.
The conductor preceded him into the car and swung around a revolving seat for him. At that moment the train began to move. Gilderman was yet standing close to the door. As the train began moving an instant determination came over him to stop over, after all. It overmastered him–why he could not tell. He turned quickly to open the door. It stuck, and he had some difficulty in pulling it open. The train was moving more and more swiftly. A brakeman was standing on the platform.
“Look out, sir!” he cried, as he saw Gilderman preparing to jump.
Then Gilderman leaped out upon the platform. He did not know how fast the train was going until his feet touched the earth. It nearly flung him prostrate. He regained his balance with a tripping run. The train swept along the curve and the platform seemed strangely deserted. Then Gilderman felt very foolish and wished that he had not acted upon his impulse.
He stood considering for a while, then he walked down along the open platform to the station. He did not at all know what he should do, now that he had stayed. In the morning, when he had come up from New York, there had been a great sign of stir and interest; now everything seemed unusually quiet. The few people in the neighborhood of the station seemed almost oblivious of anything but their own affairs. How foolish had he been to miss his train. A man came to the door of the men’s waiting-room and stood looking at him. Gilderman passed by without speaking to him–then he suddenly turned back and asked the man whether He whom he sought was in the town.
“Yes, sir, He is,” said the man. “He came an hour or more ago.”
“Where is He now?” said Gilderman.
“Well, sir,” said the man, “I don’t just know. He went down in the lower part of the town, there, with a great crowd of people.”
“Which way did He go?”
“Over yonder,” said the man, pointing across the railroad tracks.
Gilderman stood for a moment considering. Should he stay where he was? It looked very like rain–he hesitated–then again came that strange propulsion forward, urging him to pursue the undertaking. He crossed the five or six broad lines of railroad track. He walked down the road and over the bridge. There was a steep embankment on the other side of the bridge, and the stream went winding down the level, open lot or field below. Gilderman wondered whether this was the place where Tom Kettle had received his sight. He walked on for perhaps a quarter of a mile without seeing any sign of a crowd. At last he came to a sort of tobacco-shop that was half a dwelling-house. He hesitated for a moment or two and then went up the two dirty steps and pushed open the door. It stuck for a moment, and then suddenly gave way with a loud jangling of a bell over his head. The bell continued a persistent tink-tinking for some time. The place was full of a heavy, musty smell that was not altogether of tobacco. A woman emerged somewhere from an inner room. Gilderman felt very foolish. Then he asked her if she had seen anything of the Man whom he sought. He marvelled at the freak of fancy that seemed to thrust him forward upon his strange quest. It seemed to him that he was suddenly becoming translated into a different sphere of life from any that he had ever known before.
The woman stared at him for a moment or two without answering. She had a frowsy head of hair and a shapeless figure, and was clad in a calico dress. She told him that a crowd had gone over towards the cemetery; that the town had been full of people all the morning, and that they all appeared to have gone over after the Man.
“How far is the cemetery from here?” asked Gilderman.
“About a mile, I reckon.”
“A mile?”
Gilderman lingered for a moment. Then he said, “Thank you,” and he opened the door with the same momentary resistance that finally gave way to a repeated clamorous jangling of the bell. Again he suddenly realized that he was entering a strange life, such as he had never before beheld. He stood for a while uncertainly in the street. What should he do next? He was conscious that the woman was looking at him from the store window, and he realized how strange and remote he must appear in these unusual surroundings. He could not go a mile to the cemetery and back again in time for his train. A negro came driving a farm wagon down the road towards the station. Gilderman called to the man, who drew in the horses with a “Whoh!”
“Look here, my man,” said Gilderman, “I want to go out to the cemetery, and I want to get back again in time for the three-twenty-two train. I will give you five dollars if you will drive me there and back.” The negro made no reply, but he drew up to the sidewalk with alacrity.
Gilderman could see the cemetery from a distance as he approached it. It was a bleak, cheerless place, and it looked still more bleak and cheerless under the damp, gray sky above. It was surrounded by a high, white paling fence, and there was a wide gateway with high wooden gate-posts, painted white. Through the palings Gilderman could see that the cemetery was half filled with a dark crowd of people. A straggling crowd still lingered about the other gateway. There was a ceaseless hum of many voices. Gilderman thought he heard a voice speaking with loud tones in the distance. “This will do,” he said. “Let me out here, and wait till I come back.” As the negro drew up the farm wagon to the road-side, Gilderman leaped out over the wheel. He hurried to the gate of the cemetery, almost running. After he had entered he saw that the crowd had gathered together beyond a stretch of dead, brown grass, and between him and them were a number of poor, cheap-looking gravestones and wooden head-boards and two or three newly made graves. The place looked squalid and poor. The crowd had grown suddenly silent, as though listening or waiting. Gilderman walked around the outskirts of the throng, and then, finding an open place, he pushed his way into it. He felt a strange eerie excitement taking entire possession of him. In pushing his way he pressed against the shoulder of a woman. She wore a plaid shawl, and Gilderman noticed that indescribable, musty, human smell that seems to belong to the clothes of poor people.
“Good Lord, don’t shove so!” said the woman. She moved to one side, and Gilderman edged his way past her. The press grew more and more dense the farther he penetrated into it, and now and then he could not move. By-and-by he could see before him at some little distance that the crowd surrounded a cavelike vault, and then that the keeper of the cemetery was opening the door.
Gilderman had almost come to the very centre of the crowd. He could see the vault very clearly. He wondered, dimly, whether he would be able to make the three-twenty-two train, and he wished he had asked what time was the next train. He pushed a little more forward, and then he could see the faces of those who fronted the vault. Two of them were women, their eyes red and swollen with crying. Some of those who stood near them were evidently friends of the family. One of these, a woman, was crying sympathetically, wiping her eyes with the corner of her shawl. They were all poor people. One of the two women had that indefinable look that belongs to a woman of ill repute. She was handsome, after a certain fashion, but she had that hard expression about the mouth which there is no mistaking. Now her face was wet and softened with her crying.
They stood just behind and over against a man whom Gilderman at once singled out as Him whom he had come to see. Gilderman looked at His face. Tears were trickling unnoticed down the cheeks; the lips were moving as though the Man were speaking to himself. But though He was weeping, Gilderman knew that it was not because of sorrow for the dead man that He wept.
“Open the door!” cried a loud, clear voice.
Gilderman heard one of the women say: “He has been dead four days and he stinks.”
The Other turned His face slowly towards her, and Gilderman heard Him say to her: “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you should see the glory of God?”
The cemetery-keeper had opened the door. Gilderman was watching tensely and curiously. He wondered what the Other was going to do. He supposed that some singular funeral ceremony was about to take place.
The Man raised His face and looked up into the gray and cheerless sky. He began speaking in a loud, distinct voice, but just what He said Gilderman could not understand. Presently He ceased speaking, and then followed a perfectly dead and breathless hush. Then, suddenly, in a loud, piercing voice, He cried out, “Lazarus, come forth!”
Again there was a pause–a pause for a single moment. Those near to Him stood breathless and motionless. Suddenly there was the sound of something falling with a loud clatter inside the black depths of the vault. The cemetery-keeper, who stood near the door, sprang backward with a shriek. Then a man suddenly appeared at the mouth of the vault. He stood for a moment at the door of the pit, craning his neck and peering around with a strange, bewildered look. His white, lean face was bound about with a cloth, his eyes were somewhat dazed and bewildered. He plucked at the cloth about his face, and then he came up out of the vault. All about where Gilderman stood there was a tumult of shrieks and cries–a violent commotion swept the crowd like a whirlwind. Gilderman hardly heard it. He saw everything dizzily, as though it were not real. What did it all mean; was he really seeing a dreadful miracle performed; were all those people real? Suddenly he felt some one clutch him and fall, struggling, against him. He looked down. A woman had fallen in a fit at his feet. Gilderman awoke to himself with a shock and began to struggle violently backward through the crowd. He hardly knew what he was doing. He elbowed his way, struggling and trampling, and striving to get out of the press. He did not know himself; he was as another man. He knew in his soul that he had, indeed, seen a miracle–a dreadful, an astounding miracle! He was in a state of blind terror–terror of what was to happen next. Presently he found himself out of the thick of the crowd. He ran away across the graves. The crowd behind him was crying and screaming. Gilderman found that he was running towards the entrance gateway. Then he was out of the place. He seemed to breathe more freely. The negro with the cart was still waiting for him.
“What’s the matter over there?” he said. “What have they been doing?” Gilderman did not reply. He sprang into the wagon. “Anything happened over there?” the man asked once more. Then he added: “Why, you’re as white as a sheet.”
“Can you make the three-twenty-two train?” cried Gilderman.
“I don’t know. What time is it now?” said the man.
Gilderman looked at his watch, which he held in a shaking and trembling hand. “It’s a quarter-past three,” he said. Had it been only three-quarters of an hour since he had leaped from the moving train to the platform?
“I don’t know whether I can ketch her now, unless she’s late,” the man was saying, but it sounded to Gilderman as though his voice came from a great distance away.
The train was already at the station when the farm wagon rattled up to it. As Gilderman stepped aboard of it, it began moving. He took the first vacant seat that offered; it was in the smoking-car. There was an all-pervading smell of stale tobacco smoke, and the floor under the seat was foul with the sprinkling of tobacco ashes. He sat down in the seat, pulled up his overcoat collar, and drew the brim of his hat over his eyes; then, folding his arms, he gave himself up to thinking.