For some time both in her school and church work Belle had been much associated with John Lowe, the schoolteacher. He was considered a well-meaning person, a dozen years older than herself, and had certain pleasing qualities, a suave manner—almost too suave—and a readiness of speech. He was fairly well educated, a good worker, a member of the church, and had no obvious bad habits. His history was not known; in fact, no one's history was known in those days of beginnings. Every one had to be taken as he was found and often on his own statement.
Lowe soon became a devoted admirer of Belle; and Mrs. Boyd, seeing a chance to beguile her daughter into settling down, did all she could to bring them together, never losing a chance of praising Jack. He was just what Belle needed as an executive help to realize much that she had planned. As a public reciter he had some little prominence; as a schoolteacher he was just a step nearer the world of brains than were the other possible men in town, and by that much more acceptable; and the inevitable result of propinquity was reached. The engagement of Belle Boyd and Jack Lowe was announced.
There was no ardent love-making on either side, and sometimes Belle, when left alone, would wonder why she was not more elated each time she heard him coming; rather, she seemed to feel weighted by the attachment. She reproached herself for this and as she strove to reach a more satisfactory state of mind she found herself thinking with a sigh of that free career she had planned in the business world. Mrs. Boyd's maternal hopes were too nearly realized to leave her with any discernment and Belle's father was too much wrapped up in business and small politics, to see even the mountains that were beyond his back yard; but another frequent visitor at the house was gifted with better eyes and more knowledge of the world.
Dr. Carson had never felt attracted toward Lowe. Instinctively he disliked him. He knew at the beginning that the teacher was much older than he admitted. The facts that the Boyds were well-to-do and that Belle was their only child offered, in his frame of mind, a suggestive sidelight. There were two other things that to Carson seemed important: one, that Lowe had rather obviously avoided any reference to his previous place of residence; the other that at one of the sociables he had amused them all by some exceedingly clever sleight-of-hand tricks with cards—not playing-cards, of course—they were unmentionable—but with a few business cards marked in a special way. Carson was sure he knew in what school such manual dexterity had been acquired.
The doubts in Belle's mind had not yet taken definite form when a new and unpleasant circumstance obtruded. More than once lately Lowe had come to the house carrying the unmistakable odour of drink about him. It was smothered with cloves and peppermint, but still discoverable. Belle's ideas were not narrow, but this thing shocked and disgusted her, chiefly because Lowe had repeatedly and voluntarily avowed himself as flatly opposed to it. She was thus drifting along in perplexity, taking the trail that her instincts said was not her trail, ever prompted to cut across to the other fork which meant developing herself, and always restrained by the fear of breaking with her people, when in the spring of that year the local press announced the coming to Cedar Mountain of the Rev. James Hartigan. And on the day after her meeting with him and their unexpected adventure with the runaway, the parson's wife gave a tea to introduce the young man to the congregation.
Jim's eyes met hers the moment she entered Jebb's parlour. His greeting was a joyous one and Belle felt the colour mount in her cheeks as Hartigan drew her aside to talk. There was something very stimulating about him, she found—a thrill in his voice, his eyes, and his presence that she had never experienced with Lowe.
A little later, Lowe himself arrived. Belle, as she turned to greet him, got an unpleasant shock to note the contrast between the frank, boyish face of the curly-haired giant and the thin features and restless eyes of the man she had promised to marry. Her conscience smote her for disloyalty; but in her heart she was not satisfied. Vague, unspoken, half-realized criticisms of past months rose to fill her with disquiet. A cumulative unhappiness in her association with Lowe took possession of her. And, as she watched with a little thrill the meeting between Jack and the Preacher, she read plainly on the face of her fiancé the disapproval that even his practised art could not conceal. For her, the meeting was portentous; it marked a turning-point; and as she thought of it later she took a slightly guilty pleasure in the fact that without a clash of words there was at once a clash of personalities, and that the Preacher had dominated the scene.
CHAPTER XIII
Preacher Jim's First Sermon
The Sunday on which Jim first appeared in the pulpit will long be remembered in Cedar Mountain. The "grapevine telegraph" had been working hard so that all the world of that region had heard of the new preacher, and curiosity to see him was responsible, more than anything else, for a church filled with critical folk.
The sight of all the riot and wickedness about the Black Hills, the mad striving after sudden gold, and the total lack of real joy in its use after getting it, suggested to Jim a sermon founded on the proverb: "Better is a dinner of herbs and contentment therewith, etc...." But, for once in his life, Hartigan was a little abashed by the situation and, reciting the verses from memory, he managed to get them mixed and rendered them thus: "Better is a stalled ox and contentment therewith than a dinner of herbs with a brawling woman." It made an unexpected hit. Realizing his blunder, he smiled broadly and added:
"Well, if you have any doubts about Solomon's statement, you can have none whatever about mine."
He then went on to preach a most extraordinary discourse in which fun, wit, and humour were occasionally interspersed with allusions to the subject matter. No arguments, no logic, were discoverable; but there were plenty of amusing illustrations, a good deal that might better have been left out, and the audience was highly amused though wholly unedified.
"And how did ye like my sermon?" was the hearty greeting Hartigan gave Belle Boyd next day, as they met on the boardwalk of Main Street. She glanced up with a faint flush, looked down, then meeting his eyes squarely she said:
"Some parts I liked, but much of it I did not."
This was an unexpected reply; Jim had quite looked for a burst of admiration. In answer to his questions, Belle gave an analysis of the sermon, as they walked along, pointing out the clay and the gold, and the total lack of form.
His attitude, at first, had been superior and his tone frivolous. For, strange to say, the gallantry so strong in his Irish blood is ever mixed with, or maybe it is a mere mark of belief in, the superiority of the male. But, before Belle had finished two things had happened—he was much less sure of his sermon and was a little in awe of her. There could be no doubt that she was right. Yes, those two stories would have been better left out; an early paragraph should have been at the end, for it was the summing up; and the illogical conclusion, which had no promise in anything he said before, was weak, to say the least. Hartigan felt much as he used to feel when his mother had called him into a detailed account of some doubtful conduct.
"What are you going to give us next time?" inquired Belle.
"I thought of beginning a series of sermons on the bad habits of the congregation—swearing, drinking, gambling, horse-racing, smoking, and spitting. Last Sunday, right by the door in church, two men were smoking their pipes and spitting on the floor. It seems to me that Revelations XI:2 is about the right medicine for such conduct. This is the text: 'And he opened the bottomless pit and there arose a smoke out of the pit,' Or Psalms XXXVII:20: 'The wicked shall perish ... into smoke shall they consume away,' Then there is a passage in Jeremiah VII:30: 'They have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name to pollute it,' With these I think we have a good scaffolding to build on."