第67章

"Oh!" replied Father Mike drily."I beg pardon.Well, what will you do?""Withdraw," said Shock simply."I haven't made it go, anyway.""Rot!" said Father Mike, with great emphasis."Macfarren doesn't want you, and possibly the Inspector shares in that feeling,--Iguess you know why, but you are needed in this town, and needed badly."But Shock only replied "I shall withdraw.I have been rather a failure, I guess.Let's talk no more about it.""All right, old chap," said Father Mike."Come along to tea.I wish to Heaven there were more failures like you in the country."Shock's last service at the Fort marked his emancipation as a preacher of the Gospel.Hitherto the presence of those whom he knew to be indifferent or contemptuously critical had wrought in him a self-consciousness that confused his thought, clogged his emotion, and hampered his speech.This night all was changed.The hall was full; the Inspector and his wife, with the men from the barracks, Macfarren and his followers, General Brady and his gracious, sweet-faced wife, were all there.Ike and The Kid--whose ranch lay halfway between the Lake and the Fort had ridden in, and far back in the dim darkness of a corner sat the doctor.As Shock stood up and looked into the faces of the men before him and thought of their lives, lonely, tempted, frankly wicked, some of them far down in degradation, he forgot himself, his success, or his failure.What mattered that! How petty seemed now all his considerations for himself! Men were before him who by reason of sin were in sore need of help.He believed he had what they needed.How to give it to them, that was the question.With this feeling of sympathy and compassion, deepened and intensified by a poignant sense of failure, Shock stood up to deliver to them his last message.He would speak the truth to-night, and speak it he did, without a tinge of embarrassment or fear.As his words began to flow he became conscious of a new strength, of a new freedom, and the joy of his new strength and freedom swept him along on a full tide of burning speech.He abandoned his notes, from which he had hitherto feared to be far separated; he left the desk, which had been to him a barricade for defence, and stood up before the people.His theme was the story of the leprous man who dared to come to the Great Healer in all the hideousness of his disease and who was straightway cleansed.After reading the words he stood facing them a few moments in silence and then, without any manner of introduction, he began:

"That's what you want, men.You need to be made clean, you need to be made strong." The people stared at him as if he had gone mad, it was so unlike his usual formal, awkward self.Quietly, but with intense and serious earnestness, he spoke to them of their sins, their drunken orgies, their awful profanity, their disregard of everything religious, their open vices and secret sins.

"Say," said Ike to The Kid, who sat next to him, "they'll be gettin'

out their guns sure!" But there was no anger in the faces lifted up to the speaker; the matter was too serious for anger and the tone was too kindly for offence.Without hesitation Shock went on with his terribly relentless indictment of the men who sat before him.

Then, with a swift change of tone and thought, he cried in a voice vibrating with compassion:

"And you cannot help it, men! The pity of it is, you cannot help it!

You cannot change your hearts; you love these things, you cannot shake them off, they have grown upon you and have become your fixed habits.Some of you have tried: I know you have had your periods of remorse and you have sought to escape, but you have failed."He paused a moment, and then continued in a voice humble and remorseful:

"I have failed, too.I thought in my pride and my folly that I could help you, but I have failed.We have failed together, men--what then is before us?"His voice took a deeper tone, his manner was earnestly respectful and tenderly sympathetic, as he set before them the Divine Man, so quick to sympathise, so ready and so powerful to help.

"He is the same to-night, men! Appeal to Him and He will respond as He did to this poor leprous man."Over and over again he urged this upon them, heaping argument upon argument, seeking to persuade them that it was worth while making the attempt.

"Say, boss, seems reasonable, don't it, and easy, too?" said Ike to The Kid, who was listening with face pale and intent.The Kid nodded without moving his eager eyes from the speaker's face.

"But I can't just git the throw, quite," continued Ike, with a puzzled air.

"Hush, listen!" said The Kid sharply.Shock had paused abruptly.For a few moments he stood looking into the eyes of the men gaping back at him with such intense eagerness; then leaning forward a little he said in a voice low, but thrilling with emotions:

"Does any man here think his father or mother has forgotten him or does not care what happens to him?"Shock was thinking of his own dear old mother, separated from him by so many leagues of empty prairie, but so near to him in love and sympathy.

"Does any man think so?" he repeated, "and do you think your Father in Heaven does not care? Oh! do not think so!" His voice rose in a cry of entreaty.The effect was tremendous.

"God in Heaven, help me!" cried The Kid to himself with a sob in his voice.

"Me too, boss," said Ike gravely, putting his hand on the other's knee.

Shock's farewell was as abrupt as his beginning.In a single sentence he informed them that the services would be discontinued at this end of the field.He wished he could have served them better;he knew he had failed; he asked their forgiveness as he had already asked it of his God; but, though he had failed, he commended them to Him who had never failed any man appealing to Him for help.

There was no hymn, but in a simple, short prayer the service was closed, and before the congregation had recovered from their amazement Shock had passed out through the back door.