Roxy

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21. A Summer Storm



Mr. Whittaker was tired, dispirited, and dinnerlesg. and where cue is fagged, hungry, and depressed, the worst seems most probable. To him it was clear that Bonamy and Roxy were as good as engaged. He was almost glad that he had not found Roxy at home when he called on his return from the woods. What Bonamy could want with a wife, or how he could support one, in his 'wild journey to Texas, Whittaker could not imagine. But then the whole proceeding of dispatching an impulsive young lawyer without theological training, on a mission, was ridiculous enough to the well-regulated mind of a New Englander. In New England he had looked to Indiana as the fag-end of Heathendom itself, but here the Indiana people were sending a missionary into the outer darkness beyond. For himself, he was, as yet, by no means sure of Bonamy's conversion. But the question of the harm he might do to Bonamy was not the only one that touched him now. Partly from scruple, partly from discourage ment, partly on account of a wounded pride, and partly from a sense of injury, he determined to settle the matter once foi all. To a man accustomed to act with simplicity and directness, any hesitation, any complexity and entanglement of motives, is purgatory. And a bewildered and badgered human scul will sometimes accept the most desperate alternative for the sake of escaping from perplexity. Misery, simple and absolute, is sometimes bettei than compound suspense.

The tavern bell was already ringing its vesper when Whittaker pushed open the white gate and walked up the graveled walk in front of the Lefaure cottage. He ate his supper in a voracious and almost surly silence. When Lefaure remarked that the heat was oppressive and thai there were signs of a thunder-storm, Whittaker roused him self only at the close of the sentence which he dimly perceived was addressed to himself.

" What say ? " he asked, using a down-east cut-off in his speech that seemed almost offensive to his friend. The host repeated his remark about the weather and Whittaker, whose attention had already lapsed, again revived himself sufficiently to answer that he believed he was and went on eating.

The letter he wrote in that sultry evening was a simple and unexplained withdrawal of his offer of marriage. Whittaker sealed it and went out. The twilight sky was already stained with a black cloud sweeping upward from the west; little puffs of dust rose here and there in fitful eddies as the sultry air anticipated the coming gust with nervous twitchings. But the young minister cared for no cloud but the one in his own heart. He hurried on through the deepening gloom past one or two of the old Swiss houses, under the shadow of a great barn-like brick dwelling popularly called the White Hall, which had been built by an overgrown merchant who had since failed. Then he mechanically crossed the open lots into the main street and did not pause until he had dropped the letter in the box. He had hardly turned toward home when there came a sudden clap of thunder. The wind and rain struck the village almost at once : the twilight was gone in an instant ; and it was with no little pains and stumbling that Whittaker at last found his way back through the drenching storm to his own room. The wild irregular dashing of the wind against the window, the roaring of the summei rain upon the roof, and the gurgling rush of the water in the tin leaders made a strange and stormy harmony with the minister's perturbed emotions. The tired man at last slept Bnundly. When he awoke in the gray dawn the tempest had spent itself. There were traces of the wind in broken branches of trees here and there, the roads were submerged by pools of water and the gutters and gullies were choke full. But the air was clear and fresh and Whittaker threw open his window and watched the first beams of the sun as they turned the gray clouds to orange and yellow and blazed upon the river's ripples in a line of gold.

" It is a pleasant morning," he said to Twonnet, whea she appeared in the yard below drawing water from the cistern with the old-fashioned hook. " The storm has cleared the air."

Something in his own words did him good, for indeed the storm had cleared the air. Through the dull, lingering pain which he felt, there came a grateful sense of relief and just a hope of final victory. He was thankful. For once he neglected to " say his prayers." One never needs the form of devotion so little as when the spirit is spontaneously devout.

Nevertheless, there was for many a month a rague sense of suffering throughout his whole being, that depression about the rerve-centers which may come from any disappointment, but which is more aggravated in its form and persistency when the disappointment has to do with the affections. Friends of the sufferer declare the pain a most unreasonable one. Isn't every disease unreasonable ?

One would as well argue against dyspepsia. Of what good is it to assure a disappointed lover that there are as many fish in the sea as ever were caught ? Loving differs from fishing precisely in this, that in love the sea has but the one fish ; the rest are all contemptible.

For weeks Whittaker's sermons were prepared in a dull way, and preached listlessly. He even lost interest in the rao-insr battle between the old school and the new, and for a while he cared little for the difference between partial atonement and universal. His few theological books were untouched. One symptom of his disease was a disposition to quarrel with Highbury. He took grounds in opposition to the elder's well-known opinions at every opportunity, saying exasperating things on such slight occasions, and resenting so sharply every attempt of the elder to advise him about anything that Highbury seriously debated whether he should not move for the minister's dismissal. There was one obstacle, however ; that was the Home Missionary Society. It might withdraw its assistance in case of difficulty. But Whittaker did not think of the Home Missionary Society, or anything else that could shield him from the elder's wrath. He rather craved a controversy than shirked it. He even read and expounded those offensive sayings of Christ about the difficulty of entrance into the kingdom of heaven which a rich camel laden with many costly burdens is sure to encounter.