His First Penitent
In a white wilderness of moaning storm, in a wilderness of miles and
miles of black pine-trees, the Transcontinental Flier lay buried in the
snow. In the first darkness of the wild December night, engine and tender
had rushed on ahead to division headquarters, to let the line know that
the flier had given up the fight, and needed assistance. They had been
gone two hours, and whiter and whiter grew the brilliantly lighted
coaches in the drifts and winnows of the whistling storm. From the black
edges of the forest, prowling eyes might have looked upon scores of human
faces staring anxiously out into the blackness from the windows of the
coaches.
In those coaches it was growing steadily colder. Men were putting on
their overcoats, and women snuggled deeper in their furs. Over it all,
the tops of the black pine-trees moaned and whistled in sounds that
seemed filled both with menace and with savage laughter.
In the smoking-compartment of the Pullman sat five men, gathered in a
group. Of these, one was Forsythe, the timber agent; two were traveling
men; the fourth a passenger homeward bound from a holiday visit; and the
fifth was Father Charles. The priest's pale, serious face lit up in
surprise or laughter with the others, but his lips had not broken into a
story of their own. He was a little man, dressed in somber black, and
there was that about him which told his companions that within his
tight-drawn coat of shiny black there were hidden tales which would have
gone well with the savage beat of the storm against the lighted windows
and the moaning tumult of the pine-trees.
Suddenly Forsythe shivered at a fiercer blast than the others, and said:
"Father, have you a text that would fit this night--and the situation?"
Slowly Father Charles blew out a spiral of smoke from between his lips,
and then he drew himself erect and leaned a little forward, with the
cigar between his slender white fingers.
"I had a text for this night," he said, "but I have none now, gentlemen.
I was to have married a couple a hundred miles down the line. The guests
have assembled. They are ready, but I am not there. The wedding will not
be to-night, and so my text is gone. But there comes another to my mind
which fits this situation--and a thousand others--'He who sits in the
heavens shall look down and decide.' To-night I was to have married these
young people. Three hours ago I never dreamed of doubting that I should
be on hand at the appointed hour. But I shall not marry them. Fate has
enjoined a hand. The Supreme Arbiter says 'No,' and what may not be the
consequences'?"
"They will probably be married to-morrow," said one of the traveling men.
"There will be a few hours' delay--nothing more."
"Perhaps," replied Father Charles, as quietly as before. "And--perhaps
not. Who can say what this little incident may not mean in the lives of
that young man and that young woman--and, it may be, in my own? Three or
four hours lost in a storm--what may they not mean to more than one human
heart on this train? The Supreme Arbiter plays His hand, if you wish to
call it that, with reason and intent. To someone, somewhere, the most
insignificant occurrence may mean life or death. And
to-night--this--means something."
A sudden blast drove the night screeching over our heads, and the whining
of the pines was almost like human voices. Forsythe sucked a cigar that
had gone out.
"Long ago," said Father Charles, "I knew a young man and a young woman
who were to be married. The man went West to win a fortune. Thus fate
separated them, and in the lapse of a year such terrible misfortune came
to the girl's parents that she was forced into a marriage with wealth--a
barter of her white body for an old man's gold. When the young man
returned from the West he found his sweetheart married, and hell upon
earth was their lot. But hope lingers in your hearts. He waited four
years; and then, discouraged, he married another woman. Gentlemen, three
days after the wedding his old sweetheart's husband died, and she was
released from bondage. Was not that the hand of the Supreme Arbiter? If
he had waited but three days more, the old happiness might have lived.
"But wait! One month after that day the young man was arrested, taken to
a Western State, tried for murder, and hanged. Do you see the point? In
three days more the girl who had sold herself into slavery for the
salvation of those she loved would have been released from her bondage
only to marry a murderer!"
There was silence, in which all five listened to that wild moaning of the
storm. There seemed to be something in it now--something more than the
inarticulate sound of wind and trees. Forsythe scratched a match and
relighted his cigar.
"I never thought of such things in just that light," he said.
"Listen to the wind," said the little priest. "Hear the pine-trees shriek
out there! It recalls to me a night of years and years ago--a night like
this, when the storm moaned and twisted about my little cabin, and when
the Supreme Arbiter sent me my first penitent. Gentlemen, it is something
which will bring you nearer to an understanding of the voice and the hand
of God. It is a sermon on the mighty significance of little things, this
story of my first penitent. If you wish, I will tell it to you."
"Go on," said Forsythe.
The traveling men drew nearer.
"It was a night like this," repeated Father Charles, "and it was in a
great wilderness like this, only miles and miles away. I had been sent to
establish a mission; and in my cabin, that wild night, alone and with the
storm shrieking about me, I was busy at work sketching out my plans.
After a time I grew nervous. I did not smoke then, and so I had nothing
to comfort me but my thoughts; and, in spite of my efforts to make them
otherwise, they were cheerless enough. The forest grew to my door. In the
fiercer blasts I could hear the lashing of the pine-trees over my head,
and now and then an arm of one of the moaning trees would reach down and
sweep across my cabin roof with a sound that made me shudder and fear.
This wilderness fear is an oppressive and terrible thing when you are
alone at night, and the world is twisting and tearing itself outside. I
have heard the pine-trees shriek like dying women, I have heard them
wailing like lost children, I have heard them sobbing and moaning like
human souls writhing in agony--"
Father Charles paused, to peer through the window out into the black
night, where the pine-trees were sobbing and moaning now. When he turned,
Forsythe, the timber agent, whose life was a wilderness life, nodded
understandingly.
"And when they cry like that," went on Father Charles, "a living voice
would be lost among them as the splash of a pebble is lost in the roaring
sea. A hundred times that night I fancied that I heard human voices; and
a dozen times I went to my door, drew back the bolt, and listened, "with
the snow and the wind beating about my ears.
"As I sat shuddering before my fire, there came a thought to me of a
story which I had long ago read about the sea--a story of impossible
achievement and of impossible heroism. As vividly as if I had read it
only the day before, I recalled the description of a wild and stormy
night when the heroine placed a lighted lamp in the window of her
sea-bound cottage, to guide her lover home in safety. Gentlemen, the
reading of that book in my boyhood days was but a trivial thing. I had
read a thousand others, and of them all it was possibly the least
significant; but the Supreme Arbiter had not forgotten.
"The memory of that book brought me to my feet, and I placed a lighted
lamp close up against my cabin window. Fifteen minutes later I heard a
strange sound at the door, and when I opened it there fell in upon the
floor at my feet a young and beautiful woman. And after her, dragging
himself over the threshold on his hands and knees, there came a man.
"I closed the door, after the man had crawled in and fallen face downward
upon the floor, and turned my attention first to the woman. She was
covered with snow. Her long, beautiful hair was loose and disheveled, and
had blown about her like a veil. Her big, dark eyes looked at me
pleadingly, and in them there was a terror such as I had never beheld in
human eyes before. I bent over her, intending to carry her to my cot; but
in another moment she had thrown herself upon the prostrate form of the
man, with her arms about his head, and there burst from her lips the
first sounds that she had uttered. They were not much more intelligible
than the wailing grief of the pine-trees out in the night, but they told
me plainly enough that the man on the floor was dearer to her than life.
"I knelt beside him, and found that he was breathing in a quick, panting
sort of way, and that his wide-open eyes were looking at the woman. Then
I noticed for the first time that his face was cut and bruised, and his
lips were swollen. His coat was loose at the throat, and I could see
livid marks on his neck.
"'I'm all right,' he whispered, struggling for breath, and turning his
eyes to me. 'We should have died--in a few minutes more--if it hadn't
been for the light in your window!'
"The young woman bent down and kissed him, and then she allowed me to
help her to my cot. When I had attended to the young man, and he had
regained strength enough to stand upon his feet, she was asleep. The man
went to her, and dropped upon his knees beside the cot. Tenderly he drew
back the heavy masses of hair from about her face and shoulders. For
several minutes he remained with his face pressed close against hers;
then he rose, and faced me. The woman--his wife--knew nothing of what
passed between us during the next half-hour. During that half-hour
gentlemen, I received my first confession. The young man was of my faith.
He was my first penitent."
It was growing colder in the coach, and Father Charles stopped to draw
his thin black coat closer to him. Forsythe relighted his cigar for the
third time. The transient passenger gave a sudden start as a gust of wind
beat against the window like a threatening hand.
"A rough stool was my confessional, gentlemen," resumed Father Charles.
"He told me the story, kneeling at my feet--a story that will live with
me as long as I live, always reminding me that the little things of life
may be the greatest things, that by sending a storm to hold up a coach
the Supreme Arbiter may change the map of the world. It is not a long
story. It is not even an unusual story.
"He had come into the North about a year before, and had built for
himself and his wife a little home at a pleasant river spot ten miles
distant from my cabin. Their love was of the kind we do not often see,
and they were as happy as the birds that lived about them in the
wilderness. They had taken a timber claim. A few months more, and a new
life was to come into their little home; and the knowledge of this made
the girl an angel of beauty and joy. Their nearest neighbor was another
man, several miles distant. The two men became friends, and the other
came over to see them frequently. It was the old, old story. The neighbor
fell in love with the young settler's wife.
"As you shall see, this other man was a beast. On the day preceding the
night of the terrible storm, the woman's husband set out for the
settlement to bring back supplies. Hardly had he gone, when the beast
came to the cabin. He found himself alone with the woman.
"A mile from his cabin, the husband stopped to light his pipe. See,
gentlemen, how the Supreme Arbiter played His hand. The man attempted to
unscrew the stem, and the stem broke. In the wilderness you must smoke.
Smoke is your company. It is voice and companionship to you. There were
other pipes at the settlement, ten miles away; but there was also another
pipe at the cabin, one mile away. So the husband turned back. He came up
quietly to his door, thinking that he would surprise his wife. He heard
voices--a man's voice, a woman's cries. He opened the door, and in the
excitement of what was happening within neither the man nor the woman saw
nor heard him. They were struggling. The woman was in the man's arms, her
hair torn down, her small hands beating him in the face, her breath
coming in low, terrified cries. Even as the husband stood there for the
fraction of a second, taking in the terrible scene, the other man caught
the woman's face to him, and kissed her. And then--it happened.
"It was a terrible fight; and when it was over the beast lay on the
floor, bleeding and dead. Gentlemen, the Supreme Arbiter BROKE A
PIPE-STEM, and sent the husband back in time!"
No one spoke as Father Charles drew his coat still closer about him.
Above the tumult of the storm another sound came to them--the distant,
piercing shriek of a whistle.
"The husband dug a grave through the snow and in the frozen earth,"
concluded Father Charles; "and late that afternoon they packed up a
bundle and set out together for the settlement. The storm overtook them.
They had dropped for the last time into the snow, about to die in each
other's arms, when I put my light in the window. That is all; except that
I knew them for several years afterward, and that the old happiness
returned to them--and more, for the child was born, a miniature of its
mother. Then they moved to another part of the wilderness, and I to still
another. So you see, gentlemen, what a snow-bound train may mean, for if
an old sea tale, a broken pipe-stem--"
The door at the end of the smoking-room opened suddenly. Through it there
came a cold blast of the storm, a cloud of snow, and a man. He was
bundled in a great bearskin coat, and as he shook out its folds his
strong, ruddy face smiled cheerfully at those whom he had interrupted.
Then, suddenly, there came a change in his face. The merriment went from
it. He stared at Father Charles. The priest was rising, his face more
tense and whiter still, his hands reaching out to the stranger.
In another moment the stranger had leaped to him--not to shake his hands,
but to clasp the priest in his great arms, shaking him, and crying out a
strange joy, while for the first time that night the pale face of Father
Charles was lighted up with a red and joyous glow.
After several minutes the newcomer released Father Charles, and turned to
the others with a great hearty laugh.
"Gentlemen," he said, "you must pardon me for interrupting you like this.
You will understand when I tell you that Father Charles is an old friend
of mine, the dearest friend I have on earth, and that I haven't seen him
for years. I was his first penitent!"
-THE END-
James Oliver Curwood's short story: His First Penitent
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