by Max Brand
“But Andrew Chase is a middle-aged man, isn’t he?” said I.
Father McGuire smiled. “Will you call twenty-one, middle-age?” said he.
“Ah? Is he only that age? How have we happened to hear so much of him? Has he been a killer? Is he still?”
I was swelling with enthusiasm. Father McGuire looked a little sadly, a little sternly, upon me.
“I hope that you never have to know Andrew Chase any better than you know him now,” said he. “As a matter of fact, he has not been a killer. Andrew is a hero, my boy.”
“What has he done?” said I.
“I hardly know,” smiled Father McGuire. “There are some people who impress the world in that way. They really don’t have to do things. It is simply known that, when the time comes, they can do great things. I suppose that it is that way with Andrew Chase.”
“I’d like to see how much of a hero he is!” said I, bristling at the thought. For were not my knuckles still sore from the thumping which I had given to his brother?
“Perhaps you will have a chance to find out what sort of a man he is,” said Father McGuire, looking fixedly at me. “But I hope not, my boy. I sincerely hope not!”
“Do you think that I would be afraid of him?” said I, on fire.
He waved a hand as though banishing a question which was not to the point. “However,” said he, “I am glad that you were able to handle Harry.”
“I did that!” said I, with a great grin of satisfaction. “I wish that you had been there to watch!”
“I wish that I had!” said he, with an apparent warmth of gratification.
“He came off his horse and rushed at me like a mad bull!” said I.
“Weren’t you a little afraid?”
“Just for a minute — I was. I’d never stood up to any one who came smashing in like that — as though I were nothing, you see. But even if I was rattled, you had put enough sense into my hands and my arms. They took care of me until I woke up and saw that I could manage this big plunging chap well enough.”
“You weren’t long in getting your confidence!”
“Not long. I tried him with a few straight lefts — your own brand. Well, father, they went through his guard as if he didn’t have one! All I had to do after that was to stand away and keep bobbing his head with my left. You would have thought that his face was tied to my fist by a rubber string, they connected so often!”
I laughed with the brutal joy of that recollection, and Father McGuire was seized with a violent fit of coughing which forced him to cover his face with one hand. When he spoke again, he was looking down at the floor, and not at me.
“But didn’t he try to close with you, Lee?”
“He did. But — he wasn’t even as strong as I am! Oh, yes, he was strong, and he was pretty hot to kill me, you might say. That made him enough to scare the strength out of most people. But I found after a grip or two that he didn’t have much weight on me and that I was really a lot stronger than he. Besides, he didn’t know the first thing about wrestling. He didn’t know a single grip!”
I laughed again, dropping my head far back and letting the chuckle shake me to my very toes.
“When you saw that, he was pretty much at your mercy?” said Father McGuire.
“I begged him not to come in after me,” said I. “I knew that I could do anything I wanted with him.”
“When did you find that out?” asked Father McGuire.
“Oh, before we’d swung our fists more than two or three times.”
“But he wouldn’t stop?”
“No. He kept coming in. So I gave him a lesson he won’t forget! I tried everything you ever taught me, Father McGuire. I tried jabs in close, and straight punches, and half-arm rips and smashes, and overhand dropping punches that went smashing all the way down his face, and uppercuts short and full arm. I hooked and even swung; and then I hit straight. Oh, it was great!
“I did everything but play for his body; I wanted to leave some strength in him to stand up till the finish — but when I heard the sheriff coming, I knew that I couldn’t play with Chase any more. So I tried a full-arm smash at him. You know that driving right that you’ve taught me, with just a bit of hook at the end of it? I gave him that. You’d of thought that I’d hit him on the back of the head with a mallet, the way he dived into the dust! You’d of laughed, Father McGuire!”
Father McGuire jumped suddenly out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room. It was a great thing to see his nervous, quick steps. I felt that he was fighting the battle through again from beginning to end and rejoicing in having such a fine pupil as I.
Suddenly he said to me: “Go harness the horse to the buggy, Leon.”
“Is there anything wrong?” said I.
“I’m too much moved to talk to you about it now,” said Father McGuire. “But I want you to go and harness that horse at once. Then bring it around to the front of the house. Hurry, Leon!”
I could see that he was very excited; and what he was excited about had to do with my description of the fight, I had no doubt. However, I knew that it would not be wise to speak to him about it now. I had formed the habit of obedience while I was under his rule.
So I went out to the pasture and called the horse and harnessed it when the good-natured old beast came to my call. In a few minutes I had the buggy and the horse in front of the house. I found that Father McGuire was already waiting at the gate. He climbed into the rig and took the reins.
“Run inside for your hat and your coat,” said he.
“Do I go with you?” said I.
“You do,” said he. “But now, hurry as fast as you can! This thing that we have to do must be done together.”
I did as he directed, and presently we whirled away down the street, and out of the dingy blackness of Mendez to the open plains, where the stars burned twice as low and twice as bright, with a thousand miles of stillness lying on either hand. We jogged on for five miles, and then Father McGuire turned the horse into the lane that led for the new Chase house!
I could not believe it, at first. I turned in the seat and stared down at the erect, square-shouldered outline of the little priest. How familiar that silhouette was, with the head thrusting a little forward, eagerly!
I began to grow afraid. I could never tell what was passing in that brain of his. I really knew him less at the end of eight months’ living with him than I had known him at the beginning. What was his purpose now?
He was sufficiently mysterious to me to make me realize that I must make no question of him; and I also realized that whatever he intended must be right. I could not imagine him doing a wrong thing. However, no boy is entirely interested in “right” for its own sake. The end is the thing that the boy has his attention fastened upon, and he does not particularly care about the means to that end.
We stopped at the hitching rack before the house and I, getting down and taking the hitching rope from the back of the buggy, was lost in wonder at the dimensions of the big building.
I had seen it before, when the Carey family lived here. I had even delivered meat at the door. But Mr. Chase had ordered the remodeling of the place on an extensive scale before he came to take up his residence in it. It was three stories, instead of two, and it soared above me like a mountain. It rambled away on either side in wings, either one of which was larger than the biggest house in little Mendez town. Here and there was a lighted window, dotting the great outline of the big place rather than illuminating it.
VI. LEON’S APOLOGY
WE WENT UP to the front door, with Father McGuire walking briskly in the lead; I lagged to the rear, more unwilling with every step that we took. In answer to the bell, a servant opened the door.
“Father McGuire wishes to see Mr. Chase on an important matter,” said the little priest.
We were ushered into a lofty hall. It ran to the uppermost roof of the house, and I lifted my eyes with awe up the shadowy walls of that spacious chamber. Then we were
led into a little room at the side. I remained standing, and so did Father McGuire, with his eyes bent upon the floor.
Then a brisk, heavy step sounded through the hall, and I saw a florid man with a vivacious eye and a well-trimmed, blond mustache standing before us. He went up to the priest and offered his hand.
“You are Father McGuire?” said he.
“I am,” said my friend. “I have come to introduce you to young Leon Porfilo.”
He nodded to me.
“This is Mr. Chase, Leon.”
“Ah?” said the rancher, and he looked at me with a sudden stiffening of his upper lip, which reminded me of his son’s expression as he rushed into battle. “How do you do, Leon Porfilo,” said he, without shaking hands.
“What I have to say,” said Father McGuire, “I wish to say before all your family, Mr. Chase. I want Mrs. Chase to hear it. I wish to have your elder son present. I particularly wish to have Harry Chase in the room.”
The rancher flushed a little and looked not at the priest but straight at me, until I wished myself a thousand miles from that spot. I idled restlessly from foot to foot on the thick rug.
“Harry,” said Mr. Chase, “as you probably know, is not presentable this evening.”
“Nevertheless,” said Father McGuire, “it is very important that he should be one of those to hear what we have to say!”
I was disturbed by the plural. What did I have to say? I had not the slightest idea!
“Do you consider it important?” said Mr. Chase, with a cold little sneering smile, which again was familiar to me from my meeting with his son.
“I consider it important — very,” said Father McGuire, and his intent eyes drew back the glance of Mr. Chase until the sneer disappeared from his face.
“This is very odd,” said the rich man.
“It is very necessary,” corrected Father McGuire.
Mr. Chase suddenly snapped his fingers. “You interest me,” said he. “You shall have it your own way.”
He took us down the hall and into a big living room where a little lady was tinkling the keys of a big piano.
She was Mrs. Chase, very slender, with a girlish figure and a face still beautiful — as dark in complexion and eyes and hair, as her husband was fair. She shook hands most cordially with Father McGuire, but when she heard my name, she started and gave me a look of horror as though a snake had crawled across her path. Poor lady, if she could have looked a little more deeply into the future, she would have loathed me in very fact!
Then I was presented, with the priest, to the elder son, Andrew. He was like his father in bulk. He was like his mother in the graceful finish of his face and his body, and in his black hair and his dark, bright eyes.
He had a cool, calm way with him that sent a shiver through me.
He said to Father McGuire: “I don’t understand why your young friend should be here tonight.”
I suppose no one could have thought of a more insulting speech; I wanted to kill him — or to flee from the house! Then I heard Mr. Chase exclaiming: “Andrew! No more of that! We are to have Harry with us, also.”
“Harry?” said Andrew, giving me a flashing glance that went through me like a sword blade. “An infernal outrage! Do you want to humiliate the poor boy again?”
However, Mr. Chase sent for Harry; and he talked easily enough through the following heavy pause until Harry appeared with his face criss-crossed with bandages. Only one eye was exposed, and that looked forth through a discolored slit. When he saw me, he stopped short, and then he whirled on his father in a rage.
“Why do you want me here, sir?” said he.
Mr. Chase waved to Father McGuire. “You see,” said he, “that this makes quite a commotion in my house. I suppose that you have something to say to us, father?”
“I have come,” said Father McGuire, “in the first place to apologize for the outrageous thing which my young protigi has done to-day!”
“Come, come,” broke in Andrew Chase. “There’s no need of apologies! Apologies don’t make the thing any better. Harry has simply been thrashed. Words don’t help matters!”
“Young man,” said the fiery priest, “you speak too quickly about important matters. You lack a quarter of a century of life; when you reach that age you will know better than to speak without forethought. I have come to tell you that there is no cause for Harry Chase to feel any shame.”
“That’s a rare one,” said Andrew.
“If you please, Andrew!” said his father with much dignity.
Father McGuire wheeled on Andrew, saying: “Would you be ashamed of your brother if he had been beaten by a professional pugilist?”
“Of course not.”
“What I wish to tell you in the first place is that Leon Porfilo has been practicing boxing under my instruction for the greater part of a year. A match between him and an untrained boy is as bad as a match between a man armed with a rapier and another armed with a paper knife.
“The thing which he has done today, in taking advantage of his skill and his training to batter a boy who probably has never had a moment of scientific training — is simply a frightful outrage. I have come to tell you that I feel this thing. I am covered with shame because of it. I believe that Leon himself realizes that he has done a shameful thing!”
It was quite a staggering position for me, as you may imagine. I felt the very floor shaking beneath my feet, but I felt, also, the burning eyes of Father McGuire upon me. What he had said was a revelation to me. The sudden frankness and the bitter truth of his words rushed in on me. I saw that the thing of which I had been so proud was, in reality, worthy of nothing but a great, black shame.
I managed to make myself take a step or two out in front of Father McGuire. I was trembling and about as sick as any boy has ever been in this world, because a boy’s pride is almost his whole soul, his whole existence!
I said in a gasping voice: “I didn’t see it that way when we were fighting, Harry. But I see it now. II acted like a dog, because I knew more than you did. I want to — beg your pardon.”
I wonder if I have felt such a consummate agony as I did at that moment, dragging that apology up from the most exquisitely sensitive roots of my soul.
I think every one was a little astonished and shocked; there was too much shame and pride and suffering in my voice and my face to go as a light thing; and there was a bit of a hush until Andrew Chase said carelessly:
“Well, Harry, there you are. I suppose that makes up for the good beating you got.”
“No!” cried Harry. “I’ll never stop until I’ve beaten him worse than he beat me! I’ll never stop until he’s”
“Harry!” cried his mother. “What are you saying?”
“I’ll never stop,” cried Harry, “until I’ve had him on his knees, begging for mercy — with other people to hear him beg!”
There were exclamations from his father and his mother that half covered these words. But when he was ended, I heard Andrew Chase say with a contented smile:
“That’s a very good way to put it, Harry. I love you for that!”
It is one thing to humiliate oneself in order to make an apology. It is another thing to tender the apology and have it refused. I felt a hot burst of emotion against Father McGuire for having brought me into this predicament; what the others had to say I hardly marked, but I heard Father McGuire saying:
“This is an extremely unreasonable attitude, Mr. Chase. I trust that you realize it!”
“In matters of common sense,” the proud man answered, “I interfere with the affairs of my sons. In matters of honor, I trust them to find the right way. After all, your young friend admits that he has brought this trouble upon his own head!”
Father McGuire was angered, and he showed it. He said: “My hope now is that no harm will come out of this matter. My meaning by that is: No greater harm than has been done already.”
“What may you mean by that?” asked Mr. Chase, frowning.
&
nbsp; “If you do not understand now,” said Father McGuire, “I trust that the meaning of what I say will never be made clear to you later on.”
He bade them good night and took me with him from the house. I was never so glad to leave any place.
On the way home, he gave me the reins.
“She steps out for you better,” he explained. “Besides, I’m too angry to trust myself to the handling of a horse.”
We had flown down the road at a fast clip for a mile or more and turned onto the main highway before he touched my arm.
“I am proud of you, Leon,” said he. “I could not tell you beforehand how you should act at the house of Mr. Chase. I wanted to see if you had enough pride and sense to see what was the right way. I think that you have done enough! More than any other young man of this community would have done. It was a handsome apology, all things considered. It was a handsome apology, after I put you so brutally in the wrong. I think you have done quite enough!”
He repeated these things in this manner for several moments, and I could see that he was highly excited. During the rest of the ride, he broke out from time to time in the same fashion. He would ask me questions which were already answered in his own mind and which therefore required no comment from me.
“If there is evil, now, let it be upon their own heads! We have done enough. We have gone more than halfway!”
Or again he cried suddenly: “Did you notice that handsome rascal, Andrew Chase? Do you understand now why it is that a man does not have to do great things before he is considered a great man?”
I could understand very readily. Little as Andrew had said, I knew him. I felt his steady nerve, his cruel pride, his dauntless courage. When one sees a great locomotive panting and trembling on the rails, one’s sense of power is almost as great as though it is seen dragging a great train up a sharp grade.
We reached home, and Father McGuire said no more to me on the subject for a full three weeks. Then he came home one night with a darkened forehead and said: