Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

  At such times, after his return home, Dr. Caiaphas would look around at his beautiful books, his little gems of art, his engravings, his Eastern rugs, his soft, delectable surroundings, and wonder what was the good of them all except to cover over the chasm of death so that for a time he might not see it. That chasm of death! What was there within it? Was there really another and a better life, or only the blackness of oblivion? In a few days now the poor old man who was dying over at the cathedral yonder would have solved the enigma–a few days and he would either be alive again or else he would know nothing at all. Dr. Caiaphas wondered why he had yesterday bought, at so extravagant a price, the Aldine Virgil in its original pigskin binding. How poor and foolish and petty was the joy of ownership of such a thing when a man must die in the end!

  Then, one morning while Dr. Caiaphas was busy writing at his book, The Great Religion of the World, the serving-man brought him a note. He tore it open and hastily read it. “Dear Dr. Caiaphas,” it said, “come as soon as you can to the bishop’s house. The bishop is sinking rapidly.” It was signed by Dr. Willington.

  “Where are you going, Theodore?” said Mrs. Caiaphas, as she met the doctor hurrying down the stairs.

  “My dear, the poor bishop is dying,” he said, solemnly.

  “Oh, Theodore!” she cried. The first thought that flashed through her mind was of the relation of this coming event to herself–that maybe, at last, her husband was upon the eve of becoming the head of the Church. She put the thought away from her as quickly as she could. “Oh, Theodore!” she cried again.

  “Yes, my dear,” he said. And then he kissed her and left her.

  The bishop was, indeed, dying. There was no mistaking the signs–the broken, irregular, strident breathing; the pale, filmy eyes, the pinched nose, and the cavernous mouth. Dr. Willington and Dr. Clarkson were both present. Dr. Clarkson sat by the bedside, his finger-tips resting lightly upon the lean wrist of the unconscious hand that lay limp upon the coverlet. The trained nurse stood on the other side of the bed, her hands folded and a look as of patient waiting upon her smooth, gentle face. Her cap and her apron added to that look of patient gentleness.

  Mr. Bonteen, the rector of the temple, and Mr. Goodman, his assistant, were both present in the room. Mrs. Godkin and her two daughters had been up nearly all night and were not then present. Dr. Willington had just now sent them down to a broken, scrappy breakfast.

  Dr. Caiaphas stood looking down into the face of the dying man. He gazed solemnly and silently. In a little while he also would look like that and be as that–then he turned away. Mr. Bonteen arose and shook hands silently with him. There had been a long lull in the quick, harsh breathing; suddenly it began again. The door opened and Mrs. Godkin came into the room. Dr. Caiaphas arose; she gave him her hand. She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and her body was shaken with sobs. He pressed the helpless hand he held. “The Lord,” said he, “will temper the wind to the shorn lamb.” And then it flashed upon him that he was quoting secular and not sacred words. He looked around but no one else seemed to notice the fact.

  About noon Mr. Thomas and Mr. Algernon Godkin, the bishop’s two brothers, arrived, and then Dr. Caiaphas went home to lunch. Almost never had he realized the littleness of man’s life as now. He could not enjoy the salmi of capon–hardly could he enjoy the Madeira.

  At half-past two o’clock Bishop Godkin passed away.

  Dr. Caiaphas was elected his successor. The day that he was chosen was, perhaps, one of the happiest of his life. He went straight to his wife; he seemed to be walking upon air. He found her in her own room, reading a magazine. He took her face between his hands and looked into her eyes. “Mary,” he said, “will you wish me joy?”

  “Oh, Theodore,” she cried, rising and letting the magazine fall to the floor, “have you got it?”

  He nodded his head.

  She flung her arms around his neck and drew him close to her. It was almost exactly as it had been when, twenty-one years ago, he had told her he had been invited to the living of the Church of the Advent. There were tears in her eyes now as there had been then. They were both of them very happy.

  It was arranged that no immediate change as to residence was to be made. Mrs. Godkin and her two daughters were to continue to live at the bishop’s house until the coming May, so that, in the mean time, they might have an opportunity of finding another house to suit them. Mrs. Godkin’s brother-in-law wanted her to remove to the northern metropolis, but she was too closely identified with her present home and too deeply inrooted in its society to be willing to transplant her life into other and newer ground.

  The newly elected high-priest suggested Dr. Dayton, of the neighboring city, as a fitting one to succeed himself as rector of the Church of the Advent.

  “Since we cannot any longer,” said Mr. Dorman-Webster, “have Dr. Caiaphas, under whom we have grown up into spiritual manhood through all these years, and whom we love so dearly”–and he reached across the table as he spoke and clasped the new bishop’s hand–”I, for one, advise that we shall do the next best thing, and take the man whom he shall nominate.”

  Bishop Caiaphas wrung Mr. Dorman-Webster’s hand in silence–he could not trust himself to speak.

  So Dr. Dayton was invited to come over and take the rectorship of the Church of the Advent.

  IX. THE MAN BLIND FROM BIRTH

  IT SEEMED TO Bishop Caiaphas that the new rector of the Church of the Advent was disposed to take on himself almost over-zealously the office of a new broom, and to sweep out the corners of the parish so cleanly and so thoroughly that even many of the little pet negligences of his own were likely to be cleared away with other things that could be better spared.

  There was, for instance, a poor family in the parish named Kettle. It consisted of a father, a mother, and a blind son. The father, Joseph Kettle, had been a cobbler by trade, but he had become almost completely crippled by rheumatism. The wife, Martha Kettle, Bishop Caiaphas had every reason to think, was a very industrious, worthy, honest woman. She was a particular pensioner of Mrs. Caiaphas’s, who used to give the poor woman her cast-off dresses. In these dresses Martha always looked the perfection of neatness and respectability, and Mrs. Caiaphas felt the pleasantness of doing a worthy charity in giving away her cast-off garments to one who looked so well in them. Martha Kettle used to do the greater part of the washing and the finer laundry work for the rectory, and, altogether, the Kettles were quite a part of the family dependants.

  The only apparent blot upon the otherwise fair surface of respectability of the Kettle family was the son of this worthy pair, one Tom Kettle, who had been blind from his birth. He was thoroughly bad.

  Why the children of apparently respectable poor people so often degenerate into that class of the poor who are not respectable is one of the mysteries of that Providence that so arranges these factors of its divine paradox. The sons of rich people oftentimes fall away from grace, but they are rarely allowed to be altogether lost, no matter how dissipated they may become. The sons of poor people, when they fall away from grace, do generally go altogether to the bad.

  Tom Kettle was just such a degeneration from the poor respectability of his parents. He was one of that kind with whom you feel you can do nothing to help them–that they have nothing you can take hold of. They do not seem to have any real affection for you, or any feeling for the kindnesses you do them; they not only do not seem to feel any gratitude, but they do not seem to feel any responsiveness to personal kindness; they do not seem to understand any of the usual requirements of duty or obedience or common honesty. They accept all you do for them with a certain half-sullen acquiescence, but they make no return by becoming better–they do not even attempt to improve themselves. Such a one was Tom Kettle. Bishop Caiaphas had known him for all the twenty odd years that he had been rector of the Church of the Advent, but in all that time he did not feel that he had found anything of Tom Kettle’s nature that he could grasp. He used to confess, almo
st with despair, “I cannot understand him.”

  When Dr. Caiaphas had first come into the parish the boy was about eight or ten years old. He was a rather fine-looking little fellow at that time, and his mother always kept him well dressed. Dr. Caiaphas was at once very much interested in him, for the misfortune into which the boy had been born appealed very strongly to his sympathies. He managed to get him entered into the public asylum for the blind, there to be educated.

  Dr. Caiaphas did not know then, as he afterwards discovered, that Tom was an essentially dishonest boy, mischievous, a liar, and very profane. He saw that he was wilful, but then he felt that much must be forgiven to one who was so afflicted. Tom Kettle did not refuse to go to the asylum, but within two weeks he had run away. Dr. Caiaphas was very angry, for he had been at much trouble to get him entered at the institution. He scolded, and Tom listened sullenly. “I ain’t a-goin’ back again,” said he; “the bread was sour twict, and they don’t give you but one help of butter.”

  Then Tom’s mother began pleading for him, and the upshot of it was that he was not returned to the asylum–and the authorities were very willing that he should not be again sent to them.

  Perhaps, if Tom Kettle had had his eyesight he would have been a professional thief; as it was, he had become a professional beggar. He was away from home more than half the time, and no one knew how he was living or what he was doing. His mother used to cry over his transgressions.

  Such as this was the man blind from his birth who sat begging by the road-side when Christ passed by.

  Christ opened his eyes, for the divine mercy draws no distinction between the righteous and the sinner–unless it be to pity the sinner.

  One day Dr. Dayton almost burst in upon Bishop Caiaphas as he sat in his study.

  “Bishop,” he said, “do you know a fellow named Tom Kettle?”

  The bishop leaned back in his well-worn, leather chair almost with a sigh. He felt that the new broom was about to begin sweeping again. “Tom Kettle, the blind man?” he asked.

  “Blind?” said Dr. Dayton. “Are you sure he ever was blind?”

  “Why, yes,” said the bishop. “I am as morally sure of it as I can be of anything.”

  “To be morally sure and actually sure are two very different things,” said Dr. Dayton. “What do you really know of this man and his family?”

  Dr. Dayton often catechised Bishop Caiaphas in this way, and the bishop did not like it. It did not seem right that he should be so questioned and cross-questioned by the man whom he himself had installed in the vacant pulpit of the Church of the Advent; but he answered very patiently. “I am afraid that Tom Kettle is a sad black sheep. As for his parents, I have always found them good, decent, respectable people. We–Mrs. Caiaphas and I–have known them almost ever since we have come here.”

  “Have you often given clothes to them?” pursued Dr. Dayton, remorselessly.

  The bishop winced uncomfortably. He fingered the papers on his desk. “I believe,” he said, “now and then Mrs. Caiaphas has given clothes to Martha Kettle.”

  Dr. Dayton laughed. “I am sure she has,” he said. “As for Mrs. Kettle, she is, indeed, a very thrifty woman. Perhaps you do not know, bishop, that for some time past she has been habitually selling the clothes that Mrs. Caiaphas has given to her. She sells them to the poorer neighbors in the house in which she lives. She cleans them and mends them, and then sells them.”

  Bishop Caiaphas could not believe this. “Oh, doctor,” he said, “surely you are mistaken in this. I have known Martha Kettle intimately for years, and I cannot believe she would do such a thing.”

  Dr. Dayton laughed again. “My dear friend,” he said, laying his hand on the bishop’s shoulder, “the fact is that your warmly affectionate nature lays you peculiarly open to the attacks of designing people. Only yesterday this woman sold a black dress that Mrs. Caiaphas had given her to a poor sewing-woman on the flat above. A great many little things make me think that these Kettles are more sly than simple. The poor people in the parish have seen that they were–if I may so phrase it–pets of yours and of Mrs. Caiaphas’s, and many things that you might have known have been kept from you because they were afraid to tell.”

  Poor Bishop Caiaphas felt that the new broom had swept out a corner that was especially dear to him. Added to this was that singular bitterness that one feels in finding that one’s impulses of charity and generosity have been imposed upon. He tried to excuse Martha Kettle, but he felt that if what Dr. Dayton said were true, Martha could never be the same to him again. “Well,” he said, after a pause, “I don’t quite see the heinousness of this offence. The clothes were given to her, and she could do as she chose with them. I had rather she had worn them herself, but, after they were given to her, I don’t see that I could dictate what she should do with them.”

  “Just so,” said Dr. Dayton; “but, if you will forgive me, I think it would have been wiser not to have given her so much. However, that is only a little matter–a straw that may show the drift of the wind. What I chiefly came to you about was concerning this man Tom Kettle. I have only spoken of this other little thing because I have questioned in my own mind whether this family that you have helped so liberally, and who have deceived you so entirely in small things, may not have deceived you in great things. This is why I asked you if you were sure that Tom Kettle was really blind. Day before yesterday he met this Healer that the poor people are making such a hubbub about. He came back with his eyesight as sharp as is mine at this very minute. He claims that he was miraculously cured. Is it not possible that these people have been deceiving you all this time, and that the man never was blind? I don’t know how you yourself feel about all this business, bishop,” he continued, “but to me such trifling with things sacred is very revolting.”

  “Very,” said Bishop Caiaphas. Then he sat in thoughtful silence for a while. “This is very dreadful to me, Dayton,” he said, at last–”very dreadful, indeed. I cannot even yet believe that the parents of this man are really as deceitful as you suspect them to be. I think they erred in turning my charity into a matter of sordid gain, but I do not think they could have deceived me in such a thing as Tom’s blindness. I confess, however, that you have sadly shaken my confidence in them.”

  “You do not believe this man’s story, do you? You don’t believe that Tom Kettle has been miraculously cured?”

  “I cannot believe it–of course, I cannot believe it.”

  “Then what other alternative is there but to believe that these people have been deceiving you all these years? Tom Kettle himself is a thorough-going rogue. He is doing a great mischief now, for I find the poor people throughout the parish are actually inclined to listen to his story. I find they are talking a great deal about it, and it is my opinion that if some immediate means are not taken to deal very drastically with this case that is so palpably thrust upon us, we shall have still more of these poor, misguided people flocking away from the Church to follow after Christ.”

  The bishop still sat thoughtfully. “What would you recommend?” he said, after a while.

  “Well, if you ask my advice, I should recommend that you appoint a committee to examine into this man’s story; and if we find–as I am sure we shall find–that he is playing a trick upon the community, that he–and, if need be, his parents–be dismissed from the communion of the Church.”

  “Oh, Dayton,” said the bishop, “could you do such a thing as that? Could you come between a man and his God?”

  “No,” said Dr. Dayton, “but I would thrust myself between a rotten sheep and my wholesome flock, that may else become contaminated, even if, in doing so, that one sheep should be sacrificed.”

  Again the bishop sat for a while in moody silence. He was turning a lead-pencil around and around between his fingers. “Very well,” he said, at last, “I shall appoint a committee, as you recommend. How would day after to-morrow do for them to meet?”

  “At what time?”

  “Wel
l, say nine o’clock in the evening, here at the rectory.”

  “Very well; that will suit me.”

  After the visitor had gone, the bishop went straight to his wife and told her what he had heard about Martha Kettle.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Caiaphas, promptly.

  “I am afraid it is true,” said the bishop.

  “If it is,” said Mrs. Caiaphas, “I will never give her another stitch as long as I live.”

  The evening that the committee was to meet at the rectory, Gilderman and his wife dined with the bishop and Mrs. Caiaphas. After the dinner Gilderman was to go up to the club. A reception was to be given to Secretary Titus, and he was one of the committee appointed to receive the guest of the club.

  When Gilderman had married Dr. Caiaphas’s daughter it had provoked no small degree of talk in the particular social set to which he belonged. It was regarded as a distinct mésalliance upon his part, and his aunt, Mrs. de Monteserrat, had been so offended that she had refused to attend the wedding, and had not even yet fully taken him with his wife into her favor again.

  Dr. Caiaphas maintained a very philosophical attitude concerning his daughter’s exalted marriage. “I believe Henry is a good, kind man,” he had been heard to declare, “or else I would not have trusted so precious a gift as my dear daughter into his keeping.”

  Nevertheless, in his heart of hearts he was enormously elated at her great good-fortune; for a family alliance of an ecclesiastic of even so high a position as Dr. Caiaphas enjoyed, with a young Roman of such an exalted altitude as Gilderman, was a matter to bring great glory not only upon the young wife herself, but upon her entire family. It meant that the ægis of his power and wealth and influence was to be extended over all the other sons and daughters–it made possible opportunities of the highest advancement for the young men, and possible alliances of the same social magnitude for the girls.