The Choir Invisible

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"But, O my brethren, while your land is now at peace, are you at peace? In
the name of my Master, look each of you into his heart and answer: Is it not
still a wilderness? full of the wild beasts of the appetites? the favourite
hunting-ground of the passions? And is each of you, tried and faithful and
fearless soldier that he may be on every other field, is each of you doing
anything to conquer this?"

"My cry to-day then is the war-cry of the spirit. Subdue the wilderness
within you! Step by step, little by little, as you have fought your way
across this land from the Eastern mountains to the Western river, driven out
every enemy and now hold it as your own, begin likewise to take possession
of the other until in the end you may rule it also. If you are feeble; if
fainthearted; if you do not bring into your lonely, silent, unwitnessed
battles every virtue that you have relied on in this outward warfare of
twenty years, you may never hope to come forth conquerors. By your strength,
your courage, patience, watchfulness, constancy,--by the in-most will and
beholden face of victory you are to overmaster the evil within yourselves as
you have overmastered the peril in Kentucky."

"Then in truth you may dwell in green and tranquil pastures, where the will
of God broods like summer light. Then you may come to realize the meaning of
this promise of our Lord, 'My peace I give unto you': it is the gift of His
peace to those alone who have learned to hold in quietness their land of the
spirit."

White, cold, aflame with holiness, he stood before them; and every beholder,
awe-stricken by the vision of that face, of a surety was thinking that this
man's life was behind his speech: whether in ease or agony, he had found for
his nature that victory of rest that was never to be taken from him.

But even as he stood thus, the white splendour faded from his countenance,
leaving it shadowed with care. In one corner of the room, against the wall,
shielding his face from the light of the window with his big black hat and
the palm of his hand, sat the school-master. He was violently flushed, his
eyes swollen and cloudy, his hair tossed, his linen rumpled, his posture
bespeaking wretchedness and self-abandonment. Always in preaching the
parson had looked for the face of his friend; always it had been his
mainstay, interpreter, steadfast advocate in every plea for perfection of
life. But to-day it had been kept concealed from him; nor until he had
reached his closing exhortation, had the school-master once looked him in
the eye, and he had done so then in a most remarkable manner: snatching the
hat from before his face, straightening his big body up, and transfixing him
with an expression of such resentment and reproach, that among all the wild
faces before him, he could see none to match this one for disordered and
evil passion. If he could have harboured a conviction so monstrous, he would
have said that his words had pierced the owner of that face like a spear and
that he was writhing under the torture.

As soon as he had pronounced the benediction he looked toward the corner
again, but the school-master had already left the room. Usually he waited
until the others were gone and the two men walked homeward together,
discussing the sermon.

To-day the others slowly scattered, and the parson sat alone at the tipper
end of the room disappointed and troubled.

John strode up to the door.

"Are you ready?" he asked in a curt unnatural voice.

"Ah!" The parson sprang up gladly. "I was hoping you'd come!"

They started slowly off along the path, John walking unconsciously in it,
the parson stumbling along through the grass and weeds on one side. It had
been John's unvarying wont to yield the path to him.

"It is easy to preach," he muttered with gloomy, sarcastic emphasis.

"If you tried it once, you might think it easier to practise," retorted the
parson, laughing.

"It might be easier to one who is not tempted."

"It might be easier to one who is. No man is tempted beyond his strength,
but a sermon is often beyond his powers. I let you know, young man, that a
homily may come harder than a virtue."

"How can you stand up and preach as you've been preaching, and then come out
of the church and laugh about it!" cried John angrily.

"I'm not laughing about what I preached on," replied the parson with
gentleness.

"You are in high spirits! You are gay! You are full of levity!"

"I am full of gladness. I am happy: is that a sin?"

John wheeled on him, stopping short, and pointing back to the church:

"Suppose there'd been a man in that room who was trying to some
temptation--more terrible than you've ever known anything about. You'd made
him feel that you were speaking straight at him -bidding him do right where
it was so much easier to do wrong. You had helped him; he had waited to see
you alone, hoping to get more help. Then suppose he had found you as you are
now--full of your gladness! He wouldn't have believed in you! He'd have been
hardened."

"If he'd been the right kind of man," replied the parson, quickly facing an
arraignment had the rancour of denunciation, "he ought to have been more
benefited by the sight of a glad man than the sound of a sad sermon. He'd
have found in me a man who practises what he preaches: I have conquered my
wilderness. But, I think," he added more gravely, "that if any such soul had
come to me in his trouble, I could have helped him: if he had let me know
what it was, he would have found that I could understand, could sympathize.
Still, I don't see why you should condemn my conduct by the test of
imaginary cases. I suppose I'm happy now because I'm glad to be with you,"
and the parson looked the school-master a little reproachfully in the eyes.

"And do you think I have no troubles?" said John, his lips trembling. He
turned away and the parson walked beside him.

"You have two troubles to my certain knowledge," said he in the tone of one
bringing forward a piece of critical analysis that was rather mortifying to
exhibit. "The one is a woman and the other is John Calvin. If it's Amy,
throw it off and be a man. If it's Calvinism, throw it off and become an
Episcopalian." He laughed out despite himself.

"Did you ever love a woman?" asked John gruffly.

"Many a one--in the state of the first Adam!"

"That's the reason you threw it off: many a one!"

"Don't you know," inquired the parson with an air of exegetical candour,
"that no man can be miserable because some woman or other has flirted his
friend? That's the one trouble that every man laughs at--when it happens in
his neighbourhood, not in his own house!"

The school-master made no reply.

"Or if it is Calvin," continued the parson, "thank God, I can now laugh at
him, and so should you! Answer me one question: during the sermon, weren't
you thinking of the case of a man born in a wilderness of temptations that
he is foreordained never to conquer, and then foreordained to eternal
damnation because he didn't conquer it?"

"No--no!"

"Well, you'd better've been thinking about it! For that's what you believe.
And that's what makes life so hard and bitter and gloomy to you. I know! I
carried Calvinism around within me once: it was like an uncorked ink-bottle
in a rolling snowball: the farther you go, the blacker you get! Admit it
now," he continued in his highest key of rarefied persistency, "admit that
you were mourning over the babies in your school that will have to go to
hell! You'd better be getting some of your own: the Lord will take care of
other people's! Go to see Mrs. Falconer! See all you can of her. There's a
woman to bring you around!"

They had reached the little bridge over the clear, swift Elkhorn. Their
paths diverged. John stopped at his companion's last words, and stood
looking at him with some pity.

"I thank you for your sermon," he said huskily; "I hope to get some help
from that. But you!--you are making things harder for me every word you
utter. You don't understand and I can't tell you."

He took the parson's cool delicate hand in his big hot one.

Alone in the glow of the golden dusk of that day he was sitting outside his
cabin on the brow of the hill, overlooking the town in the valley. How
peaceful it lay in the Sunday evening light! The burden of the parson's
sermon weighed more heavily than ever on his spirit. He had but to turn his
eye down the valley and there, flashing in the sheen of sunset, flowed the
great spring, around the margin of which the first group of Western hunters
had camped for the night and given the place its name from one of the
battle-fields of the Revolution; up the valley he could see the roof under
which the Virginia aristocracy of the Church of England had consecrated
their first poor shrine. What history lay between the finding of that spring
and the building of that altar! Not the winning of the wilderness simply;
not alone its peace. That westward penetrating wedge of iron-browed,
iron-muscled, iron-hearted men, who were now beginning to be known as the
Kentuckians, had not only cleft a road for themselves; they had opened a
fresh highway for the tread of the nation and found a vaster heaven for the
Star of Empire. Already this youthful gigantic West was beginning to make
its voice heard from Quebec to New Orleans while beyond the sea the three
greatest kingdoms of Europe had grave and troubled thoughts of the
on-rushing power it foretokened and the unimaginably splendid future for the
Anglo-Saxon race that it forecast.

He recalled the ardour with which he had followed the tramp of those wild
Westerners; footing it alone from the crest of the Cumberland; subsisting on
the game he could kill by the roadside; sleeping at night on his rifle in
some thicket of underbrush or cane; resolute to make his way to this new
frontier of the new republic in the new world; open his school, read law,
and begin his practice, and cast his destiny in with its heroic people.

And now this was the last Sunday in a long time, perhaps forever, that he
should see it all--the valley, the town, the evening land, resting in its
peace. Before the end of another week his horse would be climbing the ranges
of the Alleghanies, bearing him on his way to Mount Vernon and thence to
Philadelphia. By outward compact he was going on one mission for the
Transylvania Library Committee and on another from his Democratic Society to
the political Clubs of the East. But in his own soul he knew he was going
likewise because it would give him the chance to fight his own battle out,
alone and far away.

Fight it out here, he felt that he never could. He could neither live near
her and not see her, nor see her and not betray the truth. His whole life
had been a protest against the concealment either of his genuine dislikes or
his genuine affections. How closely he had come to the tragedy of a
confession, she to the tragedy of an understanding, the day before! Her
deathly pallor had haunted him ever since--that look of having suffered a
terrible wound. Perhaps she understood already.

Then let her understand! Then at least he could go away better satisfied: if
he never came back, she would know: every year of that long separation, her
mind would be bearing him the pardoning companionship that every woman must
yield the man who has loved her, and still loves her, wrongfully and
hopelessly: of itself that knowledge would be a great deal to him during all
those years.

Struggle against it as he would, the purpose was steadily gaining ground
within him to see her and if she did not now know everything then to tell
her the truth. The consequences would be a tragedy, but might it not be a
tragedy of another kind? For there were darker moments when he probed
strange recesses of life for him in the possibility that his confession
might open up a like confession from her. He had once believed Amy to be
true when she was untrue. Might he not be deceived here? Might she not
appear true, but in reality be untrue? If he were successfully concealing
his love from her, might she not be successfully concealing her love from
him? And if they found each other out, what then?

At such moments all through him like an alarm bell sounded her warning: "The
only things that need trouble us very much are not the things it is right to
conquer but the things it is wrong to conquer. If you ever conquer anything
in yourself that is right, that will be a real trouble for you as long as
you live--and for me!"

Had she meant this? But whatever mood was uppermost, of one thing he now
felt assured: that the sight of her made his silence more difficult. He had
fancied that her mere presence, her purity, her constancy, her loftiness of
nature would rebuke and rescue him from the evil in himself: it had only
stamped upon this the consciousness of reality. He had never even realized
until he saw her the last time how beautiful she was; the change in himself
had opened his eyes to this; and her greater tenderness toward him in their
talk of his departure, her dependence on his friendship, her coming
loneliness, the sense of a tragedy in her life--all these sweet half-mute
appeals to sympathy and affection had rioted in his memory every moment
since.

Therefore it befell that the parson's sermon of the morning had dropped like
living coals on his conscience. It had sounded that familiar, lifelong,
best-loved, trumpet call of duty--the old note of joy in his strength
rightly and valiantly to be put forth--which had always kindled him and had
always been his boast. All the afternoon those living coals of divine
remonstrance had been burning into him deeper and deeper but in vain: they
could only torture, not persuade. For the first time in his life he had met
face to face the fully aroused worst passions of his own stubborn, defiant,
intractable nature: they too loved victory and were saying they would have
it.

One by one the cabins disappeared in the darkness. One by one the stars
bloomed out yellow in their still meadows. Over the vast green sea of the
eastern wilderness the moon swung her silvery lamp, and up the valley
floated a wide veil of mist bedashed with silvery light.

The parson climbed the crest of the hill, sat down, laid his hat on the
grass, and slipped his long sensitive fingers backward over his shining
hair. Neither man spoke at first; their friendship put them at ease. Nor
did the one notice the shrinking and dread which was the other's only
welcome.

"Did you see the Falconers this morning?"

The parson's tone was searching and troubled and gentler than it had been
earlier that day.

"No."

"They were looking for you. They thought you'd gone home and said they'd go
by for you. They expected you to go out with them to dinner. Haven't you
been there to-day?"

"No."

"I certainly supposed you'd go. I know they looked for you and must have
been disappointed. Isn't this your last Sunday?"

"Yes."

He answered absently. He was thinking that if she was looking for him, then
she had not understood and their relation still rested on the old innocent
footing. Whatever explanation of his conduct and leave-taking the day before
she had devised, it had not been in his disfavour. In all probability, she
had referred it, as she had referred everything else, to his affair with
Amy. His conscience smote him at the thought of her indestructible trust in
him.

"If this is your last Sunday," resumed the parson in a voice rather
plaintive, "then this is our last Sunday night together. And that was my
last sermon. Well, it's not a bad one to take with you. By the time you get
back, you'll thank me more for it than you did this morning--if you heed
it."

There was another silence before he continued, musingly:

"What an expression a sermon will sometimes bring out on a man's face!
While I was preaching, I saw many a thing that no man knew I saw. It was as
though I were crossing actual wilderness-es; I met the wild beasts of
different souls, I crept up on the lurking savages of the passions. I
believe some of those men would have liked to confess to me. I wish they
had."

He forbore to speak of John's black look, though it was of this that he was
most grievously thinking and would have led the way to have explained. But
no answer came."

There was one face with no hidden guilt in it, no shame. I read into the
depths of that clear mind. It said: 'I have conquered my wilderness.' I have
never known another such woman as Mrs. Falconer. She never speaks of
herself; but when I am with her, I feel that the struggles of my life have
been nothing."

"Yes," he continued, out of kindness trying to take no notice of his
companion's silence, "she holds in quietness her land of the spirit; but
there are battle-fields in her nature that fill me with awe by their
silence. I'd dread to be the person to cause her any further trouble in this
world."

The schoolmaster started up, went into the cabin, and quickly came out
again. The parson, absorbed in his reflections, had not noticed:

"You've thought I've not sympathized with you in your affair with Amy. It's
true. But if you'd ever loved this woman and failed, I could have
sympathized."

"Why don't you raise the money to build a better church by getting up a
lottery?" asked John, breaking in harshly upon the parson's gentleness.

The question brought on a short discussion of this method of aiding schools
and churches, then much in vogue. The parson rather favoured the plan (and
it is known that afterwards a better church was built for him through this
device); but his companion bore but a listless part in the talk: he was
balancing the chances, the honour and the dishonour, in a lottery of life.

"You are not like yourself to-day," said the parson reproachfully after
silence had come on again.

I know it," replied John freely, as if awaking at last.

"Well, each of us has his troubles. Sometimes I have likened the human race
to a caravan of camels crossing a desert--each with sore on his hump and
each with his load so placed as to rub that sore. It is all right for the
back to bear its burden, but I don't think there should have been any sore!"

"Let me ask you a question," said John, suddenly and earnestly. "Have there
ever been days in your life when, if you'd been the camel, you'd have thrown
the load and driver off?"

"Ah!" said the parson keenly, but gave no answer.

"Have there ever been days when you'd rather have done wrong than right?"

"Yes; there have been such days--when I was young and wild." The confession
was reluctant.

"Have you ever had a trouble, and everybody around you fell upon you in the
belief that it was something else?"

"That has happened to me--I suppose to all of us."

"Were you greatly helped by their misunderstanding you?"

"I can't say that I was."

"You would have been glad for them to know the truth, but you didn't choose
to tell them?"

"Yes; I have gone through such an experience."

"So that their sympathy was in effect ridiculous?"

"That is true also."

"If you have been through all this," said John conclusively, "then without
knowing anything more, you can understand why I am not like myself, as you
say, and haven't been lately."

The parson moved his chair over beside the school-master's and took one of
his hands in both of his own, drawing it into his lap.

"John," he said with affection, "I've been wrong: forgive me! And I can
respect your silence. But don't let anything come between us and keep it
from me. One question now on this our last Sunday night together: Have you
anything against me in this world?"

"Not one thing! Have you anything against me?"

"Not one thing!"

Neither spoke for a while. Then the parson resumed:

"I not only have nothing against you, but I've something to say; we might
never meet hereafter. You remember the woman who broke the alabaster box for
the feet of the Saviour while he was living--that most beautiful of all the
appreciations? And you know what we do? Let our fellow-beings carry their
crosses to their Calvarys, and after each has suffered his agony and entered
into his peace, we go out to him and break our alabaster boxes above his
stiff cold feet. I have always hoped that my religion might enable me to
break my alabaster box for the living who alone can need it--and who always
do need it. Here is mine for your feet, John: Of all the men I have ever
known, you are the most sincere; of them all I would soonest pick upon you
to do what is right; of them all you have the cleanest face, because you
have the most innocent heart; of them all you have the highest notions of
what a man may do and be in this life. I have drawn upon your strength ever
since I knew you. You have a great deal. It is fortunate; you will need a
great deal; for the world will always be a battle-field to you, but the
victory will be worth the fighting. And my last words to you are: fight it
out to the end; don't compromise with evil; don't lower your ideals or your
aims. If it can be any help to you to know it, I shall always be near you
in spirit when you are in trouble; if you ever need me, I will come; and if
my poor prayers can ever bring you a blessing, you shall have that."

The parson turned his calm face up toward the firmament and tears glistened
in his eyes. Then perhaps from the old habit and need of following a sermon
with a hymn, he said quite simply:

"Would you like a little music? It is the Good-bye of the Flute to you and a
pleasant journey."

The school-master's head had dropped quickly upon his arms, which were
crossed over the back of his chair. While the parson was praising him, he
had put out his hand two or three times with wretched, imploring gestures.
Keeping his face still hidden, he moved his head now in token of assent; and
out upon the stillness of the night floated the Farewell of the Flute.

But no sermon, nor friendship, nor music, nor voice of conscience, nor voice
of praise, nor ideals, nor any other earthly thing could stand this day
against the evil that was in him. The parson had scarce gone away through
the misty beams before he sprang up and seized his hat.

There was no fog out on the clearing. He could not have said why he had
come. He only knew that he was there in the garden where he had parted from
her the day before. He sat on the bench where they had talked so often, he
strolled among her plants. How clear in the moonlight every leaf of the dark
green little things was, many of them holding white drops of dew on their
tips and edges! How plain the last shoe-prints where she had worked! How
peaceful the whole scene in every direction, how sacredly at rest! And the
cabin up there at the end of the garden where they were sleeping side by
side--how the moon poured its strongest light upon that: his eye could never
get away from it. So closely a man might live with a woman in this
seclusion! So entirely she must be his!

His passions leaped like dogs against their chains when brought too near.
They began to draw him toward the cabin until at last he had come opposite
to it, his figure remaining hidden behind the fence and under the heavy
shadow of a group of the wilderness trees. Then it was that taking one step
further, he drew back.

The low window of the cabin was open and she was sitting there near the foot
of her bed, perfectly still and looking out into the night. Her face rested
in one palm, her elbow on the window sill. Her nightgown had slipped down
from her arm. The only sleepless thing in all the peace of that summer
night: the yearning image of mated loneliness.

He was so close that he could hear the loud regular breathing of a sleeper
on the bed just inside the shadow. Once the breathing stopped abruptly; and
a moment later, as though in reply to a command, he heard her say without
turning her head:

"I am coming!"

The voice was sweet and dutiful; but to an ear that could have divined
everything, so dead worn away with weariness.

Then he saw an arm put forth. Then he heard the shutter being fastened on
the inside.

XIX

THE closing day of school had come; and although he had waited in impatience
for the end, it was with a lump in his throat that he sat behind the desk
and ruler for the last time and looked out on the gleeful faces of the
children. No more toil and trouble between them and him from this time on; a
dismissal, and as far as he was concerned the scattering of the huddled
lambkins to the wide pastures and long cold mountain sides of the world. He
had grown so fond of them and he had grown so used to teach them by talking
to them, that his speech overflowed. But it had been his unbroken wont to
keep his troubles out of the schoolroom; and although the thought never left
him of the other parting to be faced that day, he spoke out bravely and
cheerily, with a smile:

"This is the last day of school, and you know that to-morrow I am going away
and may never come back. Whether I do or not, I shall never teach again, so
that I am now saying good-bye to you for life.

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