IV
“The problem is—” said the Reverend William Sewall, standing at the back of the church with his sister Margaret, and Guy Fernald, her husband, and Nan and Sam Burnett—the four who had, as yet, no children, and so could best take time, on Christmas afternoon, to make the final arrangements for the evening— “the problem is—to do the right thing, to-night. It would
be so mighty easy to do the wrong one. Am I the only man to stand in that pulpit—and is it all up to me?”
He regarded the pulpit as he spoke, richly hung with Christmas greens and seeming eagerly to invite an occupant.
“I should say,” observed his brother-in-law, Guy, his face full of affection and esteem for the very admirable figure of a young man who stood before him, “that a fellow who’s just pulled off the sort of service we know you had at St. John’s this morning, wouldn’t consider this one much of a stunt.”
Sewall smiled. “Somehow this strikes me as the bigger one,” said he. “The wisest of my old professors used to say that the further you got into the country the less it mattered about your clothes but the more about your sermon. I’ve been wondering, all the way up, if I knew enough to preach that sermon. Isn’t there any minister in town, not even a visiting one?”
“Not a one. You can’t get out of it, Billy Sewall, if you have got an attack of stage-fright—which we don’t believe.”
“There is one minister,” Nan admitted. “But I’d forgotten all about him, till Father mentioned him last night. But he doesn’t really count at all. He’s old—very old—and infirm.”
“Superannuated, they call it,” added Sam Burnett. “Poor old chap. I’ve seen him—I met him at the post-office this morning. He has a peaceful face. He’s a good man. He must have been a strong one—in his time.”
“Had he anything to do with the church trouble?” Sewall demanded, his keen brown eyes eager.
Nan and Guy laughed.
“Old ‘Elder Blake’?—not except as he was on his knees, alone at home, praying for the fighters—both sides,” was Guy’s explanation. “So Father
says, and nobody knows better what side people were on.”
“If I can get hold of a man whose part in the quarrel was praying for both sides, I’m off to find him,” said Sewall, decidedly. He picked up his hat as he spoke. “Tell me where he lives, please.”
“Billy!” His sister Margaret’s voice was anxious. “Are you sure you’d better? Perhaps it would be kind to ask him to make a prayer. But you won’t——”
“You won’t ask him to preach the sermon, Billy Sewall—promise us that,” cried Guy. “An old man in his dotage!”
Sewall smiled again, starting toward the door. Somehow he did not look like the sort of fellow who could be easily swayed from an intention once he had formed it—or be forced to make promises until he was ready. “You’ve got me up here,“ said he, ”now you’ll have to take the consequences.
Where did you say ‘Elder Blake’ lives?”
And he departed. Those left behind stared at one another, in dismay.
“Keep cool,” advised Sam Burnett. “He wants the old man’s advice—that’s all. I don’t blame him. He wants to understand the situation thoroughly. Nothing like putting your head into a thing before you put your foot in. It saves complications. Sewall’s head’s level—trust him.”
“BILLY!” HIS SISTER MARGARET’S VOICE WAS ANXIOUS. “ARE YOU SURE YOU’D BETTER?”
