“When the time comes,” he said gently, “I shall lift my hat to you.”
“That’s worth while,” said Lena in her short, forcible way. She turned and went back to her work.
The factory seemed to throb with the struggle of imprisoned death to burst its bars. Bayard came out into the air with the long breath which the bravest man always drew when he left the buildings.
These incidents (which are events to the solitary, missionary life) were but two days old when Joey Slip climbed the minister’s stairs, sobbing dolorously.
Rumor was running in Windover that Job was drunk again. Neither the child nor the wife could say if truth were in it, for neither had seen the man since yesterday. But Mari had dispatched the boy to the minister with the miserable news. With a smothered exclamation which Joey found it impossible to translate, Bayard snatched the child’s hand, and set forth. His face wore a terrible look. He reached the wharves in time to come directly upon Job, the centre of a ring of jeering roughs. Muddy, wet, torn, splashed with slime from the docks, hatless and raving, Job was doing his maudlin best to fight Ben Trawl, who stood at a safe distance, smiling with the cynicism of a rumseller who never drinks. Job—poor Job, the “reformed man”; Job, who had fought harder for his manhood than most sober men ever fight for anything from the baby’s crib to the broadcloth casket; Job, the “pillar” of Christlove mission, the pride and pet of the struggling people; Job, the one sure comfort of his pastor’s most discouraged hour,—Job stood there, abased and hideous.
He had lived one splendid year; he had done one glorious thing; he had achieved that for which better men than he should take off their hats to him. And there—Bayard looked at him once, and covered his face.
Job recognized him, and, frenzied as he was, sunk upon his knees in the mud, and crawled towards the minister, piteously holding up his hands. One must have been in Job’s place, or in Bayard’s, to understand what that moment was to these two men.
In the paltry scenes of what we call the society of the world, there are no actors who should criticise, as there are few who can comprehend the rôles of this plain and common tragedy.
With the eyes of a condemning angel, Bayard strode into the group, and took Job home.
“It’s clear D. T.,” said Captain Hap between his teeth.