Contents

I.[An Enforced Verdict]7
II.[An Act of Charity]25
III.[In the Presence of Death]41
IV.[The New Moon]58
V.[An Unusual Sermon]72
VI.[The Vestry Objects]86
VII.[The Rector’s Wife]99
VIII.[A Significant Dinner Party]119
IX.[The Spirit of Revenge]142
X.[A Ministerial Crisis]162
XI.[A Romantic Episode]177
XII.[The First Calamity]198
XIII.[A Case of Mistaken Identity]220
XIV.[The Bishop’s Dilemma]230
XV.[Love Versus Law]254
XVI.[“The Darkness Deepens”]276
XVII.[A Hopeless Quest]295
XVIII.[A Cruel Surprise]314
XIX.[The Storm Breaks]330
XX.[“Black as the Pit”]346
XXI.[The Final Tragedy]366
XXII.[An Episcopal Benediction]374
XXIII.[Rehabilitation]383

The Unhallowed Harvest

CHAPTER I
AN ENFORCED VERDICT

The Reverend Robert Bruce Farrar entered the Common Pleas court-room and made his way down the center aisle to the railing that enclosed the space allotted to members of the bar. Had he been an ordinary citizen he would have stopped there. But he was not an ordinary citizen. Therefore he passed on into the railed enclosure to find his seat. He was rector of Christ Church; the oldest, wealthiest and most prominent religious organization in the city. Yet that fact alone would not have given him the distinction he enjoyed in this community. He was also an eloquent preacher, a profound scholar, a man of attractive and vigorous personality. Apparently he was not lacking in any of the qualities that make for success in the administration of the affairs of a large city parish. He had been rector of Christ Church for two years, and his worth and ability had been, during that time, abundantly proven. Moreover, by reason of his genial and sympathetic nature, he had endeared himself to the people of the parish, especially to the more humble members of his flock. He had, as the saying is, “a passion for humanity.” To those who toiled, who were in trouble or affliction, his heart went out in unaffected sympathy. He gave of his best to encourage, comfort and relieve them. Indeed, the only criticism made concerning him—and that was a suggestion rather than a criticism—was that possibly he neglected the souls of the rich to care for the bodies of the poor. He was deeply interested in problems of social ethics and economy, in fact in all problems having to do with the general welfare. He was a student of human character in all of its phases and manifestations. This it was, doubtless, that led him into becoming a frequenter of the courts. It was for this reason that the trial of causes had for him a strong and unfailing attraction. He was fond of looking on at the visible working of the machinery of the law. For there are few public places where human motives, as disclosed by human conduct, are brought more frequently and startlingly to the surface than in the court-room. It was a place, therefore, where the reverend gentleman was not only a frequent, but also a welcome visitor. He had a standing invitation to enter the bar enclosure, and to occupy a chair among his friends the lawyers. There had been occasions, indeed, occasions of great public interest, when the presiding judge, who chanced to be his senior warden, had had his rector up to sit beside him on the bench. But the case on trial this day was not an unusual one. It had attracted no particular attention, either among lawyers or laymen. Yet the rector of Christ Church was deeply interested in it. He had attended, so far as he had been able to do so, the sessions of the court in which it was being heard. It was what is known among lawyers as a negligence case. A workman, employed by a large manufacturing concern, had been seriously and permanently injured while engaged in the performance of the duties of his employment. An elevator on which he was riding, while making his way from one part of the factory to another, had suddenly gone wrong, and had plunged down through five stories, to become a heap of wreckage at the bottom of the shaft. And out from among the mass of splintered wood and broken and twisted iron and steel, he had been drawn, scarcely less broken and twisted and crushed than the inanimate things among which he had lain. An action had been brought, in his name, against the employing company, to compel it to compensate him for his injuries. This was the second day of the trial. It was late in the afternoon, and the case was drawing to a close. When the rector of Christ Church entered the court-room, Philip Westgate, for the defense, was making his closing argument to the jury. With relentless logic he was tearing down the structure which the experienced and skillful attorney for the plaintiff had built up. Although one of the younger members of a brilliant bar, it was freely predicted that the day was not far distant when he would be its leader. This thought lay distinctly in the mind of Richard Malleson, president of the defendant company, as he sat at the counsel’s table, and followed, with keen interest and satisfaction, the course of the argument.

He was not so witless as to believe that the jury would find in favor of his company, in view of the strong human appeal that had been made to them, and still would be made to them, on behalf of the plaintiff; yet his countenance expressed no anxiety, for his lawyer had assured him that, regardless of any adverse verdict, the case fell within a rule of law that would prevent a recovery. So, fair type of the prosperous business man, portly, well-dressed, shrewd-eyed, square-jawed, he sat contentedly and listened while Westgate whittled away his opponent’s case.

The plaintiff also was in court, sitting near by. But whether or not he understood what the learned counsel for the defense was saying, whether or not he heard his voice at all, no one, looking into his face, would have been able to discover. He sat there in a wheel-chair, a plaid robe covering his palsied and misshapen legs, his chin resting heavily on the broad scarf that covered his breast, his dull, gray face showing neither anxiety nor interest as Westgate made havoc of the evidence on which his case was built. To all outward appearance, though his whole economic future was at stake, he neither knew nor cared what was going on about him. For two days the rector of Christ Church had watched him as he sat there, listless, motionless, looking neither to the right nor left, apparently as unconcerned as though it were a stranger’s fate with which learned counsel were playing battledore and shuttlecock across the traverse jury box.

But if the plaintiff was indifferent, his wife, who sat by him, was not. She at least was alive and alert. Nothing escaped her observation and consideration; no point presented by counsel, no ruling made by the court, no statement given by witnesses, no expression on the faces of jurors, as evidence and argument fell upon their ears and sank into their presumably plastic minds. She was, apparently, still in her early thirties. She was neatly and cheaply clad, as became a workingman’s wife. Her figure was well-proportioned and supple, and her oval face, lighted with expressive and intelligent dark eyes, was strikingly handsome. She was following Westgate’s argument with intense but scornful interest. That she appreciated its strength and its brilliance was apparent; but it was also apparent that she was not in the least dismayed. To the clergyman, student of human character and emotions, her countenance presented a greater attraction than the attraction offered by eloquent counsel. He looked at her, wondered at her, sympathized with her.

Nor was the rector the only person in the room whose attention had been drawn to the woman’s face rather than to the eloquence of the speaking lawyer. At the clergyman’s side sat Barry Malleson, son of the president of the defendant company. He, also, had been in constant attendance at the trial. Not that his presence was necessary there; but, holding a nominally important, if not vitally necessary, position with the defendant company, he felt, as he expressed it, that he should be present to hearten up counsel in the case, and to give moral encouragement and protection to his father on whom a heavy verdict might fall with peculiar severity. With one hand ungloved, toying with his cane, he had sat and listened, with apparently deep interest, to Westgate’s speech. But whether the lawyer’s eloquence or the face of the plaintiff’s wife was the greater attraction, it would have been difficult to discover. For, while his ears appeared to be attuned to the one, his eyes were certainly fixed upon the other, and his gaze was one of distinct admiration.