THE SECOND OBLONG BOX
When Cleggett returned to the ship he found Captain Abernethy in conversation with a young man of deprecating manner whom the Captain introduced as the Rev.Simeon Calthrop.
"I been tellin' him," said the Cap'n, pitching his voice shrilly above the din the workmen made, and not giving the Rev.Mr.Calthrop an opportunity to speak for himself, "I been tellin' him it may be a long time before the Jasper B.gets to the Holy Land.""Do you want to go to Palestine?" asked Cleggett of Mr.Calthrop, who stood with downcast eyes and fingers that worked nervously at the lapels of his rusty black coat.
"I've knowed him sence he was a boy.He's in disgrace, Simeon Calthrop is," shrieked the Captain, preventing the preacher from answering Cleggett's question, and scorning to answer it directly himself."Been kicked out of his church fur kissin' a married woman, and can't get another one."(The Cap'n meant another church.)The preacher merely raised his eyes, which were large and brown and slightly protuberant, and murmured with a kind of brave humility:
"It is true."
"But why do you want to go to Palestine?" said Cleggett.
"She sung in the choir and she had three children," screamed Cap'n Abernethy, "and she limped some.Folks say she had a cork foot.Hey, Simeon, DID she have a cork foot?"Mr.Calthrop flushed painfully, but he forced himself courageously to answer."Mr.Abernethy, I do not know," he said humbly, and with the look of a stricken animal in his big brown eyes.
He was a handsome young fellow of about thirty--or he would have been handsome, Cleggett thought, had he not been so emaciated.His hair was dark and brown and inclined to curl, his forehead was high and white and broad, and his fingers were long and white and slender; his nose was well modeled, but his lips were a trifle too full.Although he belonged to one of the evangelical denominations, the Rev.Mr.Calthrop affected clothing very like the regulation costume of the Episcopalian clergy; but this clothing was now worn and torn and dusty.Buttons were gone here and there; the knees of the unpressed trousers were baggy and beginning to be ragged, and the sole of one shoe flapped as he walked.He had a three days' growth of beard and no baggage.
When Cap'n Abernethy had delivered himself and walked away, the Rev.Mr.Calthrop confirmed the story of his own disgrace, speaking in a low but clear voice, and with a gentle and wistful smile.
"I am one of the most miserable of sinners, Mr.Cleggett," he said."I have proved myself to be that most despicable thing, an unworthy minister.I was tempted and I fell."The Rev.Mr.Calthrop seemed to find the sort of satisfaction in confessing his sins to the world that the medieval flagellants found in scoring themselves with whips; they struck their bodies; he drew forth his soul and beat it publicly.
Cleggett learned that he had set himself as a punishment and a mortification the task of obtaining his daily bread by the work of his hands.It was his intention to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, refusing all assistance except that which he earned by manual labor.After such a term of years as should satisfy all men (and particularly his own spiritual sense) of the genuineness of his penitence, he would apply to his church for reinstatement, and ask for an appointment to some difficult mission in a wild and savage country.The Rev.Mr.Calthrop intimated that if he chose to accept rehabilitation on less arduous terms, he might obtain it; but the poignancy of his own sense of failure drove him to extremes.
"Are you sure," said Cleggett sternly, "that you are not making aluxury of this very penitence itself?Are you sure that it would not be more acceptable to Heaven if you forgave yourself more easily?""Alas, yes, I am sure!" said Mr.Calthrop, with a sigh and his calm and wistful smile."I know myself too well! I know my own soul.I am cursed with a fatal magnetism which women find it impossible to resist.And I am continually tempted to permit it to exert itself.This is the cross that I bear through life.""You should marry some good woman," said Cleggett.
"I do not feel that I am worthy," said Mr.Calthrop meekly."And think of the pain my wife would experience in seeing me continually tempted by some woman who believed herself to be my psychic affinity!""You are a thought too subtle, Mr.Calthrop," said Cleggett bluntly."But I suppose you cannot help that.To each of us his destiny.I am prepared, until I see some evidence to the contrary, to believe your repentance to be genuine.In the meantime, we need a ship's chaplain.If your conscience permits, you may have the post--combining it, however, with the vocation of a common sailor before the mast.I am inclined to agree with you that manual labor will do you good.Some time or another, in her progress around the world, the Jasper B.will undoubtedly touch at a coast within walking distance of Jerusalem.There we will put you ashore.Before we sail you can put in your time holystoning the deck.
"The deck of the Jasper B., said Cleggett, looking at it, "to all appearances, has not been holystoned for some years.You will find in the forecastle several holystones that have never been used, and may begin at once."Cleggett, if his tastes had not inclined him towards a more active and adventurous life, would have made a good bishop, for he knew how to combine justice and mercy.And yet few bishops have possessed his rapidity of decision, when compelled, upon the spur of the moment, to become the physician of an ailing soul.He had determined in a flash to make the man ship's chaplain, that Calthrop might come into close contactwith other spiritual organisms and not think too exclusively of his own.
The Rev.Mr.Calthrop thanked him with becoming gratitude and departed to get the new holystones.
