CHAPTER VI

BEARDING THE LIONS IN THEIR DEN

"MAY I enter?" said Pastor Oshart.

He had knocked several times at the door of the Valdens' cottage, but there was so much noise inside that he could not be heard. So at last he opened the door, and standing on the threshold, faced the three men, who turned toward him as he spoke.

"You here, Master Oshart! Truly, this is a day of marvels! Pray what will you with us?" asked Jaspar, with a frown.

"Ay," screamed the shrill, mocking voice of Hervitz, "what dealings can this saint of Carfoos have with us sinful Valdens?"

"I come on urgent business," replied the pastor, with grave gentleness. "Have I your permission to come in and tell my errand?"

"Oh, come in, come in, of course, most righteous prophet and teacher!" sneered Dorlat. "Think you that we could be so wanting in courtesy as to keep our best of friends outside our door? Why, bethink thee, father, and thou, brother Hervitz, what reason we have for loving and reverencing this holy man! We have not forgotten—have we—what we owed him in the past?"

"Nay, that have we not!" cried Hervitz, with a laugh. "And no one can say of us that we pay not our debts."

"Peace, Hervitz!" said Jaspar. "Let us hear the man's business; though, all the same, Pastor Oshart, you are somewhat over-bold to come thus into the lions' den."

The old minister smiled. "My God hath shut the lions' mouths ere this," he said quietly; "and what he did for His servant Daniel of old He could do now, if it so pleased Him. The Lord's arm is not shortened that it cannot save."

"There speaks the cant of your cloth!" piped the piercing voice of Hervitz. "Lucky for you if you need not to put your God to the test!"

"Master Jasper Valden," said the pastor, looking past the sharp, weasel face of Hervitz, and speaking to the old father, "have I your leave to sit? I am an old man, and, moreover, very weary to-night."

Jaspar rose and silently pushed a stool across the floor, and Pastor Oshart sat down.

"Master Jasper Valden, and you, Dorlat and Hervitz," said he, "I am sent to you with a message from all the people of Carfoos. And the message is this. You are requested to move away from this place and to return no more. We give you one week in which to make your preparations, and if at the end of that time you are still here, information against you will be lodged at the Klingengolf police-station, and the law must be suffered to take its course."

"And pray why should we thus be driven forth?" questioned Jaspar, his stern, rugged face flushing angrily. "Have we not as good a right to be here as you or any one else?"

"All peaceable and law-abiding folk have an equal right," replied the old pastor, with mild firmness. "And whose fault is it, my masters, that ye are not of such?"

"Yet know I not what charges could be brought against us," said Jaspar; "nor yet," he added fiercely, "why the whole village should band together to hound us out of the place."

"If you are wise, Jaspar Valden," answered Pastor Oshart, "you will not ask me to name and count up the misdeeds which have brought you and yours into disfavour with all Carfoos and its neighbourhood. But I tell you this, that should you be taken up for trial at Klingengolf, evidence will not be wanting to bring home to you some of these misdeeds. We would—to say truth—spare ourselves and you the disgrace of a public trial; but your lawlessness and the terror with which you have filled our quiet village cannot longer be suffered. This, then, is my message from my people your neighbours. What answer am I to take back to those who sent me?"

At this, the father and his two sons sullenly rose and went to the other end of the long low room, and there held a discussion in muttered tones, the meaning of which did not reach the pastor's ears.

At last the three men turned, and Jaspar came forward.

"Since the people of Carfoos are unjust and cruel," said he, "we willingly quit so unpleasant a neighbourhood. But mind you, sir pastor, let it clearly be understood that we do this, not because we acknowledge the truth of the accusations, or the right of our neighbours to dictate to us what we shall do, but because we care not to remain among those who hate us, and who do us an injustice."

"Is this, then, your reply?"

"It is, Master Oshart."

"It is well," said the old pastor. "So now that I have spoken on behalf of my people, and received your answer, I have yet something to say that concerns more particularly myself. It is about Freskel. I love the boy; he is fond of me; we understand one another. To you, with his wavering mind, his wayward will, his strange, wild ways, he can be of little use, and of no comfort. My wife is dead, I have no child; leave Freskel with me, and I pledge myself to be all to him that a father can."

There was a pause, broken only by a contemptuous snort from Dorlat and a shrill exclamation from Hervitz. Old Jaspar said nothing, but looked gloomily down, and clenched his great knotted right hand on the table. The pastor waited patiently for a minute or two; at last he said gently,—

"Jaspar Valden, you have heard my request; will you be pleased to grant it?"

The old man roused himself. Shaking back the masses of grey hair that overhung his brow, he straightened his mighty form to its full height and said, "Had it been any one but you, Pastor Oshart, that asked me this, I would have said, 'Take the boy and welcome'; but to you I say, 'No.' If I care not for the brat myself, none the more would I have him beloved by my enemy. For think not, sir pastor, that I have forgotten your impudent interference in speaking to us years ago. Who are you that you should presume to remonstrate with us? Who asked you to concern yourself with our affairs? I tell you—"

"One word, Master Valden," said the old pastor. "You surely forget that it is my duty in the sight of God, to warn and admonish in the home of sin, as much as it is my privilege to comfort in the house of mourning, or to speak a word in season to him that is weary. In all ways, and to all men, Christ's gospel of repentance and salvation must be preached by me; yea, woe is me if I preach not the Gospel. And woe is me, likewise, if respect of persons, or fear of violence, or even a desire not to offend, makes me to hold my peace, keeping back the word of truth that the Lord hath given me to speak.

"Jaspar Valden, I have no ill-feeling towards you in my heart. Would to God that I needed not to say unto you aught but comfortable words. Would to God that ye were seekers after truth, would-be followers of the loving and gracious One, whose servant I am."

Jasper was about to speak, but Pastor Oshart rose from his seat and held up his hand, and the old man kept silence.

"Oh, my friends (suffer me to call you so this once)," cried the pastor, "my mouth is open unto you, my heart is enlarged. This night I have been sent to you in God's providence with a message from man, and now I stand before you having also a message from the Lord Himself. He only knows if the Gospel invitation will ever be spoken to you again. He only can tell whether or no for any or all of you the day of grace, the accepted time, ends to-night. I beseech you, flee from the wrath to come while yet you may. I pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. I earnestly plead with you to turn from your evil ways, from the love of money which causes you to sin, and to come, just as you are, to the open arms of Jesus. For are we not told that 'when the wicked man turneth away front his wickedness and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive'?

"And since He is faithful that hath promised, no word shall fail of all that the Lord hath spoken, if you will but come as penitents to Him and cry, 'God be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus, Thy Son's, dear sake.'"

Here the old pastor's voice broke in a sob; the inspired light died out of his eyes, and tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks.

"Oh, my people!" he sighed tremblingly. "'Turn ye—turn ye; why will ye die?'"

Jasper Valden's rugged, powerful face worked with emotion as the pastor spoke.

Once he seemed on the point of replying impulsively, but a hard, scornful look from his son Dorlat silenced him.

Again there was silence, and Pastor Oshart turned towards the door and waited there. Presently he said very gently, "I pray you, Master Valden, to re-consider that matter of your son Freskel. Give him to me, and before God I promise that you shall not repent it."

Jaspar passed his great hand across his brow; the expression of his face was troubled and irresolute. "I know not what answer to give you," he said at length.

"Indeed, father, this foolish weakness is unworthy of thee," said Dorlat, scowling from under his shaggy brows at the pastor.

"Yes, why should the impertinent old preacher have his way with us after all?" yelled Hervitz, in his shrill falsetto. "If we let him hence with a whole skin and an unbruised head, surely that is more than he deserves who comes thus a-meddling."

"And as for Freskel," added Dorlat, "we can make use of him yet, fool though he be; but even if not, better get rid of him in some other way than give him to be turned against his own flesh and blood, and become their enemy."

"Jaspar Valden, it was to you that I appealed, and for your answer I wait," said the pastor, taking no notice of what the young men said, and not even glancing in their diction.

"You hear what these, my sons say?" asked the old man, with an uneasy look at the two evil faces beside him. "Well, as you know that we are a united family," (here he gave a hard, bitter laugh), "of course what they speak, I must stand to."

"God help you then!" sighed Pastor Oshart. "And the boy Freskel remains with you?"

"He remains with us."

"Then, since this is final, I have only to say good-night," said Pastor Oshart.

For one moment he paused with the door open, but there was no response to his farewell from either Jaspar or his sons; so he gave them one last sad look, then shut himself out into the darkness and plodded wearily home, cast down in even that brave heart of his, and murmuring, as he gazed up to the silent stars, "'O Lord, I have laboured in vain, and I have spent my strength for nought.'"

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