Paul Faber, Surgeon | Page 6

with a
curious quaver in her eyes. Nor was it any wonder she should look at
him strangely, for she felt toward him very strangely: to her he was as
it were the apostle of a kakangel, the prophet of a doctrine that was evil,

yet perhaps was a truth. Terrible doubts had for some time been
assailing her--doubts which she could in part trace to him, and as he sat
there on Ruber, he looked like a beautiful evil angel, who knew there
was no God--an evil angel whom the curate, by his bold speech, had
raised, and could not banish.
The surgeon had scarcely begun a reply, when the old minister made
his appearance. He was a tall, well-built man, with strong features,
rather handsome than otherwise; but his hat hung on his occiput, gave
his head a look of weakness and oddity that by nature did not belong to
it, while baggy, ill-made clothes and big shoes manifested a reaction
from the over-trimness of earlier years. He greeted the doctor with a
severe smile.
"I am much obliged to you, Mr. Faber," he said, "for bringing me home
my little runaway. Where did you find her?"
"Under my horse's head, like the temple between the paws of the
Sphinx," answered Faber, speaking a parable without knowing it.
"She is a fearless little damsel," said the minister, in a husky voice that
had once rung clear as a bell over crowded congregations--"too fearless
at times. But the very ignorance of danger seems the panoply of
childhood. And indeed who knows in the midst of what evils we all
walk that never touch us!"
"A Solon of platitudes!" said the doctor to himself.
"She has been in the river once, and almost twice," Mr. Drake went on.
"--I shall have to tie you with a string, pussie! Come away from the
horse. What if he should take to stroking you? I am afraid you would
find his hands both hard and heavy."
"How do you stand this trying spring weather, Mr. Drake? I don't hear
the best accounts of you," said the surgeon, drawing Ruber a pace back
from the door.
"I am as well as at my age I can perhaps expect to be," answered the
minister. "I am getting old--and--and--we all have our troubles, and, I
trust, our God also, to set them right for us," he added, with a
suggesting look in the face of the doctor.
"By Jove!" said Faber to himself, "the spring weather has roused the
worshiping instinct! The clergy are awake to-day! I had better look out,
or it will soon be too hot for me."
"I can't look you in the face, doctor," resumed the old man after a pause,

"and believe what people say of you. It can't be that you don't even
believe there is a God?"
Faber would rather have said nothing; but his integrity he must keep
fast hold of, or perish in his own esteem.
"If there be one," he replied, "I only state a fact when I say He has
never given me ground sufficient to think so. You say yourselves He
has favorites to whom He reveals Himself: I am not one of them, and
must therefore of necessity be an unbeliever."
"But think, Mr. Faber--if there should be a God, what an insult it is to
deny Him existence."
"I can't see it," returned the surgeon, suppressing a laugh. "If there be
such a one, would He not have me speak the truth? Anyhow, what great
matter can it be to Him that one should say he has never seen Him, and
can't therefore believe He is to be seen? A god should be above that
sort of pride."
The minister was too much shocked to find any answer beyond a sad
reproving shake of the head. But he felt almost as if the hearing of such
irreverence without withering retort, made him a party to the sin against
the Holy Ghost. Was he not now conferring with one of the generals of
the army of Antichrist? Ought he not to turn his back upon him, and
walk into the house? But a surge of concern for the frank young fellow
who sat so strong and alive upon the great horse, broke over his heart,
and he looked up at him pitifully.
Faber mistook the cause and object of his evident emotion.
"Come now, Mr. Drake, be frank with me," he said. "You are out of
health; let me know what is the matter. Though I'm not religious, I'm
not a humbug, and only speak the truth when I say I should be glad to
serve you. A man must be neighborly, or what is there left of him?
Even you will allow that our