FullReads

At this time of life we generally spent a part of each evening in going round to inform our next neighbours that we had just discovered the solution of the problem of the universe. True, we had been round at the same friend’s the week before with two equally infallible discoveries. Most unfortunately, however, on Sunday we had gone to hear the Great Grim Man of St. Christopher’s preach in his own church, and he had pitilessly knocked the bottom out of both of these. Sometimes our friends called with their own latest solutions; and then there was such a pother of discussion, and so great a noise, that the old lady beneath foolishly knocked up a telephonic message to stop–foolishly, for that was business much more in our line than in hers. With one mind we thundered back a responsive request to that respectable householder to go to Jericho for her health, an it liked her. Our landlady, being long-suffering and humorously appreciative of the follies of academic youth (O rare paragon of landladies!), wondered meekly why she was sent to Coventry by every one of her neighbours on the stair during the winter months; and why during the summer they asked her to tea and inquired with unaffected interest if she was quite sure that that part of the town agreed with her health, and if she thought of stopping over this Whitsunday term.

When Sylvanus Cobb came up our stairs it was as though a bag of coals on the back of an intoxicated carter had tumbled against our door.

“That’s yon red-headed lunatic, I’ll be bound; open the door to him yersel’!” cried the landlady, remembering one occasion when Euroclydon had entered with such fervour as almost to pancake her bodily between wall and door.

Sylvanus came in as usual with a militant rush, which caused us to lift the kitchen poker so as to be ready to poke the fire or for any other emergency.

“I’ll stop no more in this hole!” shouted Euroclydon of the Red Head, “smothered with easter haar on the streets and auld wife’s blethers inby. I’m off to Canada to drive the axe on the banks of the Ottawa. And ye can bide here till your brains turn to mud–and they’ll not have far to turn either!”

“Go home to your bed, Euroclydon–you’ll feel better in the morning!” we advised with a calmness born of having been through this experience as many as ten times before. But, as it chanced, Sylvanus was in earnest this time, and we heard of him next in Canada, logging during the week and preaching on Sundays, both with equal acceptance.

One night Sylvanus had a “tough” in his audience–an ill-bred ruffian who scoffed when he gave out his text, called “Three cheers for Ingersoll!” when he was half through with his discourse, and interjected imitations of the fife and big drum at the end of each paragraph. It may be said on his behalf that he had just come to camp, had never seen Sylvanus bring down a six-foot pine, and knew not that he was named Euroclydon–or why.

The ruddy crest of the speaker gradually bristled till it stood on end like the comb of Chanticleer. He paused and looked loweringly at the interrupter under his shaggy brows, pulling his under lip into his mouth in a moment of grim resolve.

“I’ll attend to you at the close of this divine service!” said Euroclydon.

And he did, while his latest convert held his coat.

“An almighty convincing exhorter!” said Abram Sugg from Maine, when Sylvanus had put the Ingersollian to bed in his own bunk, and was feeding him on potted turkey.

On the hillsides, with their roots deep in the crevices of the rocks, grew the pines. One by one they fell all through that winter. The strokes of the men’s axes rang clear in the frosty air as chisel rings on steel. Whenever Sylvanus Cobb came out of the door of the warm log-hut where the men slept, the cold air met him like a wall. He walked light-headed in the moistureless chill of the rare sub-Arctic air. He heard the thunder of the logs down the chute. The crash of a falling giant far away made him turn his head. It was a life to lead, and he rubbed his hands as he thought of Edinburgh class-rooms.