Married | Page 9

leather ball. They were like hares
sniffing at a gun which had been lost in the wood. They did not
understand its use, but they knew it for something inimical, something
with a hidden meaning. Presently a belt-maker's apprentice, whose
brother was in the Life Guards, joined the inquisitive throng and at
once decided the question: "Can't you see that it is a sword, you fools?"
he shouted, with a look at Theodore. It was a respectful look, but a look
which also hinted at a secret understanding between them, which,
correctly interpreted, meant: You and I understand these things! But a
young rope-maker, who had once been a trumpeter in a military band,
considered this giving of a verdict without consulting him a personal
slight and declared that he "would be hanged if it wasn't a rapier!" The
consequence was a fight which transformed the place into a
bear-garden, dense with dust and re-echoing with screams and yells.
The door opened and the minister stood on the threshold. He was a pale
young man, very thin, with watery blue eyes and a face disfigured by a

rash. He shouted at the boys. The wild beasts ceased fighting. He began
talking of the precious blood of Christ and the power of the Evil One
over the human heart. After a little while he succeeded in inducing the
hundred boys to sit down on the forms and chairs. But now he was
quite out of breath and the atmosphere was thick with dust. He glanced
at the window and said in a faint voice: "Open the sash!" This request
re-awakened the only half-subdued passions. Twenty-five boys made a
rush for the window and tried to seize the window cord.
"Go to your places at once!" screamed the minister, stretching out his
hand for his cane.
There was a momentary silence during which the minister tried to think
of a way of having the sash raised without a fight.
"You," he said at last to a timid little fellow, "go and open the
window!"
The small boy went to the window and tried to disentangle the window
cord. The others looked on in breathless silence, when suddenly a big
lad, in sailor's clothes, who had just come home on the brig Carl Johan,
lost patience.
"The devil take me if I don't show you what a lad can do," he shouted,
throwing off his coat and jumping on the window sill; there was a flash
from his cutlass and the rope was cut.
"Cable's cut!" he laughed, as the minister with a hysterical cry, literally
drove him to his seat.
"The rope was so entangled that there was nothing for it but to cut it,"
he assured him, as he sat down.
The minister was furious. He had come from a small town in the
provinces and had never conceived the possibility of so much sin, so
much wickedness and immorality. He had never come into contact with
lads so far advanced on the road to damnation. And he talked at great
length of the precious blood of Christ.

Not one of them understood what he said, for they did not realise that
they had fallen, since they had never bee different. The boys received
his words with coldness and indifference.
The minister rambled on and spoke of Christ's precious wounds, but not
one of them took his words to heart, for not one of them was conscious
of having wounded Christ. He changed the subject and spoke of the
devil, but that was a topic so familiar to them that it made no
impression. At last he hit on the right thing. He began to talk of their
confirmation which was to take place in the coming spring. He
reminded them of their parents, anxious that their children should play
a part in the life of the community; when he went on to speak of
employers who refused to employ lads who had not been confirmed,
his listeners became deeply interested at once, and every one of them
understood the great importance of the coming ceremony. Now he was
sincere, and the young minds grasped what he was talking about; the
noisiest among them became quiet.
The registration began. What a number of marriage certificates were
missing! How could the children come to Christ when their parents had
not been legally married? How could they approach the altar when their
fathers had been in prison? Oh! what sinners they were!
Theodore was deeply moved by the exhibition of so much shame and
disgrace. He longed to tear his thoughts away from the subject, but was
unable to do so. Now it was his turn to hand in his certificates and the
minister read out: son: Theodore, born on such and such a date;