The Voice | Page 4

died soon after, poor fellow."
"Doesn't Mr. Roberts's everlasting arguing about it tire you out?"
William asked.
"Oh no," Dr. Lavendar said, cheerfully; "when he talks too long I just
shut my eyes; he never notices it! He's a gentle old soul. When I answer
back--once in a while I really have to speak up for the Protestant
Episcopal Church--I feel as if I had kicked Danny." William King
grinned. Then he got up and, drawing his coat-tails forward, stood with
his back to the jug of lilacs in Dr. Lavendar's fireplace. "Oh, well, of

course it's all bosh," he said, and yawned; "I was on a case till four
o'clock this morning," he apologized.
"William," said Dr. Lavendar, admiringly, "what an advantage you
fellows have over us poor parsons! Everything a medical man doesn't
understand is 'bosh'! Now, we can't classify things as easily as that."
"Well, I don't care," William said, doggedly; "from my point of view--"
"From your point of view," said Dr. Lavendar, "St. Paul was an
epileptic, because he heard a Voice?"
"If you really want to know what I think--"
"I don't," Dr. Lavendar said; "I want you to know what I think. Mr.
Roberts hasn't heard any Voice, yet; he is only listening for it. William,
listening for the Voice of God isn't necessarily a sign of poor health;
and provided a man doesn't set himself up to think he is the only person
his Heavenly Father is willing to speak to, listening won't do him any
harm. As for Henry Roberts, he is a humble old man. An example to
me, William! I am pretty arrogant once in a while. I have to be, with
such men as you in my congregation. No; the real trouble in that
household is that girl of his. It isn't right for a young thing to live in
such an atmosphere."
William agreed sleepily. "Pretty creature. Wish I had a daughter just
like her," he said, and took himself off to make up for a broken night's
rest. But Dr. Lavendar and Danny still sat in front of the lilac-filled
fireplace, and thought of old Henry Roberts listening for the Voice of
God, and of his Philippa. The father and daughter had lately taken a
house on a road that wandered over the hills between elderberry-bushes
and under sycamores, from Old Chester to Perryville. They were about
half-way between the two little towns, and they did not seem to belong
to either. Perryville's small manufacturing bustle repelled the silent old
man whom Dr. Lavendar called an "Irvingite"; and Old Chester's
dignity and dull aloofness repelled young Philippa. The result was that
the Robertses and their one woman servant, Hannah, had been living on
the Perryville pike for some months before anybody in either village

was quite aware of their existence. Then one day in May, Dr.
Lavendar's sagging old buggy pulled up at their gate, and the old
minister called over the garden wall to Philippa: "Won't you give me
some of your apple blossoms?"
That was the beginning of Old Chester's knowledge of the Roberts
family. A little later Perryville came to know them, too: the Rev. John
Fenn, pastor of the Perryville Presbyterian Church, got off his big,
raw-boned Kentucky horse at the same little white gate in the brick
wall at which Goliath had stopped, and walked solemnly--not noticing
the apple blossoms--up to the porch. Henry Roberts was sitting there in
the hot twilight, with a curious listening look in his face--a look of
waiting expectation; it was so marked, that the caller involuntarily
glanced over his shoulder to see if any other visitor was approaching;
but there was nothing to be seen in the dusk but the roan nibbling at the
hitching-post. Mr. Fenn said that he had called to inquire whether Mr.
Roberts was a regular attendant at any place of worship. To which the
old man replied gently that every place was a place of worship, and his
own house was the House of God. John Fenn was honestly dismayed at
such sentiments--dismayed, and a little indignant; and yet, somehow,
the self-confidence of the old man daunted him. It made him feel very
young, and there is nothing so daunting to Youth as to feel young.
Therefore he said, venerably, that he hoped Mr. Roberts realized that it
was possible to deceive oneself in such matters. "It is a dangerous thing
to neglect the means of grace," he said.
"Surely it is," said Henry Roberts, meekly; after which there was
nothing for the caller to do but offer the Irvingite a copy of the
American Messenger and take his departure. He was so genuinely
concerned about Mr. Roberts's "danger," that he did not notice Philippa
sitting on a stool at her father's