by Howard Pyle
“Ay, that will I.”
“Without fail?”
“Why, surely! There is naught I would love better than toathting my toeth by the great fire.”
“Very well, then; shut thine eyes and begin!”
Cecil counted faithfully to the stroke of a hundred, and then springing to his feet with a shout, started down the stair, but to his surprise the priest was nowhere to be seen. Cecil searched behind the settle and under the table as if one could fancy Father White’s stately figure in such undignified hiding-place! At length the child gave up the search and called aloud, —
“Where art thou?”
“Here, in this little room,” answered a muffled voice, and Cecil ran to the door only to find it securely fastened by a bolt within.
“Come in,” cried the voice.
“I cannot; it ith bolted.”
“But you promised—”
“But the door ith fatht.”
“What of that? ‘A promise is a promise.’”
By this time Cecil, perceiving that jest and lesson were both pointed at him, stood with quivering lip, ready at a single further word to burst into tears; but the kind father, flinging wide the door, caught him in his arms, saying, “We must not hold each other responsible, my boy, for promises which God and man can make impossible of fulfilment. We must be gentle and charitable and easy to be entreated for forgiveness; and so good-night to mother, and I will lay thee again in thy trundle-bed.”
“Has Sir Christopher Neville left us also?” asked Mary Brent, as Father White came down from Cecil’s room and joined her and Elinor at the fire.
“He has.”
“A strange man!” said Father White.
Elinor colored.
“Ay,” answered Mary Brent; “I cannot make out why Giles hath taken such a liking to him. To me he seems proud and reserved, with something in his tone that suggests that he is turning the company into a jest. For myself I did not see anything droll in his story of the fried whetstone.”
Elinor shrugged her shoulders.
“If every man were condemned that told a tale in which others could see nothing droll, we should need a Tyburn Hill here in Maryland.”
“Ay, but what’s the use of telling a droll story if it be not droll? I do not understand Sir Christopher.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“I think I do.”
It was Father White who spoke, and his shrewd gray eyes were fixed upon Elinor, who turned to the fire without a word.
Mary Brent sat tapping her foot on the floor.
“’Tis strange he should have left without a word,” she said at last.
“Never fear, Mary! We have not lost him. He is too large to be mislaid like a parcel. He did but go out to fulfil a behest of mine, and if Father White understands him, as he says he does, he will have divined that it was an errand of courtesy and good-will on which he set out.”
A silence fell on the group. Then Father White, looking out, exclaimed: “’Tis a bitter night and the snow is falling again! No wonder the settlers grumble over such a winter in this land where they were promised all sunshine and flowers.”
“Yes,” said Mary Brent. “If the weather is to be like this, we might as well have settled on the bleak Massachusetts coast.”
“It cannot last long. The natives all say they never knew such a season. They fear to go abroad at night, there are so many half-starved wild beasts prowling around.”
Elinor rose and began to pace the floor uneasily.
“But,” continued Father White, “there are more reasons than those of climate for preferring Maryland to Massachusetts. How wouldst thou have prospered in a Puritan colony?”
“I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways.”
“Yet,” interrupted Elinor, “they too are serving God in their own way.”
Mary Brent shook her head. “I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood’s Barn.”
Elinor murmured something about “toleration.”
“Toleration!” repeated her cousin scornfully. “I hate the word. He that tolerates any religion against his own is either a hypocrite or a backslider.”
“Shall there be no liberty of conscience?”
“Ay, but liberty to think wrong is no liberty.”
“These be deep matters, my daughters, and best left to the schoolmen,” said Father White. “None doubt that Mistress Brent hath kept her fidelity unspotted to the Church. Let Elinor Calvert pattern after her kinswoman.”
Thereafter Father White turned again to the subject of missions, and the two women listened till the hour-glass had been turned and the candles began to burn low in their sockets. At last Mary Brent grew somewhat impatient. If she had a vice it was excess of punctuality. She was willing to share her last crust with a stranger; but he must be on hand when it came out of the oven. The hours for meals and especially for bedtime were scrupulously observed in her household, and to-night it irked her to be kept up thus beyond her usual hour for retiring.
Elinor, perceiving this and feeling some sense of responsibility for the cause, said at last, —
“I pray thee, Cousin, wait no longer the coming of Sir Christopher, whose errand has kept him beyond what I counted on, else I would not have given my consent. Father White and I will sit up to await his coming. Go thou to bed, and see that the counterpane is drawn high over Cecil, for the howling of the wind promises a cold night.”
“Poor little one!” said Mary Brent, rising and evidently glad of an excuse for retiring, “I will see that he is tucked in warm and snug. Sir Christopher is to sleep next Father White. I have had his bed made with our new homespun sheets.”
As Mistress Brent passed out of sight up the stairs, Elinor turned to Father White with tears standing in her eyes, —
“How good she is!” she murmured.
“Ay, a good woman — her price is above rubies. I pray that by her example and influence you may be held as true as she to your duties to God and His Holy Church.”
Elinor stirred uneasily. The movement did not escape the priest’s eye, accustomed to studying every symptom of the soul’s troubles as a physician studies the signs of bodily tribulations.
“My daughter,” he continued, “is your heart wholly at peace — firmly stayed upon the living rock?”
“No! no!” cried Elinor, “it is rather a boat tossed upon the waves at the mercy of every tempest that sweeps the waters.”
“How strange!” said Father White, speaking softly as to a suffering child. “How strange that you thus of your own will are tossed about, and run the risk of being cast upon the rocks; yea, of perishing utterly in the whirlwind, when peace is waiting for you, to be had for the asking.”
“I would I knew how to find it.”
“Even as St. Peter found it when he too was in peril of deep waters, by calling upon the name of the Lord. Come, my daughter, come with me to the altar, that we may seek it together!”
Taking a candle from the table he rose and led the way to the recess at the end of the hall, which Mary Brent had piously fitted up as a chapel, where before the altar burned the undying lamp of devotion.
“Here,” said the priest, “peace awaits the storm-tossed soul. It shall be thine. But first must thou throw overboard all sinful desires, all guilty memories, all selfish wishes, and seek in simplicity of heart that peace of God which passeth understanding. Kneel, my daughter, at the confessional!”
So saying he seated himself in the great oaken chair, brought out of England. Elinor fell upon her knees beside it and poured out the grief and struggles of her tumultuous soul.
“Bless me, Father, because I have sinned.” The voice trembled at first so that the words could scarcely be heard, but grew firmer as she went on in the familiar words: “I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary ever Vi
rgin, to Michael the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, to all the saints, and to you, Father, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!” How the words ring down the ages laden with their burden of human penitence and remorse! Still, despite all the uses to which they have been wrested by hypocrisy and levity, they remain infinitely touching in the link they furnish, the bond of unity for the suffering, sin-laden souls of many races and many generations.
When Elinor had finished the list of offences whereof she wished to free her soul, and which even to the sensitive conscience of Father White appeared over trivial for the emotion she had shown, the priest asked softly: “Is there nothing else? Examine well thine heart. Leave no dark sin untold to grow in the shadow and choke the fair flower of repentance.”
“No, Father, I know of no other sin.”
“Nor any unworthy wish?”
“Nor any unworthy wish.”
“Nor any carnal affection threatening to draw thy soul away from the path of salvation?”
The shaft was shrewdly aimed. It struck home.
“Father, is it a sin to love?”
“It may be — a deadly sin.”
“To love purely, with a high and unselfish devotion?”
“It may be.”
“Prithee, tell me how, since God himself is love.”
“There is indeed a Godlike love, stooping to the weakest, bending over the lowest, yearning most over the most unworthy, such as the love of the shepherd for his sheep, of the mother for her son, of the true priest for his flock; but let a woman beware how she brings to the altar such a love for her husband.”
Elinor started.
“Yes,” Father White went on tenderly, but as one who must probe the wound that it may heal the sooner, “it is the nature of woman to look up. She will do it, and if she cannot raise the one she loves she will stoop to the dust herself, that from that abasement the man may still seem to stand above her.”
“Father,” cried Elinor, casting aside all concealment, “the man I love is not base.”
“Do I know him?”
“You have seen him.”
“This night?”
“This night.”
“Can a man who knoweth not how to rule his own tongue rule a wife, and above all a wife like thee, aflame one instant, the next melted to tenderness, full of pity and long-suffering, yet quick of spirit and proud as Lucifer?”
Elinor was silent.
“A captious temper is a grievous fault, yet it may be mended — if he is of the true faith. But, oh, my daughter, tempt not thy fate by marrying an unbeliever! Faults thou mayst conquer; sins thou mayst forgive or win forgiveness for; but unbelief is a blight which fosters every vice and destroys every virtue. Root up this passion, though it seem to tear thy life with it. Think on thy boy! Durst thou expose him to the influence of such an example?”
“Father,” said Elinor, tremulously, “I cannot answer now — I must have time to think. Who knows but my love may draw him into the right path?”
The priest shook his head; but as he was about to answer, the stamping of feet was heard outside, and Father White dismissed his penitent with a wave of his hand.
“Go, my daughter. But as thou dost value thy soul and the soul of thy boy, entangle thyself no further till thou hast taken counsel once more with me. And may Almighty God be merciful unto thee, and, forgiving thee thy sins, bring thee to life everlasting!”
Elinor rose from her knees, and drawing aside the curtain passed out into the hall, while Father White tarried for the candles.
Neville came in at the outer door, bringing with him a gust of wind and cold. Knut rose from the hearth with a low growl and moved suspiciously toward the stranger, then, drawn by some magnetic attraction, he nosed about him and at last fawned upon him and rubbed against his legs, seeking a caress. Neville bent over and patted his head. “Good dog!” he said, “I would I had had you with me in the forest yonder. Belike I had not been so long in finding my way out. Ah, Mistress Calvert,” he added, peering into the shadow from which gleamed the shimmer of Elinor’s gown, “I am grieved to have kept the household awake so late, and all for naught, since I failed as completely in the search for Father Mohl as though he had vanished like a spirit in the air.”
“Yet of old you were a swift runner. I have seen you chase a hare across the fields at Frome and keep the pace.”
“Ay, but that was over Somerset turf, and with the light of day to guide me.”
“I am much disappointed—”
Neville felt the chill in Elinor’s tone.
“Not more disappointed than I,” he answered. “’Tis the elements must bear the blame. When I started out the moonlight shone full on the path, and I could see my way for a quarter of a mile, but even then the clouds were hanging round the moon like wolves about a sheep-fold. In half an hour she was swallowed up, and then, to confuse me the more, a light snow began falling, slowly at first, then faster and faster, till, what with the wind in my face and the snow on the path, I lost the trail somewhere near the cross-road. Before I knew it I was caught in a thicket of brush and briar, and when I had struggled out there was no hope of catching the priest.”
Elinor looked closely at Neville. He was very white and breathing heavily.
“You are hurt,” she exclaimed, moving toward him with quick sympathy. “See, your garments are pulled this way and that as if you had struggled with worse foes than the wind.”
“Only contact with a few brambles through which I forced my way back to the road I had lost.”
“But your jerkin is torn—”
“Ay, caught on a stray branch which hung too low.”
“And there is blood on your boots — yes, and on your hands. Oh, tell me what you have gone through while we sat here at our ease by the hearth!”
Neville drew near and spoke low: “For such sympathy I would have dared far more than I met. If you will have the story, it fell out thus. Having forgot to buckle on my sword as I went out, I found myself scantily armed with my short poniard. Yet did I never think of danger, till after I had turned about, and losing the blazed path, began to scan each branch I passed, for some token that might lead me straight.
“Peering about me with my poniard in hand to cut the boughs, I was aware of a rustling in the branches over my head as of something heavier than bird or fowl. I jumped aside. The creature sprang and missed me. My hope lay in a counter attack, and I in turn leaped upon her, and buried my poniard in her neck. She must have been made of something other than flesh and blood, else she had fallen dead at my feet from that blow; but instead she made off at a bound, and with such speed that I had no chance to discover her species, though in the dark she looked about the size of a panther. The worst thing in the whole adventure was the loss of my knife. It has helped me through many a perilous place, and it goes hard with me to have lost it now. I suppose I may count this the best service it has done me. But why do I dwell at such length upon a trifle? I warrant there be few hunters who have passed a night in our wilderness without some such taste of the manners of wild beasts.”
“Make not light of such an escape,” murmured Elinor, breathlessly. “As for me, I will give thanks for thee upon my knees in my closet. Father White will show thee to thy chamber. ’Tis the one next his, and hath the distinction of owning a bed with sheets in place of a deerskin.”
Neville gazed at Elinor with some disappointment. He did not appreciate that this was the way her quick wit chose to let him know that their conversation was overheard. As he looked up at her words, he saw Father White moving towards them. The candle in his hand shone upward and cast a light on his white hairs, which gave them the effect of a halo around his forehead. As he held up his fingers in token of benediction to Elinor as she passed him, he seemed like some saint breathing serenity and heavenly
joy.
Despite his lifetime prejudices Neville felt himself vaguely stirred by the half-unearthly vision of the saintly face framed in its snowy halo, and the dark robes fading into the blackness of the hall beyond.
“Bless me too, Father!” he murmured, “for I have sinned.” The priest moved as if he were about to comply, then suddenly recalling himself, he dropped his half outstretched arm and asked:
“Is it the blessing of Holy Church you crave?”
“No, faith!” cried Neville, suddenly emancipated from the thrall of his first impression. “It was but the blessing of a good man I asked, which to my thinking should have some value, with the backing of any church or none; but since it must be bought with hypocrisy or begged on bended knee I will have none of it. Good-night, madam,” he added, bowing low to Elinor; and helping himself to a candle from the table, he lighted it at the fire.
“Good-night, my daughter!” the priest echoed, and added softly: “Concede misericors Deus fragilitati nostræ præsidium!”
CHAPTER IV. THE LORD OF THE MANOR
THE MORNING SUN streamed into the bedroom where Cecil slept on his low truckle-bed beside his mother’s curtained couch. The brilliant rays tugged at the boy’s eyelids and lifted them as suddenly as the ropes raise the curtain of a play-house, and indeed to this small observer it seemed that a perpetual comedy was being acted in the world for his special benefit. Better still, that it was his delightful privilege to play the part of Harlequin in this rare farce of life and to make the gravest grown-people the sport of his jests. The earliest manifestation of humor, in the individual as in the race, is the practical joke; so it was quite natural that as a fresh and delightful pleasantry it occurred to Cecil, instantly on waking, to creep over to his mother’s bed and begin to tickle her ear with the tassel of the bed curtain. The mere occupation was pleasure enough, but the sensation rose to ecstasy as he watched the sleepy hand raised time after time to brush away the supposed insect. At length the enjoyment grew too exquisite for repression, and at the cost of ruining its own existence burst out into a peal of laughter that roused the drowsy mother.