by Howard Pyle
“Help, Ralph!” came in Claiborne’s voice from the group.
As he called out he retreated a step, that he might free the weapon which his adversary held engaged.
His opponent, who fought with his back to Ingle, took advantage of the retreat, and making a lunge forward, drove his sword into Claiborne’s side, crying out, —
“Take that for the death of Philpotts!”
Claiborne fell, wounded.
“Wait till I get some one to hold this wriggling brat, and I’m with you.”
So far Ingle had gone in his speech when the foeman turned, and Ingle saw that in front of him which made his cheek blanch and his heart fail and his knees totter under him, for there stood a dead man waving a sword and making ready for a thrust at his heart, while Cecil shouted aloud with joy, —
“Thir Chrithtopher! help! help! He is taking me from my mother!”
No words answered. From a ghost none were to be looked for; but the steel flashed in air, and when it drew back it left a trail of blood. Ingle felt a quick intolerable pain at his heart, and the arm around Cecil slackened its hold till the child dropped to the ground.
“So you are come to take me to Hell, are you?” he muttered between set teeth, then swayed, reeled, and fell to earth with eyes fixed. Neville stood over him with vengeance in his glance.
“Are you from the charnel-house or from Hell itself?” asked Ingle.
“Is not this enough like Hell?”
“Ah, you have come from Hell, and know what it is like. Did the devil tell you? I meant to thwart Satan himself by confessing just before I died.”
“If you have a confession to make, best be quick, for your last hour is come.”
“A priest!” he murmured, for years of indifference could not quite obliterate the memory of Pater Nosters lisped at his mother’s knee; “or no, a priest would be harder than any, they stick so close by one another.”
“If you do indeed desire to free your soul of a confession,” said Neville, touched in spite of himself by the look of death on Ingle’s face, “speak to me and in the presence of this child whom you have wronged.”
“Do you think I could so escape Hell?”
“’Tis no business of mine,” answered Neville; “but for myself I’d not like to die with a sin on my soul.”
“No business of yours! Then — the — devil — did — not — tell — you.”
The words came slower now, with little gasps between. Suddenly his glazing eye brightened a little. “A priest! a priest!” he repeated. Looking round, Neville saw Father White passing up and down rendering help and solace to the wounded. “Run and fetch him, Cecil!” he said.
The child plucked the good priest by the cloak. “Father, come, Father!” he said. “Ralph Ingle hath need of thee. He is dying and would fain confess.”
Father White dropped the cup of water he was carrying, and coming to the side of the dying man knelt beside him.
“I think, after all, I won’t tell,” Ingle whispered. “Even this dead man had not heard it, and perhaps the devil himself has caught no word.”
“Think not to escape so,” said the priest; “the moments of time for thee are short, but the years of eternity are long, and through them all comes no chance such as lies before thee now to make some scant atonement by confession, and earn, perhaps, if not Heaven at least Purgatory, in place of Hell.”
“Bah!” said Ralph Ingle, rousing himself to a touch of his old-time boldness, “’tis no use to strive to fright me with your ghostly threats. Perhaps the devil will send me up like Master Neville here to do his work on earth; that would be rare sport, to cut and thrust and be beyond the power of wounds.” Here his head sank, and for a moment it seemed as he were gone, then the eyes opened again and the boyish smile curved his lips.
“Besides, ’tis no such great matter to kill a priest; there are so many of you, you know.”
“So it was you!” cried Neville, with new interest in his voice and stooping he wet Ingle’s lips with brandy from his flask. “Now,” he said, “if you have the least spark of manhood in you, speak out. You killed Father Mohl?”
Ralph Ingle moved his head in assent.
“How?”
“Speak!” exhorted Father White; “though thou be the chief of sinners, speak and trust in the mercy of the Lord who died to save such.”
“But I’m — not — the — chief — of — sinners— ’Twas the knife did it — the knife in the panther’s throat.”
“You found it?”
A nod.
“You were on your way from St. Mary’s to St. Gabriel’s?”
Nod.
“What for?”
“To stay with Brent — I promised Dick.”
Father White spoke low: “At least he was true to some one. Remember it, O Lord, when thou dost count up the sum of his transgressions!”
“Ay, ’twas Dick suggested it, so he and I feigned a quarrel before the gossips on the deck, and then I set out alone — More brandy — I cannot speak.”
Again Neville knelt beside him and poured the brandy down his throat. Under the stimulant Ingle revived and moved as if he would sit up, but Father White stayed him.
“Waste not an inch of thy strength,” he said, lifting his head, “but use it to save thy soul. Didst thou quarrel with Father Mohl?”
“Ay, ’twas his fault — I was singing a tavern song to cheer me, when I met old shaven-crown — Nay, God forgive me, the holy father —
“‘Good evening,’ says I.
“‘God have mercy on your soul!’ saith he.
“‘That’s between Him and me,’ says I, and then he must needs answer back in Latin — I had borne to be damned in English and never raised a finger; but to be called names in an outlandish foreign tongue was too much!”
“Thou art sinning away the hour of mercy,” said Father White, sternly; “speak of thyself and thy crime.”
“Ay, but I want God to know why I did it.
“‘Hold your tongue,’ said I.
“‘Pax tibi,’ said he, near as I could catch.
“‘Another word, and I’ll have your life!’ said I, raising the knife.
“‘Dominus tecum!’ he answered, out of spite, as the ugly, ugly smile of him showed, and that finished him.
“The knife came down, and ere I could pull it out I heard steps near by and did run for my life—”
“Whither didst run?”
“To St. Gabriel’s; and, seeing lights still up, I would fain have entered, but thought better of it, and rested in an out-house till morning.”
“Traitor!” exclaimed Father White, “was thy conscience so dead thou didst feel no pricks at accepting hospitality, — thou, a murderer?”
“Not a prick; only a mighty satisfaction that the devil looks so well after his own — or — hold — art thou going to tell all this to God? For then I must say it all different.”
“Speak truth! If anything could save thy guilty soul, ‘twere that.”
“Then if I’m damned for the business, I’ll own that I was glad when I thought myself safe, glad when I saw this man, Neville, accused, glad when I saw him sink in the river yonder. There, go back and tell that to the devil, will you?”
“Faith, you can tell him soon enough yourself,” muttered Neville, as he watched the laboring heart and the eye, which now glazed faster than ever.
“Is this all?”
It was Father White who spoke. Ingle pointed to Cecil, opened his lips, gasped out, “Elinor!” and fell back dead.
Father White lifted his eyes to heaven, praying:
“Judge him not according to his demerit, but through the infinite multitude of Thy mercies, and extend Thy grace and pardon in the name of Thy dear Son.”
When he rose from his knees he turned and would have clasped Neville’s hand, but he and Cecil had vanished together in the direction of Mistress Calvert’s cottage.
“Mother must be dead,” panted Cecil, as they hurried along; �
��else had she surely followed me.”
A deadly fear struck on Neville’s heart, cold as a hailstone on an opening rose. Had he so nearly reached the goal to fail at last?
“Look!” cried Cecil. “There she is!”
Neville dropped the child’s hand and rushed forward to where Elinor lay stretched, corpse-like, upon the ground, Margaret Brent chafing her cold hands. He fell upon his knees beside her and rained hot kisses on the cold fingers.
“O Death,” he muttered, “you must not, shall not cheat me now! Not till she knows. Oh, not till then!”
“This is not death,” said Margaret Brent, “but a heavy swoon. Hast thou brandy?”
For answer Neville pulled his flask from his jerkin, poured out some of the liquid and forced it between Elinor’s lips, while Margaret ran to the Governor’s Spring for water, taking Cecil with her to help carry the ewer.
Left alone thus with the woman he loved, the only woman he had ever loved, Neville knelt on, and watched and waited, — waited as it seemed to him for hours, though in reality it was but minutes, to catch the first flicker of those white lids, the first tremulous movement of those chiselled nostrils.
Two minds there were within him: one intent upon that still form, gazing in an agony of terror upon its immobility; the other living over the past, — that past which for him began and ended with Elinor.
How radiant she had looked at St. Gabriel’s that first night, when he came in out of the cold and darkness and saw her standing like a goddess of sunshine with her yellow hair gleaming above her green robe!
How graciously she had smiled upon him when he made friends with Cecil; how tenderly she had looked at him when he offered to seek Father Mohl and beg his pardon! Here came a swift pang as the bitterness of those dark days that followed the priest’s death swept over him. His lips framed the word “Unjust!” Then lifting his head he shook back the hair, and looking up cried aloud, —
“No, though it were with my last breath, and though she should never breathe again, I vow to God, I thank Him for it all, justice and injustice alike, else had I never known how she loved me.”
Up and down the street to the edge of the bluff the fight still raged around them, as one group of stragglers met another of the opposing force. None could say which had lost or won.
As for Neville, he had no care for what passed around him. All the world held for him lay there on the ground. Oh, God! would those dark-fringed eyes never open? Would those pallid lips never again redden to their old-time warmth, nor curve into their old-time tender wistfulness, nor open in the old-time gracious speech?
For one awful moment, Neville felt that this was indeed the end, and bowing his head he murmured, “It has — been — worth — while!”
The first sensation Elinor knew after her fall was a rushing of water over face and neck, a gurgling in her ears and a gasping as of some dying animal near by, then a curious realization that the gasping animal was herself, and that a sound of voices rang far and vague around her. Gradually through her closed lids gathered a dim light which, as she opened her eyes, grew to a glory dazzling as though it streamed from the great white Throne, and shadowed against it was the outline of a familiar face, long dear to memory and of late enshrined in her heart of hearts, — the face of Christopher Neville.
“So,” she murmured, “this is Heaven that lies beyond. I always said death would be nothing if we could be sure of that.”
Then the black curtain fell again, and the next sound that struck her consciousness was Cecil’s voice calling, —
“Mother! Mother! Wake up! Dick Ingle is fled, and the broidery on my coat is torn, and the Church of Our Lady is burned to the ground, and we are very hungry, and there is but corn meal in the house — oh! and Ralph Ingle—”
“Softly, little man, softly!” spoke Neville’s voice. “Run into the house and fetch pillows for thy mother’s head.”
Slowly Elinor’s mind awakened to the scene around. So this, after all, was not the pale reflection of earth cast upon the clouds of a shadowy after-life, but Heaven itself come down to earth. Love and life lay before, not behind. Too weary to question the causes of the miracle, she accepted it and thanked God.
“My dear!” she said simply, raising her arms and laying them about Neville’s neck. The effort of speech was too much for her strength, and she fell back exhausted and so white that Neville laid his hand anxiously upon her heart.
“Tell me all!” she murmured.
Neville laughed, a natural hearty laugh, for the first time since that terrible day in January. “So,” he said, “’tis curiosity alone can prick thee back to life. Well, thou shalt have the story. All there is to tell, as soon as thou canst bear it. Now, let us in.” And raising her in his arms he carried her to the settle where Cecil was piling the cushions.
As she sank into them, she laid her hand on the rebellious curls of her boy.
“Poor baby!” she whispered.
“Baby! ’Tis no baby thou hadst thought me, Mother, hadst thou seen me wrestling with Ralph Ingle? But he would not fight fair, and he had my arms pinioned when Thir Chrithtopher met us.”
“So, in addition to all my other debts, ’tis to thee I owe my son,” said Elinor, turning with a new tenderness in her eyes to Neville.
“Why, in a fashion, yes.”
“In all fashions, Mother. Why, ’twas like this—”
“Hush, Cecil, I can make naught of thy prattle. ’Tis too fast and too broken. Prithee, let Sir Christopher tell me the whole story.”
“Art sure thou hast strength to hear it?”
“I am sure I have not strength to do without it longer. Tell me, in Heaven’s name, how it comes that thou whom all men counted dead art returned alive to be the saving of us all.”
“Thank God, I was in time!”
“But how, when, where?”
“Nay, ’tis too long a story, and thou art still too weak.”
“Not I,” said Elinor scornfully, making an effort to sit up, but failing pitifully and sinking back again.
“There, see, thou hast no more strength than I when I fell against the gate of St. Mary’s last night, and they pulled me in like a log. ’Twas well Philpotts had kept his breath and could cry the warning. I think the villagers took me for a ghost, for they looked at me with dazed eyes and did my bidding as though I were something beyond nature. Sheriff Ellyson lent me his sword. I owe him much thanks, else had we not this valiant little warrior with us now.”
Elinor shivered and clasped Cecil close about the shoulders. “Go on, go on!” she whispered breathlessly.
“All hands were ordered to the guns at the gates. I worked side by side with Giles Brent, he, too, half shrinking from me, half drawn toward me as if I were a messenger from another world. When he fell, two men picked him up and one asked, ‘Whither shall we carry him?’
“‘To Mistress Calvert’s home,’ said the other.
“‘Mistress Elinor Calvert?’ I asked, my knees shaking under me.
“‘Ay,’ said the soldier, ‘she and her boy have been settled here since February. She is in the second house beyond the Church of Our Lady.’ Oh, Elinor, may you never know the anguish that thought cost me! If I had fought like a man before, I fought like a devil then, but we had not ammunition enough for our guns. The time was too short for bringing it from the powder-house, and they burst in at the weakest gate, the one furthest from mine, and then my only thought was to get to thee and die fighting at thy side. No, that’s not true neither, for I thought little of dying: my blood was up, and I was bent on trying how many of the rascally invaders I could put an end to.
“I started from the gate on a dead run, and before I had gone a hundred paces I found old Philpotts by my side. Hard by the Governor’s Spring we met Claiborne with a gang of marauders, armed with cutlasses. One of them made at Philpotts and ran him through the throat, so the poor fellow fell without a groan, and the blood of his faithful heart flowed out into the spring. Heaven rest
his soul for truer friend man never had.”
“And thou?”
“Faith, ’twas like to have fared no better with me; but that Neale and Ellyson and their following let drive at the invaders and drove them off, following them to keep them on the run. Only Claiborne stood his ground. Just as my sword touched him in the side, I heard him cry, ‘Help, Ralph!’ and turning I found myself face to face with Ingle, carrying Cecil in his arms; the poor child was screaming lustily.”
“And fighting, Thir Chrithtopher. Say now, was I not scratching and biting valiantly?”
“That he was, and hath a handful of the pirate’s hair as a keepsake. Just then Ingle caught sight of me, and ’twas as if he saw the Day of Judgment. ‘So you ‘re come to take me to Hell, are you?’ he said. With that he dropped Cecil, and ran at me with his cutlass, having no time to draw pistol. ’Twas scarce a fair fight, for I verily believe had he not been mastered by ghostly fear he would have finished me.”
“Thank God for the deliverance!”
“Ay, and for a greater mercy than life. The wretch did make confession to Father White, and of what, thinkst thou?”
“Oh, Mother,” cried Cecil, unable to curb his impatience another moment, “it was he who killed Father Mohl.”
“I know.”
“Thou knowest? In God’s name, how didst thou know?” Neville exclaimed.
“The emerald tag.”
Margaret Brent had entered unperceived, and now her questioning eyes said, “Who wore it?”
“Ralph Ingle, to-day, on his left arm, as if it were a badge to be proud of, — he, the man whose presence I tolerated, whose hateful love-making I permitted. Oh, Christopher, canst thou forgive me?”
“Forgive? Dearest, I love thee!”
“And canst thou forgive one who cannot lay claim to that mantle of love that covers all sins?”
It was the voice of Giles Brent, who had staggered to the door and stood leaning against the post, a new expression of humility on his proud face.