THE MISSIONARY.
We will now briefly explain by what strange concourse of events Father Seraphin, whom we have for so long a period lost out of sight, and Valentine's mother, had arrived so providentially to help Red Cedar.
When the missionary left the Trail-hunter, he proceeded, as he expressed a wish, among the Comanches, with the intention of preaching the gospel to them, a holy duty which he had begun to put in execution long before. Father Seraphin, through his character and piety of manner, had made friends of all these children of nature, and converted numerous proselytes in various tribes, especially in Unicorn's.
The journey was long and fatiguing to the Comanche village, and the means of transport were, in a desert country, only traversed by nomadic hordes, which wander without any settled purpose in these vast solitudes. The missionary, however, did not recoil; too weak to ride on account of the scarce cicatrised wound he had received a short time previously, he had, like the first Fathers of the Church, bravely undertaken this journey on foot, which it is almost impossible to accomplish on horseback.
But human strength has its limits, which it cannot go beyond. Father Seraphin, in spite of his courage, was obliged tacitly to allow that he had undertaken a task which he was too weak to carry out. One night he fell, exhausted by fever and fatigue, on the floor of some Indians, who nursed and brought him round. These Indians, who were half civilised, and had been Christians for a long time, would not allow the priest, in his present state of health, to continue his journey; on the contrary, taking advantage of the fever which kept him down and rendered it impossible for him to see what was done with him, they conveyed him back, by slow stages, to Texas.
When Father Seraphin, thanks to his youth and powerful constitution, had at length conquered the malady which kept him confined to his bed for more than a month between life and death, his surprise was great to find himself at Galveston, in the house of the episcopal head of the Mission. The worthy prelate, employing the spiritual powers given him by his character and his title, had insisted on the missionary going on board of a vessel just starting for Havre, and which was only waiting for a favourable wind.
Father Seraphin obeyed with sorrow the commands of his superior; the Bishop was obliged to prove to him that his health was almost ruined, and that his native air could alone restore it, ere he would resign humbly to obedience, and, as he said bitterly, fly and abandon his post. The missionary started then, but with the firm resolution of returning so soon as it was possible.
The voyage from Galveston to Havre was a pleasant one; two months after leaving Texas, Father Seraphin set foot on his native soil, with an emotion which only those who have wandered for a long time in foreign parts can comprehend. Since accident brought him back to France, the missionary profited by it to visit his family, whom he never expected to see again, and by whom he was received with transports of joy, the greater because his return was so unexpected.
The life of a missionary is very hard; those who have seen them at work in the great American desert can alone appreciate all the holy abnegation and true courage there is in the hearts of these simple and truly good men, who sacrifice their life, without the hope of possible reward; in preaching to the Indians. They nearly all fall in some obscure corner of the prairie, victims to their devotion, or if they resist for five or six years, they return to their country prematurely aged, almost blind, overwhelmed with infirmities, and forced to live a miserable life among men who misunderstand and too often calumniate them.
Father Seraphin's time was counted, every hour he passed away from his beloved Indians he reproached himself with as a robbery he committed on them. He tore himself from his parent's arms, and hastened to Havre, to profit by the first chance that presented itself for returning to Texas.
One evening, while Father Seraphin was seated on the beach, contemplating the sea that separated him from the object of his life, and thinking of the proselytes he had left in America, and whom, deprived of his presence, he trembled to find again, plunged in their old errors—he heard sobs near him. He raised his head, and saw at some paces from him a woman kneeling on the sand and weeping; from time to time broken words escaped from her lips. Father Seraphin was affected by this sorrow; he approached, and heard the words: "My son, my poor son! Oh, Heaven restore me my son!"
This woman's face was bathed in tears, her eyes were raised to Heaven, and an expression of profound despair was imprinted on her countenance. Father Seraphin understood with the instinct of his heart that there was a great misfortune here that required unsolving, and addressed the stranger.
"Poor woman, what do you want here? Why do you weep?
"Alas! Father," she answered, "I have lost all hope of being happy in this world."
"Who knows, madam? Tell me your misfortunes. God is great; perhaps He will give me the power to console you."
"You are right, father; God never deserts the afflicted, and it is above all when hope fails them that He comes to their assistance."
"Speak then with confidence."
The strange woman began in a voice broken by the internal emotion which she suffered.
"For more than ten years," she said, "I have been separated from my son. Alas! Since he went to America, in spite of all the steps I have taken, I have never received news of him, or learned what has become of him, whether he be dead or alive."
"Since the period of which you speak, then, no sign, no information however slight, has reassured you as to the fate of him you mourn?"
"No, my father, since my son, the brave lad, determined to accompany his foster-brother to Chili."
"Well," the priest interrupted, "you might enquire in Chili."
"I did so, father."
"And learned nothing?"
"Pardon me, my son's foster-brother is married, and possesses a large fortune in Chili. I applied to him. My son left him about a year after his departure from France, without telling him the motive that urged him to act thus, and he never heard of him again, in spite of all his efforts to find him; all that he discovered was that he had buried himself in the virgin forests of the Great Chaco, accompanied by two Indian chiefs."
"It is, indeed, strange," the priest muttered thoughtfully.
"My son's foster-brother frequently writes to me; thanks to him, I am rich for a woman of my condition, who is accustomed to live on a little. In each of his letters he begs me to come and end my days with him; but it is my son, my poor child, I wish to see again; in his arms I should like to close my eyes. Alas! That consolation will not be granted me. Oh! Father, you cannot imagine what grief it is for a mother to live alone, far from the only being who gave joy to her latter days. Though I have not seen him for ten years, I picture him to myself as on the day he left me, young and strong, and little suspecting that he was leaving me forever."
While uttering these words, the poor woman could not repress her tears and sobs.
"Courage! life is but one long trial; is you have suffered so greatly, perchance God, whose mercy is infinite, reserves a supreme joy for your last days of life."
"Alas, father, as you know, nothing can console a mother for the absence of her son, for he is her flesh, her heart. Every ship that arrives, I run, I inquire, and ever, ever the same silence! And yet, shall I confess it to you? I have something in me which tells me he is not dead, and I shall see him again; it is a secret presentiment for which I cannot account: I fancy that if my son were dead, something would have snapped in my heart, and I should have ceased to exist long ago. That hope sustains me, in spite of myself; it gives me the strength to live."
"You are a mother in accordance with the gospel; I admire you."
"You are mistaken, father; I am only a poor creature, very simple and very unhappy; I have only one feeling in my heart, but it fills me entirely: love of my son. Oh, could I see him, were it only for a moment, I fancy I should die happy. At long intervals, a banker writes me to come to him, and he pays me money, sometimes small sums, at others large. When I ask him whence the money comes, he says that he does not know himself, and that a strange correspondent has requested him to pay it to me. Well, father, every time I receive money in this way, I fancy that it comes from my son, that he is thinking of me, and I am happy."
"Do not doubt that it is your son who sends you this money."
"Is it not?" she said, with a start of joy. "Well, I feel so persuaded of that, that I keep it; all the sums are at my house, intact, in the order as I received them. Often, when grief crushes me more than usual, when the weight that oppresses my heart seems to me too crushing, I look at them, I let them slip through my fingers, as I talk to them, and I fancy my son answers me; he bids me hope I shall see him again, and I feel hope return. Oh! You must think me very foolish to tell you all this, father: but of what can a mother speak, save of her son? Of what can she think but her son?"
Father Seraphin gazed on her with a tenderness mingled with respect. Such grandeur and simplicity in a woman of so ordinary a rank overcame him, and he felt tears running down his cheeks which he did not attempt to check.
"Oh, holy and noble creature!" he said to her; "Hope, hope; God watches over you."
"You believe so too, father? Oh, thanks for that. You have told me nothing, and yet I feel comforted through having seen you and let my heart overflow in your presence. It is because you are good, you have understood my sorrow, for you, too, have doubtless suffered."
"Alas; madam, each of us has a cross to bear in this world; happy is he whom his burden does not crush."
"Pardon my having troubled you with my sorrows," she said, as she prepared to leave; "I thank you for your kind words."
"I have nothing to pardon you; but permit me to ask you one more question."
"Do so, father."
"I am a missionary. For several years I have been in America, whose immense solitudes I have traversed in every direction. I have seen many things, met many persons during my travels. Who knows? Perhaps, without knowing it, I may have met your son, and may give the information you have been awaiting so long in vain."
The poor mother gave him a glance of indefinable meaning, and placed her hand on her heart to still its hurried beating.
"Madam, God directs all our actions. He decreed our meeting on this beach; the hope you have lost I may perhaps be destined to restore you. What is your son's name?"
At this moment Father Seraphin had a truly inspired air; his voice was commanding, and his eyes shone with a bright and fascinating fire.
"Valentine Guillois!" the poor woman said, as she fell in almost a fainting state on a log of wood left on the beach.
"Oh!" the priest exclaimed; "On your knees and thank Heaven! Console yourself, poor mother! Your son lives!"
She drew herself up as if moved by a spring, and fell on her knees sobbing, and held out her hands to the man who restored her son to her.
But it was too much for her: so strong against grief, could not resist joy: she fainted. Father Seraphin ran up to her and recalled her to life. We will not describe the ensuing scene, but a week later the missionary and the hunter's mother started for America. During the voyage Father Seraphin fully described to his companion what had happened to her son during his long absence, the reasons of his silence, and the sacred remembrance in which he had ever held her. The poor mother listened, radiant with happiness, to those stories, which she begged to hear over and over again, for she was never tired of hearing her son spoken of.
On reaching Galveston, the missionary, justly fearing for her the fatigues of a journey through the desert, wished to induce her to remain in that city till her son came to her, but at that proposition the mother shook her head.
"No," she said, resolutely, "I have not come here to stop in a town: I wish to spend the few days left me to live by his side; I have suffered enough to be avaricious of my happiness, and desire not to lose an atom. Let us go, father. Lead me to my child."
Before a will so firmly expressed, the priest found himself powerless; he did not recognise the right of insisting longer; he merely tried to spare his companion the fatigue of his journey as far as possible.
They, therefore, started for Galveston, proceeding by short stages to the Far West. On reaching the border of civilised countries, Father Seraphin took an escort of devoted Indians to protect his companion. They had been in the desert for six days, when suddenly heaven brought them face to face with Red Cedar, dying without help in the heart of the primeval forest.