THE HOUSE OF YORKE.
CHAPTER VII.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
One Saturday evening in June, the Seaton mail-coach, with two passengers, drove out of the city of Bragon on its way eastward. Both these passengers were gentlemen, and both young. One was large and light-complexioned; the other, slight and dark. The large one had a hard, white face, whose only expression seemed to be a fixed determination to express nothing. Such a look is provoking. Let us read a little of the man in spite of himself. People have no right to shut themselves up in that way. One would say immediately that he is what is called a very good man, one of those good men whom we praise, and avoid: that is, he does not offend against the decalogue nor the revised statutes. But there is a law radiant with a tenderer glory, dropped, verse by verse, through the Scriptures, taught constantly by the church, attested to human hearts by the very need of it, and that law he keeps not. One wonders at such a man, and, in softer moods, fancies pitifully that he aches under that icy coating, and that down in the depths of his heart some little unfrozen spring perpetually troubles his repose by its protesting, half-stifled murmur. One is also exasperated by him. "In his society," as Miss Clara Yorke said afterward, "one's thoughts and feelings become all puckered up." He is indeed a powerful moral astringent.
As if conscious of our observation, he turns stiffly away, and looks out of the window at his elbow, entertaining his mind with a view of the spiders that hang from the beams of the covered bridge through which they are driving. We are not to be baffled, however, but can pursue our scrutiny. He has large, heavy white hands, his broadcloth is of the finest, and in the breast-pocket of his coat is a manuscript sermon. He would like to have us listen to that sermon, but will not.
The gentleman who sits at this person's left is as different as could well be. He has a thin face, a long nose inclining slightly upward toward the end, and haggard, bright eyes. His forehead is high, and all the hair is brushed straight back from it, and falls on his neck. He has a small mouth, with lips so vividly red that they seem to be painted. In his breast-pocket is a bottle of laudanum, which seems to be very much at home there.
These gentlemen had never met before they stepped into the coach together; and it would be safe to say that they had no ardent desire to meet again. They were very slow, indeed, to improve the opportunity afforded them to form an acquaintance, and probably would have maintained a very formal demeanor toward each other, had not circumstances forced them into a most undignified intimacy. There had been a succession of pouring rains, and the roads were frightful, heavy with mud, and full of pitfalls. After the coach got out of the town and into the woods, their situation became very trying to the passengers. To say nothing of the pain of bumps and bruises, their dignity and sense of propriety were constantly being outraged by their being thrown into each other's arms, or having their heads knocked violently together. Under such difficulties, silence became impracticable. Apologies became necessary, and exclamations irrepressible. He of the sermon never said anything worse than "Bless me!" but the other had occasionally to stifle an ejaculation which would not have been so pleasant to hear.
The coach was due at Seaton at four o'clock in the morning; but as hours passed, and still their motion was chiefly lateral and perpendicular, their prompt arrival receded from a probability to a possibility, and thence became impossible. They had started at nine o'clock; and at three of the next morning they yet lacked nearly a mile of reaching the half-way house where they were to change horses. At that point one of the wheels suddenly slipped into a deep rut. The four steaming horses strained and tugged till they started the coach, when it immediately gave a lee-lurch, and went into a hole at the other side. At the same moment, something, whatever it is which holds horse and carriage together, snapped, and the quadrupeds started off on their own account, leaving the coach and the bipeds to follow at their leisure. The driver, having the reins in his hands, was of course pulled off the box; but the road received him softly. The passengers need have suffered no damage, but that the tall one, having, curiously enough, the impression that they were being run away with instead of from, jumped out of the coach with more haste than discretion. The spot he sank into was the rut from which the front wheel had just been drawn, and the result was that he emerged upon the roadside in a deplorable masquerade, being clad in a complete domino of well-mixed clay and water. Moreover, his ankle was quite severely sprained.
"You'll have to walk to the half-way house, gentlemen," the driver said, calmly wiping the mud from his face. He had been over that road too many times to be much disturbed at any mishap of the kind. Having spoken, he shouldered the mail-bags, and started in advance. It was full three minutes before the other passenger appeared, and, when he did, his face was perfectly grave, though very red. He threw a blanket he had found inside out into the road, and stepped on to it. He next reached in and got a cushion, with which he completed the bridge across the mud, then walked over them as unstained as Queen Elizabeth over Raleigh's mantle, and stepped dry-shod in the neatest of boots on to the rim of the delicate moss that spread its carpet all along the roadside under the trees. Having landed safely, he turned toward his companion, who was trying to wash himself in a brook and scrape his clothes with sticks. "I should advise you, sir," he said, "to come right on to the house, and get a complete change of clothing. It is useless to try to clean those."
The other was speechless, and seemed too much stupefied to do anything more than obey.
Morning was just breaking, cloudless and beautiful, the forest was fresh with June, and through it could be heard the elfish laughter of brooks. While the travellers had through the night been racked and tormented, conscious only of misery and mud, all around them nature had reposed in her loveliness and purity, with her birds sweetly nestled, her flowers dewwashed, her streams crystal-clear. Their road had been like a foul thread woven across a beautiful web.
When they reached the half-way house, the tall traveller was in a perfectly abject state. His pride had quite disappeared, his dignity was nowhere to be seen. He allowed himself to be arrayed in a suit of rough farming-clothes a good deal too short, in which he beheld himself without a smile, and humbly begged his fellow-traveller to bear a message from him to his expecting friends in Seaton. Not only his toilet, but his sprained ankle would prevent his proceeding on his journey for some hours at least. His name was Conway; he was a Baptist minister, and was expected to preach in Seaton that day. Would the gentleman be so good as to send word to the church, as soon as he arrived, that their looked-for candidate had met with an accident? He was not personally acquainted with any one in Seaton, therefore could not direct him, but presumed that the driver could.
The gentleman with the bright eyes cordially promised, then asked for breakfast and a clothes-brush, and the other withdrew to rest.
"There's not time to cook anything but coffee and fish," the landlord said. "Passengers never stop here to breakfast; and the driver is going on in fifteen minutes. But I'll do the best I can for you."
In ten minutes all was ready. The traveller brushed his clothes scrupulously, combed his hair back in a silken wave, bathed his face and hands, gave himself one more look to be sure that his toilet was correct, then seated himself at table. The principal dish before him was an eel fried in sections, then carefully put together, and coiled round the plate.
"Not much of a breakfast," the landlord said. "But we haven't any market here."
"Sir!" exclaimed the traveller in a deep voice, "I asked for fish, and you give me a serpent! I would as soon—I would sooner eat of an anaconda than an eel."
"I'm sorry you do not like it, sir," the man replied. "If we raised anacondas here, you should have one; but we don't."
The traveller drank his coffee, and found it not bad. "I will try to do without snakes, this morning," he remarked.
There were twelve miles yet to travel; but the road improved slightly as they went on. Still it was tedious work; and when at last they drove into the town, it was past ten o'clock, and the bells were ringing for Sunday service.
When the coach reached the post-office, in the centre of the town, the traveller jumped out, and asked to be directed to the Universalist meeting-house. "And please send word to the Baptist people of the accident which befell their minister," he said. "It will be impossible for me to do so now."
The driver promised, and directed the stranger. "Go over the bridge here, and up the hill, and you will come to a white meeting-house with green blinds," he said.
The traveller hastily followed the direction, and soon came to a house answering the description given. The congregation were all in their seats; and as the new-comer breathlessly entered, he heard a voice from the pulpit. "My beloved brethren," the voice said, "I am sorry to inform you that the minister who was to have preached for us to-day will not probably come. The stage has not come in, and has, most likely, met with an accident. But since you have all gathered together here to-day, it seemed to me a pity that you should go away without hearing the word of life. I have therefore brought a volume of sermons by the reverend—"
Here the deacon stopped at sight of the stranger hurrying up the aisle, made an awkward gesture, took out his pocket-handkerchief, and, finally, descended sheepishly at one side of the pulpit as our belated traveller went up the other.
The minister seated himself on the red velvet sofa, which in the temple occupied the place of an altar, fumbled a while in the hymn-book for a hymn he could not find, wiped his heated face, finally read at random. Presently there was heard from the gallery over the entrance the faint twang of a tuning-fork, then a man's voice feeling for the key, which he had to transpose from A to C. Pouncing upon it at length in a stentorian do, he soared gradually up through dominant to octave, the choir caught their parts, and the hymn began. Unfortunately, however, in their haste they had selected a common metre tune for a long metre hymn, as they discovered at the end of the second line, where they found themselves in difficulty by reason of two syllables which were unprovided for by the music, yet could not well be left out.
While they were extricating themselves, and finding a more fitful tune, the minister took breath, and looked round on his congregation. They disappointed him. He had been informed that his hearers were to be the young, progressive spirits of the town; and these looked anything but young and progressive. They were nearly all old and antiquated, and their faces struck a chill through him. They seemed to be the faces of people who believe that one of the chief pleasures of heaven consists in looking over the celestial battlements and witnessing the torments of the condemned, rather than of those who hold the comfortable doctrine of universal salvation. Stern, fateful, stolid, they sat there, not even provoked to a passing smile by the ludicrous contretemps of the choir. The minister frowned. He was tired, he had been irritated by his travelling companion, and now he was bitterly disappointed. Seaton was a growing town that would soon be a city, and he had looked forward with pleasure to the prospect of being settled there. There seemed nowhere else for him to go, and he was not rich, and he was homeless. The sight of this congregation, which he saw at once he could never reconcile himself to, disturbed him greatly. Moreover, in his haste he had forgotten to take his morning dose of laudanum; and, altogether, but for a glimpse he got of two faces near the pulpit, he might have marched down, and left the deacon to read as many sermons as he chose. These two reconciling faces belonged to Miss Melicent Yorke and her brother Owen, who were visiting the different Seaton churches. The fair, tranquil face of the lady, her delicate dress, her folded hands, even the wreath of violets that rested on her flaxen hair, all made a pleasant picture for the cultivated glance that swept over it. Of Owen he saw only the top of the head, and the hand that covered his face. But his attitude showed that he was hiding a laugh; and anybody who could laugh in that congregation was balm to the minister's eyes. In those two he felt sure of sympathy.
The hymn over, the minister read a psalm and repeated the Lord's Prayer.
The congregation listened with lengthening faces. In fact, the disapprobation was mutual. In the first place, they were shocked that the candidate for their pulpit should travel on the Lord's day; in the next place, his looks and manners were too little like those of their former pastor, the Rev. Jabez True; thirdly, they had never before had the Our Father foisted on them for a prayer. They were accustomed to hear a long and explicit address to the Deity, in which their wishes and thoughts were explained to him, and their praises and thanks duly meted out—a prayer which they could talk about afterward. Elder True had been gifted in prayer, and would sometimes pray half an hour without a moment's hesitation. It was certainly a very shabby thing to put them off with the Lord's Prayer.
Then came the sermon. Only two persons present knew that the text was from the Koran. It was a story of a certain good man who had a plantation of palm-trees, to which he used to call the poor, and give them such fruit as the knife missed or the wind blew off. He died; and his sons felt too poor to give anything away. So they agreed to come early in the morning, and gather the fruit when the poor could not know. But in laying their plans, they omitted to add, "If it please God!" In the night a storm passed over the garden, and in the morning it was as one where the fruit had all been gathered.
There are various ways in which such a text could be treated. Our speaker, changing his plan at the last minute, irritated by the cold and unsympathizing faces about him, and by his personal discomforts, chose to enforce this thought: there are those who fancy that all the fruits of grace are theirs, that they are the elect, and that those outside of their walls shall perish with hunger while they are feasting. Behold, the whirlwind of the wrath of God shall sweep away the good they only seem to have, and leave them poorer than Lazarus. It was a forced interpretation; but the speaker was dextrous, and made himself appear consecutive even when he rambled most. With passionate vehemence, he denounced those sanctimonious souls who mistake a curvature of the spine for humility, and a nasal twang for an evidence of grace. "I love not," he said, "those cold and heavy souls that never take a generous fire. One wonders if they ever will burn—under any future circumstances. They flatter themselves that they are good and just and reasonable because they are emotionless. It is not so. No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue safe that is not enthusiastic. Is the diamond less fine because it is brilliant? Has the sea no depth because it sparkles on the surface? Would the cannon-ball go further flung by the hand than it does when shot from the cannon's mouth? Is truth always a mountain crowned with snow? It may be a volcano. A strong and sweet thinker has said, 'The wildest excess of passion does not injure the soul so much as respectable selfishness does;' and he says rightly. I protest against the apotheosis of phlegm. There are many phases of good, and each has his way; but, for my part, I prefer the faults of heat to the faults of cold. The former are often generous faults, the latter never so. The faults of the former are on the surface, and can neither be denied nor hidden; those of the latter are deep-rooted, and may be and often are mistaken for virtues. Who were the great saints? Look at the reckless Magdalen, the vehement St. Paul, the hasty St. Peter. St. John of the Cross quotes as an axiom in theology the saying that God moves all things in harmony with their constitution; and the history of the world shows that, when he wanted to kindle a grand and holy conflagration, he took for workers combustible men and women. Among the apostles, the only one who was cold and calculating enough to count money and think of the purse when the Lord was near enough to set all their hearts on fire was Judas, and not the worst Judas in the world either. For since his time many a pretended follower has weighed the Holy One in a balance, and sold him for a price, and has lacked the after-grace to hang himself."
"Let us pray!"
It was only when Miss Yorke and her brother rose, that the astonished and scandalized congregation understood that the sermon was really over, and they were to stand up and listen to a prayer.
The minister spoke in a voice yet vibrating with excitement: "O Lord God of morning and evening, of storm and sunshine, of the dew that bathes the violet and the frost that cracks the rock—God of the east and the west, and all that lies between them—God of our souls and our bodies, of bliss and of anguish—O God, who alone rewardest failure, who for thy mantle, which eludes our grasp, givest us thy hand to clasp—may all thy creatures adore thee! Our praise goes up like the note of the small bird in the branches; but thou hast made us weak. All power is thine! Our hearts swell and break at thy feet as the waves break upon the shore; but thou hast set our limit. Space is in the hollow of thy hand! We lift our eyes toward thee, and their gaze is baffled; but thou, who seest all things, hast sealed their vision. Glory and honor and power be unto thee, inscrutable Wisdom, for ever and ever. Amen!"
"And he calls that a prayer!" thought the congregation.
"Why, it is like a Catholic prayer!" whispered Melicent to her brother. "And he quotes St. John of the Cross, and the Koran, and Ecce Homo. He must be an eclectic minister."
The congregation went out with very glum faces, and scattered to their various homes. Only the deacon waited in the porch, as in duty bound, to invite the minister home to dinner.
"I suppose you will go home with me, Brother Conway," he said, freezingly.
"Conway!" echoed the minister. "You mistake, sir! My name is Griffeth."
The deacon stared. "We were expecting the Reverend John Conway to preach to-day, as a candidate for our pulpit," he said, eyeing Mr. Griffeth suspiciously. "Do you come in his place?"
An expression of perplexity, instantly succeeded by one of poignant amusement, passed over the minister's face. Then he became grave. "It seems that I have come in his place," he said, "but most unwillingly. Brother Conway met with an accident which delayed him. He sent his regrets to you by me, and hopes he may be here this afternoon. Good-morning, sir! I will not burden your hospitality to-day."
The deacon's face cleared. It was a blessed relief to find that they would have no more to do with this man.
The stranger crossed the portico to where Melicent and Carl still lingered, having overheard this conversation. "I beg your pardon!" he said. "But will you have the kindness to tell me of what denomination the church is in which I have been preaching?"
"It is Baptist," Carl replied; "of the kind, I think, they call 'Hard-shelled.'"
"God be praised!" ejaculated the minister. "I have got into the wrong pulpit!"
Melicent immediately insisted on his going home with them. "We can at least protect you from the Hard-shells until your own friends find you," she said.
The invitation being cordially given, and seconded by Carl, the minister thankfully accepted it, and they started on their homeward way. "My blunder is likely to give great offence to one-half the town, and great amusement to the other half," he said, as they went along. "I am truly thankful to find a refuge from both."
Mrs. Yorke received her unexpected guest with the greatest kindness; Mr. Yorke, with the greatest courtesy. It was one of the pleasantest families in the world to visit. Not easily accessible to everybody, nor quick to form intimacies, whomever they did receive, they made at once at home. There was a charming ease in their company. Your sole reminder that they understood the proprieties of life was the fact that they never sinned against them.
Seated in the midst of the family, who gathered about him, the minister related the adventures of the last twenty-four hours to his smiling auditory. Only two persons present were grave. Edith could perceive nothing ludicrous in the circumstances. It was a most sad and uncomfortable fact that Minister Conway should have got into the mud, she thought; and, as to preaching in the wrong pulpit, that seemed to her a very awful mistake. The other solemn face belonged to little Eugene Cleaveland, five years old, Major Cleaveland's youngest son. The child was a pet of the Yorkes, and always stayed with them when his father was away from home. He had quite adopted them as his relatives. Mr. and Mrs. Yorke were his aunt and uncle. The others were all cousins. Leaning on Clara's lap, quite unmindful of her caressing hand in his hair or on his cheek, he gazed with large, bright black eyes at the minister, drinking in every word, and thinking his own thoughts.
"Isn't your God as good as their God is?" he asked suddenly in the the first pause.
"We have all the same God, my child," the minister replied; and immediately added to the others, "I perceive that we had better change the subject, lest the little ones should be scandalized. I fancy I even read reproof in the eyes of your niece, madam. And, by the way, she looks like some solemn, medieval religious."
"It is odd she should suggest that thought to you," Mrs. Yorke said. "The child is a Catholic. Come, my dear, and show Mr. Griffeth what a pretty prayer-book you have. It was given me by a very lovely and zealous French lady whom I knew in Paris. I thought it would do Edith most good."
Edith approached the minister with hesitation, half-pleased with him, half-doubtful. But while he talked pleasantly to her, glancing over the book without a sign of prejudice, explaining and praising here and there, her doubts were forgotten. What the child instinctively felt was, that the man had no religious convictions; but, her reason being undeveloped, she could not understand what he lacked. When he learned that she was half-Polish, he delighted her by telling how, in the glorious days of Poland, when the nobles heard Mass, they unsheathed their swords at the Gospel, to show that they were ready on the instant to do battle for the faith, and he promised to procure for her a little handful of earth from the sacred soil of Praga. He then repeated and translated for her an anonymous hymn to the Holy Innocents, written in the fourth century, and, at Mrs. Yorke's request, copied it into the prayer-book. It was this:
"Salvete, flores martyrum,
Quos lucis ipso in limine,
Christi insecutor sustulit,
Ceu turbo nascentes rosas.
Vos, prima Christi victima,
Grex immolatorum tener,
Aram ante ipsam, simplices,
Palma et coronis luditis."
Miss Yorke presently excused herself with the smiling announcement that she must prepare the dessert for dinner, and Clara went out to gather flowers for the dinner-table, taking Eugene Cleaveland with her.
They roamed about the edge of the woods, finding wild-roses and violets; they ventured into wet places for the blue flower-de-luce; they gathered long plumes of ferns, and in a dusky cloister where a brook had hidden one of its windings, they found a cardinal-flower lighting the place like a lamp.
Suddenly the little boy cried out, and began to dance about. There was a bug gone away up in his jacket, he declared.
Clara searched him, but found nothing.
"There's nothing on you, little dear!" she said. "Come home, now. It is dinner-time, and you must help me to arrange the flowers. There is no bug, child; it is all your imagination."
"Does my imagination wiggle?" he cried indignantly. "There!"
The last exclamation referred to a creeping at his throat; and out hopped an active little frog, which had been circumnavigating the child ever since he pulled the last blue lily.
They went homeward with their baskets of flowers, and encountered on the way Boadicea Patten with her baby in her arms. She had come to see her son and daughter, and was trying to keep out of sight of the front windows, where she saw a stranger.
Clara Yorke immediately seized upon the infant. No baby ever escaped her caresses; and this one the young ladies had taken under their especial charge. They supplied its wardrobe, and went to see it, or had it come to them every week. It was a pretty child, bright, white, and well-mannered, with a lordly air of taking homage as if it were due.
When Clara entered the parlor, she found only the gentlemen and Edith there; but that did not prevent her insisting on her little one being received with enthusiasm. She called attention to the wonderful dimpled shoulders and elbows, pulled its eyelids down pitilessly to display the long lashes, uncurled its yellow locks and let them creep back into rings again, and crowned it with violets, quoting Browning:
"Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear."
Then she consigned the child to her brother. "I have domestic cares to attend to," she said, "and you must amuse my beauty while I am gone. 'What must you do?' Talk to it, of course. 'What shall you say?' Why, Owen, do not be stupid! Say whatever you can think of that is suited to the darling's capacity. Come, Eugene, we have important affairs on hand."
Carl looked at his charge with immense good-will and not a little perplexity, and it stared back solemnly at him, waiting to be entertained. Something must be said.
"What is your opinion concerning the origin of ideas?" asked the young man, at length, with great politeness.
Instantly the little face brightened with delighted intelligence; the lips became voluble in a strange language, and the dimpled hands caught at Carl's sunny locks.
"Oh! for an interpreter," he exclaimed. "If we had an interpreter, we could confound the savants. Clara," to his sister just returning, "what is this little wretch saying?"
"He is saying that he loves everybody in the whole world!" she cried, catching the babe in her arms, and half-stifling it with kisses. "And, now, please come to dinner."
"It is not a bad solution," mused the minister, as he and Carl went out last. "Perhaps love is the root from which our ideas grow. Undoubtedly the kind of ideas a person has depends on the nature and degree of his loving."
"You see that here we stand not upon the order of our going," Clara laughed back from the doorway; "or, rather, we follow the style of ecclesiastical processions, and place the principal person last."
There was a cluster of yellow violets by Mr. Griffeth's plate. His eyes often turned on them, and always with a grave expression. "They remind me of a brother I have lost," he said at length to Mrs. Yorke. "Philip used to paint flowers beautifully, and a bunch of yellow violets was the last thing he painted. If you were not new-comers in Seaton, I should think it possible that you might have seen or heard of him. He went to school here to an old minister, Mr. Blake, the predecessor, I believe, of Dr. Martin."
"Philip Griffeth!" Mrs. Yorke exclaimed, blushing with surprise, "Why, I went to school with him. I recollect him perfectly. This is my native place, Mr. Griffeth. Yes, Philip was the favorite of every one, teacher and pupils. He used to help me with my Virgil. Mr. Blake made us all study Latin, and the boys had to study Greek. The minister thought that no person should be admitted into polite society who did not know one at least of these languages. I recollect him, a small, pompous man, with an air of fierceness very foreign to his character. He wished to be thought a stern and fateful personage, while in truth he was the softest man alive. When he used to come to our house, and extend his awful right hand to me, I always knew that the left hand, hidden behind his back, held a paper of candy."
The discovery of this mutual friend formed a strong tie between the minister and his new acquaintances, so that they seemed quite like old friends. The family pressed him to stay till evening, when they would send for some of his people to come for him; and he, nothing loth, consented.
"But, I warn you," he said to the young people, when they had returned to the parlor, "that, unless you allow me to see you often, this hospitality will be a cruel kindness. I should find it harder to lose than never to have had your society. I could not console myself with less than the best, as this pretty rustic did," taking up an illustrated copy of Maud Müller that lay at his elbow. "But what a perfect thing it is!" he added.
Mrs. Yorke was just passing through the room on her way to take an afternoon siesta. She paused by the table, and glanced at the book. "It is perfect all but the ending," she said; "that is too pre-Raphaelite for me. Doubtless it would have happened quite so; but I do not wish to know that it did."
"But should not art be true to nature?" asked Mr. Griffeth. He liked to hear and see the lady talk. Her gentle ways and delicate, pathetic grace, all charmed him.
"Art should be true to nature when nature is true to herself," she replied. "I am not a pre-Raphaelite. I believe that the mission of art is to restore the lost perfection of nature, not to copy and perpetuate its defects. Otherwise it is not elevating; and what it makes you admire chiefly is the talent which imitates, not the genius which sees. I believe that genius is insight, talent only outsight. My husband defines genius as artistic intuition. Why should the poet have cheated us into loving a fair, empty shape? If the girl had been disappointed, and had lived apart and lonely to the end of her days, the picture would have been lovely and pathetic. But now it is revolting."
"I agree with mamma," Miss Yorke interposed. "If Maud Müller had married the judge, she would never have appreciated him. If she had been capable of it, she could not have condescended to the other after having seen him."
"I should believe," the minister said, "that, if she had possessed true nobleness of soul, she could not have so lowered herself, even if she had seen nothing better. To my mind, people rise to their proper level by spontaneous combustion, needing no outward spark, women as well as men. The philosophy of the Comte de Gabalis may be very true as to gnomes, sylphs, and salamanders; but for women I think that such radical changes never occur. That theory belongs to those men who, as Mrs. Browning says, believe that 'a woman ripens, like a peach, in the cheeks chiefly.'"
"So we have disposed of poor Maud Müller," said Mrs. Yorke. "I repent me of having been so harsh with the sweet child. Let us say that the poet wronged her; that in truth she faded away month by month, and grew silent, and shadowy, and saint-like, not knowing what was the matter with her, but feeling a great need of God's love; and so died."
With a sigh through the smile of her ending, Mrs. Yorke passed noiselessly from the room. The shadows of the vine-leaves seemed to strain forward to catch at her white dress, and the sunlight dropping through turned her hair to gold. Then shadow and sunlight fell to the floor and kissed her footsteps, missing her.
Mr. Yorke was out walking about his farm, inquiring of Patrick how many months it took in that country for plants to get themselves above ground; if green peas were due early in September; if cucumbers were not in danger of freezing before they arrived at maturity; if their whole crop, in short, did not promise to give them their labor for their pains; and making various other depreciatory comments which his assistant inwardly resented. The young people sat in the parlor and improved their acquaintance. Soon they found themselves talking of personal matters and family plans, especially those relating to Owen.
Mr. Griffeth strongly urged his remaining in Seaton. "I think it would be better to remain if you should conclude to study law," he said. "You could pursue your studies here without the distractions of a city life, and you could begin practice with a clearer field. You would at once be prominent here, but in the city there would be a crowd of able and experienced practitioners in your way."
"'I would rather be second in Athens than first in Eubœa,'" Carl objected.
"Undoubtedly!" was the immediate response. "But you might save time by trying your wings in Eubœa before essaying your flight in Athens."
The sister eagerly seconded the proposal, delighted with any plan by which they could keep their brother with them and yet not injure his prospects. Carl listened with favor. His new friend had completely captivated him; and, sure of such congenial companionship, Seaton appeared to him a tolerable place to live in.
"Of course, I am not quite disinterested," Mr. Griffeth said. "I want you to stay. But, also, it does seem to me well. The place is promising. I am told that it has some superior people, and that it is growing rapidly. My own coming was a chance, and already I rejoice in it. One impulse pushed me toward the south, another toward the north: obeying a philosophical law, I came east, and here I shall stay. I recognized a Providence in it. May not you the same?"
"Oh! do stay, Owen," Hester said, laying her hand on his arm.
"What can I do when the evening star pleads with me?" said Carl with a smile. When he was pleased with his youngest sister, he called her Hesper.
"And you know, Carl, you promised to teach me to spell, this summer," said Clara. "I cannot spell!" she confessed to the minister.
"Madam, I congratulate you!" he replied.
"But it is not ignorance," she said, blushing very much. "English spelling is nothing but memory, you know. Now, my memory is situated in my heart, not my head, and it retains only what I love or hate. You do not expect me to be fond of vowels and consonants, or enamored of poly-syllables, surely."
The minister protested that he was always enchanted to meet with an educated person who could not spell. It was, he said, the mark of a mind which catches so ardently at the soul of a word that it misses the form. "I have no doubt," he said, "that you might talk with a person a hundred times, and comprehend his character perfectly, yet not be able to tell the color of his eyes nor the shape of his nose. You could also go unerringly to a place you had once visited, though you could not direct a person there. You do not gather your knowledge like corn in the ear, but in the golden grain; and when anybody wants the cob, you have to go searching about in waste places for it."
Mr. Yorke came in, and presently Mrs. Yorke, with a little sleep-mistiness hanging yet about her.
"Where have you been, auntie?" cried Eugene Cleveland, running to her. He had his hands full of dandelion curls, which he began hanging in her ears, having thus adorned the young ladies.
"I have been to the land where dreams grow on trees," she said softly.
"Mr. Griffeth says that I am a little man," the child announced, with an air of consequence. The remark had been made an hour before, and was not yet forgotten. The lad had indeed an exceedingly good opinion of himself, and never forgot a word of praise.
Clara called him to her. "You are no more a man," she said, "than potato-balls are potatoes."
He sobered instantly, and went about for some time with a very forlorn countenance. After awhile, when she had forgotten the remark, he came back to her. "Cousin Clara, do potato-balls ever grow into potatoes?" he asked anxiously.
In the evening the Universalist deputation arrived, and took their minister away with them.
"Now, Pat, you mark my words," said Betsey, as she saw the family stand on the moonlight veranda to watch their visitor down the avenue: "that man will marry one of the Yorke girls."
Betsey considered the speedy marriage of the young ladies a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Patrick was still smarting under the insults offered to his garden, and would not in any case have hailed the alliance of a minister with the family. "Oh, bali! they wouldn't look at him!" he replied crossly. "A rogue of a minister, with his nose in the air!"
"I have eyes in my head," said Betsey with dignity.
"And a bee in your bonnet," retorted the man.
Betsey went into the house, banged the door behind her, and began setting the kitchen to rights with great vigor. She swept up the hearth so fiercely that a cloud of ashes came out and settled on the mantelpiece, and put the chairs back against the wall with an emphasis that made them rattle.
Patrick put his head in at the door, prudently keeping his body out, and looked at her with a deprecating smile. "Now, Betsey!" he said.
"You needn't speak to me again, to-night," she exclaimed, looking severely away from him. "You've said enough for one time."
"And what have I said to you, Betsey?"
She faced him. "I wonder if in your country it is considered a compliment to tell a woman that she has a bee in her bonnet," she said.
"Ah! is that where you are?" said Pat, coming half into the room. "I never meant the least harm in my life. And, sure, Betsey, did ye ever see a bonnet without a b?"
CHAPTER VIII.
FATHER RASLE.
One summer morning, Mr. Yorke appeared at the breakfast-table with a very sour face. He was bilious, and he had not slept well. Even Hester's cooing ways failed to mollify him.
"Why, you are feverish, papa," she said. "Your hand is hot and dry."
He moved his chair impatiently. "Yes, your mother insisted on my taking charcoal instead of calomel, and I think she must have slily administered a lucifer-match with it: I radiate heat."
Mrs. Yorke took these complaints very quietly. She knew that nothing could be further from her husband's heart than to be dissatisfied with anything she did. "We were disturbed by that fearful noise," she said quietly, taking her place at the table.
Owen began to laugh. The Seaton "cast-iron band" had been out the night before, and the young man found himself very much amused by it.
"Do you like lawlessness, sir?" demanded Mr. Yorke.
"That depends on what the law is," the son replied pleasantly.
"Well, sir, in this case it is the law of common decency, of respect for the clergy, and courtesy to strangers. Father Rasle, the Catholic priest, came here yesterday, and that Babel of cow-bells, and sleigh-bells, and mill-saws, and tin trumpets, and wooden drums, and I know not what else, was before his door. I call it a shameful outrage."
"So do I," Owen replied promptly. "I had no idea what it meant."
The young ladies all exclaimed indignantly; but Edith dropped her eyes and was silent. Theology was nothing to her, and as yet her faith had no life in it. She was deeply ashamed of that religion which all seemed to scoff at save those who tolerated it for her sake. Only her promise held her to it. That the voice of the people is not always, is very seldom, the voice of God, she could not be expected to know; neither could she be expected to love that church which as yet she had heard spoken of only by its enemies. She did not dream of forsaking the religion of her mother; but her constancy to it seemed to her of the same nature as Mrs. Rowan's constancy to her drunken husband.
After breakfast, her uncle bade her dress to go with him to call on Father Rasle. She obeyed, though with a shrinking heart. She had heard priests spoken of in the street and by the school-children with contempt and reviling, and her impression was that they must be very disagreeable persons to meet. But the religion was hers, and she must stand by it, never confessing to a doubt nor allowing any one to reproach it unchallenged by her. And if she stood by the religion, she must stand by the priest.
Father Rasle, being only a missionary there, had no house in Seaton, but stopped with a decent Irish family. It was a poor place, and the room in which he received Mr. Yorke and his niece was as humble as could well be imagined. But there needed no fine setting to show that he was that noblest object on earth, a Christian gentleman. His age might have been a little over forty, and his manner was almost too grave and dignified, one might think at first; but it soon appeared that he could be genial beyond most men.
Mr. Yorke presented his niece, and, before explaining their errand, apologized for the insult that had been offered the priest the night before.
"Oh! I certainly did not expect the honor of a serenade," said Father Rasle, laughing pleasantly. "But, if it gratified them to give it, I am not in the least offended. It is, perhaps, a loss to me that I did not care; for I might have derived some profit from the mortification. On the contrary, I own to you, sir, that I enjoyed that concert. It was the most laughable one I ever heard."
Mr. Yorke looked at the speaker in astonishment. Here was a kind of pride, if pride it could be called, which he could not understand. In such circumstances, his own impulse would have been to shoot his insulters down instantly. What he despised he wanted to crush, to rid the earth of, to spare himself the sight of; what the priest despised he pitied, he wished to raise, to excuse, to spare God and the world the sight of. It was admirable, his visitor owned, but inimitable by him.
Not being able to say any more on the subject, he then stated Edith's case. "You will know what she needs," he concluded, "and I shall see that she follows your directions."
The father questioned his young catechumen, and found her in a state of the most perfect ignorance. "The child is a heathen!" he said, in his odd, broken English, his smile taking the harsh edge off the words. "She must study the catechism—this little one—and see how much of it she will have to say to me when I come here again in a month. I will then prepare her for her first confession."
Edith uttered not a word, except to answer his questions. She was not sure whether she liked him or not; she was only certain that he did not offend her.
There was a little more talk, then Mr. Yorke rose to go, cordially inviting the priest to visit him. As they were going, "I think, Edith," he said, "that you should kneel and ask Father Rasle's blessing."
She knelt at once, for her mother's and her uncle's sake, with a murmured, "Please to bless me, sir!" But when he had given the blessing, laying his hand upon her head, and looking down into her face with that expression of serious sweetness, she felt a dawning sense of reverence and confidence, and perceived dimly some sacredness in him.
She went to Mass the next day in the little chapel that had been desecrated. The picture-frames still hung on the walls, with the rags of the stations in them. There was enough left to show how Christ the Lord had suffered, and this new insult was but a freshening of the original text. Mr. Yorke sat on the bench beside his niece, and she stood, or knelt, or sat with the rest, not in the least understanding what it all meant, but impressed by the gravity and earnestness of those around her. When Mass was over, the priest, who had seen them, sent for them into the sacristy. He had some books for Edith, and wanted to point out the lessons she was to learn first.
"And I have a present for you," he said, giving her an ormolu crucifix, with a broken foot that showed marks of violence. "This is the crucifix that was torn from our tabernacle. I want you to keep it; and whenever you are called upon to suffer, and feel disposed to complain, look at this, and remember that our Lord was not even allowed to hang upon his cross in peace."
She took the crucifix from his hand silently, and held it against her breast as she went out. She did not propose to endure suffering; she desired and looked for happiness; but something in this relic stirred her to a strange pity, mingled with anger. The idea that lay behind it was to her dim and vague; but, failing to grasp that, she would have defended with her life the symbol of that monstrous wrong and that heart-breaking patience. Reaching home, she went directly to her own chamber and hung the crucifix beneath the picture of her father, then stood and looked at it awhile. There was a wish in her heart to do something—to offer some reparation to the real Sufferer behind this image of pain. She kissed with soft lips the broken foot of the cross, and a tear fell where she kissed. She took it down, and pressed the rough edge against her bosom till the sharp points pierced the skin and brought a stain of blood. Then, hearing some one call her, she hastily replaced it, and brought as an offering to it a precious bouquet of ribbon-grasses, that Carl had gathered that morning to fasten in her hair. She had meant to keep it because of some sweetness with which it was offered, but now she gave it up to that unseen Patience and Love. Her instinctive action proved that the feeling and precept of the church only sanctifies, but does not change the impulse of a pure and tender nature.
Meantime, the child was being discussed down-stairs.
"I observe that Edith has an inclination to stay alone a good deal," Mr. Yorke said, "and I do not wish to have that encouraged. It is not a wholesome disposition. Her father was a visionary, her mother was a visionary, and she is—"
"A vision!" concluded Mrs. Yorke, as Edith appeared, with the thoughts of the last few hours still in her eyes and on her lips.
About that time, Carl received a letter from Miss Mills which he read many times. "You ask my advice," she wrote, "and you tell me that I know better than you know yourself. I would not claim so much as that, but I think I may tell you something more clearly than you yourself perceive it, or confirm you in some thought which you doubt or wish to doubt. As to your choice of a profession and staying in Seaton for the present, you might well try the experiment; but I cannot express any great confidence as to the result. It is almost a disadvantage to you that your powers are so various. There are a good many things which, with application, you could do excellently; whether you have any specialty remains to be proved, and will be hard to prove; for, in order to find that out, you must concentrate your powers, and that you hate to do. If this world were but a playground, then you would have nothing to do but follow in the trail of every new beauty which calls you; but life is earnest, and you must work, or you not only lose what you might accomplish, but you lose yourself. You are one of those whom the devil finds worth fighting for, and, lacking faith to your armor, you have all the more need of labor. Qui laborat orat, might have a sort of truth even for one without faith.
"Let me warn you against two dangers: one is, that you may be injured by flatterers. Not that you like flattery in itself, but it will soothe your painful sense of not having reached your own ideal. It will seem to you that your best must have transpired at least, and that you must have done better than you thought. Not so; receive that soothing praise only when you have striven hard, even though you failed, but never when you have tried weakly or not at all. What the flatterers like in you is not your best, but your worst. They have no wish for you to rise above them; they praise you to keep you low.
"I warn you, too, against your excessive love for the beautiful, in which you are an ultra-pagan. The infinite beauty is alone worthy of that passion with which you seek and admire; and infinite beauty is infinite truth. Seek truth first, and you will always be rewarded by the vision of beauty; but, if you seek beauty first, you will find to your sorrow, possibly to your ruin, that it is often but the mask of falsehood.
"Lay aside some of your fastidiousness, my dear friend, and take up your life strongly with both hands. Do something, even if it should prove to be the wrong thing. Wrong work done honestly prepares us for right work. Strengthen your will, and be manly, as a man should be. Discipline yourself, and you will escape much pain and loss of time, for, let me assure you, Carl, you need either an immensity of resolution or an immensity of suffering.
"My lecture is done, and I am Minerva no longer. My thoughts follow you with solicitude and indulgence. On the night after you left, which you spent on the sea, I went to the quiet chapel near me, and placed you under the protection of Stella Maris. But life has waves and gulfs more fearful than those of the sea, and my prayers for you do not cease with the end of your journey.
"Look well at Robert Yorke's child, remembering what the story of my life is; and then, if you think that I could love her, kiss her on the forehead for me, and tell her that I send a loving greeting."
Owen folded the letter, and hid it in his bosom. He had been walking in the woods, and he returned thoughtfully homeward. The afternoon was sultry and still. The low brooks hissed along like white flames, the branches drooped over the birds that murmured, and the flowers hung wilted. All about the house was silent as he entered. Going through the kitchen, he saw Betsey sitting in the northern window reading a novel. Betsey was the most romantic soul alive, and, having got hold of David Copperfield, was crying her eyes out over poor little Dora. Passing on to the sitting-room, he found his father sitting asleep in a deep wicker-chair, a copy of Religio Medici lying open on his knee. The quiet tone of the book, familiar by many readings, had lulled him into a pleasant slumber, and his hand had dropped with the finger pointing to a passage on which he had closed his eyes: "I love to love myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo!" From that the reader had gone out into the mystery of sleep with a smile lingering on his face.
"It is the castle of indolence," muttered Owen, stepping noiselessly on. He paused at the foot of the stairs and listened. No sound came down. His sisters, in white wrappers, each with a pillow under her head, were lying on the cool matting in the north chamber, too much exhausted to talk. He went out into the portico, and stood there a moment, seeing no one. Then, turning, he beheld Edith asleep on a bench in the shadow of the vines, her arms thrown up over her head. Smilingly he approached her, literally to obey the command of his friend, and look well to see if his uncle's deserted mistress could love his uncle's child. She was fair enough to love, for all the roughness of her former life had passed away. The bloom of the lily was in her face, warmed now to a rose by the heat, and her hair had a shine of gold.
"Dear little cousin," he said, "a friend of yours sends loving greeting."
She stirred, her face grew troubled, and she started up with a cry: "Dick, come back. I did not mean to!"
She sighed on seeing Owen. "I was dreaming that I had hurt Dick, and he was going away angry," she said.
"Are you, then, so fond of him?" Carl asked, seating himself by her.
"O Carl!" she said earnestly, "you have no idea how fond he is of me."
"And you of him, then, of course," said Carl.
"Why, of course!" she echoed, with a look of surprise. "If I were to do anything to Dick to make him unhappy, I should never forgive myself, never! I have written him a letter to-day, and told him I want him to be a Catholic."
"You have!" said Carl with a faint smile. "Do you think he will obey you?"
"Oh! yes," she said confidently; "I told him some good reasons why he should."
And may I ask what the good reasons were, Edith?" was the smiling question.
"Why, in the first place, I want him to."
"Excellent!" laughed the young man. "The doctors couldn't do better."
Edith blushed deeply. "No; the good reasons were the reasons why I wanted him to," she said.
SAINT CECILIA.
HER INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.
FROM THE REVUE GENERALE.
While the great men who have dreamed of distinguishing their names die and are forgotten, or at least, as Juvenal said of Alexander, become the idle theme of a rhetorical recitation, those who in this world have lived and suffered for God leave behind them, through all ages, an immortal memory.
The work for which each of us has been sent into the world has been conspicuously accomplished by the saints. This makes them our rightful masters; and, while we rarely imitate them, we can at least understand that such heroism must elevate the soul, and we admire them all the more that we feel ourselves unable to follow in their steps. Nor is such a recognition a useless sentiment. From the mansion of glory whence they see all things, the saints never cease to interest themselves in the affairs of the world, and among the dogmas of the Catholic Church which our estranged brethren have rejected, the communion of saints is one of the most touching and sublime.
There is indeed between the two worlds, visible and invisible, a strange but undeniable communication. Each of us, in investigating his own soul, will find there certain phenomena which have their origin neither in ourselves nor in the outer world: sadness from no apparent cause, inexplicable sensations of internal happiness, bursts of enthusiasm or sudden inspirations which Plato attributed to superior intelligences. Many of us, recalling some miraculously escaped danger, and profoundly touched by this heavenly protection, will bear willing witness, unless checked by dread of worldly criticism, to this influence of the saints and angels on our human career. "The people," with the good sense which so happily inspires them (at least, where the sophists have not succeeded in corrupting them)—"the people" believe in it; and when the peasant or the poor working-woman gives a name in baptism to the child just entering on the struggles of life, she believes, in her simple, lucid faith, that she is securing a patron for it. It is not in vain, they say, that a young girl is called Mary; surely she will the more readily share in the sweetness, the self-denial, the incomparable purity, of the Queen of Virgins; the name of Agnes will be a pledge of innocence; that of Theresa promises a heart of fire; that of Cecilia, a soul gentle yet strong, eager for harmony; while the name of Francis recalls heroic isolation; those of Paul and of John, indefatigable zeal and perfect charity. If it is not always thus, it is because the human soul is free to resist grace; but these occasional rebellions do not prevent a harmony between heaven and earth as mysterious as it is sure.
These thoughts have frequently passed through our mind; but one day last October, while visiting the church of St. Cecilia in Rome, they monopolized it.
In such moments, we persuade ourselves very easily that we can express them in writing. Undoubtedly, they are not new; but, if the life of this great saint, one of the glories of Rome, is well known, it is a story which will bear repetition: really fine old melodies never lose their charm, and, if they thrill one human soul with a divine emotion, who will complain of hearing them again?