The mother continued—“Never shall I forget the triumph of his coming home from Cambridge. Yet it brought a pang, too; for then first he had to learn the whole truth. Poor Harold! it pained me to see him so shocked and overwhelmed at the sight of our lowly roof and mean fare; and to know that even these would not last us long. But I said to him—'My son, what signifies it, when you can soon bring your mother to your own home?' For he, already a deacon, had had a curacy offered him, as soon as ever he chose to take priest's orders.”
“Then he had already decided on entering the Church?”
“He had chosen that career in his youth. Towards it his whole education had tended. But,” she added, with a troubled look, “my old friend, I may tell you one doubt, which I never yet breathed to living soul—I think at this time there was a struggle in his mind. Perhaps his dreams of ambition rose higher than the simple destiny of a country clergyman. I hinted this to him, but he repelled me. Alas! he knew, as well as I, that there was now no other path open for him.”
Mrs. Gwynne paused, and then went on, as though speaking more to herself than to her listener.
“The time came for Harold to decide. I did not wonder at his restlessness, for I knew how strong ambition must be in a man like him. God knows I would have worked, begged, starved, rather than he should be thus tried. I told him so the day before his ordination; but he entreated me to be silent, with a look such as I never saw on his face before—such as I trust in God I never may see again. I heard him all night walking about his room; and the next morning he was gone ere I rose. When he came back, he seemed quite excited with joy, embraced me, told me I should never know poverty more, for that he was in priest's orders, and we should go the next week to the curacy at Harbury.”
“And he has never repented?”
“I think not. He is not without the honours he desired; for his fame in science is extending far beyond his small parish. He fulfils his duties scrupulously; and the people respect him, though he sides with no party, high-church or evangelical We abhor illiberality—my son and I.”
“That is clear, otherwise I had never seen Alison Balfour quitting the kirk for the church.”
“Angus Rothesay,” said Mrs. Gwynne, with dignity, “I have learned, throughout a long life, the lesson that trifling outward differences matter little—the spirit of religion is its true life. This lesson I have taught my son from his cradle; and where will you find a more sincere, moral, or pious man than Harold Gwynne?”
“Where, indeed, mother?” echoed a voice, as Harold, opening the door, caught her last words. “But come, no more o' that, an thou lovest me!”