‘I can’t say I see what luck can come of it,’ said Rhoda. ‘If Fred were not yet ordained, I might dissuade him from it, but I said all I could last time we met, and I might as well have talked to the table. I can’t fancy him a priest, mother! It seems too ridiculous. I often think what baby will look like some day, when he is grown up and bothers to know who his father is, and I tell him a Catholic priest. He’ll think I’m out of my mind.’
‘Don’t worry over that now, my girl,’ replied Mrs Berry, ‘there’s plenty of time before you. Little Fred won’t trouble himself about his father for many years to come. And there’s no saying what may happen before that comes to pass! I often fancy things will turn out different from what you imagine. You’ll have a happy life after all. I’m sure of that, whoever you may pass it with.’
‘It’ll never be happy passed away from Fred, mother. You may take your oath of that,’ said Rhoda, shaking her head; ‘but I’ll go up and see him, poor fellow, all the same. I never refused him anything yet, worse luck! and I can’t begin now.’
CHAPTER VII.
Frederick Walcheren did not rest satisfied with the ultimatum which Father Tasker had passed on his conduct, with regard to what he had learned in the confessional. He had no hope of obtaining a different opinion, but he considered it right, before he acted on his own responsibility, to leave no stone unturned to vindicate his idea of what was just and right. As soon as Father Henniker was sufficiently recovered to be able to resume his duties, he sought an audience with him, and told him the whole story, carefully withholding any details that might lead to the identification of the parties concerned.
The older priest was very much shocked by the recital. He felt for his young brother keenly, so he said, but he had no further consolation to give him. It was a terrible trial for him—sent by Almighty God to test his faith and endurance of suffering. It was a high honour conferred on him by Heaven; he was called upon to take up the cross in imitation of the Saviour of Mankind, and to carry it, maybe, through life. But there was no remedy except the medicines which had been already prescribed for him—Prayer and Patience, and rejoicing in Suffering!
And he was a man with a burning, aching heart, bowed down beneath a sense of an irreparable loss, brought on him by a fellow-man, and he writhed under these recommendations to inactivity like a strong man would writhe and chafe to rend apart the cords that bound him, whilst what he loved best was being cruelly tortured under his very eyes.
He did not answer the father for a few minutes, but sat with his head bowed down and his eyes fixed upon the ground.
‘I fear you do not see this matter in its proper light, brother,’ said Father Henniker, after a long pause.
‘If yours is the proper light, I cannot!’ replied Frederick.