Among the new convert's self-imposed tasks of charity was a weekly visit to one poor family, whose drunken son was their shame and endless burden. Dependent upon him for a precarious living, his old parents, both crippled by an accident on a farm where years ago they had been employed, lodged in a miserable den, which, through a large-heartedness that is oftener seen among the poor than the rich, they had shared with two sickly orphan children, the only ones left of a family of seven, carried off with father and mother by the small-pox. Whatever the drunken man brought home was shared with these desolate little ones; whatever was given in charity was brought to feed them and keep in them the little life they had ever had. Four more helpless beings perhaps hardly existed, and all dependent upon one whose conscience was dead, and whose animal nature hideously survived the paralyzation of his soul's organism. Mr. Seymour and his daughter came upon them by the merest chance, and ever after remained to them the firmest friends, the most gentle benefactors, they had ever dared to dream of. But the zealous convert was anxious to do a greater good than the mere corporal works of mercy implied by his visits to these forlorn creatures. In moments when his demon was not on him, the unhappy son of these poor people sometimes listened to Mr. Seymour's earnest appeals to his buried conscience. With good results for a few hours the poor family had at first to be satisfied; then, as they hoped their infatuated son would gradually reward the efforts of his kind adviser, he would suddenly grow more brutish than before, and more irreclaimable. His companions would jeer at the "gentleman missioner," in those days when gentlemen were the worst preachers because the worst violators of temperance; and the old people would sometimes tremblingly speak to their benefactor of danger and of trouble to come, if he persisted too openly in his religious and moral advice.
But the zeal that burnt within Edward Seymour was no faint light to be extinguished by the first tainted breath of danger-fraught opposition; bravely he spoke and advised and remonstrated, waiting only for a few preliminaries to be arranged, in order to leave for a quiet scene, where in prayer and study he was to prepare himself for tasks as dangerous and as thankless as were his present occupations.
Meanwhile, his daughter, the domestic angel of his silent, shrine-like home, thought and read and pondered deeply, her love for her one companion in life bringing to her heart a longing desire to be at unity with him, to be a sister and a sharer in his faith, and, above all, a partaker in his sacrifice. For she could not bear to see him suffer in earthly comforts, and not feel that she, too, bore a part of his burden; she longed to believe as he did, if only to suffer as he did; for as long as she stood aloof from his inner life, she felt, after all, but as one who should watch sympathizingly on the shore while another human being was battling with the crested, storm-tossed waves beyond. Once or twice, with her father, Grace had gone to a quiet service in a lowly house, where a priest made a temporary chapel whenever he could spend a few days in town. His coming was a joy to a faithful knot of friends, and before his impromptu altar many ranks and stations in life were represented, from the brilliant owner of lordly estates to the poor Irish artisan and the old women who reigned, then as now, over the London apple-stalls. Among the silent, earnest worshippers of this "tabernacle in the desert" was one whose thoughts had been singularly attracted towards Grace. He saw her sit by her father's side, grave and attentive, a sad, wistful look on her pale face, never joining in the simple devotions which evidently were so familiar to her companion, but often fixing her hopeless, passionate gaze upon his faith-illumined features. Sometimes Grace would suddenly feel, like to the rush of a falling star through the purple sky of night, a glimmering perception of at least a possibility of truth existing in this persecuted religion. Perhaps the very persecution roused her pity and her sympathy, and held within itself a fascination uneasily resisted by a noble mind.
Had the faith of her father been presented to her under its gorgeous exterior of uncurtailed ritual and acknowledged supremacy, her heart might have turned away from the glittering triumph; but now, were the followers of this condemned Catholic faith not exiles and wanderers, threatened with prisons and fines, hunted down by prejudice and malignity, oppressed with the worst oppression—social and political ostracism? How could her heart help going out towards them, and crying blindly in the darkness that it felt for them and pitied their woes and admired their self-sacrifice?
The day we have alluded to was one of those on which such awakenings were stirring in her soul, and the fight between the world and God was beginning for the holding of this stray prize, whose purchase had been made, centuries ago, upon the cross of Calvary.
The good priest, who knew of her state through his conversations with her father, took care to infuse a little wholesome and clearly-defined doctrine into the short discourse he gave after Mass. It was not without its effect, and Grace's eager, thoughtful air did not escape the notice of her silent observer, who was not long in persuading the pastor to make him acquainted with Mr. Seymour and his daughter.
He was a young, tall, athletic man, a thorough Saxon, with blue eyes that were truth itself, and a lion-like form that seemed the very embodiment of unconquerable endurance and indomitable bravery. One thought instinctively, on looking at him, of the word "standard-bearer," as if that, and that alone, were a description meet for him, moral and physical in one; the only adequate word wherewith to blazon forth his glorious perfection of man and child combined. As reverent towards God, as loyal towards women, as though he were of those who "always see the Father's face," he was as uncompromising, as frank, as firm towards the world of daily shoals in whose treacherous midst he lived as if temptation were a mythic fear, and the possibility of sin a sealed book to his heart. The child of persecution, the royal offspring of danger that could not appall and repression that could not crush, Edmund Oakhurst was like the mountain-bred hunter who, reared amid the sterile crags of unscalable Alps and sea-girt coasts, leaps from rock to rock, regardless of chasm and torrent, and angry tides rolling over the stone where a moment ago his venturesome but ever-sure foot had lightly rested. The eagles might scream round his head, the sea roar at his feet, the sky darken and the frail bark toss, he cared little, for a brave heart and a bold hand, with God for a guide—are they not equal to resisting the world's treacherous assaults? Such is a slight sketch of the young man who now stood before Grace, bashful yet bold, and looked up into her eyes with such wondering questions mutely brightening his own. Her father was pleased with the stranger, and together they soon fell into a conversation on the position of the faith in America, and of the contrast between its present state and that of triumphant supremacy it had enjoyed in that hemisphere when Spain was the queen of nations.
The young man went home with Mr. Seymour, and it was evening ere they parted. Grace was silently entranced. The faith that had such children as that, and could draw to itself such an one as her father, must it not have some unsuspected vitality which could be none other than truth? Often and often their new friend came again, and each time he came the young girl felt a solemn enthusiasm for all things great and noble distil from his every word and glance, and wrap her round in a bewildered dream, the voice of which seemed to sing for ever in her ears, "Go and do thou likewise." Lights broke in upon her from unexpected places; books she had laid down in hopeless reverence, deploring that to her their spiritual beauty was incomprehensible, yet sure that their beauty of language must be the veil of the hidden shrine, she now took up again, and, reading, began to understand. Her father, whose labors among the poor Edmund Oakhurst now joined, was too silently happy to notice, save by gentle, unobtrusive aid, the renovating work going on in his child's soul, and seemed to brighten under this new and blessed influence. Soon his daughter spoke openly to him, and, not many months after the quiet meeting at the chapel, she was under instruction. He delayed his already formed plans, to be at her side at this moment, and, together as ever, the two prayed and read and studied, till life seemed to Grace too full and happy for earth.
George Charteris had ceased visiting his relations much, especially after having once or twice met Edmund Oakhurst. The contact with his accustomed circle of by no means very intellectual or very sensitive friends had soon worn off the interest his better nature had once taken in the thoughtful, earnest life of the convert and his daughter. He, however, very good-naturedly continued to write to them, giving accounts of little George's health and general goings-on.
One night Edward Seymour and his young friend sat alone by the dying fire, while the cold drizzle without veiled the window, and the damp seemed to soak in through every chink and cranny in the poorly furnished room. Both men wore their great-coats, but they hardly seemed to notice the cold.