Truly, a second change had come over the spirit of his dream. And in proportion to his aversion to my Irish visit, so now he was the one that experienced difficulty in ending it. Not days but weeks passed by; yet there he lingered, to the inconceivable surprise of his friends at home. Not to mine, however. The cause was patent to every one on the spot; nor could I wonder when, one morning, throwing off his customary reserve, he asked me to welcome as a cousin his Irish fiancée, the beautiful Florence O’Grady. Short had been the wooing, he said, but none the less thorough his conversion. A curious mixture of love and religion those outside-car excursions must certainly have been (these two never would avail themselves of carriage or other vehicle); for not only had she conquered his Saxon, but even his religious prejudices so fully that he voluntarily offered to place himself at once under some able teacher.
Christmas was not long in coming round under these circumstances, nor Harry West in returning as a Catholic to claim his Kerry bride, blessing me for having accepted his escort, whilst I regarded the event as a reward for that act of self-denial on his part. Nor could he, at the joyous wedding breakfast, resist describing the scene of his leap from the car on the evening of his arrival, giving a cheer at the same time for the Peace-Preservation Act, which, to him at least—although only from the terror it had inspired—had been the primary cause of so much happiness.
THE LEGEND OF FRIAR’S ROCK.
The thing long hoped for had come to pass (though, alas! by what a way of grief) and I was visiting my school friend, Anne d’Estaing, in Bretagne. It was six years since we had met, but we had kept up a constant correspondence; and by letter when absent, as well as by word when together, I had become so familiar with her home and her family that I did not go there as a stranger.
They lived in an old castle partly fallen into picturesque decay. In the eastern tower was a small chapel, which they had put into complete repair, and there daily they had service, and Anne found her great delight in decking the altar with flowers, and keeping everything in exquisite order and neatness with her own hands. They had had great sorrows in the six years of our separation. Only Anne and her parents were left of the loving family that once numbered eleven. Two of the sons fell in battle, a contagious disease swept off the three youngest children in one week; Anne’s favorite brother Bertrand became a missionary priest, and went to China under a vow never to return; and her twin sister faded away in consumption.
It had seemed to me, in my Irish home, as if such sorrows could scarcely be borne; but I had never been able to come to my friend with visible, face-to-face, heart-to-heart consolation, for my daily duty was beside a couch where my precious mother lay, suffering from an incurable disease. When her long trouble was at last over my strength and spirits were much shattered, and I longed to accept Anne’s pressing invitation. My father was very unwilling that I should go—he thought it would be so sad and dreary there; but Anne’s letters had revealed to me such a life of peace and prayer and happy service that it seemed to me that Château d’Estaing must be a very haven of rest.
And so I found it. From the moment that I looked on Anne’s pale but placid face; from the time that her mother’s arms held me as those other arms, which I had missed so sorely, used to do; from the first words of fatherly welcome that the old count gave me, I was at home and at peace. And when at sunset I went to Vespers, and the dying light shone in through the lancet windows, along the aisle, and on the richly-decorated altar, and Anne’s voice and fingers led the soothing Nunc Dimittis, it was as if the dews of healing fell on my bruised heart.
They made no stranger of me; they knew too well what sorrow was, and how its sting for them had been withdrawn. So together, in the early dawn, we knelt for the holiest service, beginning the day in close intercourse with Him whose “compassions fail not,” and finding that they are indeed “new every morning.” Together we kept the Hours, and did plain household duties, and visited in the village, dispensing medicines, reading to old women, caring for the sick. Two afternoons in the week classes came to the castle for instruction; every Wednesday evening the children came to practise the church music—and, oh! how sweet that music was; and on one afternoon we used to mount our shaggy ponies and ride to a distant hamlet, to teach the children there. Together we took care of the garden, where grew the flowers for the altar and for weddings and funerals; and of the trellis of rare grapes, from which came the sacramental wine. Every pleasant day we went out upon the bay in Anne’s boat, rowed by two strong-armed Breton girls, visiting the rocky coves and inlets, startling the sea-fowl from their nests, and enjoying the sea-breeze and crisp waves.