Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman Part 31

"I fear nothing, dear one, now that we are one. Do you know, mavourneen, that you can have no feeling, no thought, hereafter, that I shall not share, and that I shall experience no emotion you will not feel? Awful mystery, yet precious reality, this merging of two spirits into one!"

My eyes had turned from time to time to rest in rapt thankfulness upon sky and mountain; but now, suddenly, I was aware that the haunting mystery, lately brooding over the horizon, was gone, and in its place only a perfect peace beyond which the s.h.i.+ning circle of the moon, climbing higher and higher in the azure dome, gave promise of joys beyond, infinite and eternal.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

Impatiently our household awaited Buford's return. Jean, his bride of two days, bore his absence, and the suspense of his still unsettled fate, with more fort.i.tude than I the weary waiting for the coming of the priest, whose blessing was to give me my own--my Ellen. Each day, as I watched her minister more and more tenderly to Aunt Martha, who was slowly dying, and had now and then rare hours of confidential intercourse with her, my love, which I had thought already great beyond power of increase, grew and deepened, till every plan and aspiration centered around her, every thought and emotion was inspired by the glad consciousness of our mutual love.

Thomas and Nelly would not start to Kentucky while their mother lived, nor until after Buford's fate was settled.

There was much hot, foolish talk of banis.h.i.+ng Tories, and the English government had been ordered to convey them to England. Through the strong influence which General Morgan and myself had been able to enlist for Buford, however, we hoped to procure for him, at least, a pardon.

Both households lived on week after week in anxious suspense, made endurable by the love which brightened the lagging hours.

Meantime Ellen's home was building, planned as to its larger outlines after my vision, but in all details modeled to meet Ellen's tastes and wishes. Whenever the weather permitted, and it was possible for her to leave Aunt Martha--for even the new daughter could not take Ellen's place acceptably at the invalid's bedside--we rode together to the green knoll with its fair prospect, which our home was to crown, to inspect with almost affectionate interest each beam and brick, and to suggest, alter, and replan to the bewilderment of the tolerant workmen.

Nevertheless the slow winter days dragged along, and Buford's repeated delays and excuses wore my patience to a thin edge as spring approached.

Was I to wait forever for my long withheld happiness?

Aunt Martha had been beyond all suffering for a week, and Thomas and Nelly were almost determined to start to their waiting field of labor without again seeing Buford, when he returned--taking us all by surprise at last.

But he brought no priest with him. "None would come so far," he said, "in such unsettled times." One indeed had been at first willing, but could not get the requisite dispensation from his superior. He, Buford, would be obliged to go back at once to Philadelphia, but he could stand the separation no longer and had returned for Jean. Why not Ellen and I go with them, stop in Baltimore to be married, and then go on to Philadelphia to help him? With me to intercede, personally, for him, he felt sure of obtaining not only pardon but the restoration of his estates.

I took this disappointing news across the fields to Ellen. Surely the fate of Tantalus was not much worse than mine!

"Yes, I'll go to Baltimore with you, Donald," she said cheerily--seeming so little disappointed over this further delay that I was for the moment hurt. "Indeed, if you can help your brother, it is your duty to go.

Moreover, I shall like a wedding journey, and I have always wanted to go to Baltimore and to Philadelphia."

That put a new phase on the matter. Since it would give Ellen pleasure to take the journey, and we would take it together, I could endure a few more days of waiting. And a happy journey it was, in our own four-horse post chaise, notwithstanding the roads were muddy, and the March weather precarious. Still more happy its ending.

Ellen and I were married in the Cathedral by the solemn ceremony of the Catholic Church, with only the priest's a.s.sistance--the choir boys, and Jean and Buford for witnesses. Afterwards Ellen went into the confessional, while I waited alone for her in the dimly lighted, reverence-inspiring edifice. She joined me, presently, her face both tender and radiant.

"The good Father, Donald," she whispered, slipping a warm little hand into mine, "bade me obey my husband, and follow my conscience in all things--even should that lead me into becoming a Protestant; for I must not let my religion come between me and my wifely duty, since marriage was a G.o.d appointed sacrament. You must never again say, my husband, that the Catholic faith is bigoted and superst.i.tious."

"I trust I shall never say anything to wound my dear wife," I answered; "all her principles and feelings are sacred to me. As to her being a Protestant, that she shall never be unless she truly wishes it. As a loyal Catholic, I have learned to love her, and if she is happier still to be one, I shall love her none the less for that," and I kissed first the sweet, earnest face upturned to mine, and then the tiny jeweled cross which had been one of my gifts to her. Three weeks later Buford's pardon had been obtained, with a full restoration of his estates. He would return to Philadelphia, occupy the family mansion, and resume his father's business, for which indeed he had been destined and trained.

But, first, he must take Jean back to her mother, as he had promised, and gain her consent to really giving up her only daughter. Buford's supposed poverty, indeed, had been a strong argument in his favor with my mother. If he had nothing, she argued, why should they not settle down on the home place? It was big enough for all and then she and Jean would never be separated. Buford's good fortune would be, I feared, a sad blow to dear mother. But, then, Ellen and I would live not far away, and she could often visit us; while Jean affirmed that her mother should spend part of each year in Philadelphia--for, after all, it was not much of a journey, with good stage roads all the way.

This is the true story of a somewhat eventful life, and I must e'en tell it as it happened. I cannot then conclude it by saying that Ellen and I lived in perfect happiness ever after. In truth we had our sorrows and disappointments, such sorrows and disappointments as are common to mortals--even our differences at times.

Yet, looking back upon our united lives, I see that they have been full and happy--almost realizing the radiant vision of my youth.

One of the incidents of it which gave us much pleasure, was a visit, some years after our marriage, from good Father Gibault. His love for Ellen and hers for him was almost that of a real father and daughter, and his interest in our children that of a grandfather. Especially did he take delight in the manly blue-eyed son we had named for him. Before he bade us farewell, to return to his beloved land of Illinois, he absolved Ellen finally from her allegiance to her old faith, bidding her, since her conscience allowed it, be one in creed also with the husband to whom she was fully united in life and purpose. Though devoted priest of a faith, held bigoted by some, he too believed that creeds are man made, and that G.o.d lives not in doctrines, but in our hearts and in our deeds.