Up in Ardmuirland Part 15

Her banter failed to provoke the always ready apology--usually so charmingly proffered.

He could only mutter something about an awful headache; luckily Violet's attention was drawn for the moment to an acquaintance who caught her eye, and there was a speedy change of subject. Did he ever see such execrable taste as that girl's dress? It was positively hideous! The colors did not suit either the wearer or each other, etc., etc.

It was a relief when the curtain rose once more. The music and the action of the piece engrossed the attention of Violet; to Bernard they were G.o.d-sent helps. His mind could range back over the past without restraint, while outwardly he appeared absorbed in the play.

What torrents of self-reproach swept over him as he retraced the wanderings of his misspent years--misspent as regarded the service of his Creator, however prosperous in the eyes of the world! The past came back like a dream. His innocent childhood, spent under the vigilant care of a saintly mother; his boyhood, with its keener joys--all tempered by religion; his school-days, his college career--both dominated by faith; in minute detail the pictures pa.s.sed before his mental vision as he sat there, silent and solitary--heedless of the throng of pleasure-seekers all around him. The sorrow with which such recollections filled his heart was caused by the contrast which after years presented. He could recall his first falling-away from grace, when the successful attainment of a coveted appointment had brought with it the necessity of concealing his Catholic upbringing and convictions. How rapidly had he descended after that turning point had been pa.s.sed! Conscience had been stifled until its voice no longer troubled him. Ambition became his goal, worldly success his G.o.d. Far away in Ireland his mother had died blessing him for his generous provision for her, ignorant of her darling's downfall. None were now left for whose opinion he had cared one straw, even should they learn of his apostasy.

Shrouded as they were in the gloom of the auditorium, his face, kept resolutely toward the stage, could not be seen by his companion, much less his eyes, which were wells of misery. In his overwhelming grief he almost forgot the girl beside him until a whispered remark upon some beautiful pa.s.sage in the music recalled her presence. It did but add fresh stings to his remorse. Could it be possible that he--a son of a sainted mother, child of a faithful Catholic race--could have contemplated marriage with a professed atheist? Had he indeed been planning to take to wife, to make the mother of his possible children, one who openly flouted the idea of a personal G.o.d--he, who had drunk in at his mother's breast the burning love of the Faith which is the birthright of every true son of Ireland?

The pain and the shame which filled his heart were well-nigh unendurable! Oh, if he could but manage to keep his self-control for an hour or two! If he could but hold out until he was alone; for at times it seemed as though he must betray himself--there, in that public a.s.sembly--by crying aloud in his anguish, or even by breaking out into unmanly weeping.

How he got through that miserable evening he never could recall. He realized by her coldness on the return journey, and by the demonstrative encouragement shown to Aston, that he had woefully offended Violet.

Bernard never played his allotted part in the opera; for to every one's astonishment he threw up his appointment and left the town, bound no one knew whither. So the course was clear for Cuthbert Aston, and he lost no time in making good his opportunity. His engagement to Violet took no one by surprise, when his only possible rival was out of the way.

It does not need a very vivid imagination to voice the sentiments of Aston and his _fiancee_ on the subject of Bernard's extraordinary conduct--as it would appear to them.

"I was always afraid," the successful suitor would doubtless exclaim, "that Murray would be the fortunate chap; he was so jolly clever--and good looking, too!"

"Of course," we may imagine the lady responding, "he was all right in that way--handsome, and well-bred, and all that sort of thing. But surely affection is the only thing one really values, dear, and you were always so faithful," etc., etc., etc.

Meanwhile, in the great Trappist monastery beyond the Irish Sea a Brother Patrick labored and prayed--if so be he might make some reparation, at least for past unfaithfulness to so bountiful a Lord.

"You must have been working hard at your prayers, Ted," was Val's morning salutation to me when I went in to breakfast one day.

"What, am I late?" I asked, glancing at my watch.

"Oh, that's nothing unusual," was the unkind response, "But I was not thinking of this morning in particular. Don't you remember what I asked you to pray for?"

"To be sure I do. For a particularly good mistress for the school."

(For we had just had the misfortune to lose one who was next door to perfection, and wanted to increase in perfection by entering a convent, and Val had been worrying himself to replace her before the holidays were over.)

"So you've heard of one? That's good!" I continued.

"Well, not exactly," said Val. "I've heard of a person who is on the lookout for a place of this kind, and reference seem quite correct, but----"

"But what? If she is all right, why hesitate? Write at once, my dear fellow, and snap her up before some one else does!"

Val's eyes twinkled.

"It's not a _she_ at all. That's the difficulty. It's a master who is applying."

I whistled my astonishment, then shook my head in distrust.

"If he's not a fraud he must be fooling you!" I rejoined irreverently.

"No capable master would come up here."

"Read that before you make a p.r.o.nouncement," said Val, as he threw a letter across the table to me.

It proved to be from an old college friend of Val's, and backed up very warmly the application for our vacant post of a young man who was an excellent trained teacher, who had tried his vocation as a monk, and had failed through a breakdown in health. He was in want of an easy berth in good country air, where he could pick up his strength and fit himself for entering college to train for the secular priesthood in a couple of years. No man with sense in his head would think twice about closing with such a promising candidate; Val wrote back gladly accepting the young man.

So Bernard Murray came to Ardmuirland, and won all our hearts in no time.

"That gentleman's got the face of a priest, Mr. Edmund," was Penny's remark at first sight of him.

"Murray's a treasure!" cried Val in delight. "He'll do wonders with our bairns, Ted!"

It was a true forecast. The children all took to him at once; the little la.s.sies loved him; for he had a gentle way with them--like that of a kindly, grown-up brother; the boys regarded him with more awe, but were ready to stand up for him against any adversary, as the best s.h.i.+nty player in the district. He thoroughly transformed our little choir of children--leading them and accompanying them with taste and skill.

To Val as well as to myself he grew inexpressibly dear. It became the regular custom for one or other of us to look in at the schoolhouse of an evening, to smoke a pipe with the master, or to lure him for a walk--should the weather be favorable; while on Sunday evenings after service Murray dined with us as a matter of course. It was in the intimate fellows.h.i.+p thus engendered that he confided to me his life story as detailed above.

It was a wrench to all three of us when the parting came, and the dear boy left us to begin his training for the Foreign Missions--his elected field of labor; but we could not grudge our sacrifice when we compared it with the immensity of his.

Bernard is devoting rare talents, ceaseless energy, abundant tenderness to the winning of souls to G.o.d. Difficult and hopeless as his efforts appear, yet his rare letters breathe patience and cheerful content.

Like every true missionary, he is prodigal of labor, in spite of the apparent scarcity of the harvest gathered; for like his fellows, he relies upon those inspired words which promise a plentiful reaping before the great Harvest-home.

"They went forth on their way and wept: scattering their seed.

But returning, they shall come with joy: carrying their sheaves."

XII

PENNY

"While memory watches o'er the sad review Of joys that faded like the morning dew."

(_Campbell--"Pleasures of Hope"_)

Although Penny's early history is not concerned with Ardmuirland or its neighborhood, yet her long residence in the district will serve as an excuse for its introduction here, apart from the fact of its undoubted interest. Indeed, any account of Ardmuirland which should ignore so prominent a figure in its social life would fail to give a perfect picture of the place; yet but for the circ.u.mstances of her youthful career Penny would never have appeared there at all. Her story, as given here, is pieced together from knowledge gained at various times in intimate conversation; in such a form it is more likely to meet with the reader's appreciation than related in her own words.

Lanedon, in the Midlands, was a humble village enough half a century ago.

It lay low, amid gently swelling green hills, and was shaded by luxuriant woodlands; out of the beaten track it slept in rustic seclusion, undisturbed by the events of the outside world, its knowledge of such things being confined to sc.r.a.ps of information which the local newspaper might cull from more up-to-date journals.

It had but one street--if a single straggling line of dwellings along a roadside might be so termed; on one side were cottages, each in its embowering garden, and on the other ran a clear streamlet, which supplied all the residents with abundance of fresh water. Besides these habitations in the village proper, there were others, more pretentious, though simple enough, in the shape of small farms situated in outlying districts which claimed to belong to Lanedon parish, whose dwellers wors.h.i.+ped in the little Norman church.

At one end of the village stood the "British Lion" public-house. It was a quaint old homestead of two stories, with black, oaken interlacing beams in its wattled walls and mullioned windows, retaining the small diamond, leaded panes, long ago discarded by more pretentious contemporaries. Before the door still stood an ancient horse-block, which had served in its time to mount many a lady of olden days; for the inn had once been of no little importance when stage-coaches plying between London and the north, along the old Roman road, daily pa.s.sed the end of the lane leading to the village. Many a guest of quality, in those days, spent a night in the "British Lion."

Opposite the inn door, on the other side of the road, a signboard swung in a frame upheld by a ma.s.sive oaken pillar, under the shelter of a cl.u.s.ter of tall elms; on a marine background, the n.o.ble beast that stands for the type of national courage and strength was depicted rampant, his fierce claws raised in defiance of all invaders. Under the sign shone out in golden letters the name, "Stephen Dale."

The other end of the straggling street was closed by the old church with its squat tower, whose carven doorways and capitals were wont to attract to the place many a traveler learned in archaeology; for it was a famous building in its way, and was honorably mentioned in most manuals of architecture.

The inn and the church had little in common--less, indeed, than an inn and a church in other villages. Stephen Dale's sole interest in the sacred building was of a temporal nature; he regarded its attractions with satisfaction because they served to bring past his door many a wayfarer who would otherwise never set foot in Lanedon. Such might pa.s.s on their way to the church, but would seldom omit to enter the inn on their return journey for a few minutes of rest and refreshment. And a charming place of rest it was! From a stone-paved pa.s.sage you entered the "house-place," a large square room, also stone-paved, a step lower than the pa.s.sage. Its wide chimney had settled on either side, where one could sit warm and comfortable--heedless of winter winds--in the glow of the log-fire burning on the iron "dogs" of the low hearth. In summer its sanded pavement made it a gratefully cool retreat from the suns.h.i.+ne outside. Moreover, Stephen Dale's renowned home-brewed ale added to the attractions of the house.