Chapter XII

The lecturer did not present an appearance but the priest came on Friday contrary to Hugh’s understanding. The day set was Sunday but nevertheless, he was heartily welcomed, his horse stabled and Hugh proceeded at once to call in the “guests.”

The big bell atop the barn tolled seven strokes and within three-quarters of an hour nearly forty men were assembled in the great hall awaiting the pleasure of the father. Each man was introduced by Hugh and I marvelled that he could remember their names.

Is there in the physiognomy of the Catholic a mark through which one of the same faith may distinguish him from the Protestant?

Father Nealon, a comparatively young man, certainly under forty, went about his work in a brisk, businesslike manner, picking out those of his faith.

About one-third of the “guests” were confessed--a strange proceeding, transmitting to the Most High, through the successor of Peter, the innermost secrets, believing that a mortal man has the vicarious authority to forgive or at least in a measure absolve.

The rest of the men went about their duties or read; some wandered down to the river to see that the boats were securely under shelter as the day had grown sullen and the wind had risen to almost a gale.

They reassembled later in the evening, before the usual dinner hour. The entire household was there except the Chinaman and I would not say that the Celestial was not hidden within earshot.

In a fine manly way the father talked--not of heaven or purgatory but on things present; duty, cultivation of respect for self, for others, for society’s laws, forgetfulness of old ideas, appreciation of a newly regained citizenship--as fine a discourse as I had ever heard.

He admonished the men to cling to the faith of their childhood, though those of his faith in the audience were in the minority and closed by offering up a very understandable prayer, full of feeling, a sort of summing up, I thought, into which he brought the name of Hugh as a benefactor.

I was impressed with the genuineness of the man, especially after the “guests” had left the hall. Without apology, even hesitation, he accepted and drank a sizable potion of Scotch whiskey, declining water with the remark that “such a wonderful concoction should, like everything in nature, be kept pure.”

Night had fallen and the storm had increased in fury. Rain in sheets on the breast of the wind, the darkness outside stabbed frequently through by flashes of lightning.

“The last of our warm weather; the electricity will cool things off,” Hugh suggested as we walked upstairs that we might all make preparations for dinner.

The father needed no urging to stay overnight, but said that he welcomed an opportunity of “taking a good look at such a magic palace in such a setting.”

We dined much later than usual. There were four of us and Hugh suggested the library as more cozy than the great hall on such a stormy night. It must have been nearly eleven o’clock when Elaine excused herself.

The discourse during dinner turned mainly on Hugh’s work and his effort to make the salving of ex-criminals institutional through an act of Parliament.

Father Nealon expressed himself as completely won over to a cause which had theretofore appeared to him chimerical, if not positively wrong and a menace to public order. He pledged himself to the cause and it meant much to Hugh as the district held many Catholics.

Hugh, when we three were alone, prepared a night-cap of old brandy from the vault. It was, I can testify, smooth, but to me, rather heavy and as, safe from the howling wind outside, we smoked and sipped the mild-tasting amber nectar I could feel that Hugh was being drawn into a discussion of his peculiar faith, or rather lack of it.

The priest had a splendid fund of good-nature and dry wit, but in the background there seemed to be an earnestness of purpose which doubtless was inherent or the result of seminary teaching, and I doubted the wisdom of Hugh’s probable disclosure of the fact that he was anything but a churchman; it might prejudice the goodly man of the church against an accepted responsibility.

First, Hugh confessed that since viewing the cathedrals of Europe he had not been within a church. Then came the assertion that organized churches and such control as they wielded were essential to good government as then conducted; then he claimed that of course religious teachings other than that golden rule of “doing unto others as you would that others should do unto you” had no bearing as claimed on the “fate of the soul.”

Father Nealon seemed to chuckle inwardly as he said, “Well, thanks be! I thought you would be denying a soul to us poor mortals.”

“No, indeed,” Hugh replied, “I do deny, however, that the soul was breathed into Adam or any other ready-made human as your Bible claims.”

The father leaned far back in the big leather chair, turned roguish eyes to me and said, “Now, friend Montrose, we shall just sit and listen while Mr. Craighead tells us how we became the possessors of souls, for a soul we have, to be saved or damned.”

“Too long a story, father,” Hugh replied, “though I feel that having committed myself I should give you my views, rather, my convictions; they certainly do not coincide with yours and I do not ask you to give them any weight, but you ask for them.”

“Never fear,” the priest replied, “though my faith is founded on a rock, nevertheless, I want to learn the genealogy of the most precious of my possessions.”

“Then listen, Mr. Priest,” Hugh began, “listen, not to me, but to your native, unwarped intelligence, for, freed from mistaken inculcations you have a splendid brain and a wonderful soul within you. This intelligence must say that, like the body, the soul is an evolved product of nature’s laws. Do you suppose that the first vertebrate biped known as man carried within him such a soul as you possess? How many changes has the body undergone since its habitat was the water, the cooling gases sweated out from a cooling planet? Many, you will grant, and the soul has not undergone any less in number.

“The soul’s origin? In fact it always was, just as everything in the universe always existed, but everything in the universe, save only the law eternal, changes. We do not live from within. We inspire life with every breath. The unmeasurable universe is as an entity, alive and sending out throughout its entirety, life--millions of different forms of life have lived and disappeared entirely. Only the fittest survive and this law holds today and will hold in the ultimate for all eternity, beyond the grave.”

Father Nealon loudly interjected: “Do you mean to tell me that the soul is not everlasting? For argument’s sake, but for the sake of argument only, I’ll grant you that man came up from the fishes; though I don’t believe a word of it; souls are immortal!”

Hugh smiled, saying, “Your Vulgate teachings will not permit you to think clearly, I see. Let us reason that out. We may only use analogy as a guide. Is anything, from planets to that which nature builds through aggregation on planets, eternal? The soul is as much a planetary product as the body. The body of man has attained its present proportions through a process of unfolding. How many promising bodies involuted and disappeared during the life of our world? We find them in the rocks. The survival of man’s body is probably due to the presence therein as a necessary integral of the evolved soul and spirit which sustains, yes, moulds it. One leans upon the other and helps build the whole. If the body may involute, why not the soul?”

The father, all attention, exclaimed, “Ah! Now I believe you not only read profane writings, but you have studied what the New Testament teaches. Paul distinguishes the soul from both spirit and body, but just what is the soul and what the spirit?”

“Yes,” Hugh replied, “and the crucified Teacher of the doctrine of love pointed out the absurdity of the soul’s awakening only after the bones are gathered together on the last day when He said, according to Matthew, ‘Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.’

“I would say that anything possessing intelligence, the ability to reason, has a soul. Reasoning has built up a carrier, we call it a mind; whether in one part or in the whole of the body. The reasoning mind has evolved the soul of man into the purposeful entity of today, built it up through aggregation just as our planet was assembled. Can you, Father Nealon, conceive of man’s wonderful soul as possessed by his progenitors of a lower order--back to the fish?

“Man reasons through the brain and telegraphs sinews, muscles and organs through the nerves, but many times he acts contrary to the promptings of an as yet unsubjugated soul, what we recognize as our subconscious self--an inner man, the spiritual man, in some degree always subject to the flesh man, his partner in this life only.

“The degree of subjugation of the subconscious, a part of the body of man, yet perhaps eons of years older, constitutes the measurement of his evolution or involution.

“Listen to the soundless voice of the inner man and you will not go far astray. The goal is the acquiring of knowledge, therefore, of an all-embracing power, though there is no absolute, but we are a long way back of it, thanks in some measure to untrue religious teachings throughout the world. We lean too much. ‘Believe in me and ye shall never die,’ as interpreted by the church is stultifying.

“You, father, teach the worship of the God-man, Jesus, or at least your teachings are so interpreted while the Christ--Truth--only should we consider.”

“But the spirit,” the father persisted, and the reply came, “A thorough and complete body, Mr. Priest, a crystallization of the electrons of an atom, perhaps, but we shall never know until Eos throws open to us the gates of dawn and then perhaps we may not have revealed to us many more of nature’s secrets than we now know. _That_ I would judge will depend on the progress made in our many journeys from here to the hereafter and back again.”

Father Nealon sat bolt upright. “Do you, Mr. Craighead, presume to say that souls come back from heaven or hell to this earth and enter into a new body? Preposterous! You must have been imbibing of the doctrines of Mormon or are you a Theosophist?”

Hugh shot back: “Better a book of Mormon or Theosophy than the deductions from that other book, misinterpreted and spread broadcast during nearly two thousand years by ignorant satellites of the higher-ups seeking aggrandizement; poisoning the minds and bodies--the terms are synonymous--of our children; sowing the seeds of fear so thoroughly that the child draws it into his being with the mother’s milk. Fear, the most horrible of diseases, for it affects the mind and the body and the soul; fear of God, of punishment; fear of father and mother, teacher, the world, himself--throw away your doctrine of darkness and fear that the mothers of a thousand years hence may have no phobia when of their bodies they build a house for the stranger; once a dweller on earth, seeking as he must another opportunity for advancement in the science of nature’s manifestations.”

Here, as a vivid flash of lightning brightly illuminating the front of the room was followed instantaneously by a crack of thunder, we all stood tense.

Hugh leaned forward with right arm extended and finger pointing at the father, “Know you, father, not in the spiritual essence of the universe, not in the natural law, is there jealousy, hate or fear, nor hypocrisy. You profess belief that the Spirit of Christ walked the earth, that Abraham and the prophets became visible, yet if I should say to you that the spirit of the living dead has appeared in this room--”

At that instant the left panel of the huge French window was flung back and there came into the room a sheet of water borne on a burst of wind. The lamps in their brackets sent up each chimney a wisp of smoke and went out; the chimney-place gave out a fitful flickering light as the draft brought a dying flame to life. I was drenched to the skin when I turned from shooting the bolt in the closed window.

An awed, shrill cry, “Hugh! Hugh!” rang in my ears.

I saw two figures standing just out from the wall-panel opening--both in white--Elaine it certainly was, but the other figure, a man’s ghostly contour--Hugh stepped clean through the man and I could see Hugh’s dark clothing as though obscured by a mist as he took his sister’s form in his arms and without a word disappeared in the opening in the wall which closed behind them.

The good father stood crossing himself. He made the sign of the cross half-a-dozen times, a weird figure in the dying light of the open grate, now that the draft was excluded.

Father Nealon looked at the spot where the specter had stood, looked at the blank wall where Hugh and the other specter with bronze-gold hair all about the white shoulders above her robe of white had passed, and almost shouted: “What is this? Am I crazy--am I blind? What manner of theatrical chicanery has this crazy man invented?” and he rubbed his eyes as though he had been asleep and strode over to the fireplace.

“Nothing to cause you any alarm, Reverend,” I said, “that was Hugh’s sister evidently walking in her sleep--many people do that.”

I put fresh fuel on the fire and removed my wet coat.

Silence for a moment, then the father said, “Mysterious! I did not see Mr. Hugh go after that voice called his name--where is he? But then I saw nothing but the other. My friend, what did you make of it?”

“What?” I asked.

“Why! the man who stood beside the girl, the big fellow who looked unreal. If I ever hope to see a ghost he was here tonight.”

“Miss Elaine was very real; Hugh carried her out through a secret entrance; nothing of mystery about that; someone left the window unlatched and the wind forced it open--”

I was interrupted.

“Man, man, didn’t you see something like a man standing to the right of the girl--and that Craighead should walk right through it--I saw him or I was dreaming,” and Nealon walked over to the table, held the brandy bottle between his eyes and the fire, saying, “Only a thimbleful gone; not enough to liven a sparrow and yet I believe by my soul I have imagined everything since the venison was served.”

He poured out a brimming glass; it was a wine-glass, fortunately, and drank it off, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Shall we seek sleep that our heads may be clear on the morrow, Mr. Montrose? We can make our apologies in the morning. Probably our host will feel relieved at our taking this liberty.”

I readily acquiesced, banked the fire as the wind was even higher than when the window blew open and the draft was strong, walked upstairs with our friend and bade him good night and pleasant dreams, at his door.

Far into the small hours of the morning, in his room adjoining mine, I could hear him pacing the floor. My estimate of this man was unchanged--one of the finest, most manly of men. A good teacher, a well-beloved pastor of a devoted flock. I wished him for a friend and must say that though years have passed, time has only the more closely cemented a mutual respect and liking begun on this first of his many visits to Craighead Hall. And he kept faith with Hugh.

Sleep and I were strangers until dawn. I thought of all the tragic things which might have ensued since Elaine’s startling visit to the library, yet I dared not disturb the quiet of the household.

I prayed--yes, I asked the Almighty to spare her--and in the midst of my silent prayer thought of Hugh’s contempt for religious convictions--but I was only asking aid. The tramp-tramp next door became monotonous. The priest was badly shaken.

Day must have dawned--a little rivulet came creeping out upon the polished floor, the leaded windows were letting in the driving equinoxial rain. Slowly, so slowly it crept out and out as I watched. Noon was not far off when I awoke.

Rain was still falling, but the wind had moderated. As I stood on the veranda sheltered from both rain and wind, the latter having veered to the north, bringing a most disagreeable chill to the atmosphere, I saw the farm carryall, a three-seated vehicle with springs, driven up to the front door. The curtains parted and there alighted two cloaked and hooded women and a man carrying a small black bag, whom I correctly guessed was a doctor. She must be ill indeed for Hugh to have other women about the Hall--and a doctor.

I found Hugh pacing the upper hall a half-hour later.

“High fever, unconscious since a few moments after I carried her to her room,” Hugh said in answer to my unspoken question, then added, “The doctor and nurses are with her.”

“What was the cause?” I inanely asked.

“A dream,” Hugh replied. “One of those terrible visitations--said Alix must have died as she had seen her on a boat with water all about; you know, Gordon, how unnatural she becomes during one of those visitations. Well, this was the strangest condition of mind I have ever witnessed in her. Seemed as though she was absolutely asleep downstairs and when I laid her on her bed and drew the blanket over her she was cold and still.

“I tell you, man, I was alarmed until I saw her eyelids quiver--then she said, ‘Alix is dead; I saw her on a boat; water all about,’ then became unconscious but her breathing deceived me into thinking she was as usual after a visitation, merely sleeping and I think I slept while watching her.

“This morning at daybreak, her flushed face and pulse spelled fever; I sent for a doctor and day and night nurses. This may be serious.

“I believe that in some way her spirit crossed over to Scotland, was out of her body for a time, though I have never heard of such a thing--”

The doctor approached, coming from the corridor leading to Elaine’s room.

“Mr. Montrose, Dr. Parsons,” Hugh introduced us.

The medical man of middle age carrying a stethoscope in his left hand extended to me his right, saying more to Hugh than to me, “Organically perfect; the cerebro-spinal axis appears to be the seat of the trouble; I find no indication of infection. Can you send blood samples to my laboratory assistant?”

Hugh said, “Certainly, at once,” and I insisted upon being the messenger; said it would ease my mind, and the doctor interposed, while looking me over critically, “Let him go, Mr. Craighead. The analyst may say something which he would not write in his report, besides your friend needs a few hours in which to pick himself up. Where do I camp? I shall stay here tonight,” the doctor added.

Hugh turned to me. “Will you show him to the room adjoining yours?”

“The priest?” I queried.

“Oh, Father Nealon went in the carryall this morning; I shall send his horse as soon as weather permits,” Hugh replied.

I was pulling on a raincoat when the doctor unceremoniously opened my door and without any preliminary, said, “Young man, there is something peculiar about this young person’s case. Has she had some great shock--exhaustion of nerves; unaccountably high fever with no history--the mariner cannot navigate without his chart--out with it--I can see it in your eyes.”

Should I let another, a stranger from the world outside into the close-guarded, secret affliction? I weighed the matter a moment, then said, “Doctor, the young lady is evidently a sleep-walker; she came into the library last night, sound asleep.”

“Yes, yes,” he replied, “but there is something back of that; I’ll have to quiz Craighead. Now off with you and get back pronto,” and he whisked out of my room.

Every mile of the way recalled that recent joyous ride of but a few days ago; but the rain continued to beat upon the supposedly waterproof covering of the wagon.

I sat with the driver and scarcely a word was spoken. Wet through, I hastened to Dr. Parsons’ office and handed the small box entrusted to my care to a thin-faced, spectacled young man. I fully expected a shock. It seemed to me that I was carrying the life-blood of her whom I worshipped. There was only a small piece of lint--I did not even see the blood smear on it.

“Hurry with this,” I said to the analyst who, in reply, merely looked me over through his spectacles, turned on his heel and passed into an inner room.

Two hours later, stiff and annoyed, I got painfully to my feet as the man came into the cold, comfortless office and handed me a sealed letter directed to Dr. A. W. Parsons.

“What did you find?” I queried. “All in there,” the man returned, pointing to the letter, adding as he turned about, “Good day.”

The wagonette awaiting me under the hotel shed set off homeward at once. About three miles out the road passed through a cedar swamp. I remember noting the drooping, forlorn appearance of the trees as I peered out between the curtains. Their bleak outline took on many fantastic shapes, all gloomy. A sharp pain shot through under my left shoulder blade and I remembered nothing more until a week later when I opened my eyes to find a pleasant-faced young woman standing beside my bed, a bottle in one hand and a spoon in the other. I tried to sit up, but while I willed to do so, my body did not move; nor could I recognize my feeble voice as my own when I essayed to speak.

The nurse put her finger on her lips and said, “Quiet; not a word; do not try to move;” then, turning toward a couch out of my line of vision, “Doctor.”

I could hear a grunt as though of somebody just awakened.

“Doctor, the brandy did it; he is conscious,” and next moment the doctor, Parsons, had fingers on my wrist and stood over me looking at his watch.

I tried to ask, but “Elaine” was all that I could whisper. The doctor’s heavy black eyebrows seemed to meet, notwithstanding the great gulf I thought had once separated them as he looked fiercely at me and said, “Young man, if I hear a peep out of you again for twenty-four hours, I’ll take away this good-looking young lady and leave you to Fong Wing with his devil papers and punk sticks.

“Estelle,” he added, addressing the nurse, “did you smell that devilish heathen’s incense? I threw the whole mess, god and all, out the window.”

The nurse leaned over near me and said, “Miss Elaine is well out of danger but you have had a serious week--pneumonia--but the fever has broken; you will be able to convalesce together. Now take this and go to sleep.”

Hugh was in next day. The doctor seemed to blame me for keeping him prisoner at the Hall. Strength to get out of bed had not returned. I kept no account of the passing of time. Sleep--I seemed to sleep always, but one memorable day, I started wide awake to find _her_ sitting on the outer edge of my bed.

I spoke her name. She was so fragile, so pale, the great mass of gold coiled about her white brow accentuated the size and luster of her glorious eyes. If there was ever a face that showed a soul in agony, I was gazing into it.

She laid her little white hand on mine and whispered rather than spoke, “Oh, Gordon, I’m so glad you are going to be well soon,” and when I tried to say what was in my heart--just “I love you,” the words would not come.

She placed the palm of her hand on my lips and held it there a moment and then I sensed rather than heard others come into the room. There was a glad cry, a woman’s voice, an answering hysterical, “Alix! Alix!” the semblance of a struggle and the other woman calling frantically, “Hugh, Hugh, James!” laid Elaine in a dead faint across the foot of my bed.

I sat up and looked first at Elaine, then at the frantic woman almost lying upon her, with both hands holding tight Elaine’s white face. Hugh followed by a stranger ran into the room. Hugh looked just an instant, then pulled Alix aside, but it was the Chinaman who appeared from nowhere with a glass of water, a portion of which he dashed into Elaine’s face. I had made such headway toward recovery that the nurse had gone downstairs.

The others gone, the stranger lingered, pulled a chair to my bedside and introduced himself quietly as though nothing had happened.

“James McFarlane,” he said. “We came over the river a few minutes ago and walked in on Hugh at lunch. My wifie couldn’t wait; the girl was daft to see her little sister; she made a mess of it, but--” he added, “it’s a natural emotion.”

“I hope it will not give her a setback,” I replied.

“Never fear; joy does not kill,” he answered, then, taking a good look at me, said, “Mon, ye look peaked. When ye are weal enow I want a talk wi’ ye about Hugh and his affairs. The lad needs a friend.”

I assured him that I was fit, but he said the morrow or next day would do, carefully adjusted the covering on my bed, put the chairs back in place and as the nurse came in said, “I shall resign now that ye hae better company,” bowing toward tyrannical Estelle who doped me with eggnog, fixed my pillows so that I could sit up and then at my request, sought out the other invalid and brought me the reassuring message that Miss Elaine was none the worse for her experience and was busy in converse with her sister.