Chapter XXXI: Love's Triumph Over All 330 (6)

None doubted that his swift denial would confirm the confidence of our loyal hearts. But the silence drew itself out, moment after moment, each bequeathing its legacy of pain to its successor. Mr. Blake's eyes were raptly fixed on his accuser--his traducer, as we secretly defined him. Their light was not the glow of wrath, nor of resentment, but of a strange wistful curiosity, mixed with eager yearning. Fear and love seemed to look out together.

In the pause that followed, Angus swiftly handed to me a small picture, encased after an ancient fashion.

"Look at that, sir," he said, "that will tell its tale--that is my father's face."

I looked with eager intentness, and it required but a glance to show that the pictured face before me, and the pallid face beside me, were the same. The picture was evidently taken long years before, and the stamp of youth and hope and ardent faith was upon the face. Locks raven black, and an unwrinkled brow, had been exchanged for those that bore the scar of time and care; but no careful eye could fail to see that the youthful face of the picture and the ashen face of the elder were one and the same.

But,--more striking and fatal far--the photograph's evidence was not required. No man who saw, as I saw, the faces of Michael Blake and Angus Strachan side by side need wait for other evidence. Often had I seen them thus before--but never in the nakedness of passion.

Passion has the artist's magic hand and her master sketch is ever of her home. As Titian's immortal hills were but the reproduction of his far-off dwelling-place, genius plighting its troth to childhood, so doth passion illumine first the environs of her long time home, how humble so ever it may be. Passion paints the eternal childlike that is in us all. The face is the window through which the vista of a soul's inner life is flashed by her mystic hand, and in that moment the window glows with the unfeigned light of childhood, its simple radiance still unquenched, though long draped by artificial years.

Thus transfigured were the faces of Angus Strachan and Michael Blake--the one with mingled love and fear, the other with unmingled scorn. With that swift intensity of passion came the reversal to their common type, and the great betrayal was complete. The blood they shared together, speaking a kindred language, had turned King's evidence at last, and its unanswerable testimony leaped from face and eye.

For God hath His silent witnesses, like John the Baptist, by us shut up in prison and by us beheaded--but He calleth them to the witness-stand as pleaseth Him; and they live forever in dreadful gospels of love and doom, the latter sharing the power of the former's endless life. Their voice is heard above Herodias' strains of revelry and even sceptred Sadducees tremble at the sound.

Vast is life's mighty forest, but the wronger and the wronged meet somewhere amid its shadowy glades. Surely life's wooded maze might afford a hiding place to those who fly from armed memories--but God's rangers tread its every glen with stealthy step and the foliage of every thicket gleams with the armour of His detective host. A chance meeting, a foundling acquaintance, a stray newspaper, an undestroyed letter, a resurgent memory, a neglected photograph, or, as here, a tell-tale tide of blood--all these have accepted God's retainer and bear the invisible badge that denotes His world-spread Force. All life's apparent discord is harmony itself when He determines the departments and allots to every thing, and to every man, his work!

"You speak of Ettrick! What know you of Ettrick? What is her name that lives there?" I heard Mr. Blake ask in a faltering whisper, unheard by the rigid worshippers.

"She bears no name save that which you defiled--it shall not be spoken here, though I honour it with my deepest heart--but look on this," and Angus held out before him what he had drawn from his bosom as he spoke.

Michael Blake's gaze was fixed upon it, no word or sound coming from his lips. His eyes clung to it with tranquil eagerness, unconscious of all about, still clinging when Angus withdrew it, wrapped it in the paper which had enclosed it, and restored it to its hiding-place.

I know not why, but I held out my hand to him eagerly:

"Let me see it, Angus; my own mother is with God."

He hesitated but a moment, then drew it forth and handed it to me.

"All the world may see it," he said quietly, "it is my mother--you may read the letter if you will."

The portrait was of a woman still rich with girlhood's charm. Of about nineteen years, I should say, tall and graceful and sweet of countenance, with a great wealth of hair, with eyes that no flame but love's could have kindled, her lips, even in a picture, instinct with pure passion, and her whole being evidently fragrant and luscious as Scottish girlhood alone can be. For the sweetest flowers are nourished at the breast of the most rugged hills.

I was still reading the story of love and innocence and hope, all of which were written in the lovely face before me, when Angus said very gently:

"Read the letter, sir."

The writing on the paper which enclosed the picture had escaped my notice. It was a letter from Angus' mother, sent with the daguerreotypes. Its closing words ran thus:

"I send ye this picture o' masel' and the ane o' the man I loved
sae weel. No ither picture have I had taken, nor ither shall there
be. It was taken for yir faither before the gloamin' settled doon
on you and me, ma laddie. It was taken for him, as was every breath
I drew, for I loved him wi' every ane.

"Ye maunna think ower hard o' him, laddie, for yir mother canna
drive him forth, so ye maun bide thegither in this broken hairt o'
mine. And laddie, I am askin' God to keep me pure, for my love will
hae its bloom some day far ayont us, like the bonny heather when
the winter's bye. And I want to be worthy when it comes. I'm sair
soiled, I ken, but love can weave its robe o' white for the very
hairt it stained. And I maun be true till the gloamin's gone. So
think o' yir mother as aye true to yir faither, and it'll mebbe
help yir sorrow to ken there's aye this bond between yir faither
and her wha bore ye. And Angus, dinna let him ken, gin ye should
ever meet. Yir mother's bearin' her sorrow all alane in Ettrick and
her laddie'll bear it ayont the ocean. We're a' in God's guid
hands. Your loving mother,

JANET STRACHAN."

I returned the well worn letter to the unhappy hand from which I had received it. He tenderly wrapped it about his mother's picture and thrust the parcel back beside the loyal heart which shared, as it was bidden, the great sorrow and disgrace.

I then cast about in my mind for the next step which should be taken. Ordination I knew there could now be none. The pestilence of anger and shame and sin was upon us all. Dark horror sat upon the faces of the waiting congregation, their eyes still fixed on these two actors of this so sudden tragedy. It may have been that the proof of kinship, as demonstrated by these confronting faces, was finding its way into their hearts. These faces were still fastened the one upon the other, the younger with glowing scorn, the older with mingled love and tenderness, blended with infinite self-reproach.

I could see no course open to me except the dismissal of the congregation, and so announced my purpose.

"The Kirk Session is adjourned sine die," I said, for this is an ancient phrase and the proper forms must be observed. Even when our dearest lies in her coffin, there are certain phrases which announce in cold and heartless print that the heart's life-blood is flowing from its wound, and, however sacred that silent form, the undertaker's hands must have their will with it.

"Moderator." It was Thomas Laidlaw's voice. "Moderator, we hae heard but ae side. There's aye twa sides. Will ye no' let the accused speak for himsel'? Fair play is bonny play."

A moment's thought was enough to assure me as to what was right.

"By all means," I answered, sadly enough, for I had but little hope that any defense could be offered. "Mr. Blake may certainly speak if he wishes--it is but fair. Have you anything to say, Mr. Blake?"

As I turned towards the older man the younger withdrew his eyes from the face on which they had so long been fixed, and slowly rising, Angus walked down the aisle towards the door, conscious that he himself had proclaimed his bitter shame; but his mother's name seemed written on his forehead, redeemed by the sacrifice of his own. He had gone but a quarter of the way or so, when a trembling voice was heard.

"Angus, wait," it said; the voice was faint and tremulous like a birdling's note--but Angus heard it and stood still. He turned towards the pew whence it came, and a face met his own, a woman's face, blanched and pale, except for two burning spots upon her cheeks where the heart had unfurled its banners. It was a woman's voice, I say, and the eyes that looked out from it sought his own with a great caress of loyalty and love. The glowing eyes, and the parted lips, and the quick flowing breath, all spoke the bridal passion; for the bride's glory is in surrender, the bodily sacrifice but the pledge of her blended and surrendered life, lost in another's mastering love.

"Angus, wait," she murmured again, her dainty gloved hand upon the book-board as she essayed to rise. Her mother sought to restrain her, but her touch was powerless; for the outgoing tide was at its full.

"He shall not walk down that aisle alone," she faltered to her mother, the words unheard by others. "We shall go down together."

XXIII

_A MAIDEN PRIESTESS_

Perhaps her mother's woman-heart realized in that moment that the one path irresistible to a woman's love is the path of sacrifice. In any case she ceased from her protest and the gentle form arose; moving out to where he stood, she slipped her dear hand into Angus's, and together they walked slowly down the aisle of the crowded church. No sideward glance they cast nor backward did Margaret ever look. Sweet courage was shining from her face, even joy, as they passed out together--the long stride of the stalwart man and the gentle step of the dainty maiden, but ever hand in hand, hidden from the strife of tongues, in love's pavilion hidden.

They had wandered, knowing not where or whither, some distance from the church, when Angus stopped, and fixing his reverent look on Margaret's strangely happy face, he said:

"You don't know what you have done; you have tarnished your name--oh, Margaret, why did you do it? From henceforth you will share the shame that belongs to me."

Margaret's face was upturned to his own.

"Is not the sunshine sweet, Angus? And so pure! Surely God loves us well!"

"It shines upon no man so sad as I," he replied bitterly.

"Angus! After what I did--and the church so full!"

"Nor so happy--and so proud!" concluded Angus. "Where shall we go?"

"Anywhere," answered Margaret; "we shall walk the long walk together."

"No, dear one, not together, that cannot be--but not apart," said Angus, his voice trembling.

"Do you know, Angus," said Margaret after a pause, "I had often read about how engagements should be announced. And no one, almost no one knew that you loved me. And after that first time when you told me you loved me--and before you told me that other--I so often used to lie awake and think about how ours should be announced. For I think that is the sweetest thing in a girl's life, the announcement I mean--no I don't mean that--the sweetest thing is what has to be told. And now it is all told--and just to think it was done in a church and before all those people. And now they all know--and I am so glad! No girl ever had it done like this before."

"Glad?" said Angus.

"Yes, glad--and proud--aren't you?"

But there was no response, save the old, old silent eloquence of love, when lip speaks to lip its tender tale, scorning the aid of words.

"Let us go this way," said Margaret at length.

"Where does it lead to?"

"You shall see," she answered; "come away"--and together, still hand in hand, they walked on.

"Let us rest here, Angus." He threw himself on the grass at her feet.

"Do you not know the place?" she said.

"No," said Angus, "were we ever here before?"

"Oh, Angus, how could you forget? Look again."

He looked again and sacred twilight memories began to pour back upon him.

"That was in the gloaming, Angus, you remember. And the darkness has often brooded over it since then--but it is all past now and it never was so bright before."

"The darkness will come again," said Angus.

"But it will never be able to forget the light--and it will wait---- There is never any real brightness till the waiting's past."

The Sabbath stillness was about them and its peace was in their hearts. They scarce knew why, and the world would have said that Shadow was their portion; but, then and ever, true peace passeth all understanding.

"Kneel down, Angus, kneel here beside me," she suddenly exclaimed.

"Kneel, Margaret! Why shall I kneel?"

"Never mind why--you shall see. Kneel down, Angus."

He knelt, wondering still; she removed his hat with her now ungloved hands and threw it on the grass.

"Darling, I love you," she said, "and I know you are good and true. And I was so proud this morning when you were to be ordained to God's holy service--and it must not be broken off like this. Oh, Angus, when I saw your face this morning, I feared so that your whole soul would turn to bitterness and give itself up to hatred of that man. But it must not be."

"Margaret, stop! Surely you must know----"

"Be still, Angus--it must not be. All this anguish must break in blessing. Sorrow such as yours will be either a curse or a blessing--and it must not be a curse. God's love can turn it into blessing--and so can mine. We shall take up our cross together and shall see it blossom yet. Oh, Angus, if I can forgive him, you can, for you are dearer to me than to anybody else." Her hands were now upon his head:--"Angus Strachan, I ordain you to suffer and to wait. I ordain you to God's service in the name of love and sorrow and God--and they're all the same name--and I love you so--and you are an elder now. Oh, dear Lord, take care of our love and make us true--and patient. And bless our sorrow and make it sweet and keep us near the Man of Sorrows. Amen."

The white dimpled hands rested long upon the auburn locks of the still bended head, and her compassion flowed through them to the more than orphaned heart. It was the same head, she thought, and the same heart, as had once been blessed by a mother's anguished hand, doomed, as that mother knew, to the world's unreasoning scorn.

Her own peace seemed to pass into his troubled soul; the anointed head bowed lower and the yoke was laid upon him, never to be withdrawn. But its bitterness was gone, purged from it by those white dimpled hands, and the fragrance of a soul's sweeter life was there instead. For there had come to him that great moment when secret rebellion turns to secret prayer, craving blessing from the very hand that had smitten him with lameness; and Angus was making his ordination vows to God.

Upon that grassy knoll, under heaven's tender sky, with unmoving lips and broken heart he made the great surrender. Patience he promised God; and in return he begged the forgiving heart, the strength to bear his lifelong load, and the aid which might enable him to attain that miracle of grace when he yet should pray for the man whose sin had foreclothed his life in shame.

"Let us go back," said Margaret, at length, for the sun was westering.

"Yes, we will go back," said he, for in the gentle words he heard the bugle call; "we will go back." But first he kissed the ordaining hands, anointed as they had been to cast out evil from the heart and to bind up its brokenness.

Homeward they turned their steps, and the noises of the uncaring world soon fell upon their ears, but their hearts were holden of another song, and they heard them not.

Backward they bent their way to the world and its cruel pity--but ever hand in hand.

* * * * *

As the reader already knows, Margaret and Angus went forth from St. Cuthbert's Church just as Michael Blake was invited to speak in his own defense and to answer, if he might, the dread charge of his accuser.

"Have you anything to say, Mr. Blake?" were the words I had just uttered when Margaret and her lover left the church, with all the sequel which hath been just recorded.

In answer, he watched the retreating forms till they had departed, then buried his face in his hands. He sat thus so long that I concluded he had no heart to speak, and again arose, my hand outstretched to give the blessing, if blessing there might be in such an hour. The congregation arose to receive the proffered benediction, but before my lips had opened, a faint hand plucked my gown.

"I will speak, sir," and pale and trembling the unhappy man rose and stood beside me. I resumed my seat and the people dumbly did the same, gazing towards their elder with eyes that pleaded for the assurance of his innocence. Twice or thrice he strove for utterance before the words would come. At length he spoke.

"Moderator and brethren," he began, "if such as I may call you brethren. I am a sinful man. My hour has come. God's clock has struck, and it is the stroke of doom for my unworthy soul. Not that I despair of final mercy, for mine is a scarlet sin, and for such there is a special promise. But God's rod hath fallen upon me. The Almighty hath scourged me through my own son; for he who has just gone forth is none other than mine own child. My heart went out to him since first I saw his face, though I knew not till to-day that he is my flesh and blood. The picture you saw him hold out before me is none other than the picture of his mother's face.

"I speak it not for my defense--but I thought his mother was dead. I was told from the old country that she was gone, and more than one letter was returned to me with the statement that she could not be found. It was my heart's purpose to make a worthy home for her here in Canada, and to bring her out to it and to atone if I might for the cruel wrong. The first is long since done, but the second was beyond my power--at least so I was led to think.

"And now, Moderator, I place in your hands the resignation of the office on which I have brought such deep disgrace. It was my pride to be an elder in St. Cuthbert's, for it was here I first tasted of the Saviour's forgiving grace; it was here I first learned the luxury of penitence, and here was born my heart's deep purpose to retrieve the past--it was my pride, I say to be an elder here, but it is now my shame."

He was about to stop when Saunders McTavish interrupted:

"Moderator, there'll be no need to proceed by libel, for the accused party has confessed his guilt. But he hasna said anything to the Court about his soul, about his soul and his sin, and his relation to his God. At least, not all he might like to say and we might like to hear. Mebbe he'll have had repentance unto life?"

I waited. Mr. Blake's response came with humble brokenness.

"Please God I have," he said, "and, unworthy though I be, I have a great word for my fellow men this day--a word the unfallen angels could not speak. Oh, my brethren, believe me, I have not been leading a double life. I took the eldership at your hands, I know, saying nothing of the dark blot that soiled the past. My humble hope was that in service I might seek to redeem my life and I remembered One who said to a guilty soul like mine:--'Feed My sheep.' Penitence, and not remorse, I thought, was well pleasing unto God.

"And you will bear me witness that I have tried to warn all, especially the young men, against the first approach of sin. I fell long years ago because I cherished sinful images in my heart till even love went down before them. Since then, God is my witness, I have made it my lifework to drive them forth and to make every thought captive to the Redeeming Christ. My lifework has not been in my foundry, nor in my town, nor in my church--but in my heart, this guilty heart of mine. I have striven to drive out evil thoughts--out, in the blessed name of Jesus. For long, I could not recall my sin without sinning anew. But I had a hope of final victory, and having this, I purified myself even as He is pure.

"It was my daily prayer that God would make me useful, poor and all but sunken wreck as I was, that he would yet make me a danger signal to the young about me--which I am this day. For a wrecked ship does not tell of danger--it swears to the peril that itself has known. And to every young man before me I swear to two things this hour. The first is that your sin will find you out. Be sure of this. All our phrases about lanes that have no turning and the mills of the gods and justice that smites with iron hand, and chickens that come home to roost--all these are only names for God's unsleeping vigilance, all varied statements of the relentlessness of sin.

"The other truth to which I swear is this, that dark and bitter memories of evil may be a blessing to the soul, if we but count that sin our deadly enemy and rest not till we take vengeance of it. It may yet be God's messenger to us, if we lead humble chastened lives, seeking to redeem the past and watching unto prayer. There is no discipline so bitter and so blessed as the discipline of an almost ruined soul. For old sins do not decay and die; they must be nailed upon the cross. It is an awful truth that he who was once filthy is filthy still, but it is still more true, thank God, that there is One whose blood cleanseth from all sin."

He stopped suddenly, and in a moment he was gone. Down that same aisle by which his child had passed, he swiftly walked, his head bowed, his face quivering in pain like one who was being scourged out of the temple. For there are corded whips, knotted by unseen hands.

After the door had closed behind him the Session Clerk arose:

"I move, Moderator," he said, "that Mr. Blake's resignation be laid on the table."

Before his motion was seconded Roger Lockie, one of the stalwarts, stood in the middle of the congregation.

"It's no becomin' in me to interfere," he began, "but we're a' assembled here as a worshippin' people, an' I move that the Kirk Session be requested no' to accept the resignation. Oor brother fell, nae doot, but it was lang syne, and he has walked worthy o' the Lord unto a' pleasin' since, an' borne a guid witness to his Maister. We a' ken fine what the great King an' Heid o' the Kirk wad dae wi' his resignation. Wi' my way o' thinkin', a sinfu' man wha has been saved by grace is juist the ane to commend the Maister's love. I move the Session be asked to keep him as oor elder."

"I second that," said William Watson, a man of fifty years. "He brocht me to Christ and that's ae soul he saved. He broke the alabaster box upon his Saviour's head this day and we a' felt the fragrance o't. If God Himsel' canna despise the contrite hairt, nae mair can we."

I was about to put the motion when the senior elder arose:--"I hae but a word," he said, "an' it's nae word o' mine. The spirit o' the cross is wi' us and I will read a bit frae the Buik:--'If a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted.'"

"Are you ready for the question?" I asked.

"Aye, we're a' fine an' ready noo," said one of the worshippers.

The vote was taken and there was no dissenting voice. Michael Blake's long penance had done its work on earth and its eternal outcome was in other hands than ours.

XXIV

_The SWEET SUNNY SOUTH_

I was strongly inclined to accept the call. Not that I liked changes, for heart vines bleed freely when uptorn, and friendship's stocks cannot be bought on margin. But my heart was heavy, and St. Cuthbert's had been sorely wounded. Therefore, when the South Carolina church opened correspondence with me regarding their vacant pulpit, I lent an attentive ear.

All who have known sorrow in their work know how sweet sounds the voice, even the siren voice, which calls to distant scenes of toil. The world's weary heart will some day learn that no far-leading path, no journey by land or sea can separate us from the sorrow we seek to flee; because no path hath been discovered, no route devised, which shall lead us forth from our own hearts, where sorrow hath her lair.

Nevertheless, I was strongly minded to go forth from the work which had become my very life. It is nature's favourite paradox that what we love the most, the most hath power to give us pain. Could we withhold our love, no hand could wound us sorely, for it takes a friend to make an enemy worth the name. And since I loved St. Cuthbert's with that love which only sacrifice can know, I was oppressed with a corresponding fear that her frown would quench whatever glimmer of gladness still flickered in my heart. For I had almost forgotten that ever I was glad. And is it to be wondered at?

My daughter's love was fixed upon a man whom I deemed impossible, though by no fault of his. She had renounced all purpose of their immediate union in deference to her father's protest, but her love was fixed upon him still, and her father felt like one who was beating back the spring. Her mother was torn with the torment of an armed neutrality. Further, my beautiful church had been scarred by the explosive riot of that ordination day, stricken with a soul's lightning; and the whole tragedy of our home life had been laid bare to every eye.

Margaret, and her love, and her lover, and her lover's genealogy, and her father's forbiddal of their marriage, all these were daily herbs to those who loved us, daily bread to native gossip-mongers, and daily luxury to all who wished us ill. My attitude towards Margaret's lover, and whether that attitude was right or wrong, was the especial subject of debate and all New Jedboro abandoned itself to a carnival of judgment. Even the most pious and indulgent could not forego the solemn luxury, and those who denied themselves all of scandal's toothsome tidbits could not renounce this great repast.

I entertained no actual misgivings as to St. Cuthbert's permanent loyalty to me; but our self-consciousness had become raw and sore, our manse had turned suddenly to a house of glass, and the whole situation was so fraught with embarrassment that no mere man since the fall could have been free from an instinctive longing to escape.

St. Andrew's, Charleston, an ancient church of that ancient city, had offered me its pulpit. The Southerners have a taste for British blood, and they stand alone as connoisseurs of that commodity. Wherefore, the St. Andrew's folk had cast about for a British minister, preferring the second growth, hopeful that its advantage of American shade might have made its excellence complete.

Their committee ranged all Canada, finally dismounting beneath the stately steeple of St. Cuthbert's, their lasso loosed for action. Or, to change the metaphor, they informed their church at home that their eyes were fastened on their game at last; for the duty of such a committee is to tree their bird, then hold him transfixed by various well-known sounds till the congregation shall bring him down by well directed aim, bag him, and bear him off.

The Charleston Committee was composed of four, who attended St. Cuthbert's both morning and evening, when they came one Sabbath day to spy out the land.

The proprietor of the Imperial Hotel, himself an extinct Presbyterian, told me afterwards that they arrived late at night, begged to be excused from registering and went immediately to their rooms. But he knew in the morning that they were not to the manner born--for they asked for "oatmeal" for breakfast, which is called porridge by all who boast even a tincture of that blood it hath so long enriched.

Then they ate it with outward signs of enjoyment, which also flies in the face of all Scottish principle. Besides all this, they gave the maid a quarter, which was the most conclusive evidence of all.

They walked to St. Cuthbert's in four different detachments and sat in separate sections of the church. But they were not unnoticed; every Scotch section marked its man, for in New Jedboro strangers were events. I myself remarked three of them; devout they seemed and yet vigilant--as was natural, for they had come to both watch and pray.

The psalms were too much for them; they seemed to enter heartily into the other portions of the service--but the psalms in metre are a great Shibboleth. My beadle, who always sat where he could command the congregation, has often assured me that when a psalm was announced he could soon tell the sheep from the goats.

The service passed without special incident; for, although I suspected their errand, all thought of it vanished when I came to preach. God's jealous care will hold to undivided loyalty the heart that seeks to serve Him.

Monday morning brought the deputation to close range. They interviewed me in my study, and the house was redolent of Southern courtesy and grace. Their accent had a foreign tang but their hearts' tone was that of universal love. This latter word is not too strong to use, for the Southerner has a rare genius for laying claim to your very heart by the surrender of his own. Affection blooms fast in the Southern soul, but our Northern bud needs time. Especially tardy is its ripening in Scottish hearts, but the fruit is to Eternity.

The conversation was one of great interest and pleasure to myself, and while I could give no definite promise I made no secret of the attractiveness of their proposal.

"You will be so good as to present our regards to the mistress of the manse," said one of them, as they rose to go.

"Thank you, it will give me great pleasure," I responded; "my wife is a Southerner. Her father, who is not living now, fought at Gettysburg. My wife's standing instruction is to say that he was not killed in battle, for that was many years ago, and she has the Southern instinct for youth."

"And the Southern talent for it too, I reckon," the courtly gentleman replied. "We are mighty glad to hear that she belongs to us. Surely we will have a friend at Court. Let her be considered our plenipotentiary-extraordinary. Does her heart still turn towards her Southern home?"

"I am sure it does," I made reply, "but it has been long garrisoned within these rock-bound walls, and I know she has come to love them. I have often heard her say that there is no trellis for Southern vines like these mountainous hearts, true and faithful as the eternal hills themselves."

"I don't wonder at it," another of the deputation interposed. "From what I have seen and learned of these folk, I think they are our nearest kin. The Scotch and the Southern nature are alike, the same intensity of feeling, but with them it glows and burns, while with us it flames and sparkles."

"The same stream," suggested the first, "but ours breaks easier into flood."

"Well, I hope the flood will bear her back to her native shore," said the youngest member of the committee, who was a colonel, having been born during the Civil War.

We all laughed pleasantly at our racial distinctions and the gentlemen withdrew.

"We will not tell you good-bye, for we hope to see you soon again," was the last word I heard, the Southern idiom and the Southern cordiality both in evidence.

Definite action on the part of the Charleston church soon followed the return of their representatives. And I knew not what to do.

In the hope of relieving my perplexity, I accepted an invitation to spend a Sabbath with the St. Andrew's people and occupy their proffered pulpit.

My heart had sore misgivings when I said good-bye to Issie Hogg; her years were but thirteen; and every year had bound her closer and closer to my heart till I knew she was more dear to me than any other child save one. The sands of life were nearly run and I feared greatly lest they might be spent before I should return.

New Jedboro was winter-wrapped when I left it, and, taking steamer from New York, I disembarked at Charleston into almost intoxicating sweetness. Their dear South land was aflame with early summer, and my idea of Paradise was revised. How could these Southern hearts be otherwise than warm and fragrant! All the land about seemed like nature's temple breathing forth its silent anthem and celebrating its perpetual mass.

Yet all its vernal beauty seemed but as a portal to the inner shrine, the sanctuary of Southern hospitality. Which hospitality is a separate brand and hath no rival this side the Gates of Pearl. Let all who would feel the surprise of heaven's welcome forego the luxury of a visit to a Southern home; for they have stolen that celestial fire to kindle their waiting hearths.

I was committed to the care of one of the families of St. Andrew's whose household numbered five; and every heart had many doors all open wide. That is, open wide till you had entered, for then they seemed tight closed, locked with a golden key. Ancient pride seemed to be their family possession, never flaunted, but suppressed rather--and you knew it only because your own heart acknowledged that this must be its rightful dwelling place.

I noted again the pleasing custom of Southern ladies, who shake hands on introduction, and forever after. The candid graciousness that marks the act is in happy contrast to the self-conscious agitation of the underbred and the torpid panic of their stifled bow.

My host and hostess were persons of rare interest. Some of England's best blood was in their veins; it had come to them by way of Virginia, in their eyes the last medium of refinement. The final touch of sanguinary indigo is given only at Virginia's hands, the Virginian aristocracy being a blessed union of the English chivalric and the American intrinsic, the heraldic of the old world blended with the romantic of the new--which might make the Duke of Devonshire proud to receive reordination at their hands.

English aristocracy ambles on in an inevitable path, high banked by centuries--but the Virginian hath leaped the hurdle of the ocean and still retained its coronet; which proves that it was fashioned in eternity after the express pattern of their patrician heads.

As I describe the lofty source of this gracious Southern household, I bethink myself that to this day I cannot tell how I came to know that theirs was an ancient family. No reference to it from their own lips can I recall; certainly no boast, except the tranquil boast of proud serenity and noble bearing, and the noblesse oblige of loving hearts.

Grave courtesy and sweet simplicity and mirthful dignity seemed to be the heirlooms which they shared as common heritors; and, chiefest of credentials, when they stood in the library amid the shades of ancestors preserved in oils, I felt no sense of humour in the situation.

This is a great tribute; for the plebeian may boast his ancestors but he dare not paint them; and many a pioneer aristocrat hath compassed his undoing because he thus tried to put new wine into old bottles. Wishing to found a family, he proceeds to find one, and both are covered with shame as with a garment.

Many of our new world nobility, finding in sudden wealth the necessity for sudden pedigree, have resurrected their ancestors and tried in vain to touch them into gentleness, committing to an artist the secret task of God. Even those who have made fortune in oils, consistently restoring their innocent forefathers by the same, have only advertised their weakness with their wares.

It is true that the Vardell family coat-of-arms was not concealed--but it was not brandished or expounded. In quiet but vigilant emblazonry, it seemed to stand apart, like some far back member of the family in whose pride it shared.

Which reminded me, by contrast, of a call I had once made upon a certain Northern family, conspicuously rich and conspicuously new. While waiting in the drawing-room, I observed four different crests, or coats-of-arms, framed and hanging in a separate place, smirking to one another in token of their youthful fortune; for the lines had fallen unto them in pleasant places.

Soon the mistress of the mansion swept into the room, her locomotion accompanied by a wealthy sound, silk skirts calling unto silk skirts as deep calleth unto deep. A little pleasant conversation ensued, which, among other things informed me that the Turkish rug beneath me had cost six hundred dollars; whereupon I anxiously lifted my unworthy feet, my emotion rising with them. After both had subsided, I sought to stir the sacred pool of memory, pointing reverently to one of the aforesaid emblems of heraldry.

"That is your family coat-of-arms, Mrs. Brown, is it not?" I asked, throwing wide the door for the return of the noble dead.

"Yes," she answered proudly, "that is my one, and that one there is Mr. Brown's, and those other two are the children's; the yellow one is Victoria's and the red one is Louisa Alexandra's. Mr. Brown bought them in New York, and we thought when we were getting them we might just as well get one apiece for the children too."

How rich and reckless, I reflected, is the spendthrift generosity of our new world rich!

I could not but recall how those mean old English families make one such emblem do for centuries, and the children have to be content with its rusty symbols. But this lavish enterprise cheered me by its refreshing contrast; for every one was new, and each child had one for its very own.

There is no need to dwell on the succeeding Sabbath. St. Andrew's church bore everywhere the evidences of wealth and refinement. Large and sympathetic congregations were before me, evidently hospitable to the truth; for Huguenot and Scotch-Irish blood does not lose its ruling passion, and South Carolina has its generous portion of them both.

I sorely missed the psalms, without which, to those who have acquired the stern relish, a service lacks its greatest tonic. But my poor efforts seemed well received and the flood of Southern fervour burst forth later on, as we sat around the Vardells' dinner table.

I was being initiated into the mystic sweets of "syllabub," a Southern concoction of which my sober Scotch folks had never heard. Whoso takes it may not look upon the wine when it is red, for its glow is muffled by various other moral things; but the wine, waiting patiently at the bottom, cometh at last unto its own; and the glow which was absent from the cup may be soon detected upon the face of him who took it, beguiled by the innocent foliage amidst which the historic serpent lurks.

Webster defines it as a dish of cream, flavoured with wine, and beaten to a froth. But Webster was from Massachusetts and his advantages were few. The cultured Southerner, more versed in luxury than language, knoweth well that it is a dish of wine, flavoured with cream, and not beaten at all since the foundation of the world.

Southerners incline to eulogy; and syllabubs insist upon it. Wherefore, after the third syllabub had run the same course that its fathers had run, Miss Sadie turned to me and said:

"That was a perfectly lovely sermon you preached to us this morning."

"You are very frank," quoth I, for I was unaccustomed to compliments, one every six or seven years, and an extra thrown in at death, being the limit of Scotch enthusiasm.

"Well," replied Miss Sadie, "I hope I am. I think it is sweet and lovely to tell people if you like them. What's the use of waiting till they're dead, before you say nice things about your friends? If folks love me, or think me nice, I want them to tell me so while I'm alive."

"I love you and I think you are sweet and beautiful," said I, obedient.

Then came a dainty Southern cry--not the bold squeal of other girls, nor the loud honking of those who mourn for girlhood gone--but the woman-note which only the Southern girl commands in its perfection.

"Father! Do you hear what that preacher said to me just now?" she cried archly. "Isn't it perfectly dreadful for him to say things like that to a simple maiden like me? You awful man!"

"Our guest is only flesh and blood, Sadie," answered the courtly father when his laughing ceased, "so I presume, like the rest of us, he thinks you lovely. As for his telling you so, he was only carrying out your own instructions."

"I don't see how you could have done anything else," laughed Mrs. Vardell. "You shut him up to it, you know, Sadie. After your precept, to have said nothing nice would have meant that there was nothing nice to say."

"But seriously," resumed Miss Sadie, turning again to me, "that was really a lovely sermon this morning. It is beautiful to be able to help a whole congregation like that."

"Yes," chimed in Miss Vardell, Sadie's sweet senior, "it was perfectly fascinating. I shall never forget it as long as I live."

"I really think you will have to let us speak our mind," added their mother. "Your Geneva gown was so becoming; I do so wish our Southern ministers would adopt it. And the sermon was perfect. I especially admired the way it seemed to grow out of the text; they seemed to grow together like a vine twining around a tree."

I endured this tender pelting with the best grace I could command, though this was the first time I had ever been the centre of such a hosannah thunder-storm. The tribute to the kinship of text and sermon, however, was really very pleasing to me. Just at this juncture, when a new batch of compliments was about to be produced, smoking hot, an aged aunt, the prisoner of years, ventured an enquiry.

"I wish I could have been there--but I am far past that," she said. "What was the text, Sadie?"

Sadie flew into the chamber of her memory to catch it before it should escape. But the sudden invasion had evidently alarmed it, for it had gone. She silently pursued it into space, but returned empty-handed.

"That's strange," she faltered; "it was a lovely text," she added, by way of consolation. "But it's gone; I was so taken up with the sermon that I must have failed to remember the text," she concluded, false to her first love, but faithful to her guest.

"Well, Josie," said the still unenlightened aunt, "I will have to look to you. You will tell me what it was."

Josie joined in the chase, but their prey had had a noble start and was now far beyond them.

"It was in the New Testament, I think," said Josie, pleased with this pledge of accuracy, and satisfied that she had outrun her sister--"and it was tolerably long." This was said with the air of one who had almost identified it and might justly leave the rest to the imagination. "I reckon I could find it if I had a Bible," she added hopefully.

No Bible was produced, for that would have been taking an unfair advantage of the fugitive; but the eulogists began their mental search in unison, quoting various fragments of my morning prayer at family worship, which they carefully retained as witnesses. After they had ransacked every mental corridor in vain they acknowledged the fruitlessness of the quest, and I myself told their aged relative the text.

"Of course," they cried together, each repeating portions of it again and again in the spirit of atonement.

"I suppose," said Mrs. Vardell, "that the mind undergoes a kind of relaxation after a delicious tension such as we experienced to-day."

I marvelled greatly at this relentless sweetness.

"I knew it was in the New Testament," said Josie triumphantly--and we silently accorded her the praise that was her due.

But I inwardly bethought myself of those silent granite lips in the frozen North, unthawed by tender speeches, yet each one the reservoir of my texts and sermons, as unforgotten as they were unsung.

XXV

_ST. CUTHBERT'S SECOND CALL_

My reluctant farewells had been said, my gracious entertainers had grown dim upon the wharf; and the Atlantic was greeting our ship with boisterous welcome. For the Atlantic is far travelled and loves to surprise those Southern shores with the waves of Northern waters.

One by one the passengers retired from the deck, some with slow dignity, some with solemn haste, and some with volcanic candour.

I remained, sharing the scant survival of the fit, and fell into a reflective mood, for I love to think to music, none so grand as the accompaniment of ocean. That mighty throat is attuned to the human; its cry of deep mysterious passion, its note of conflict, is the epitome of the universal voice. It accorded well with the mood that possessed me, for that mood was gray.

The prevailing thought was this--that I was going back to winter. Grim relapse this, I mused, to go forth from bud and bloom and bird, to pendant icicle and drifted snow. For the blood soon warms beneath Southern skies, and a man soon recognizes that a garden was the ancestral home of him and of all mankind. Even the Eskimo can be traced to Eden.

Yes, I was going back to winter in very truth, without and within; for there is a sharper winter than any whose story the thermometer records. The winter of my discontent, and of another's blighted heart, and of still another's darkened life, awaited me beyond these turbid waters! My way was dark, and my path obscure before me. Chart and compass were blurred and numb. To remain in New Jedboro, and to remove to Charleston, seemed equally distasteful.

I had given the Southern church no assurance of my purpose, because purpose I had none. Yet the stern necessity of choice was upon me, this most sombre enfranchisement of manhood, that we are compelled to choose, willing or unwilling. Saint and sinner, believer and infidel, are alike under this compulsion in matters moral--and in all matters. We speak of the stern pressure which demands that men shall make a living; but its dread feature is herein, that our living is a succession of pregnant choices on which our deepest livelihood depends--and these choices melt into destiny, involving the infinite itself.

My people, I ruminated, could help me to a decision if they only would. But I knew how non-committal they would be; for they, and all their kind, are inclined to assume no responsibility of another's soul, and to surrender no fragment of their own.

New York was reached at last, the waves still tossing heavily. When I alighted from the train at New Jedboro, the breath of winter greeted me.

One of my parishioners, an Aberdonian born, was on the lookout. He shook hands, but said nothing of welcome home. Yet his hand was warm, and its grip had a voice that told me more than even sweet Southern lips could say. For its voice was bass--which is God's.

"Issie's wantin' ye," he said calmly. "She's far gone an' she's been askin' for ye."

The dawn as yet had hardly come, and seating myself upon the box, I told the cabman to drive quickly to Issie's home. As we passed through the still unstirring town, he said:

"He'll be sittin' up with him," pointing to a dimly-lighted window.

"Who'll be sitting up?" I said.

"Oh, I forgot. You won't have heard. That is Mr. Strachan's room. At least I think that is the name. I only came here myself to work ten days ago. A poor homeless woman landed here last week from Ireland. One of those immigration agent devils over there took her last penny and sent her over to Canada, to starve for all he cared. She showed smallpox after she landed here and her little lad was with her. He took it too. Well, she died--but before she died she told her story. The old story, you know--had bad luck, you see, and the fellow skipped out and left her. The woman gets the worst of it every time, don't she?"

"She died!" I exclaimed. "And the little one? Where is the boy you spoke of?"

"That's him; that's what the light's burnin' for. Angus Strachan, so they say, paid all the funeral expenses, and they wanted to send the kid away somewheres--some hospital for them catchin' diseases. But Strachan acted queer about it. He wouldn't let them touch it. And he took it to his own room and said he would take care of it himself."

"And did they let him?" I asked.

"Let him. I just guess they did. They couldn't help it. You see he'd been in, monkeyin' round the smallpox already--so they had to. And he wrapped the kid up in a blanket and took it to his room. They say his light's never been out at night since."

"He has not taken the disease himself, has he?" I enquired.

"Oh, no; leastwise, I never heard tell of it. But them was queer actions for a young fellow, wasn't they? No accountin' for tastes, as the fellow said! Can you understand it yourself, sir?"

"I think I can," was my reply; "let us hurry on," and in a few minutes we were at Issie's house.

Little Issie had long since snuggled down in her own separate place in my heart; she was indeed a favourite with all who knew her--but I saw as I stepped into the room that God loved her best of all. The white thin hands were tightly held, one in her father's, the other in her mother's, as though they would detain her; but the angels heeded not and went on with the preparations for her flight. These were almost complete when I arrived; Issie alone knew that they were of God's providing, for the face she turned to me was full of childish sweetness, and her smile was touched with other light.

"I'm glad you're home," she whispered, as I bent low beside her. "Please don't go away again"--and as I kissed her she was gone.