Chapter III: Au Revoir.--The Pilgrim’s Progress (1)

We showed Kenneth such wonders as Leighstone possessed, and his visit was to us at least a very pleasant one. My father was duly informed of his harboring a Papist in his house, and, though a little stiff and stately and a little more reserved in his conversation for a day or two, he could not be other than himself--a hospitable and genial gentleman. And then Kenneth was so frank and manly, so amiable and winning, that I believe, had he solemnly assured us he was a cannibal, and avowed his voracious appetite for human flesh, not a soul would have felt disturbed in the company of so good-looking and well-bred a monster. Perhaps, after all, had we questioned our hearts, the capital sin of Papistry lay in its clothes. Papistry was to my father, and more or less to all of us, the Religion of Rags. Leighstone had no Catholic church, and its Catholic population was restricted to a body of poor Irish laborers and their families, who were most of them the poorest of the poor, and tramped afoot of a Sunday to a wretched little barn of a church eight miles away, which was served by a priest of a large town in the neighborhood. However much of the devil there might be among them, there was certainly little of what is generally understood by the world and the flesh. Yes, theirs was a Religion of Rags, and it was at once odd and sad to see how rags did congregate around the Catholic church--an excellent church indeed for them and their wearers, but not exactly the place to drive to heaven in in a coach-and-four. It was a positive shock to my father to find so fine a young man as Kenneth Goodal a firm believer in the Religion of Rags. Of course he knew all about the Founder of Christianity being born in a stable, and so on; but that was a great and impressive lesson, not intended exactly to be imitated by every one. Princes in disguise may play any pranks they please. Once the beggar’s cloak is thrown off, everything is forgiven. We quite forget that hideous hump of Master Walter in the play when, just before the curtain drops, he announces himself as “now the Earl of Rochdale.” Indeed, it was a kind of social offence to see a young man of breeding, blood, and bearing, such as Kenneth Goodal, take his place among the rank and file, the army of tatterdemalions, that made up the modern Church of Rome, as it showed itself to the eyes of English respectability. Irish reapers, men and maid-servants, cooks, beggars, the halt, the lame, and the blind--these made up the army of modern Crusaders. S. Lawrence himself was very well, but S. Lawrence’s treasures were very ill. The descendants of Godfrey de Bouillon, the mail-clad knights of the Lion-Hearted Richard, my ancestor Sir Roger, all made a very respectable body-guard for a faith and a church; but the followers of Peter the Hermit, the lower layer of society, the lazzaroni--these were certainly uninviting, and gave the religion to which they belonged something of the aspect of a moral leperhood, to be separated from the multitude, and not even sniffed afar off. Yet here was a handsome young gallant like Kenneth Goodal plunging deep into it, with eye of pride and steadfast heart, and a strange faith that it was the right thing to do. It was positively perplexing, and before Kenneth left us my father had another attack of gout.

Kenneth had the skill and good taste never to obtrude unpleasant discussions. The only thing about him was a certain tone in his conversation that made you feel, as decidedly as though you saw it written in his open face, that he sailed under very pronounced colors. It was no pirate, no decoy flag hung out to lure stray craft into danger, and give place at the last moment to the death’s head and cross-bones. It was the same in all weather and in all seas. “The Crusades only ended with the cross,” he had said to me in our first conversation together; and it seemed that I saw the cross painted on his bosom, and borne about with him wherever he went--a very Knight-Hospitaller in the XIXth century. In our long rambles together he and I had many a hard tussle. I was the only one with whom he conversed on religious subjects at all, and when he went away he left the leaven working. The good seed had been sown, whether on stony ground, or among thorns, or on the good soil, God alone could tell.

We missed him greatly when he went. He was so thorough an antiquarian and such a capital chess-player that my father was irritated at his absence, and had a second attack of the gout. Nellie was looking forward and already making preparations for the visit we had promised to pay his mother at Christmas; and as for me, I had lost my _alter ego_, and spent more time than ever in the churchyard. Even Mattock noticed the frequency of my visits; for he said to me one morning, as I watched him digging a fresh grave: “Ye’re a-comin’ here too often, Master Roger. Graveyards and graves and what’s in ’em is loike enough company for me, but not for sich as ye. It an’t whoalsome, it an’t. Corpses grows on a man, they doos, and weighs him down in spoite of himself. I doant know what I should a-done these twenty-foive year, only for the drams I takes. I couldn’t a-kep up, I couldn’t. There’s somethin’ about churchyeards and graves, a kind o’ airthiness loike, that creeps into a man’s veins, as the years come on him, that at times I doant seem to know exactly which is the livin’ and which is the dead. We’re all airth, Payrson Knowles says, and Payrson Knowles is a knowledgable man; but he doant come here too often. I know we’re all airth; for an’t I seen it? An’t I seen the body of as putty a young gal as was ever kissed under the mistletoe stretched out and laid in her grave afore the New Year dawned, and turned her out a year or so after, a handful o’ bones ye might take in a shovel and putt in a basket, and a doag wouldn’t look at em? Ay, many a sich! I’ve seen ’em set in rows in the pews within thear, and seen ’em go a-flirtin’ and a-smirkin’ out through yon gate; and when the cholera cum, I’ve laid ’em row by row i’ the airth here. I’ve got used to it, bless ye, and could a’most tell their bones. I knows ’em all, and doant mind it a bit; and I shall feel kind a-comfortable when my son, whom I’ve brought up to the bizness and eddicated a-purpose for it, lays me by the side on ’em, yonder in that corner where the sun shines of an evenin’. But sich thoughts an’t for you, Master Roger. Git ye out into the sun, lad, and play while ye may. There’s no sort o’ use in forestallin’ yer time. Ye an’t brought up to be a grave-digger, and ye’ve no sort a-business here. Its onlooky, I tell ye, its onlooky. Graves is my business, not yourn. So git ye gone, Master Roger.”

One effect came from my cogitations with myself and my conversations with Roger: I no longer went to church. Indeed, I had not been too regular an attendant at the Priory for some time past. Still, when, as not unfrequently happened, my father was laid up with the gout, I escorted Nellie to church as in the old days, and thus sufficiently sustained the Herbert reputation for that steady devotion to public duties that was looked for from the leading family in the place; and though Mr. Knowles, who was a frequent visitor at our house, grew a little chilly in his reception of me when we met--I used to be a great favorite of his--he had never undertaken to mention my delinquency to me. There was a certain warmth in his agreement with my father, when that good gentleman broke out on his favorite subject of the young men of the day, that was very different from the old, deprecatory manner in which Mr. Knowles would refer to the hot blood of youth, and the danger of keeping it too much in restraint. I came to the resolution that I would go to no church any more until I went to some church once for all; until I was satisfied that I believed firmly and truly in the worship at which I assisted. Anything else seemed to me now a sham that I could no more endure than if I set up a Chinese image in my own chamber, and burned incense before it. This was all very well for one Sunday or two. But my father’s attack was at this time unusually prolonged; and when, Sunday after Sunday, I conducted Nellie to the church-door, and there left her, to meet and escort her home when service was over, my strange conduct, unknown to myself, began to be remarked in Leighstone, and assumed the awful aspect in a small place of studied bad example. Poor Nellie did not know what to make of me; far less Mr. Knowles. It seemed that some silly young men of the town, taking their cue from me, thought it the fashionable thing to conduct their relatives to the church-door, leave them there, and often spend the interval in somewhat boisterous behavior outside that on more than one occasion disturbed the services; so that at length Mr. Knowles was compelled to mention the matter in general terms from the pulpit, and came out with quite a stirring sermon on the influence of bad example on the young by those who, if respect for God and God’s house had no weight with them, might at least pay some regard to what their position in society, not to say in their own circle, required. Poor Nellie came home in tears that day, and I joked with her on the unusual eloquence of Mr. Knowles. The final upshot of it all was a visit on the part of that reverend gentleman to my father, who was just recovering from his attack; and as ill-luck would have it, I walked into the room just at the moment when my poor father, between the twinges of conscience and the twinges of a relapse resulting from Mr. Knowles’ eloquent and elaborate monologue on my depravity, had reached that point of indignation that only needs the slightest additional pressure to produce an immediate explosion.

“What is this I hear, sir?” he asked me immediately in a tone that sent all the Herbert blood tingling through every vein in my body, the more so that I observed the look of righteous indignation planted on the jolly visage of Mr. Knowles. “What is this I hear? That you refuse to go to church any more, and that, as a natural consequence, the whole parish is following your example?”

“The whole parish!” I ejaculated in amazement.

“Yes, sir; and what else should they do when the heads of the parish neglect their duty as Christians and as English gentlemen?”

“Do their duty, I suppose; go or stay, as it pleases them,” I responded sullenly. Mr. Knowles rose up to depart with the air of one who was about to shake the dust off his feet against me; but my father detained him.

“Mr. Knowles, will you oblige me by remaining? I have put up with this boy’s insolence too long. It must end somewhere. It shall end here.” He was white and trembling with rage; but his tone lowered and his voice grew steady as he went on. I was alarmed for his sake.

“Look here, sir. There is no more argument in a matter of this kind between you and your father. There is no argument in a question of plain and positive duty. Your family has been and still is looked up to in this town; and rightly so, Mr. Knowles will permit me to add.” Mr. Knowles bowed a gracious but solemn assent. “I have attended that church since I was a child, as my father did before me, and as the Herberts have done for generations, as befitted loyal and right-minded gentlemen. You have done the same until recently. What has come over you of late I don’t know, and, indeed, I don’t care. What I do care about is that I have a position to sustain in this town, and a public duty to perform. The Herberts are now, as they have ever been, known to all as a staunch, loyal, church-going, God-fearing race. As the head of the family I insist, and will insist while I live, that that character be maintained. When I am gone, you may do as you please. But until that event occurs you will take your old place by the side of your father and sister, or find yourself another residence. Mr. Knowles, oblige me by staying to dinner.”

I was not present at dinner that day. I saw that expostulation was useless, and accordingly held my tongue. I knew of old that there was a certain pass where reasoning of any kind was lost on my father, and a resolution taken at such a moment was irrevocably fixed. Like father, like son. Even while he was addressing me I had quietly resolved at all hazards to disobey his order. So much for all my fine cogitations regarding the rules of right and wrong. Their first outcome was a deliberate resolve at any hazard to disobey a loving and good parent, backed up by all the spiritual power of the church and things established, as represented in the person of Mr. Knowles. What my precise duty under the circumstances was I am not prepared to say, although I know very well that the opinion of that highly respectable authority known as common-sense would decide the question against me. I was not yet quite of age. If I belonged to any religion at all, I belonged to that in which I had been brought up. For a young gentleman who professed to be so anxious to do what was right, the duty of obedience to his father in a matter where of all things that father was surely entitled to obedience, and where the effort to obey cost so little, where the result as regarded others could not but be satisfactory, not to say exemplary, looked remarkably like an opportunity of regulating one’s conduct by the best of rules at once. In fact, everything, according to common-sense, voted dead against me. On the other hand there lay a great doubt--a doubt sharpened and strengthened in the present instance by the very natural resentment of a young gentleman who, perhaps unconsciously, had come to regard many of his father’s opinions with something very like contempt, being lectured publicly--the public being restricted to Mr. Knowles--by that father, as though, instead of having just emerged from his teens, he were still a schoolboy. Rebellion begins with the incipient moustache. Those scrubby little blotches of growing hair on the upper lip of youth mean much more than youth’s laughing friends can see in them. Their roots are the roots of manhood. As the line grows and strengthens and defines itself, each new hair marks a mighty step forward into the great arena to which all boyhood looks with eagerness. It is the open charter to rights that were not dreamed of before. And if the artist’s skill can advance its growth by the use of delicate pigments, why, so much the better. I was a man, and it was a man’s duty to assert himself, to do what was becoming in a man, whatever the consequence might be. All which meant that I was determined to rebel. Consequently, I declined to meet the Reverend Mr. Knowles at dinner. I strolled out, with doubtless a more independent stride than usual, to study the situation in all its bearings, and resolve upon my future course of conduct; for in two days it would be Sunday, and the crisis would have arrived.

The argument, interesting as it was to myself at the time, would scarcely prove equally so to the reader, who will thank me for sparing him the details. Doubtless many a one can look back into his own life and find a similar instance of resolute disobedience, which, it is to be hoped, he has as bitterly repented as I did this. Happy is he if he can recall only one such instance; thrice happy if he is innocent of any! I was moral coward enough to forestall my sentence by flight. I was young, strong, and active, though hitherto I had had no very definite object whereon to exercise my activity. The world was all before me; and the world, as we all know, wears a very fascinating face to the youth of twenty who has never yet looked behind the mask and seen all the ugly things that practical philosophers assure us are to be found there. To him it is a face wondrous fair; and heaven be thanked for the deception, if deception it be, say I. The eyes beam with gentleness and love. Not a wrinkle marks the smooth visage; not a frown disturbs it. On the broad, open brow is written honesty; on the rosy lips are alluring smiles; in the tones of the soft, low voice there is magical music. What if some see on that same brow the mark of Cain; on the lips, cruelty; in the eyes, death; on all the face a calculating coldness? Such are those who have failed, who have missed life’s meaning and cast away their chances--youthful philosophers who have been crossed in love, or voluptuaries of threescore and ten. But to high-hearted youth the world holds up a magic mirror, wherein he sees a fairy landscape full of harmony, and peace, and beauty, and love, all grouped around a central figure surpassing all, beautifying all--himself and his destiny!

Yes, I would go out into the world, like the prince in the fairy-tales--he is always a prince--to seek my fortune. Up to the present I had done absolutely nothing for myself. Everything had run in a monotonous groove mapped out according to the conventional rule, as regularly as a railway, and without even the pleasing excitement of an accident. Why not begin now? Why not carve out my own destiny--carve is an excellent term--in my own way? “The world was mine oyster, which with my sword I’d open.” What though the oyster was rather large, who said he was going to swallow it? It was the pearl within I sought; perish the esculent! Who knows what discoveries I may not make, what impenetrable forests pierce, what lonely princesses deliver from their charmed sleep, what giant monsters slay on the way, bringing back the spoils some day to my father--some day! say in six months or so--and, laying them at his feet, cry out in triumph, “Father, behold the prodigal returned, not like him of old, who had squandered his inheritance and fed on the husks of swine, but as a mighty conqueror, the admired of fair women and the envy of brave men! Father, this mighty potentate is I, Roger, your son, who would not bow the knee to Knowles!”

It was a pleasing picture, and took my fancy amazingly. Had any young friend of mine come to consult me at that moment on a similar project in his own case, I believe my counsel to him would have been of the sagest. I would have told him to go home and sleep over the matter; to be a good boy and not anger a loving parent. I would have advised him that there is nothing like doing the duty that lies plain before us; that there was a world of wisdom and of truth in that sage maxim of S. Augustine, _Age quod agis_--Do what you do; that his schemes were visionary, his plans those of a schoolboy, who clearly enough knew nothing whatever of the world (whose depths, of course, I had sounded), who might have read books enough, but had not the slightest experience of that which is never to be found in books--real life; that, in pursuit of a passing fancy, he was neglecting the real business of life, and embarking on a voyage to Nowhere in the good ship Nothing, and so on. That is the advice I should have delivered to any of my young friends who were idiots enough to think that _they_ could venture to set out on such a visionary road alone and without map or chart to guide them. That is how we should all have advised our friends. But with ourselves--with ourselves--ah! the case is different. _We_ can always do what it would be the most presumptuous folly in others to attempt. _We_ can safely thrust our hand into the fire, up to the elbow even, where another dare not trust the tip of a little finger. _We_ can touch pitch, and never show a soil. _We_ can go down into hell, and come back laughing at the devil, who dare not touch _us_. What would be moral death to another is a mere tonic to us. And yet, and yet, He who taught us to pray gave us as a petition: “Father, … lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

My mind was made up; and let me add that the fear of putting my father to the trying test of acting upon his resolution in my regard had no small share in shaping my resolve. I did not see him that night, and on the next day he was confined to his room by an attack that necessitated calling in the doctor, and kept Nellie, whom I did not wish to see, by his side most of the day. I felt that I could not meet her eye without divulging all. I had never done anything that would cause more than a passing care to those who loved me, and I now moved about the house as though I were about to commit or had already committed a great crime. Not accustomed to deception, it seemed to me that any passing stranger--let alone Fairy Nell, who knew me through and through, and had counted every hair of that incipient moustache already hinted at as it came, from whom I had never kept a secret, not even the pigments laid apart for the cultivation of that same moustache--would have read in my guilty face, as plainly as though it were written down on parchment, “Roger Herbert, you are going to run away from home--not a pleasant excursion, my fine fellow, but a genuine bolt!” I packed up a few necessaries, and collected such stray cash of my own as I could lay hands on. The sum seemed a small fortune for a man resolved on entering on such a resolute life of hard labor of some kind or another as I had marked out for myself. Long before that was exhausted I should of course be in a position to provide for myself. How that self-support was to come about I had not yet exactly decided on; but that was to be an after-consideration. While I was waiting for the night to come down and shield my guilty purpose, Nellie stole in from my father’s room to tell me he was sleeping, and that Dr. Fenwick said a good night’s rest would relieve him from all danger, and in two or three days he would be himself again. This comforted me and enabled me to be better on my guard against the witcheries of Fairy, who came and sat down near me; for she had heard or guessed at the dispute that had arisen, and, like an angel of a woman, now that she had tended my father, came to administer a little crumb of comfort to me before going to bed. What an effort it cost me to appear drowsy and to yawn! I thought every yawn would have strangled me; but I was resolved to be on my guard.

“How dreadfully sleepy you are to-night, Roger!” said the Fairy at last.

“Am I?” asked the Ogre, with a tremendous yawn.

“Why, you’ve done nothing but gape ever since I came in. I believe you are getting quite lazy and good-for-nothing.”

“I believe so too.”

“Well, why don’t you do something?”

“I think I will.” Another yawn. “I’ll go to bed. Ten o’clock, by Jove! What a shocking hour for well-behaved young ladies to be up! Come, Fairy, I will do something some day. Is father better?”

“Yes, he is sleeping quite soundly.” Shaking her head and speaking in a solemn little whisper: “_O you naughty boy!_”

Clear eyes, clear heart, clear conscience! How your mild innocence pierces through and through us, rebuking the secret that we think so safely hidden in the far-away depths of our souls! That gentle little reproof of my sister smote me to the heart.

“Why, Roger, what is the matter with you?”

“It’s a fly; a--something in my eye--nothing. Let go my hands, Nell.”

“Look me in the face, sir. You are crying, Roger. You have been pretending. You were not sleepy a bit. Dear, dear! Don’t go on like that; you make me cry too.”

“Nellie, my own darling--Fairy--there, let me blow the candle out. I was always a coward by candle-light. There, now I can talk. Nellie,” I went on, clutching her close, her face wet with my tears as well as her own, and white as marble in the moonlight--“Nellie, I have been an awfully wicked fellow, haven’t I?”

“N-no”--sob, sob.

“Yes, I have; and father is very angry with me, isn’t he?”

“N-no.”

“Do you think that if I were to do something very bad you could forgive me, Nellie?”

“You c-couldn’t do--anything b-bad--at all.”

“Well, now listen. I haven’t done much harm, I believe, so far; neither have I done much good. And now I make you a solemn promise that from this night out I will honestly try all I can, not only to do no harm, but to do good--something for others as well as myself. Is that a fair promise, Nell?”

“Dear, darling old Roger!” she murmured, kissing me. “I knew he was good all the time. I know--you needn’t say any more. You are coming to church with me to-morrow. How pleased papa will be, and how pleased I am! Here, you shall have my own book to keep as a token of the promise. I’ll run and fetch it at once.”

She tripped up-stairs and came back breathless, putting the book in my hand.

“There, Roger; that seals our promise. I’ve just written inside, ‘Roger’s promise to Nellie,’ and the date to remind you. That’s all. And now papa will be well again. O Roger!”--she came and kissed me again, as I turned my back to the window--“you have made me so happy. Good-night.”

I could not trust myself to speak again and undeceive her. I kissed her and did not look at her any more. I heard her room-door close, and, after standing a long time where she left me, I followed her up-stairs. I stole to my father’s door and listened. I could hear his regular breathing; he was sound asleep. I do not know how long I listened, but at length I crept away to my own room. My resolution was terribly shaken by Nellie’s innocent confidence in me. It is so much easier to endure harshness or suspicion from persons to whom you know you are about to give pain. Why didn’t she scold me, or turn up her pretty nose at me, or stick a pin in me, or do something dreadful to me--anything rather than believe me the best fellow in the world? But, after all, could I not return when I pleased? I had often been away before for a month or more on a visit to some friends--for months together at college. Why should I hesitate to go now?

Poor Nellie’s book was placed in the very bottom of my bag, and then I sat down and wrote the following letter:

“NELLIE: I am going away for a little while--for a month or
more, probably. You must not expect to hear anything of me
within that time. If you do hear of me, it will probably be
through Kenneth Goodal. Indeed, I leave England on Monday, and
my return will depend altogether upon circumstances. Nobody
knows of my going or of my destination--not even Kenneth; so
that it will be useless to make any inquiries. Give my love
to my dear father, and tell him that, wherever I may be, the
thought of him will always accompany me and prevent me from
doing anything unworthy his son and your loving brother,

ROGER.

“P.S.--I will keep my promise.”

This note, sealed and addressed to Nellie, I left upon my table. I waited until not a sound was to be heard through all the house, and again left my room to listen at my father’s door. I listened at Nellie’s also. Nothing could be heard in either. They were sound asleep--dreaming, perhaps, of me. My window overlooked the garden, and a soft grass-plot beneath received myself and my bag noiselessly, as I made the drop I had so often done in play, to the mingled alarm and admiration of Fairy. After a walk of about five minutes I lit a cigar, and felt somewhat more companionable than before. The moon had gone down long since, and a faint flush in the east low down on the horizon betokened the dawn. There was a keenness in the air and a freshness all around that quickened the blood and inspirited the faint heart. The sense of freedom awoke in me with every stride that carried me away from my father’s house out into the world, whose largeness I was beginning to feel for the first time. There was something about the whole enterprise of novelty and boldness and change that grew on me every mile of the way. I thought less and less of the consternation and grief I might occasion to those I left behind me, and whose existence was bound up in mine. And striding along in this frame of mind, I reached Gnaresbridge, where I was not known. My walk of eight miles had given me a tremendous appetite. I entered the railway hotel, and, by way of beginning at once my life of privation and economy, ordered a right royal breakfast, the best the railway hotel could offer. I then took a first-class ticket for London, engaged a room for one night at the Charing Cross Hotel, and, finding my own company not of the liveliest, strolled out into the streets.

The London streets are beyond measure dull on a Sunday. There is a constrained air of good-behavior and drilled respectability about the crowds going to and coming from church at the stated hours that strikes one with a chill after the bustle and noise of the other six days of the week. Religion looks so oppressively dull and hopelessly solemn. The citizens seem to run up the shutters in front of their own persons as well as of their goods; to bolt and bar and case themselves in a wooden stolidity of dull propriety that is mistaken for religion. I do not say that it is not well done; I only say that to me, at least, on this occasion it was disagreeable. The light spirits I had picked up on the road dwindled down immediately at sight of the solemn city, with its solemn crowds. The sombre gray of my surroundings seemed to settle on my mind and heart like ashes from which every spark had gone out. I fell a-musing, and involuntarily followed one of the streams of people that were moving along slowly to some place of worship. I felt sick at heart, and wished for the morrow to come that was to bear me away somewhere out of this tame and conventional life, where religion as well as business followed a fixed routine. Before I knew or had time to think how I had got there, I found myself in a Catholic church. I knew it to be a Catholic church by the altar, and the crucifixes, and the Stations of the Cross around the walls, and the general appearance of the congregation. There is something about a Catholic congregation that distinguishes it at once from all others. Heaven seems a happier place somehow from a Catholic point of view. I had visited Catholic churches before, but was never present at the Mass, and was about to retire as soon as I discovered my whereabouts, when curiosity, mingled with the conviction that I might be as comfortably miserable there as outside, detained me, and I remained. Somebody directed me to a seat close to the altar, where I could see everything perfectly.

The service was varied and full of dignified movements, but I could not understand its meaning. The singing was good, it seemed to my poor ear; but I could not say the same for the sermon. A quiet, pious-looking gentleman preached from the altar a long and, to me, tedious discourse. He seemed in earnest, however, and now and then his pale, worn face would light up--once or twice especially when he spoke of the “Mother of God.” Indeed, I found myself just becoming interested when the sermon concluded. There was something far more impressive to me than the priest’s discourse, than the solemn music, than the gleaming lights, than the slow and reverent movements at the altar, in the congregation itself. The people preached a silent but most telling sermon. I looked furtively around, and watched them. Whether they were mistaken or not, whether they were idolaters or not, there was certainly no sham about them; after all, there was something thorough about this Religion of Rags. Beyond doubt they prayed in real, downright earnest. One man differed from another; one woman from her sister; this one was in rags, that in silks; this man might be a lord, and his neighbor a beggar; but there was something common to them all. They seemed, as they knelt there, possessed of one heart and one soul. They appeared even one body. Their prayer seemed universal and to pass from one to another out and up to God. All seemed to _feel_ an Invisible Presence, which, from association, doubtless, I could have persuaded myself that I also felt. A bell tinkles, once, twice, thrice; once, twice, thrice again. There is an instantaneous hush; the low breathing of the organ has ceased; and every head and heart is bowed down in silent and awful adoration. Involuntarily I also knelt and bowed.

Deeply impressed, I left the church at the conclusion of the service, and seemed to be walking in a dream, when a light touch on my shoulder startled and recalled me to my senses, while a voice whispered in my ear:

“Heretic, heretic! what dost thou here?”

It was Kenneth Goodal who stood smiling before me. The tears sprang to my eyes, but he was too much himself to notice them. He drew my arm in his, and led me to a carriage that was waiting near the door of the church. Within the carriage sat a beautiful lady, whose likeness to Kenneth was too apparent not to recognize her at once as his mother. “I have brought you a treasure,” said Kenneth, addressing her; “this is the very Roger Herbert of whom I have spoken to you so much. Who would have dreamed of catching my heretic at Mass?” We were rolling along through the dull streets by this time, but it was wonderful to think how their dulness had suddenly departed. “Yes, actually at Mass. And I verily believe he blessed himself and said his prayers like a true Christian. And where of all places should they plant you but right in front of me?”

Kenneth’s mother was a sweet lady--just the kind of woman, indeed, I should have expected Kenneth’s mother to be. To great intelligence and that keen power of observation so noticeable in her son were added the charms of a face and person that defied time, while the veil of true Christian womanhood fell over, softened, and chastened all. She was a fervent Catholic, who went about doing good. Kenneth laughingly told me that her conversion had cost him a great deal more trouble and difficulty than his own; but hers once attained, his father’s followed almost as a matter of course. Mrs. Goodal had always been so pure and blameless in her own life that her very excellence constituted a most difficult but intangible barrier to her son’s theological batteries. Even if she became a Catholic, what could she be other than she was? she had asked him once. Of what crimes was she guilty, that she should change her religion at the whim of a youthful enthusiast? Did she not pray to God every day of her life? Did she not give alms, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowful, clothe the naked? What did the Catholic ladies do that she did not? She was not, and did not mean to become, a Sister of Charity, devoting herself absolutely to prayer and good works. Her place was in the world. God had placed her there, and there she would remain, doing her duty to the best of her ability as a Christian wife and mother.

It was certainly a hard case, and she was greatly strengthened in her position by her grand ally, Lady Carpton. Both these excellent women grieved sorely over Kenneth’s defection; for Kenneth was an especial favorite of Lady Carpton’s, and had been smiled upon by her fair daughter, Maud. The two ladies had taken it into their heads that Kenneth and Maud were admirably matched, and their marriage had long ago been fixed upon by the respective mammas, who never kept a secret from each other since they had been bosom friends together at school. The announcement of Kenneth’s joining the Religion of Rags fell like a bombshell into the camp of the allies, scattering confusion and dealing destruction on all sides. Lady Carpton washed her hands of him, and came to the immediate conclusion that “the boy’s mental obliquity was inexplicable. The rash and ridiculous step he had taken was fatal to all his prospects in this life, not to speak of those in the next. He had inexcusably abandoned the social position for which his connections and his rational gifts had eminently fitted him. She had been deceived, fatally deceived, in him. He had destroyed his own future, disgraced his family, and consigned himself henceforward to a life of uselessness and oblivion.”

Lady Carpton, when fairly roused, had an eloquence as well as a temper of her own. Majestically washing her hands of Kenneth, she immediately encouraged the attentions of Lord Cheshunt to her daughter. From jackets upwards Lord Cheshunt had worshipped the very ground upon which Maud trod, as far as it was given to the soul of Lord Cheshunt to worship anything or anybody at all. Maud resembled her mother. Great as her liking--it was never more--for Kenneth had been, her virtuous indignation was greater. With some sighs, doubtless, perhaps with some tears, she renounced for ever Kenneth the renegade, and took in his stead, as a dutiful daughter should do, her share in the lands, appurtenances, rent-roll, and all other belongings of Lord Cheshunt, with his lordship into the bargain. It was on her return from the bridal trip that her mamma, with tears of vexation in her eyes, informed her of the cruel blow that the friend of her girlhood had dealt her--out of small personal spite, she was certain. The friend of her girlhood was Mrs. Goodal, who had actually followed that scapegrace son of hers to Rome--had positively become a Catholic! And as though to confirm the wretched saying that misfortunes never come alone, between them they had dragged into their fatal web that dear, good-natured, unsuspecting Mr. Goodal, just at the moment when he was about to be returned in High Church interest for his native borough of Royston. Thus “the cause” had lost another vote, at a time, too, when “the cause” sadly needed recruiting in the parliamentary ranks. “My dear,” she said impressively to Maud, “you have had a very fortunate escape. Who knows what might have become of you? Lord Cheshunt may not possess that young man’s intellect”--and Maud was already obliged to confess that superabundance of intellect was scarcely Lord Cheshunt’s besetting weakness--“but you see to what mental depravity the fatal gift of intellect may conduct a self-willed young man. Poor dear Lord Byron is just such another instance. Mark my word for it, Kenneth Goodal will become a Jesuit yet!”--a fatality that to Lady Carpton’s imagination presented little short of the satanic.

I spent a very pleasant day and evening with the Goodals--so pleasant that it was not until I found myself saying “good-night” to Kenneth in the street that the occurrences of the last few days flashed upon me. “You will not forget your promise of coming to-morrow,” he said, as he was shaking hands.

“To-morrow! Did I promise to spend to-morrow with you?” I asked.

“So Mrs. Goodal will assure you on your arrival.”

“Good heavens! did I make so foolish a promise? I cannot have thought of what I was saying,” I muttered, half to myself.

“Well, I will call for you in the morning. By the bye, where are you staying?” asked Kenneth.

“No, no. The fact is, I purposed leaving town again immediately. My visit was merely a flying one. You must make my excuses to your mother, Kenneth.”

“She will never hear of them. Traitor! thou hast promised, and thy promise is sacred.”

“It was really a mistake. Well, if I decide on remaining in town over to-morrow, I will come. If--if I should not come, tell your mother how charmed I was with her, and with your father also. Kenneth, I should be so glad if she would pay Nellie a visit--my sister, you know. Indeed, I am very anxious that she should see Nellie as soon as possible.”

“But you forget again that you owe us a visit. Why not come at once? You had better stay and send for your father and sister.”

“Well, I will sleep on the matter. Good-night, old fellow. In the meanwhile do not forget my request.”

Again my resolution was terribly shaken. I went over the entire story, and weighed all the _pros_ and _cons_ of the question, as I walked back to my hotel. I had not yet even determined where to go, still less what to do. On arriving at the hotel I went to the smoking-room, feeling no inclination for slumber. It had only a single occupant--a naval officer, to judge by his costume. He reached me a light, and made some conventional remark on the weather, or some such subject. He was a jovial-looking, red-faced man of about forty or forty-five, with a merry eye and a pleasant voice, and a laugh that had in it something of the depth and the strength and the healthy flavor of the sea. My cigar soon coming to an end, he offered me one of his own with the remark:

“I like a pipe myself, with good strong Cavendish steeped in rum. The rum gives it a wholesome flavor. But ashore I always smoke cigars. You want a stiffish bit o’ sea-breeze up, and then you can enjoy the true flavor of a pipe of Cavendish. All your Havanas in the world aren’t half as sweet. But ashore here, why, Lord, Lord! a pipe o’ Cavendish would smell from one end o’ the city to t’other, and all London would turn up its nose. So I’m obliged to put up with Havanas,” said the captain (I was sure he was a captain) ruefully.

“What is a mortification to you would be a pleasure to many,” I remarked sagely.

“Ever been to sea?” he asked abruptly.

“Never,” I responded laconically.

He looked at me with a kind of pity in his glance.

“What! never been outside o’ this cranky little island, where men have hardly got room to blow their noses?” he asked in amazement.

“Never,” I responded again. “And what’s more, up to the day before yesterday I never wished to go.”

My seafaring friend sighed and smoked in silence. The silence grew solemn, and I thought he would not condescend to address me again. At length, however, he said:

“You’re a Londoner, I guess.”

I guessed negatively; but not at all abashed at his mistake, he went on:

“Well, it’s all the same. All Londoners an’t born in London, any more than all Englishmen are born in England. But they’re all the same. A Londoner never cares to study any geography beyond his sixpenny map o’ London. The Marble Arch and Temple Bar, Hyde Park and London Bridge, are his points o’ the compass. Guild Hall and the Houses o’ Parliament mean more to him than the East or West Indies, the Himalaya Mountains, North or South America, or the Pyramids. The Strand is bigger than the equator, and the National Gallery a finer building than S. Peter’s. Your thorough, home-bred Englishman is about the most vigorously ignorant man I’ve ever sailed across; and I’m an Englishman myself who say it. I do believe it’s their very ignorance that has made them masters of the best part of the world, and the worst masters the world has ever seen. They never see or know or believe anything outside of London, and the consequence is, they’re always making mighty blunders. There, there’s a yarn, and a yarn always makes me thirsty. What will you drink?”

I found my new companion a shrewd and observant man under a somewhat rough coating. He was captain of a steamer belonging to one of the great lines that ply between England and the United States, and his vessel sailed for New York the next day. Here was an opportunity of ending at once all my doubts and hesitations. But on broaching the subject to the captain I found him grow at once cautious, not to say suspicious. That fatal admission about my never having been to sea at all told terribly against me. Then he wanted to know if I had a companion of any kind with me, which I took to be sailor’s English for asking if it were a runaway match. Satisfied on this point, he grew more suspicious still. Running away with a young lass he could understand, and perhaps be brought to pardon; but if it was not that, then what earthly object could I have in going to New York all alone?

“The fact is, youngster,” he blurted out at length, “you see it an’t all fair and above-board with you. Youngsters like you don’t make up their minds in half an hour to go to New York; and if they do, they’ve no business to. If you was a little younger, I should call in a policeman, and tell him you had run away from home. I don’t want to help youngsters--nor anybody else, for that matter--to run into scrapes. There will be some one crying for you, you know, and that an’t pleasant now. Now, then, out with it, and let’s have the whole story. There’s something wrong, and a clean breast, like a good sea-sickness, will relieve you. It’s a little unpleasant at first, but you’ll feel all the better for it afterwards. Trust an old sailor’s word for that.”

I do not attempt to give the pleasant nautical terms with which my excellent friend, the captain, garnished his discourse. However, I told him my story, sufficiently at least to diminish, if not quite to allay, the worthy man’s scruples about my projected trip, which, of course, was only to last until the storm at home blew over. Finally, at a very early hour in the morning it was resolved that I should make my first voyage with the captain, and that same day I penned, and in the afternoon despatched, the following note to Kenneth:

“MY DEAR KENNETH: By the time you receive this I shall be
on my way to the United States. I said nothing to you of my
plans last night, because, had I done so, I fear they might
not have been put in execution without some unnecessary pain
and difficulties. My chief reason for leaving England is the
great doubt and perplexity that have fallen upon me. Any
hope of clearing up such doubt in Leighstone would be absurd.
There all persons and all things run in established grooves,
and are more or less under the influence of traditions, many
of which have for me utterly lost all force and meaning. A
little rubbing with the world, a little hard work, of which I
know nothing, the sweetness as well as the anxiety of genuine
struggle in places and among persons where I shall be simply
another fellow-struggler, can do no great harm, even if it does
no great good. At all events, it will be a change; and a change
of some kind I had long contemplated. A little difficulty with
my father about not attending church as usual scarcely hastened
my resolution to leave Leighstone. I should feel very grateful
to you if you could assure him of this, as I took the liberty
on leaving of telling my sister that they would next hear of
me in all probability through you. My father’s kind heart and
love for me may lead him to lay too great stress upon what in
reality nowise affected my conduct and feelings towards him.
Time is up, I find, and I can only add that wherever I may go
I shall carry with me, warm in my heart, the friendship so
strangely begun between us.

“R. HERBERT.”

I do not purpose giving here the history of my first struggles with the world, as they contain nothing particularly exciting or romantic. The circumstances that led to my connection with Mrs. Jinks and Mr. Culpepper are easily explained. My small fortune disappeared with astonishing rapidity, and, unless I did something to replenish my dwindling purse very speedily, there was nothing left save to beg or starve. I would neither write home nor to Kenneth, being vain enough to believe that the smallest scrap of paper with my address on it would be the signal for the emigration by next steamer of half Leighstone, with no other purpose than to see me, its lost hero. Poverty led me to Mr. Culpepper among others, and the same stern guardian introduced me to Mrs. Jinks. I must confess--and the confession may be a warning to young gentlemen inclined at all to grow weary of a snug home--that any particular romance attached to my venture very soon faded out of sight. The world was not quite so pleasant a friend as I had expected. The practical philosophers were right after all. Dear, dear! how the wrinkles began to multiply in his face, and what suspicious glances shot out of those eyes, that grew colder and colder as my boots began to run down at heel, and my elbows gave indications of a violent struggle for air. It required a vast amount of resolution to keep me from volunteering to work my passage back to England. I was often lonely, often weary, often sad, often hungry even. But lonely, weary, sad, and hungry as I might be, I soon contrived to become acquainted with others who were many times more sad, lonely, and weary than I--poor wretches to whom my position at its worst seemed that of a prince. The most wretched man in all this world is yet to be found. Of that truth I became more deeply convinced every day. It was a fact held up constantly before my eyes, and I believe that it did me good. It was an excellent antidote to anything in the shape of pride. Pride! Great heavens! what wretched little, creeping, struggling mortals most of us were; crawling on from day to day, inch by inch, little by little, now over a little mound that seemed so high, and took such infinite labor to reach; now down in a little hollow that seemed the very depths, and yet was only a few inches lower than yesterday’s elevation. There we were, gasping and struggling for light and food and air day after day. Poverty reads terrible lessons. It levels us all. Some it softens, while others it hardens; some it sanctifies, multitudes it leads to crime.