"Maverick, upon my word!" and offers his hand.
"And this is Mrs. Johns, I suppose," says the stranger, bowing
graciously, "Allow me, Madam"; and he assists her to alight. "Your
husband and myself were old college-friends, partners of the same bench,
and I've used no ceremony, you see, in finding him out."
Rachel, eyeing him furtively, with a little rustic courtesy, "is glad to
see any of her husband's old friends."
The parson--upon his feet now--shakes the stranger's hand heartily
again.
"I am very glad to see you, Maverick; but I thought you were out of the
country."
"So I have been, Johns; am home only upon a visit, and hearing by
accident that you had become a clergyman--as I always thought you
would--and were settled hereabout, I determined to run down and see you
before sailing again."
"You must stop with me. Rachel, dear, will you have the spare room made
ready for Mr. Maverick?"
"My dear Madam, don't give yourself the least trouble; I am an old
traveller, and can make myself quite comfortable at the tavern yonder;
but if it's altogether convenient, I shall be delighted to pass the
night under the roof of my old friend. I shall be off to-morrow noon,"
continued he, turning to the parson, "and until then I want you to put
off your sermons and make me one of your parishioners."
So they all went into the parsonage together.
Frank Maverick, as he had said, had shared the same bench with Johns in
college; and between them, unlike as they were in character, there had
grown up a strong friendship,--one of those singular intimacies which
bind the gravest men to the most cheery and reckless. Maverick was
forever running into scrapes and consulting the cool head of Johns to
help him out of them. There was never a tutor's windows to be broken in,
or a callithumpian frolic, (which were in vogue in those days,) but
Maverick bore a hand in both; and somehow, by a marvellous address that
belonged to him, always managed to escape, or at most to receive only
some grave admonition from the academic authorities. Johns advised with
him, (giving as serious advice then as he could give now,) and added
from time to time such assistance in his studies as a plodding man can
always lend to one of quick brain, who makes no reckoning of time.
Upon a certain occasion Maverick had gone over with Johns to his home,
and the Major had taken an immense fancy to the buoyant young fellow, so
full of spirits, and so charmingly frank. "If your characters could only
be welded together," he used to say to his son, "you would both be the
better for it; he a little of your gravity, and you something of his
rollicking carelessness." This bound Johns to his friend more closely
than ever. There was, moreover, great honesty and conscientiousness in
the lad's composition: he could beat in a tutor's window for the frolic
of the thing, and by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark;
but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom even of his
frolics. It happened one day, that his friend Ben Johns told him that
one of the bats which had done terrible execution on the tutor's windows
had also played havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and
deluging some half-dozen of the tutor's books; "and do you know," said
Johns, "the poor man who has made such a loss is saving up all his pay
here for a mother and two or three fatherless children?"
"The Deuse he is!" said Maverick, and his hand went to his pocket, which
was always pretty full. "I say, Johns, don't peach on me, but I think I
must have thrown that bat, (which Johns knew to be hardly possible, for
he had only come up at the end of the row,) and I want you to get this
money to him, to make those books good again. Will you do it, old
fellow?"
This was the sort of character to win upon the quiet son of the Major.
"If he were only more earnest," he used to say,--"if he could give up
his trifling,--if he would only buckle down to serious study, as some of
us do, what great things he might accomplish!" A common enough fancy
among those of riper years,--as if all the outlets of a man's
nerve-power could be dammed into what shape the possessor would!
Maverick was altogether his old self this night at the parsonage. Rachel
listened admiringly, as he told of his travel and of his foreign
experiences. He was the son of a merchant of an Eastern seaport who had
been long engaged in the Mediterranean trade with a branch house at
Marseilles; and thither Frank had gone two or three years after leaving
college, to fill some subordinate post, and finally to work his way into
a partnership, which he now held. Of course he had not lived there those
seven or eight years last past without his visit to Paris; and his easy,
careless way of describing what he had seen there in Napoleon's day--the
fêtes, the processions, the display--was a kind of talk not often heard
in a New England village, and which took a strong hold upon the
imagination of Rachel.
"And to think," says the parson, "that such a people are wholly
infidel!"
"Well, well, I don't know," says Maverick; "I think I have seen a good
deal of faith in the Popish churches."
"Faith in images; faith in the Virgin; faith in mummery," says Johns,
with a sigh. "'Tis always the scarlet woman of Babylon!"
"I know," says Maverick, smiling, "these things are not much to your
taste; but we have our Protestant chapels, too."
"Not much better, I fear," says Johns. "They are sadly impregnated with
the Genevese Socinianism."
This was about the time that the orthodox Louis Empaytaz was suffering
the rebuke of the Swiss church authorities for his "Considerations upon
the Divinity of Jesus Christ." Aside from this, all the parson's notions
of French religion and of French philosophy were of the most aggravated
degree of bitterness. That set of Voltaire, which the Major, his father,
had once purchased, had not been without its fruit,--not legitimate,
indeed, but most decided. The books so cautiously put out of sight--like
all such--had caught the attention of the son; whereupon his mother had
given him so terrible an account of French infidelity, and such a
fearful story of Voltaire's dying remorse,--current in orthodox
circles,--as had caught strong hold upon the mind of the boy. All
Frenchmen he had learned to look upon as the children of Satan, and
their language as the language of hell. With these sentiments very
sincerely entertained, he regarded his poor friend as one living at the
very door-posts of Pandemonium, and hoped, by God's mercy, to throw
around him even now a little of the protecting grace which should keep
him from utter destruction. But though this was uppermost in his mind,
it did not forbid a grateful outflow of his old sympathies and
expressions of interest in all that concerned his friend. It seemed to
him that his easy refinement of manner, in such contrast with the
ceremonious stiffness of the New England customs of speech, was but the
sliming over of the Serpent's tongue, preparatory to a dreadful
swallowing of soul and body; and the careless grace of talk, which so
charmed the innocent Rachel, appeared to the exacting Puritan a token of
the enslavement of his old friend to sense and the guile of this world.
Nine o'clock was the time for evening prayers at the parsonage, which
under no circumstances were ever omitted; and as the little clock in the
dining-room chimed the hour, Mr. Johns rose to lead the way from his
study, where they had passed the evening.
"It's our hour for family prayer," says Johns; "will you come with us?"
"Most certainly," says Maverick, rising. "I should be sorry not to have
this little scene of New England life to take back with me: it will
recall home pleasantly."
The servants were summoned, and the parson read in his wonted way a
chapter,--not selected, but designated by the old book-mark, which was
carried forward from day to day throughout the sacred volume. In his
prayer the parson asked specially for Divine Grace to overshadow all
those journeying from their homes,--to protect them,--to keep alive in
their hearts the teachings of their youth,--to shield them from the
insidious influences of sin and of the world, and to bring them in God's
own good time into the fold of the elect.
Shortly after prayers Rachel retired for the night. The parson and his
old friend talked for an hour or more in the study, but always as men
whose thoughts were unlike; Maverick filled and exuberant with the
prospects of this life; and the parson, by a settled purpose, which
seemed like instinct, making all his observations bear upon futurity.
"The poor man has grown very narrow," thought Maverick.
And yet Johns entered with friendly interest into the schemes of his
companion.
"So you count upon spending your life there?" says the parson.
"It is quite probable," says Maverick. "I am doing exceedingly well; the
climate, bating some harsh winds in winter, is enjoyable. Why shouldn't
I?"
"It's a question to put to your conscience," says Johns, "not to me. A
man can but do his duty, as well there as here perhaps. A little graft
of New Englandism may possibly work good. Do you mean to marry in
France, Maverick?"
A shade passed over the face of his friend; but recovering himself, with
a little musical laugh, he said,--
"I really can't say: there are very charming women there, Johns."
"I am afraid so," uttered the parson, dryly.
"By the way," said Maverick,--"you will excuse me,--but you will be
having a family by and by,"--at which the parson fairly blushed,--"you
must let me send over some little gift for your first boy; it sha'n't be
one that will harm him, though it comes from our heathen side of the
world."
"There's a gift you might bestow, Maverick, that I should value beyond
price."
"Pray what is it?"
"Live such a life, my friend, that I could say to any boy of mine,
'Follow the example of that man.'"
"Ah," said Maverick, with his easy, infectious laugh, "that's more than
I can promise. To tell the truth, Johns, I don't believe I could by any
possibility fall into the prim, stiff ways which make a man commendable
hereabout. Even if I were religiously disposed, or should ever think of
adopting your profession, I fancy I should take to the gown and
liturgy, as giving a little freer movement to my taste. You don't like
to think of that, I'll wager."
"You might do worse things," said the parson, sadly.
"I know I might," said Maverick, thoughtfully; "I greatly fear I shall.
Yet it's not altogether a bad life I'm looking forward to, Johns: we'll
say ten or fifteen more years of business on the other side; marrying
sometime in the interval,--certainly not until I have a good revenue;
then, possibly, I may come over among you again, establish a pretty home
in the neighborhood of one of your towns; look after a girl and boy or
two, who may have come into the family; get the title of Squire; give
fairly to the missionary societies; take my place in a good big
family-pew; dabble in politics, perhaps, so that people shall dub me
'Honorable': isn't that a fair show, Johns?"
There was a thief in the candle, which the parson removed with the
snuffers.
"As for yourself," continued Maverick, "they'll give you the title of
Doctor after a few years!"--The parson raised his hand, as if to put
away the thought.--"I know," continued his friend, "you don't seek
worldly honors: but they will drift upon you; they'll all love you
hereabout, in spite of your seriousness (the parson smiled); you'll have
your house full of children; you'll be putting a wing here and a wing
there; and when I come back, twenty years hence, if I live, I shall find
you comfortably gray, and your pretty wife in spectacles, knitting
mittens for the youngest boy, and the oldest at college, and your girls
grown into tall village belles;--but, Johns, don't, I beg, be too strict
with them; you can't make a merry young creature the better by insisting
upon seriousness; you can't crowd goodness into a body by pounding upon
it. What are you thinking of, Johns?"
The parson was sitting with his eyes bent upon a certain figure in the
green and red Scotch carpet.
"Thinking, Maverick, that in twenty years' time, if alive, we may be
less fit for heaven than we are to-day."
There was a pitying kindliness in the tone of the minister, as he said
this, which touched Maverick.
"There's no doubt on your score, Johns, God bless you! But we must
paddle our own boats: I dare say you'll come out a long way before me;
you always did, you know. Every man to his path."
"There's but _one_," said Johns, solemnly, "that leadeth to eternal
rest."
"Yes, I know," says Maverick, with a gay smile upon his face, which the
parson remembered long after, "we are the goats; but you must have a
little pity on us, for all that."
With these words they parted for the night.
Next morning, before the minister was astir, Maverick was strolling
about the garden and the village street, and at breakfast appeared with
a little bunch of violets he had gathered from Rachel's flower-patch,
and laid them by her plate. (It was a graceful attention, that not even
the clergyman had ever paid to her.) And he further delighted her with a
description of some floral fête which he had witnessed at Marseilles, in
the year of the Restoration.
"They welcomed their old masters, then?" said the parson.
"Perhaps so; one can never say. The French express their joy with
flowers, and they bury their grief with flowers. I like them for it; I
think there's a ripe philosophy in it."
"A heathen philosophy," said the minister.
At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage-coach,--looking out, as
he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its
diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen
knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,--beating as if his
brain lay under it.
"I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming man," said the pretty
Mrs. Johns to her husband.
"He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted,--and yet, in the sight
of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sinner."
"But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners."
"All,--all, Rachel, God help us!"