THE ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
AUTHOR OF
“_In the Way_,” “_Lone Point_,” “_An Unwilling Guest_,” _etc._
* * * * *
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
BY
EDITH M. NICHOLL BOWYER
PHILADELPHIA
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
1420 Chestnut Street
Copyright 1902 by the
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
* * * * *
Published September, 1902
From the Society’s own Press
Contents
The Angel of His Presence
Gabriel the Acadian
THE ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
BY
GRACE LIVINGSTON HILL
THE ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
=LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS=
“‘_I have just discovered who you are
and felt as if I would like to shake
hands with you_’” 11
“_She lingered as if transfixed before
the picture_” 23
“_He dropped it and it shivered into
fragments at his feet_” 38
“_‘Who is it?’ he asked sharply and
suspiciously_” 45
“_She stood behind his big leather
chair, her hands clasped together
against one cheek_” 55
“_He threw away his cigar and
disappeared behind the shrubbery_” 67
“_The ‘ladye of high degree’ . . . saw
them standing also_” 79
_The Angel of his presence saved them._
_In his love and in his pity he redeemed them._
—_Old Testament_
THE ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
CHAPTER I
John Wentworth Stanley stood on the deck of an Atlantic Liner looking
off to sea and meditating. The line of smoke that floated away from his
costly cigar followed the line of smoke from the steamer as if it were
doing honest work to help get Mr. Stanley to New York. The sea in the
distance was sparkling and monotonous and the horizon line empty and
bright, but Mr. Stanley seemed to see before him the hazy outlines of
New York as they would appear in about twenty-four hours more, if all
went well. And of course all would go well. He had no doubt of that.
Everything had always gone well for him.
Especially well had been these last two years of travel and study
abroad. He reflected with satisfaction upon the knowledge and experience
he had gained in his own special lines, upon the polish he had acquired,
and he glanced over himself, metaphorically speaking, and found no fault
in John Wentworth Stanley. He was not too Parisian in his deferential
manner, he was not too English in his deliberation, neither was he, that
worst of all traits in his eyes, too American in his bluntness. He had
acquired something from each nation, and considered that the combined
result was good. It is a comfortable feeling to be satisfied with one’s
self.
Nor had he been shut entirely out of the higher circles of foreign
society. There were pleasant memories of delightful evenings within the
noble walls of exclusive homes, of dinners and other enjoyable occasions
with great personages where he had been an honored guest. When he
thought of this, he raised his chest an inch higher and stood just a
little straighter.
There was also a memory picture of one, perhaps more, but notably of one
“ladye of high degree,” who had not shown indifference to his various
charms. It was pleasant to feel that one could if one would. In due time
he would consider this question more carefully. In the near future this
lady was to visit America. He had promised himself and her the pleasure
of showing her a few of his own country’s attractions. And,—well, he
might go abroad again after that on business.
His attention was not entirely distracted by his vision of the “ladye of
high degree” from looking upon his old homeland and anticipating the
scenes and the probable experiences that would be his in a few hours.
Two years seemed a long time when he looked back upon it, though it had
been brief in the passing. He would doubtless find changes, but there
had been changes in him also. He was older, his tastes were—what should
he say—developed? He would not take pleasure in the same way that he
had taken it when he left, perhaps. He had learned that there were other
things—things if not better, at least more cultured and less
old-fashioned than his former diversions. Of course he did not despise
his up-bringing, nor his homeland, but he had other interests now as
well, which would take much of his time. He had been from home long
enough for the place he left to have closed behind him, and he would
have no difficulty in staying “dropped out.” He expected to spend much
of his time in New York. Of course he would make his headquarters at
home, where his father and mother were living, in a small city within a
short distance of America’s metropolis.
His man—he had picked up an excellent one while traveling through
Scotland—had gone on ahead to unpack and put in place the various
objects of art, etc., that he had gathered on his travels. He had not as
yet become so accustomed to the man that he could not do without him
from day to day, and had found it convenient to send him home on the
ship ahead of his own.
He wondered what his home-coming would be like. His father and mother
would of course be glad to see him and give him their own welcome. But
even with them he could not feel that he was coming home to a place
where he was indispensable. They had other children, his brothers and
sisters, married and living not far from home. Of course they would be
glad to have him back, all of them, but they had been happy enough
without him, knowing he was happy. But in town, while he had friends,
there were none whom he eagerly looked forward to meeting. He had
attended school there of course, and in later years, after his return
from college, had gone into the society of the place, the literary clubs
and tennis clubs and, to a degree, into church work. He had indeed been
quite enthusiastic in church work at one time, had helped to start a
mission Sunday-school in a quarter where it was much needed, and acted
as superintendent up to the time when he had gone abroad. He smiled to
himself as he thought of his “boyish enthusiasm” as he termed it, and
turned his thoughts to his more intelligent manhood. Of course he would
now have no time for such things. His work in the world was to be of a
graver sort, to deal with science and art and literature. He was done
with childish things.
He was interrupted just here by one of the passengers. “I beg your
pardon, I have just discovered who you are and felt as if I would like
to shake hands with you.”
The speaker was a plain, elderly man with fine features and an earnest
face. Mr. Stanley had noticed him casually several times and remarked to
himself that that man would be quite fine looking if he would only pay a
little more attention to his personal appearance. Not that he was not
neatly dressed, nor that his handsome, wavy, iron gray hair was not
carefully brushed; but somehow John Wentworth Stanley had acquired
during his stay abroad a nice discrimination in toilet matters, and
liked to see a man with his trousers creased or not creased, as the
height of the mode might demand, and classed him, involuntarily,
accordingly.
But he turned in surprise as the stranger addressed him. What possible
business could this man have with him, and what had he done that should
make the man want to shake hands with him?
[Illustration: “‘I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED WHO YOU ARE AND FELT AS IF I
WOULD LIKE TO SHAKE HANDS WITH YOU.’”]
Mr. Stanley was courteous always, and he at once threw away the end of
his finished cigar and accepted the proffered hand graciously, with just
a tinge of his foreign-acquired nonchalance.
“My name is Manning. You don’t know me. I came to live at Cliveden
shortly after you went abroad, but I assure you, I have heard much of
you and your good work. I wonder I did not know you, Mr. Stanley, from
your resemblance to your mother,” the stranger added, looking into the
young man’s eyes with his own keen, gray ones. He did not add that one
thing which had kept him from recognizing his identity had been that he
did not in the least resemble the Mr. Stanley he had been led to expect.
Mr. Manning owned to himself in the privacy of his stateroom afterward
that he was just a little disappointed in the man, though he was
handsome, and had a good face, but he did seem to be more of a man of
the world than he had expected to find him. However, no trace of this
was written in his kindly, interested face, as John Stanley endeavored
to master the situation and discover what all this meant.
“Oh, I know all about your work in Cliveden, Mr. Stanley. I have been
interested in the Forest Hill Mission from my first residence there, and
what I did not learn for myself my little girl told me. She is a great
worker, and as she has no mother, she makes me her confidant, so I hear
all the stories of the trials and conflicts of her Sunday-school class,
and among other things I constantly hear of this one and that one who
owe their Christian experience to the efforts of the founder of the
mission and its first superintendent. Your crown will be rich in jewels.
I shall never forget Joe Andrews’ face when he told me the story of how
you came to him Sunday after Sunday, and said ‘Joe, aren’t you ready to
be a Christian yet?’ and how time after time he would shake his head,
and he says your face would grow so sad.” The elder gentleman looked
closely at the clean-shaven, cultured face before him to trace those
lines which proved him to be the same man he was speaking of, and could
not quite understand their absence, but went on, “and you would say,
‘Joe, I shall not give you up. I am praying for you every day. Don’t
forget that.’ And then when he finally could not hold out any longer and
came to Christ, he says you were so glad, and he cannot forget how good
it was of you to care for him and to stick to him that way. He said your
face looked just as if the sun were shining on it the day he united with
the church. That was a wonderful work you did there. It is marvelous how
it has grown. Those boys of yours will repay the work you put upon them
some day. Nearly all of the original members of your own class are now
earnest Christians, and they cannot get done telling about what you were
to them. My little girl writes me every mail more about it.”
John Stanley suddenly felt like a person who is lifted out of his
present life and set down in a former existence. All his tastes, his
friends, his pursuits, his surroundings, during the past two years had
been utterly foreign to the work about which the stranger had been
speaking. He had become so engrossed in his new life that he had
actually forgotten the old. Not forgotten it in the sense that he was
not aware of its facts, but rather forgotten his joy in it. And he stood
astonished and bewildered, hardly knowing how to enter into the
conversation, so utterly out of harmony with its spirit did he find
himself. As the stranger told the story of Joe Andrews there rushed over
him the memory of it all: the boy’s dogged face; his own interest
awakened one day during his teaching of the lesson when he caught an
answering gleam of interest in the boy’s eye, and was seized with a
desire to make Jesus Christ a real, living person to that boy’s heart;
his watching of the kindling spark in that sluggish soul, and how little
by little it grew, till one night the boy came to his home when there
were guests present, and called for him, and he had gone out with him
into the dewy night under the stars and sat down with him on the front
piazza shaded by the vines, hoping and praying that this might be his
opportunity to say the word that should lead the boy to Christ, when
behold, he found that Joe had come to tell him, solemnly as though he
were taking the oath of his life, that he now made the decision for
Christ and hereafter would serve him, no matter what he wanted him to
do. A strange thrill came with the memory of his own joy over that
redeemed soul, and how it had lingered with him as he went back among
his mother’s guests, and how it would break out in a joyous smile now
and then till one of the guests remarked, “John, you seem to be
unusually happy to-night for some reason.” How vividly it all came back
now when the vein of memory was once opened. Incident after incident
came to mind, and again he felt or remembered that thrill of joy when a
soul says, “You have helped me to find Christ.”
Mr. Manning was talking of his daughter. John had a dim idea that she
was a little girl, but he did not stop to question. He was remembering.
And there was a strange mingling of feelings. His new character had so
thoroughly impressed its importance upon him that he felt embarrassed in
the face of what he used to be. Strangely enough the first thing that
came to mind was, What would the “ladye of high degree” think if she
knew all this? She would laugh. Ah! That would hurt worse than anything
she could do. He winced almost visibly under her fancied merriment. It
was worse than if she had looked grave, or sneered, or argued, or
anything else. He could not bear to be laughed at, especially in his new
rôle. And somehow his old self and his new did not seem to fit rightly
together. But then the new love of the world and his new tastes came in
with all the power of a new affection and asserted themselves, and he
straightened up haughtily and told himself that of course he need not be
ashamed of his boyhood. He had not done anything but good. He should be
proud of that, and especially so as he would probably not come in
contact with such work and such people again. He had more important
things to attend to.
Not that he said all this, or thought it in so many words; it passed
through his mind like phantoms chasing one another. Outwardly he was the
polished, courteous gentleman, listening attentively to what this father
was saying about his daughter, though really he cared little about her.
Did Mr. Stanley know that she had taken his former Sabbath-school class
and that there were many new members, among them some young men from the
foundries? No, he did not. He searched in his memory and found a
floating sentence from one of his mother’s letters about a young woman
who had consented to take his class till his return and who was doing
good work. It had been written, perhaps, a year ago, and it had not
concerned him much at the time as he was so engrossed in his study of
the architecture of the south of France. He recalled it now just in time
to tell the father how his mother had written him about the class, and
so save his reputation as a Sunday-school teacher. It transpired that
the daughter who had taken the class and the little girl the stranger so
constantly referred to as writing him letters about things were one and
the same. He wondered vaguely what kind of a little girl was able to
teach a class of young men, but his mind was more concerned with
something else now.
It appeared that the former mission where he had been superintendent had
grown into a live Sunday-school, and that they were looking for his
home-coming with great joy and expectation. How could such a thing be
other than disconcerting to the man he had become? He had no time to be
bothered with his former life. He had his life-work to attend to, which
was not—and now he began to feel irritated—mission Sunday-schools.
That was all well enough for his boyhood, but now—and besides there was
the “ladye of high degree.”
Perhaps the man of experience saw the stiffening of the shoulders and
the upper lip and divined the thoughts of the other. His heart sank for
his daughter and her boys, and the mission, and their plans for his
home-coming, and he made up his mind that secret or no secret, this man
must be told a little of the joy of sacrifice that had been going on for
him, for surely he could not have been the man that he had been, and not
have enough of goodness left in his heart to respond to that story, no
matter what he had become. And so he told him as much of the story his
daughter had written him as he thought necessary, and John Wentworth
Stanley thanked him and tried to show that he was properly appreciative
of the honor that was to be shown him, and tried not to show his
annoyance about it all to the stranger, and got away as soon as
possible, after a few polite exchanges of farewells for the evening, and
went to his stateroom. Arrived there he seated himself on the side of
his berth, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, and sat
scowling out of the porthole with anything but a cultured manner.
“Confound it all!” he muttered to himself. “I suppose it’s got to be
gone through with some way for mother’s sake and after they’ve made so
much fuss about it all. I can see it’s all that girl’s getting up; some
silly girl that thinks she’s going to become prominent by this sort of
thing. Going to give me a present! And I’ve got to go up there and be
bored to death by a speech probably, and then get up and be made a fool
of while they present me with a pickle dish or a pair of slippers or
something of the sort. It’s awfully trying. And they needn’t think I’m
going back to that kind of thing, for I’m not. I’ll move to New York
first. I wish I had stayed in France! I wish I had never worked in
Forest Hill Mission!”
Oh, John Stanley! Sorry you ever labored and prayed for those immortal
souls, and wrought into your crown imperishable jewels that shall shine
for you through all eternity!
CHAPTER II
They stood in the gallery of one of New York’s most famous art stores;
seven stalwart boys—young men, perhaps, you would call them—all with
an attempt at “dress up,” and with them Margaret Manning, slender and
grave and sweet. They were chaperoned by Mrs. Ketchum, a charming little
woman who knew a great deal about social laws and customs, and always
spoke of things by their latest names, if possible, and who took the
lead in most of the talk by virtue of her position in society and her
supposed knowledge of art. There were also Mrs. Brown, a plain woman who
felt deeply the responsibility of the occasion, and Mr. Talcut, a little
man who was shrewd in business and who came along to see that they did
not get cheated. These constituted the committee to select a present for
the home-returning superintendent of the Forest Hill Mission
Sunday-school. It was a large committee and rather too heterogeneous to
come to a quick decision, but its size had seemed necessary. Margaret
Manning was on it, of course. That had been a settled thing from the
beginning. There would not have been any such present, probably, if
Margaret had not suggested it and helped to raise the money till their
fund went away up above their highest hopes.
The seven boys were in her Sunday-school class, and no one of them could
get the consent of himself to make so momentous a decision for the rest
of the class without the other six to help. Not that these seven were
her entire class by any means, but the class had elected to send seven
from their own number, so seven had come. Strictly speaking, only one
was on the committee, but he depended upon the advice of the other six
to aid him.
“Now, Mr. Thorpe,” said Mrs. Ketchum in her easy, familiar manner, “we
want something fine, you know. It’s to hang in his ‘den.’ His mother has
just been refitting his den, and we thought it would be quite
appropriate for us to get him a fine picture for the wall.”
The preliminaries had been gone through with. Mr. Thorpe knew the
Stanley family slightly, and was therefore somewhat fitted to help in
the selection of a picture that would suit the taste of one of its
members. He had led them to the end of the large, well-lighted room,
placed before them an easel, and motioned them to sit down.
The seven boys, however, were not accustomed to such things, and they
remained standing, listening and looking with all their ears and eyes.
Somehow, as Mrs. Ketchum stated matters, they did not feel quite as much
to belong to this committee as before. What, for instance, could Mrs.
Ketchum mean by Mr. Stanley’s “den”? They had dim visions of Daniel and
the lions, and the man who fell among thieves, but they had not time to
reflect over this, for Mr. Thorpe was bringing forward pictures.
“As it’s a Sunday-school superintendent, perhaps something religious
would be appropriate. You might look at these first, anyway,” and he put
before them a large etching whose wonder and beauty held them silent as
they gazed. It was a new picture of the Lord’s Supper by a great artist,
and the influence of the picture was so great that for a few moments
they looked and forgot their own affairs. The faces were so marvelously
portrayed that they could but know each disciple, and felt that the hand
which had drawn the Master’s face must have been inspired.
“It is more expensive than you wanted to buy, but still it is a fine
thing and worth the money, and perhaps as it is for a church, I might
make a reduction, that is, somewhat, if you like it better than anything
else.”
Mrs. Ketchum lowered her lorgnette with a dissatisfied expression,
though her face and voice were duly appreciative. She really knew a fine
thing when she saw it.
“It is wonderful, and you are very kind, Mr. Thorpe; but do you not
think that perhaps it is a little, just a little, well—gloomy—that is,
solemn—well—for a den, you know?” and she laughed uneasily.
Mr. Thorpe was accustomed to being all things to all men. With an easy
manner he laughed understandingly.
“Yes? Well, I thought so myself, but then I didn’t know how you would
feel about it. It would seem hardly appropriate, now you think of it,
for a room where men go to smoke and talk. Well, just all of you step
around this side of the room, please, and I’ll show you another style of
picture.”
They followed obediently, Mrs. Ketchum murmuring something more about
the inappropriateness of the picture for a den, and the seven boys
making the best of their way among the easels and over Mrs. Ketchum’s
train. All but Margaret Manning. She lingered as if transfixed before
the picture. Perhaps she had not even heard what Mrs. Ketchum had said.
Two of the boys hoped so in whispers to one another.
“Say, Joe,” he whispered in a low grumble, “I forgot all about Mr.
Stanley’s smoking. She——” with a nod toward the silent, pre-occupied
woman still standing in front of the picture, “she won’t like that.
Maybe he don’t do it any more. I don’t reckon ’twould be hard fer him to
quit.”
Every one of those seven boys had given up the use of tobacco to please
their teacher, Miss Manning.
Other pictures were forthcoming. There were landscapes and seascapes,
flowers and animals, children and wood nymphs, dancing in extraordinary
attitudes. The boys wondered that so many pictures could be made. They
wondered and looked and grew weary with the unusual sight, and wished to
go home and get rested, and did not in the least know which they liked.
They were bewildered. Where was Miss Manning? She would tell them which
to choose, for their part of the choice was a very important part to
them, and in their own minds they were the principal part of the
committee.
[Illustration: “‘I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED WHO YOU ARE AND FELT AS IF I
WOULD LIKE TO SHAKE HANDS WITH YOU.’”]
Miss Manning left the great picture by and by and came over to where the
others sat, looking with them at picture after picture, hearing prices
and painters discussed, and the merits of this and that work of art by
Mrs. Ketchum and Mr. Talcut, whose sole idea of art was expressed in the
price thereof, and who knew no more about the true worth of pictures
than he knew about the moon. Then she left the others and wandered back
to the quiet end of the room where stood that wonderful picture. There
the boys one by one drifted back to her and sat or stood about her
quietly, feeling the spell of the picture themselves, understanding in
part at least her mood and why she did not feel like talking. They
waited respectfully with uncovered heads, half bowed, looking, feeling
instinctively the sacredness of the theme of the picture. Four of them
were professed Christians, and the other three were just beginning to
understand what a privilege it was to follow Christ.
Untaught and uncouth as they were, they took the faces for likenesses,
and Christ’s life and work on earth became at once to them a living
thing that they could see and understand. They looked at John and longed
to be like him, so near to the Master and to receive that look of love.
They knew Peter and thought they recognized several other disciples, for
the Sunday-school lessons had been of late as vivid for them as mere
words can paint the life of Christ. They seemed themselves to stand
within the heavy arch of stone over that table, so long ago, and to be
sitting at the table, his disciples, some of them unworthy, but still
there. They had been helped to this by what Miss Manning had said the
first Sunday she took the class, when the lesson had been of Jesus and
of some talks he had had with his disciples. She had told them that as
there were just twelve of them in the class she could not help sometimes
thinking of them as if they were the twelve disciples, especially as one
of them was named John and another Andrew, and she wanted them to try to
feel that these lessons were for them; that Jesus was sitting there in
their class each Sabbath speaking these words to them and calling them
to him.
The rest of the committee were coming toward them, calling to Miss
Manning in merry, appealing voices. She looked up to answer, and the
boys who stood near her saw that her eyes were full of tears, and more
than one of them turned to hide and brush away an answering tear that
seemed to come from somewhere in his throat and choke him.
“Come, Margaret,” called Mrs. Ketchum, “come and tell us which you
choose. We’ve narrowed it down to three, and are pretty well decided
which one of the three we like best.”
Margaret Manning arose reluctantly and followed them, the boys looking
on and wondering. She looked at each of the three. One was the
aforementioned nymph’s dance, another was a beautiful woman’s head, and
the third was a flock of children romping with a cart and a dog and some
roses. Margaret turned from them disappointed, and looked back toward
the other picture.
“I don’t like any of them, Mrs. Ketchum, but the first one. Oh, I do
think that is the one. Please come and look at it again.”
“Why, my dear,” fluttered Mrs. Ketchum disturbedly, “I thought we
settled it that that picture was too, too—not quite appropriate for a
den, you know.”
But her words were lost, for the others had gone forward under the
skylight to where the grand picture stood, and were once more under the
spell of those wonderful eyes of the pictured Master.
“It is a real nice picture,” spoke up Mrs. Brown. She was fond of
Margaret Manning, though she did not know much about art. She had been
elected from the woman’s Bible class, and had been rather overpowered by
Mrs. Ketchum, but she felt that now she ought to stand up for her friend
Margaret. If _she_ wanted that picture, that picture it should be.
“How much did you say you would give us that for, Mr. Thorpe?” said the
sharp little voice of Mr. Talcut.
Mr. Thorpe courteously mentioned the figures.
“That’s only ten dollars more’n we’ve got,” spoke up the hoarse voice of
one of the seven unexpectedly. It was Joe, who felt that he owed his
salvation to the young superintendent’s earnest efforts in his behalf.
“I say we’d better get it. Ten dollars ain’t much. We boys can go that
much. I’ll go it myself somehow if the others don’t.”
“Well, really, ladies, I suppose it’s a very good bargain,” said Mr.
Talcut rubbing his hands and smiling.
“Then we’ll take it,” said Joe, nodding decidedly to Mr. Thorpe; “I’ll
go the other ten dollars, and the boys can help, if they like.”
“But really Margaret, my dear,” said Mrs. Ketchum quite distressed, “a
_den_, don’t you know, is not a place for——”
But the others were all saying it was just the picture, and she was not
heard. Mr. Talcut was giving the address and orders about the sending.
None of them seemed to realize that Mrs. Ketchum had not given her
consent, and she, poor lady, had to gracefully accept the situation.
“Well, it’s really a very fine thing, I suppose,” she said at last,
somewhat hesitatingly, and putting up her lorgnette to take a critical
look. “I don’t admire that style of architecture, and that table-cloth
isn’t put on very gracefully; it would have been more artistic draped a
little; but it’s really very fine, and quite new, you say, and of course
the artist is irreproachable. I think Mr. Stanley will appreciate it.”
But she sighed a little disappointedly, and wished she had been able to
coax them to take the nymphs. She would take pains to let Mr. Stanley
know that this had not been her choice. The idea of having to give in to
those great boors of boys! But then it had all been Margaret Manning’s
fault. She was such a little fanatic. She might have known that it would
not do to let her see a religious picture first.
CHAPTER III
It was Margaret Manning’s suggestion that it should be presented
quietly. Some of the others were disappointed. Mrs. Ketchum was one of
the most irate about it.
“The idea! After the school had raked and scraped together the money,
that they should not have the pleasure of seeing it presented! It’s a
shame! Margaret Manning has some of the most backwoods’ notions I ever
heard of. It isn’t doing things up right at all. There ought to be a
speech from some one who knows how to say the right thing; my husband
could have done it, and would if he’d been asked. But no, Margaret
Manning says it must be hung on his wall, and so there it hangs, and
none of us to get the benefit. I declare it is a shame! I wish I had
refused to serve on that committee. I hate to have my name mixed up in
it the way things have gone.” So said Mrs. Ketchum as she sat back in
her dim and fashionable parlor and sighed.
But the seven boys ruled things, and they ruled them in the way Miss
Manning suggested; and moreover, Mrs. Brown and Mr. Talcut had gone over
to the enemy completely since the purchase, the enemy being Miss
Manning. Mr. Talcut rubbed his hands admiringly, and said Miss Manning
was an exceedingly shrewd young woman, that she had an eye for business.
That picture was the best bargain in that whole store.
But Margaret went on her way serenely, not knowing her power nor
enjoying her triumph. Albeit she was pleased in her heart with the
picture, and she thought that her seven boys had been the true selectors
of it. She wrote in her fine, even hand, that was like her in its lovely
daintiness, the words the committee told her to write—which she had
suggested—on a white card to accompany the picture. It read, “To our
beloved superintendent, with a joyous welcome home, from the entire
school of the Forest Hill Mission.”
The Stanley home stood in fine, large grounds, with turf smooth as
velvet and grand old forest trees all about. The house was large,
old-fashioned, and ugly, but the rooms were magnificent in size, and
filled with all the comforts money could buy. On one side, just off the
large library and connected with the hall, had been built an addition, a
beautiful modern room filled with nooks and corners and unexpected
bay-windows, which afforded views in at least three directions because
of the peculiar angles at which they were set. In one corner was a
carved oak spiral staircase by which one could ascend to the airy
sleeping room over-head if he did not choose to go through the hall and
ascend the common stair. One side of the room and various other
unexpected bits of wall were turned into bookcases sunk in the masonry
and covered by glazed doors. The bay-window seats were heavily
upholstered in leather, and so were all the chairs and the luxurious
couch. Nearly one entire end of the room was filled by the great
fireplace, the tiling of which had been especially designed for it. In a
niche built for it with a fine arrangement for light, both by day or
night, stood a large desk. It was a model working room for a gentleman.
And this addition had been built by the senior Mr. Stanley for his son
when he should return to take up the practical work of architecture, for
which he had been preparing himself for some years.
It was here that the great picture was brought and hung over the
fireplace, where it could look down upon the entire room. It was hung
just the day before John Wentworth Stanley’s man arrived with his
master’s goods and chattels and began to unpack and dispose things
according to his best judgment.
John Stanley’s mother had come in to superintend the hanging of the
picture and had looked at it a long time when she was left alone, and
finally had knelt shyly beside the great new leather chair and offered a
silent little prayer for the home-coming son. She was an undemonstrative
woman, and this act seemed rather theatrical when she thought of it
afterward. What if a servant had opened the door and seen her!
Nevertheless she felt glad she had dedicated the room, and she was glad
that the picture was what it was. With that Ketchum woman on the
committee she had feared what the result might be when she had had the
scheme whispered to her. Somebody must have fine taste. Perhaps it was
that dainty, lily-faced young girl who seemed to be so interested in
John’s Sunday-school class. The mother was busy in her home world and
did not go into church work much. She was getting old and her children
and grandchildren were all about her, absorbing her time and thought.
The man came in from the piazza that surrounded the bay window and
reached around to the long French window at the side, where he had been
unpacking a box. He placed a silver-mounted smoking set on a small
mahogany table. Then he stood back to survey the effect. Presently he
came in with some fine cut glass, a small decanter heavily mounted in
silver and glasses to match. He went out and came back with their tray.
Having dusted them off carefully and arranged them on the tray, he
placed it first on the handsome broad mantel, and as before stood back
to take a survey. He knew the set was a choice example of artistic work
along this line. It was presented to his master while he was visiting in
the home of a nobleman in token of his friendship and to commemorate
something or other, the man did not exactly know what. But he did not
like the effect on the mantel. He glanced uneasily up at the picture. In
a dim way he felt the incongruity. He scowled at the picture and
wondered why they put it there. It should have been hung in the hall or
some out-of-the-way place. It was more suited for a church than anywhere
else, he told himself. He placed the decanter tray on the little table
at the other side of the fireplace from the smoking set, and stood back
again. It looked well there. He raised his eyes defiantly to the
picture, and met the full, strong, sweet gaze of the pictured eyes of
the Master. The man lowered his eyes and turned away, disturbed, he knew
not why. He was not a man who cared about such things, neither was he
one accustomed to reason. He went out to the piazza again to his
unpacking, trying to think of something else. It wasn’t his picture nor
his decanter anyway, and he whistled a home tune and wondered why he had
come to this country. He didn’t seem to feel quite his usual pride this
morning in the fact that he knew his business. When he finally unpacked
the wicker-covered demijohn of real old Scotch whisky that had
accompanied the decanter, he carried it through the room and deposited
it in the little corner cupboard behind the chimney, shut the door and
locked it with a click, and went out again without so much as raising
his eyes. All that day he avoided looking at that picture over the
mantelpiece, and he grew quite happy in his work again and quite
self-satisfied, and felt with a sort of superstitious fear that if he
looked at it his happiness would depart.
There were other rare articles that he had to unpack and dispose of, and
once he came to a large, handsome picture, a sporting scene in water
colors by a celebrated artist. That now, would be the very thing to hang
over the mantel in place of the picture already there. He even went so
far as to suggest to Mrs. Stanley that he make the change, but she
coldly told him to leave the picture where it was, as it was a gift, and
showed him the envelope to place on the mantel directly under the
picture, which contained the card from the donors.
So the man left the room at last, somewhat dissatisfied, but feeling
that he had done the best he could. The night passed, the day came, and
with it the new master of the new room.
“It’s really a magnificent thing, mother,” he said, as he stood in front
of the great picture after, having admired the room and shown his
delight in all they had done for him. “I’m delighted to have it. I saw
the original on the other side. And it was good taste of them to give it
quietly in this way too. But there is a sense in which this is quite
embarrassing. They will expect so much, you know, and of course I
haven’t time for this sort of thing now.”
“Well, I thought something ought to be done, my son,” responded the
mother, “so I sent out invitations for the whole school for a reception
here next week. That is, I have them ready. They are not sent out, but
are waiting your approval. Tuesday will be a free evening. What do you
think?”
John Stanley scowled and sighed.
“Oh, I suppose that’s the easiest way to get out of it now they’ve sent
me this. It will be an awful bore, but then it’ll be over. I shall
scarcely know how to carry myself among them, I fear, I’ve been out of
this line so long, and they fancy me so virtuous,” and he smiled and
shrugged his handsome shoulders.
“But John dear, you mustn’t feel in that way. They really think a great
deal of you,” said his mother, smiling indulgently upon him.
“Oh, it’s all right; go ahead, mother. Make it something fine while
you’re about it. Give them quite a spread you know. Some of them don’t
get many treats, I suppose,” and he sank down in one of the luxurious
chairs and looked about him with pleasure.
“This is nice, mother,” he said; “so good of you and father to think of
it. I can do great things here. The room is an inspiration in itself. It
is a poem in architecture.”
Then the mother left him awhile to his thoughts and he began to piece
together his life, that portion he had left behind him across the water,
and this new piece, a part of the old, that he had come to take up
again. There hovered on the margin of his mind the image of the “ladye
of high degree,” and he looked out about on his domain with satisfaction
at thought of her. At least she would see that people in this country
could do things as well as in hers.
Then by some strange line of thought he remembered his worriment of
yesterday about that present, and how he had thought of her laugh if she
should know of it. A slight feeling of pleasure passed over him; even in
this she could find no fault. It was fine and costly and a work of
genius. He need not be ashamed even if some one should say to her that
the picture was presented to him by a mission class grateful for what he
had done for it. He began to swell with a sense of importance at the
thought. It was rather a nice thing, this present, after all. He changed
his position that he might examine the picture more carefully at his
leisure.
The fire that his mother had caused to be lighted to take off the chill
of the summer evening and complete the welcome of the room, sent out a
ruddy glow and threw into high relief the rich, dark gloss of the frame
and the wonderful picture. It was as if the sombre, stone-arched room
opened directly from his own, and he saw the living forms of the Twelve
gathered around that table with the Master in the midst. But the Master
was looking straight at him—at him, John Wentworth Stanley,
self-satisfied gentleman of the world that he was, looking at him and
away from the other disciples. Down through all the ages those grave,
kind, sad, sweet eyes looked him through and through, and seemed to sift
his life, his every action, till things that he had done now and
yesterday, and last year, that he had forgotten, and even when he was a
little boy, seemed to start out and look him in the face behind the
shadows of those solid stones of that upper chamber. The more he looked
the more he wondered at the power the picture seemed to have. He looked
away to prove it, and he knew the eyes were following his.
The rosy glow of the firelight seemed to be caught and crystallized in a
thousand sparkles on one side of the fire. He looked in passing and knew
what the sparkles were, the fine crystal points of that cut glass
decanter. He had forgotten its existence until now, since the day he had
had it packed. He knew it was a beautiful thing in its way, but he had
not intended that it should be thus displayed. He hoped his mother had
not seen it. He would look at it and then put it away, that is, pretty
soon. Now his eyes were held by the eyes of his Master. Yes, his Master,
for he had owned his name and called himself a Christian, and no matter
what other things had come in to fill his mind, he had no wish to give
up the “name to live.” And yet he was conscious, strangely, abnormally
conscious of that decanter. His Master seemed to be looking at it too,
and to be inquiring of him how he came to have it in his possession. For
the first time he was conscious, painfully so, that he had never given
its donor any cause to think that such a gift would be less acceptable
to him than something else. His Master had understood that too, he felt
sure. He was annoyed that he could frame no excuse for himself, as he
had so easily done when the gift first reached him. He had even been
confident that he would be able to explain it to his mother so that she
would be rather pleased with the gift than otherwise, strong temperance
woman though he knew her to be. Now all his reasons had fled. The eyes
of his Master, his kind, loving, sorrowing Master were upon him. He
began to be irritated at the picture. He arose and seized the decanter
hastily, to put it somewhere out of sight, just where he had not
thought.
Now the officious Thomas, who knew his place and his work so well, had
placed in the new, freshly washed decanter a small quantity of the rare
old Scotch whisky that had come with it. Thomas knew good whisky when he
saw—that is, tasted—it, and he was proud of a master to whom such a
gift had been given. John Stanley did not expect to find anything in his
decanter until he put it there himself, or gave orders to that effect.
He was new to the ways of a “man” who so well understood his business.
As he jerked the offending article toward him some of this whisky
spilled out of the top that had perhaps not been firmly closed after
Thomas had fully tested the whisky. Its fumes so astonished its owner
that, he knew not how, he dropped it and it shivered into fragments at
his feet on the dull red tiles of the hearth.
Annoyed beyond measure, and wondering why his hand had been so unsteady,
he rang the bell for Thomas and ordered him to take away the fragments
and wipe the whisky from the hearth. Then he seated himself once more
till it was done. And all the time those eyes, so sad and reproachful
now, were looking through and through him.
“Thomas!” he spoke sharply, and the man came about face suddenly with
the broom and dustpan in hand on which glittered the crystals of
delicate cutting. “Where is the rest of that—that stuff?”
Thomas understood. He swung open the little door at the side of the
chimney. “Right here at hand, sir! Shall I pour you out some, sir?” he
said, as he lifted the demijohn.
[Illustration: “HE DROPPED IT AND IT SHIVERED INTO FRAGMENTS AT HIS
FEET.”]
John Stanley’s entire face flushed with shame. His impulse was severely
to rebuke the impertinence, nay the insult, of the servant to one who
had always been known as a temperance man. But he reflected that the
servant was a stranger to his ways, and that he himself had perhaps
given the man reason to think that it would be acceptable by the very
fact that he had these things among his personal effects. Then too, his
eyes had caught the look of the Master as he raised them to answer, and
he could not speak that harsh word quite in that tone with Jesus looking
at him.
He waited to clear his throat, and answered in a quieter tone, though
still severely: “No; you may take it out and throw it away. I never use
it.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Thomas impassively; but he marveled. Nevertheless
he forgave his master, and took the demijohn to his own room. He was
willing to be humble enough to have it thrown away on him. But as he
passed the servant’s piazza, the cook who sat resting from her day’s
labors there and planning for the morrow’s _menu_, heard him mutter:
“As shure as I live, it’s the picter. It’s got some kind o’ a spell.”
CHAPTER IV
After Thomas had left the room with the demijohn, his master seemed
relieved. He began to walk up and down his room and hum an air from the
German opera. He wanted to forget the unpleasant occurrence. After all,
he was glad the hateful, beautiful thing was broken. It was no one’s
fault particularly, and now it was out of the way and would not need to
be explained. He walked about, still humming and looking at his room,
and still that picture seemed to follow and be a part of his
consciousness wherever he went. It certainly was well hung, and gave the
strong impression of being a part of the room itself. He looked at it
critically from a new point of view, and as he faced it once more he was
in the upper chamber and seemed to hear his Master saying, “Yet a little
while, and the world seeth me no more”; and he realized that he was in
the presence of the scene of the end of his Master’s mission. He walked
back to the fireplace seeking for something to turn his thoughts away,
and passing the table where stood his elegantly mounted smoking set, he
decided to smoke. It was about his usual hour for his bedtime smoke,
anyway. He selected a cigar from those Thomas had set out and lighted it
with one of the matches in the silver match safe, and for an instant
turned with a feeling of lazy, delicious luxury in the use of his new
room and all its appliances. Unconsciously he seated himself again
before the fire in the great leather chair, and began to puff the smoke
into dreamy shapes and let his thoughts wander as he closed his eyes.
Suppose, ah, suppose that some one, say the “ladye of high degree,”
should be there, should belong there, and should come and stand behind
his chair. He could see the graceful pose of her fine figure. She might
reach over and touch his hair and laugh lightly. He tried to imagine it,
but in spite of him the laugh rang out in his thoughts scornfully like a
sharp, silver bell that belonged to some one else. He glanced over his
shoulder at the imagined face, but it looked cold above the smoke. She
did not mind smoke. He had seen her face behind a wreath of smoke
several times. It seemed a natural setting. But the dream seemed an
empty one. He raised his head and settled it back at a new angle. How
rosy the light was as it played on the hearth and how glad he was to be
at home again. That was enough for to-night. The “ladye of high degree”
might stay in her home across the sea for this time. He was content.
Then he raised his eyes to the picture above without knowing it, and
there he was smoking at the supper table of the Lord. At least so he
felt it to be. He had always been scrupulously careful never to smoke in
or about a church. He used to give long, earnest lectures on the subject
to some of the boys of the mission who would smoke cigarettes and pipes
on the steps of the church before service. He remembered them now with
satisfaction, and he also remembered a murmured, jeering sound that had
arisen from the corner where the very worst boys sat, which had been
suppressed by his friends, but which had cut at the time, and which he
had always wondered over a little. He had seen no inconsistency in
speaking so to the boys in view of his own actions. But now, as he
looked at that picture he felt as though he were smoking in church with
the service going on. The smoke actually hid his Master’s face. He took
down his cigar and looked up with a feeling of apology, but this was
involuntary. His irritation was rising again. The idea of a picture
upsetting him so! He must be tired or his nerves unsettled. There was no
more harm in smoking in front of that picture than before any other.
“Confound that picture!” he said, as he rose and walked over to the bay
window, “I’ll have it hung somewhere else to-morrow. I won’t have the
thing around. No, it’ll have to be left here till after that reception,
I suppose; but after that it shall go. Such a consummate nuisance!”
He stood looking out of the open window with a scowl. He reflected that
it was a strange thing for him to be so affected by a picture, a mere
imagination of the brain. He would not let it be so. He would overcome
it. Then he turned and tramped deliberately up and down that room,
smoking away as hard as he could, and when he thought his equilibrium
was restored, he raised his eyes to the picture as he passed, just
casually as any one might who had never thought of it before. His eyes
fell and he went on, back and forth, looking every time at the picture,
and every time the eyes of that central figure watched him with that
same sad, loving look. At last he went to the window again and angrily
threw up the screen, threw his half-smoked cigar far out into the
shrubbery of the garden, saying as he did so, “Confound it all!”
* * * * *
It was the evening before the reception. It was growing toward nine
o’clock, and John Stanley had retired to his wing to watch the fire and
consider what a fool he was becoming. He had not smoked in that room
since the first night of his return. He had not yielded to such weakness
all at once nor with the consent of himself. He had thought at first
that he really chose to walk in the garden or smoke on the side piazza,
but as the days went by he began to see that he was avoiding his own new
room. And it was all because of that picture. He glanced revengefully in
the direction where it hung. He did not look at it willingly now if he
could help it. His elegant smoking set was reposing in the chimney
cupboard, locked there with a vicious click of the key by the hand of
the young owner himself. And it was not only smoking, but other things
that the picture affected. There for instance was the pack of cards he
had placed upon the table in their unique case of dainty mosaic design.
He had been obliged to put them elsewhere. They seemed out of place. Not
that he felt ashamed of the cards. On the contrary he had expected to be
quite proud of the accomplishment of playing well which he had acquired
abroad, having never been particularly led in that direction by his
surroundings before he had left home. Was this room becoming a church
that he could not do as he pleased? Then there had been a sketch or two
and a bit of statuary, which he had brought in his trunk because they
had been overlooked in the packing of the other things. That morning he
brought them down to his room, but the large picture refused to have
them there. There was no harm in the sketches, only they did not fit
into the same wall with the great picture, there was no harmony in their
themes. The statuary was associated with heathenism and wickedness, ’tis
true, but it was beautiful and would have looked wonderfully well on the
mantel against the rich, dark red of the dull tiles, but not under that
picture. It was becoming a bondage, that picture, and after to-morrow
night he would banish it to—where? Not his bedroom, for it would work
its spell there as well.
Just here there came a tap on the window-sill, followed by a hoarse,
half-shy whisper:
“Mr. Stanley, ken we come in?”
He looked up startled. The voice had a familiar note in it, but he did
not recognize the two tall, lank figures outside in the darkness, clad
in cheap best clothes and with an air of mingled self-depreciation and
self-respect.
“Who is it?” he asked sharply and suspiciously.
[Illustration: “‘WHO IS IT?’ HE ASKED, SHARPLY AND SUSPICIOUSLY.”]
“It’s me, Mr. Stanley; Joe Andrews. You ain’t forgot me yet, I know. And
this one’s my friend, Bert; you know him all right too. May we come in
here? We don’t want to go to the front door and make trouble with the
door bell and see folks; we thought maybe you’d just let us come in
where you was. We hung around till we found your room. We knowed the new
part was yours, ‘cause your father told the committee, you know, when
they went to tell about the picture.”
Light began to dawn on the young man. Certainly he remembered Joe
Andrews, and had meant to hunt him up some day and tell him he was glad
to hear he was doing well and living right, but he was in no mood to see
him to-night. Why could he not have waited until to-morrow night when
the others were to come? Was not that enough? But of course he wanted to
get a word of thanks all his own. It had been on his tongue to tell Joe
he was unusually busy to-night, and would he come another time, or wait
till to-morrow, but the remembrance of the picture made that seem
ungracious. He would let them in a few minutes. They probably wished to
report that they had seen the picture in the room before the general
view should be given, so he unfastened the heavy French plate window and
let the two in, turning up as he did so the lights in the room, so that
the picture might be seen.
They came in, lank and awkward, as though their best clothes someway
hurt them, and they did not know what to do with their feet and the
chairs. They did not sit down at first, but stood awkwardly in single
file, looking as if they wished they were out now they were in. Their
eyes went immediately to the picture. It was the way of that picture to
draw all eyes that entered the room, and John Stanley noted this with
the same growing irritation he had felt all day. But over their faces
there grew that softened look of wonder and awe and amaze, and to John
Stanley’s surprise, of deep-seated, answering love to the love in the
eyes of the picture. He looked at the picture himself now, and his fancy
made it seem that the Master was looking at these two well pleased.
Could it be that he was better pleased with these two ignorant boys than
with him, John Stanley, polished gentleman and cultured Christian that
he trusted he was?
He looked at Joe again and was reminded of the softened look of deep
purpose the night Joe had told him beneath the vines of his intention to
serve Christ, and now standing in the presence of the boy again and
remembering it all vividly, as he had not done before, there swept over
him the thrill of delight again that a soul had been saved. His heart,
long unused to such emotions, felt weak, and he sat down and motioned
the boys to do the same. It would seem that the sight of the picture had
braced up the two to whatever mission theirs had been, for their faces
were set in steady purpose, though it was evident that this mission was
embarrassing. They looked at one another helplessly as if each hoped the
other would begin, and at last Joe plunged in.
“Mr. Stanley, you ben so good to us we thought ’twas only fair to you we
should tell you. That is, we thought you’d like it, and anyway, maybe
you wouldn’t take it amiss.”
John Stanley’s heart was kind, and he had been deeply interested in this
boy once. It all came back to him now, and he felt a strong desire to
help him on, though he wondered what could be the nature of his errand.
Joe caught his breath and went on. “You see she don’t know about it.
She’s heard so much of you, and she never heard that, not even when they
was talking about the den and all at the store, she was just lookin’ at
the picture and Him,” raising his eyes reverently to the picture on the
wall, “and we never thought to tell her afore, and her so set against
it. And we thought anyway afterward maybe you’d quit. Some do. We all
did, but that was her doin’s. But we thought you’d like to know, and if
you had quit she needn’t never be told at all, and if you hadn’t, why we
thought maybe ‘twouldn’t be nothin’ for you to quit now, ‘fore she ever
knew about it.”
The slow red was stealing up into the face of John Stanley. He was
utterly at a loss to understand what this meant, and yet he felt that he
was being arraigned. And in such a way! So humbly and by such almost
adoring arraigners that he felt it would be foolish and wrong to give
way to any feeling of irritation, or indignation, or even offended
dignity on his part.
“I do not understand, Joe,” he said at last, looking from one to another
of the two boys who seemed too wretched to care to live longer. “Who is
she? And what is it that she does not know, and that you want me to
‘quit’? And why should it be anything to her, whoever she is, what I
do?”
“Why it’s her, Miss Manning—Margaret Manning—our teacher.” Joe spoke
the name slowly, as if he loved it and revered it; “and it’s that we
want you to—that is, we want her to—to like you, you know. And it’s
the—the—I can’t most bear to say it, ‘cause maybe you don’t do it any
more,” and Joe looked up with eyes like a beseeching dog.
“It’s the smokin’,” broke in Bert huskily, rising. “Come on, Joe, we’ve
done what we ‘greed to do; now ‘tain’t no more of our business. I say,
come on!” and he bolted through the window shamefacedly.
Joe rose and going up to Mr. Stanley laid hold of his unwilling hand and
choked out: “You won’t take it hard of me, will you? You’ve done so much
fer me, an’ I kind of thought I ought to tell you, but now since I seen
yer face I think maybe I had no business. Good-night,” and with a face
that looked as if he had been caught in the act of stealing, Joe
followed his friend through the window and was lost in the deep shadows
outside.
John Stanley stood still where the two had left him. If two robbers had
suddenly come in upon him and quietly stolen his watch and diamond stud
and ring and left him standing thus, he could not have looked more
astonished. Where had been his usual ready anger that it did not rise
and overpower these two impudent young puppies, ignorant as pigs, that
they should presume to dictate to him, a Christian gentleman, what
habits he should have? And all because some straitlaced old maid, or
silly chit of a girl, who loved power, did not like something. Where was
his manhood that he had stood and let himself be insulted, be it ever so
humbly, by boys who were not fit for him to wipe his feet upon? His
kindling eyes lifted unexpectedly to the picture. The Master was
watching him from his quiet table under the arches of stone. He stood a
minute under the gaze and then he turned the lights all out and sat down
in the dark. The fire was out too, and only the deep red glow behind the
coals made a little lighting of the darkness. And there in the dark the
boy Joe’s face came back clearly and he felt sorry he had not spoken
some word of comfort to the wretched fellow who felt so keenly the
meaning of what he had done. There had been love for him in Joe’s look
and he could not be angry with him now he remembered that.
Bit by bit the winter of his work for Joe came back, little details that
he did not suppose he ever should recall, but which had seemed filled
with so much meaning then because he had been working for a soul’s
salvation and with the divine love for souls in his heart. What joy he
had that winter! How sorry he had been to leave it all and go away. Now
he came to think of it, he had never been so truly happy since. Oh, for
that joy over again! Oh, to take pleasure in prayer as he had done in
those days! What was this that was sweeping over him? Whence came this
sudden dissatisfaction with himself? He tried to be angry with the two
boys for their part in the matter, and to laugh at himself for being
influenced by them, but still he could not put it away.
A stick in the fire fell apart and scattered a shower of sparks about,
blazing up into a brief glow. The room was illuminated just for an
instant and the face of the Christ shone out clearly before the silent
man sitting in front of the picture. Then the fire died out and the room
was dark and only the sound of the settling coals broke the stillness.
He seemed to be alone with Christ, face to face, with his heart open to
his Lord. He could not shrink back now nor put in other thoughts. The
time to face the change in himself had come and he was facing it alone
with his God.
CHAPTER V
It was the next evening, and the Forest Hill Mission had assembled in
full force. They were there, from little Mrs. Brown in her black
percale, even to Mrs. Ketchum, who had pocketed her pride, and in a
low-necked gown with a long train was making the most of her position on
the committee. She arranged herself to “receive” with John Stanley and
his mother, though she ignored the fact that Mrs. Brown and “those seven
hobbledehoy boys” were also on the committee. Occasionally she deplored
the fact that Miss Manning had not come, that she might also stand in a
place of honor, but in her heart she was glad that Miss Manning was not
present to divide the honors with herself. It appeared that Mr. Stanley
was delighted with the picture, had seen its original abroad, and knew
its artist. Such being the case, Mrs. Ketchum was delighted to take all
the honor of having selected the picture, and had it not been for those
truthtelling, enlightening seven boys, John Stanley might never have
known to this day Margaret Manning’s part in it.
None of the central group saw Margaret Manning slip silently in past the
servant at the door, as they stood laughing and chatting among
themselves after having shaken hands perfunctorily with the awkward,
embarrassed procession headed by Mr. Talcut and the young minister who
had recently come to the place.
When Margaret came down stairs she paused a moment in the hall; but as
she saw they were all talking, she went quietly on into the new wing
that had been for the time deserted by the company, and placed herself
in front of the picture. She had spoken to Mrs. Stanley, who had been
called upstairs to the dressing room for a moment just as she came in,
and so did not feel obliged to go and greet the group of receivers at
once. Besides, she wanted to have another good look at the picture
before she should go among the people, and so lose this opportunity of
seeing it alone.
From the first view it had been a great delight to Margaret Manning. She
had never before seen a picture of her Master that quite came up to her
idea of what a human representation of his face should express. This one
did. At least it satisfied her as well as she imagined any picture of
him, fashioned from the fancy of a man’s brain, could do. And she was
glad to find herself alone with it that she might study it more closely
and throw her own soul into the past of the scene before her.
She had stood looking and thinking for some minutes thus when she heard
a quick step at the door, not a sound as of one who had been walking
down the broad highly-polished floor of the hallway, but the quick
movement of a foot after one has been standing. She looked up and saw
John Stanley coming forward with an unmistakable look of interest and
admiration on his face.
He had made an errand to his library for a book to show to the minister
in order to get a little alleviation from Mrs. Ketchum’s persistent
monopolization. He had promised to loan the book to the minister, but
there had been no necessity for giving it to him that minute, nor even
that evening. As he walked down the hall he saw a figure standing in his
library, so absorbed in contemplating the picture that its owner did not
turn nor seem to be aware of his coming. She was slender and graceful
and young. He could see that from the distance, but as he came to the
doorway and paused unconsciously to look at the vision she made, he saw
that she was also beautiful. Not with the ordinary beauty of the
ordinary fashionable girl with whom he was acquainted, but with a clear,
pure, high-minded beauty whose loveliness was not merely of the outward
form and coloring, but an expression of beauty of spirit.
She was dressed in white with a knot of black velvet ribbon here and
there. She stood behind his big leather chair, her hands clasped
together against one cheek and her elbows resting on the wide leather
back. There were golden lights in her brown hair. Her eyes were looking
earnestly at the picture, her whole attitude reminded him of a famous
picture he had seen in Paris. He could but pause and watch it before
either of them became self-conscious.
[Illustration: “SHE STOOD BEHIND HIS BIG LEATHER CHAIR, HER HANDS CLASPED
TOGETHER AGAINST ONE CHEEK.”]
There was in her intent look of devotion a something akin to the look he
had seen the night before in the face of the boy Joe. He recognized it
at once, and a feeling half of envy shot through him. Would that such a
look might belong to his own face. But the remembrance of Joe brought
another thought. Instantly he knew that this was Margaret Manning. With
the knowledge came also the consciousness that he stood staring at her
and must do so no more. He moved then and took that quick step which
startled her and made her look toward him. As he came forward, he seemed
to remember how he had sat in that chair smoking a few nights before,
and how the vision of the “ladye of high degree” had stood where this
young girl now was standing, only he knew somehow at a glance the
superiority of this living presence.
A flush at the remembrance of his visitors of the night before and their
errand crossed his face, and he glanced instinctively toward the chimney
cupboard to see if the door was safely locked.
“I beg your pardon.” he said, coming forward. “I hope I do not disturb
you. I came for a book. This must be Miss Manning, I think. How comes it
that I have not had the pleasure of an introduction? They told me you
had not come. Yes, I met your father on the steamer coming over. Is he
present this evening?”
It was the easy, graceful tone and way he had, the same that had
elicited the notice of the “ladye of high degree,” only somehow now he
had an instinctive feeling that it would take more than a tone and a
manner to charm this young woman, and as she turned her clear eyes upon
him and smiled, the feeling grew that she was worth charming.
He began to understand the admiration of those awkward boys and the
feeling that had prompted their visit of the night before, and to
consider himself honored since he had a part in their admiration.
Margaret Manning was prepared to receive him as a friend. Had she not
heard great things of him? And she knew him at once. There was a fine
photogravure of him given by his mother at the request of the
school—and unknown to himself—hanging in the main room of the Forest
Hill Mission.
Their conversation turned almost immediately upon the picture. John
Stanley told how he had seen the original and its artist abroad, and how
proud he was to be the owner of this copy. The disagreeable experiences
he had passed through on account of it seemed to have slipped from his
mind for the time being.
She listened with interest, the fine, intelligent play of expression on
her face which made it ever an inspiration to talk with her.
“How you will enjoy reading over the whole account of the Last Supper
right where you can look at that face,” she said wistfully, looking up
at the picture. “It seems to me I can almost hear him saying, ‘Peace I
leave with you, my peace I give unto you.’”
He looked at her wonderingly, and saw the mark of that peace which
passeth understanding upon her forehead, and again there appeared to him
in startling contrast his vision of the “ladye of high degree,” and he
pondered it afterward in his heart.
“‘And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’ He said that in the upper
room,” she mused, and after a moment, “was it then too, that he said,
‘For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to
you’? I can’t quite remember,” and her eyes roved instinctively about
the elegantly furnished room in apparent search for something.
He divined her wish at once, and courteously went in search of a Bible,
but in his haste and confusion could not lay his hand upon one
immediately. He murmured some apology about not having unpacked all his
books yet, but felt ashamed as soon as the words were uttered, for he
knew in his heart the young girl before him would have unpacked her
Bible among the very first articles.
At last he found a little, old-fashioned, fine-print Bible tucked in a
corner of a bookcase. It had been given him when he was a child by some
Sunday-school teacher and forgotten long ago. He brought it now, and
with her assistance found the place.
“How I should enjoy studying this with the picture,” said the girl, as
she waited for him to turn to the chapter.
“And why not?” he asked. “It would be a great pleasure to have you feel
free to come and study this picture as often as you like. And if I might
be permitted to be present and share in the study it would be doubly
delightful.”
It was with the small open Bible on the chairback between them that the
file of awkward boys discovered them as they came down the hall, hoping
to find an empty and unembarrassing room where they might take refuge.
They paused as by common consent, and stood back in the shadow of the
hall _portière_, as if the place were too sacred for them to more than
approach its entrance. Their two earthly admirations were conversing
together, the Bible between them, and the wonderful picture looking down
upon them. They stole silent, worshipful glances into the room and were
glad.
Then came Mrs. Ketchum with rustling, perfumed robes and scattered
dismay into their midst and broke up the brief and pleasant
_tête-à-tête_ to her own satisfaction and the discomfiture of all
concerned.
CHAPTER VI
They were all gone at last, and the house was settling to quiet. John
Stanley went to his room, shut his door, and sat down to think.
It had not been the unpleasant occasion to which he had looked forward.
He had not even been bored. He was astonished to find himself regarding
the evening not only with satisfaction, but also with an unusual degree
of exhilaration. It did seem strange to him, now that he thought about
it, but it was true.
New interests were stirring within him. Or were they old ones? He had
gathered that group of boys about him with their teacher, after Mrs.
Ketchum had broken up his quiet talk with the teacher, and had talked
with them about the places he visited in the Holy Land, dwelling at some
length upon the small details of what he had seen in Jerusalem, and the
probable scene of events connected with the picture.
He had grown interested as he saw the interest of his audience. He
realized that he must have talked well. Was it the intent gaze of those
bright, keen-eyed boys, listening and glancing now and again toward the
picture with new interest, as they heard of the city and its streets
where this scene was laid, that gave him inspiration? Or had his
inspiration come from that other rapt, sweet face, with earnest eyes
fixed on the picture, and yet showing by an occasional glance at the
speaker that she was listening and liked it?
Yes, it had been a happy evening, and all over too quickly. He would
have liked to escort Miss Manning to her home, but her pony phaeton,
driven by a faithful old servant, came for her, so he missed that
pleasure.
He found himself planning ways in which he might often meet this
charming young woman. And strange to say, the mission with its various
services stood out pleasantly in his mind as a means to this end. Had he
forgotten his firm resolution of a few days agone, that he would have no
more to do with that mission in any capacity whatever?
If this question occurred to him he waived it without excuse. He was
pledged to attend the session of the school for the next Sabbath anyway,
to give in more elaborate form the talk about the picture and the scenes
in Jerusalem of which he had spoken to the boys. It had been Miss
Manning’s work, this promise, of course. She had said how grand it would
be to have him to tell the whole school what he had told her class, and
had immediately interviewed the present superintendent, who had been
only too delighted to accept the suggestion.
And now he sat by his fire, and with somewhat different feelings from
those he had experienced a few evenings before, thought over his old
life and his new. Strangely enough the “ladye of high degree” came no
longer to his thoughts, but instead there stood in shadow behind the
leather chair a slender, girlish figure with an earnest face and eyes,
and by and by he gave himself up to contemplating that, and he wondered
no longer that the boys had given up many things to please her. He would
not find it so very hard to do the same.
How earnest she had been! What a world of new meaning seemed to be
invested in the sacred scene of that picture after she had been talking
about it. He had followed up her desire to read the account with it in
view, and begged her most eagerly to come and read it and let him be a
humble listener, offering also in a wistful tone, which showed plainly
that he hoped she would accept the former, to let her have the picture
at her home for a time.
It would be very pleasant to read anything, even the Bible, with this
interesting young person and study the workings of her mind. He could
see that she was unusual. He must carefully study the subject so as not
to be behind her in Bible lore, for it was likely she knew all about it,
and he did not wish to be ashamed before her. He reached over to the
table where he had laid the little fine-print Bible they had been
consulting earlier in the evening. It had been so long since he had made
a regular business of reading his Bible that he scarcely knew where to
turn to find the right passages again, but after fluttering the leaves a
few minutes he again came to the place and read: “Now when the even was
come, he sat down with the twelve. And as they did eat, he said, Verily
I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.”
The young man stopped reading, looking up at the picture involuntarily,
and then dropped his eyes to the fire. What was it that brought that
verse home to himself? Had he in any sense betrayed his Lord? Was it
only the natural inquiry of the truthful soul on hearing those words
from the Master and on looking into his eyes to say sorrowfully “Lord,
is it I?” or was there some reason for it in his own life that made him
sit there, hour after hour, while the bright coals faded, and the ashes
dropped away and lay still and white upon the hearth?
Thomas, the man, looked silently in once or twice, and marveled to find
his master reading what seemed to be a Bible, and muttered “That
pictur,” to himself as he went back to his vigil. At last he ventured to
open the door and say in a respectful tone, “Did you call me, sir?”
which roused the master somewhat to the time of night, and moved him to
tell his man to go to bed and he would put out the lights.
The days that followed were filled with things quite different from what
John Stanley had planned on his return voyage. He made a good start in
his business, and settled into regular working hours, it is true; but in
his times of leisure he quite forgot that he had intended to have
nothing to do with the mission people. He spent three evenings in
helping to cover Sunday-school library books and paste labels into
singing books. Prosaic work and much beneath him he would have
considered it a short time ago, but he came home each time from it with
an exhilaration of mind such as he had never experienced from any of the
whist parties he had attended. It is true there were some young men and
young women also pasting labels whose society was uninteresting, but he
looked upon even those with leniency. Were they not all animated by one
common object, the good work for the mission? And there was also present
and pasting with the others, with deft fingers and quiet grace, that one
young girl around whom all the others seemed to gather and center as
naturally as flowers turn to the sun. She seemed to be an inspiration to
all the others. John Stanley had not yet confessed that she was an
inspiration to himself. He only admitted that her society was helpful
and enjoyable, and he really longed to have her come and read those
chapters over with him. Just how to manage this had been a puzzle.
Whenever he spoke of it the young lady thanked him demurely, and said
she would like to come and look at the picture some time; but he had a
feeling that she would not come soon, and would be sure he was not at
home then before she ventured. This was right, of course. It was not the
thing, even in America, for a young woman to call upon a young man even
to read the Bible with him. He must overcome this obstacle. Having
reached this conclusion he called in his mother to assist.
“By the way, mother,” he said the next evening at dinner, “I met a very
agreeable gentleman on the voyage over, a Mr. Manning. He is the father
of the Miss Manning who was here the other evening, I believe. Do you
know them? I wish you would have them to dinner some night. I would like
to show him some courtesy.”
The mother smiled and assented. It was easy for her to do nice little
social kindnesses. And so it was arranged.
After dinner it was an easy thing for John Stanley to slip away to the
library with Margaret Manning, where they two sat down together before
the picture, this time with a large, fine Oxford edition of the Bible to
read from.
That was an evening which to John Stanley was memorable through the rest
of his life. He had carefully studied the chapters himself, and thought
he had searched out from the best commentators all the bright new
thoughts concerning the events that the imagination and wisdom of man
had set down in books, but he found that his companion had studied on
her knees, and that while she was not lacking either book knowledge or
appreciation of what he had to say, she yet was able to open to him a
deeper spiritual insight. When she was gone, and he sat alone in his
room once more, he felt that it had been glorified by her presence. He
lingered long before that picture with searchings of heart that meant
much for his future life, and before he left the room he knelt and
consecrated himself as never before.
In those days there were evening meetings in the mission and he went.
There was no question in his mind about going; he went gladly, and felt
honored when Mr. Manning was unable to escort his daughter and he was
allowed to take his place. There was a nutting excursion for the school,
and he and Miss Manning took care of the little ones together. When it
was over he reflected that he had never enjoyed a nutting party more,
not even when he was a care-free boy.
It came about gradually that he gave up smoking. Not that he had at any
given time sat down and deliberately decided to do so, at least not
until he found that he had almost done so. There was always some meeting
or engagement at which he hoped to meet Miss Manning, and instinctively
he shrank from having her know that he smoked, mindful of what his
evening visitors had told him. At first he fell into the habit of
smoking in the early morning as he walked in the garden, but once while
thus engaged he saw the young woman coming down the street, and he threw
away his cigar and disappeared behind the shrubbery, annoyed at himself
that he was doing something of which he seemed to be ashamed. He wanted
to walk to the fence and speak to her as she passed by, but he was sure
the odor of smoke would cling to him. Little by little he left off
smoking lest she would detect the odor about him. Once they had a brief
conversation on the subject, she taking it for granted that he agreed
with her, and some one came to interrupt them ere he had decided whether
to speak out plainly and tell her he was one whom she was condemning by
her words. His face flushed over it that night as he sat before his
fire. She had been telling him what one of the boys had said when she
had asked him why he thought he could not be a Christian: “Well, I can’t
give up smokin’, and we know He never would ‘a’ smoked.” That had seemed
a conclusive argument to the boy.
[Illustration: “HE THREW AWAY HIS CIGAR AND DISAPPEARED BEHIND THE
SHRUBBERY.”]
Was it true that he was sure his Master never would have done it? Then
ought he, a professed follower of Christ? He tried to say that Miss
Manning had peculiar views on this subject and that those boys were
unduly influenced by her; and he recalled how many good followers of
Christ were addicted to the habit. Nevertheless, he felt sure that no
one of them would advise a young man to begin to smoke and he also felt
sure about what Jesus Christ would do.
It had been a long time since he had tried himself and his daily walking
with that sentence, “What would Jesus do?” He did not realize that he
was again falling into the way of it. If he had it might have made him
too satisfied with himself.
There came to be many nights when he sat up late looking into the fire
and comparing his life with the life of the Man whose pictured eyes
looked down so constantly into his own. It was like having a shadow of
Christ’s presence with him constantly. At first it had annoyed him and
hung over him like a pall, that feeling of the unseen Presence which was
symbolized by the skillful hand of the artist. Then it had grown
awesome, and held him from many deeds and words, nay even thoughts,
until now it was growing sweet and dear, a presence of help, the eyes of
a friend looking down upon him in all his daily actions, and
unconsciously he was beginning to wonder whenever a course of conduct
was presented to his mind whether it would seem right to Christ.
At last the happy winter was slipping away rapidly. He had scarcely
stopped to realize how fast, until one night when letters had come in on
the evening mail, one from England brought vividly to his mind some of
his thoughts and resolves and feelings during that return voyage in the
fall. He smiled to himself as he leaned back in the great leather chair
and half-closed his eyes. How he had resolved to devote himself to art
and literature and leave religion and philanthropy to itself! And he had
devoted himself to literature, in a way. Had not he and Miss Manning and
several others of the mission spent the greater part of the winter in an
effort to put good pictures and books into the homes of the people of
the mission, and also to interest these people in the pictures and
books? He had delivered several popular lectures, illustrated by the
best pictures, and had assisted at readings from our best authors. But
would his broad and cultured friends from the foreign shore, who had so
high an opinion of his ability, consider that a strict devotion of
himself to art and literature? And as for the despised mission and its
various functions, it had become the center of his life interest. He
glanced up at the picture on his wall. Had it not been the cause of all
this change in actions, his plans, his very feelings? Nay, had not its
central figure, the Man of Sorrows, become his friend, his guide, his
Saviour in a very real and near sense?
And so he remembered the first night he had looked upon that picture and
its strange effect upon him. He remembered some of his own thoughts
minutely, his vision of that “ladye of high degree” with whose future
his own seemed likely to be joined. How strange it seemed to him now
that he could have ever dreamed of such a thing! Her supercilious smile
seemed even now to make him shrink. The prospect of her trip to America
in the spring or early summer was not the pleasant thing he had then
thought it. Indeed, it annoyed him to remember how much would be
expected of him as guide and host. It would take his time from
things—and people—more correctly speaking, one person who had grown
very dear. He might as well confess it to himself now as at any other
time. Margaret Manning had become to him the one woman in all the earth
whose love he cared to win. And looking on his heart as it now was, and
thinking of himself as when he first returned from abroad, he realized
that he was not nearly so sure of her saying “Yes” to his request that
she would give her life into his keeping, as he had been that the “ladye
of high degree” would assent to that request.
Why was it? Ah! Of this one he was not worthy, so pure and true and
beautiful a woman was she. While the other—was it possible that he had
been willing to marry a woman about whom he felt as he did toward this
other haughty woman of wealth and position? To what depths had he almost
descended! He shuddered involuntarily at the thought.
By and by he arose and put out the light preparatory to going upstairs
for the night, humming a line of an old song:
“The laird may marry his ladye, his ladye of high degree—
But I will marry my true love,”
and then his face broke into a sweet smile and he added aloud and
heartily, “if I can”—and hummed the closing words, “For true of heart
am I,” as he went out into the hall, a look of determination growing on
his face and the vision of Margaret Manning enshrined in his heart.
CHAPTER VII
The visit of the “ladye of high degree” to America was delayed by wind
and tide and circumstance until the late fall, and in the meantime the
people of America had not stood still for her coming.
Among other things that had been done, there had been put up and fully
equipped a sort of club-house belonging to the Forest Hill Mission. It
does not take long to carry out such schemes when there are two earnest
persons with determination and ability to work like John Stanley and
Margaret Manning.
The money for the scheme had come in rapidly and from unexpected
sources. Margaret declared that every dollar was an answer to prayer.
The house itself was perfectly adapted for the carrying out of their
plans of work. There were reading-rooms and parlors where comfort and a
certain degree of refinement prevailed. There was a gymnasium in which
the privileges and days were divided equally between men and women, and
where thorough instruction was given. There were rooms in which various
classes were carried on evenings for those who had no chance otherwise,
and there were even a few rooms for young men or young women, homeless
and forlorn, where they could get good board for a time, and the whole
was presided over by a motherly, gray-haired woman and her husband,
whose hearts were in the work, and whose good common sense made them
admirably fitted for such a position.
But amid all these plans and preparations for better work John Stanley
had found opportunity to speak to Margaret Manning the words which had
won her consent to make his home bright by her presence and his heart
glad with her love.
Their wedding cards had traveled across the ocean, passing midway the
steamer that carried a letter from the “ladye of high degree,” saying
that she was about to embark on her trip to America and rather demanding
John Stanley’s time and attention during her stay near his home. She had
been used to this in the days when he was near her home, and he had been
only too glad to be summoned then.
His letter waited for him several days while he was away on a short
business trip, and it came about that he opened it but three days before
his wedding day. He smiled as he read her orders. He was to meet her at
the steamer on the fifteenth. Ah! that was the day when he hoped to be a
hundred miles away from New York, speeding blissfully along with
Margaret by his side. He drew a sigh of relief as he reached for pen and
paper and wrote her a brief note explaining that he was sorry not to be
able to show her the courtesies he had promised, but that he would be
away on his wedding trip at the time. He afterward added an invitation
from his mother, and closed the note and forgot all about the matter.
And so it was that the “ladye of high degree,” instead of being met with
all the devotion she had expected,—and which she had intended to exact
to its utmost,—found only a brief note with a paltry invitation to his
wedding reception. She bit her lips in vexation and spent a disagreeable
day in a New York hotel, making all those who had to do with her
miserable. Then she hunted up the names of other acquaintances in
America, noted the date of that reception, and made up her mind to make
her haughty best of it; at least, when she returned home there was the
laird and the earl and the poor duke, if worst came to worst.
The Stanley home was alight from one end to the other, and flowers and
vines did their best to keep up the idea of the departing summer indoors
that night when John Stanley brought home his lovely bride.
It was a strange gathering and a large one. There were present of New
York’s best society the truest and best of men and women, whose costumes
and faces showed that their purses and their culture were equally deep.
And there were many people, poor and plain, in their best clothes it is
true, but so different from the others that one scarcely knew which
costume was more out of place, that of the rich or of the poor.
It had been John Stanley’s idea, and Margaret had joined in it heartily,
this mingling of the different classes to congratulate them in their new
life.
“They will all have to come together in heaven, mother,” John had said
in answer to Mrs. Stanley’s mild protest at inviting Mrs. Cornelius Van
Rensselaer together with Joe Andrews and the mill girls from the
mission. “That is, if they all get there, and in my opinion Joe Andrews
stands as good a chance as Mrs. Van Rensselaer. What is the difference?
It will only be a little in their dress. I think all of our friends are
too sensible to mind that. Let them wear what they please, and for once
let us show them that people can mingle and be friends without caring
for the quality of cotton or silk in which each one is wrapped.”
The mother smiled and lifted her eyebrows a little. She could imagine
the difference between those mill girls and the New York ladies, and she
knew her son could not, but her position was established in the world,
and she was coming to the age when these little material things do not
so much matter. She was willing that her son should do as he wished. She
only said in a lingering protest, “But their grammar, John. You forget
how they murder the king’s English.”
“Never mind, mother,” he said, “I shouldn’t wonder if we should all have
to learn a little heavenly grammar when we get there before we can talk
fittingly with the angels.”
And so their friends were all invited, and none belonging to the Forest
Mission were omitted. Mrs. Ketchum, it is true, was scandalized. She
knew how to dress, and she did not like to be classed among the
“rabble,” as she confided to a few of her friends. “However, one never
knew what Margaret Manning would do, and of course this was just another
of her performances. If John Stanley wasn’t sorry before very long that
he married that woman of the clouds, she would miss her guess.”
She took it upon herself to explain in an undertone to all the guests,
whom she considered worthy of the toilet she had prepared, that these
“other people,” as she denominated the Forest Hill Mission, pointing to
them with her point lace fan with a dainty sweeping gesture, were
_protégés_ of the bride and groom, and were invited that they might have
the pleasure of a glimpse into the well-dressed world, a pleasure
probably that none of them had ever had before.
The “ladye of high degree” was there, oh, yes! Her curiosity led her,
and her own pique. She wanted to see what kind of a wife John Stanley
had married, and she wanted to see if her power over him was really at
an end.
The rich elegance of her wonderful gown, ablaze with diamonds and
adorned with lace of fabulous price, brushed aside the dainty white of
the bride’s and threatened to swallow it up out of sight in its own
glistening folds.
But the bride, in her filmy white robes, seemed in no wise disturbed,
neither did her fair face suffer by contrast with the proud, handsome
one. The “ladye of high degree,” standing in the shadow studying the
sweet bride’s face, was forced to admit that there was a superior
something in this other woman that she did not understand. She turned to
John Stanley, her former admirer, and found his eyes resting in
undisguised admiration on the lovely face of his wife, and her eyes
turned again to the wife and saw her kiss the wrinkled face of an
elderly Scotch woman with beautiful, tender brown eyes and soft waving
hair. The neat, worn brown cashmere dress that the woman wore was
ornamented only by a soft ruffle about the neck. The hair was partly
covered by a plain, brown bonnet with an attempt at gala attire in a bit
of white lace in front, and the wrinkled, worn hands were guiltless of
any gloves, but one of those bare hands was held lovingly between the
bride’s white gloves, and the other rested familiarly about the soft
white of the bride’s waist. There was a beautiful look of love and trust
and appreciation in both faces, and instinctively this stranger was
forced to ask the other onlooker, “Who is she?”
“One of God’s saints on earth,” came John Stanley’s voice in answer. He
had been watching the scene and had forgotten for the moment to whom he
was talking. Not that he would have disliked to speak so to the “ladye
of high degree” now, for he was much changed, but he would not have
thought she would understand.
“She is just a dear woman in the church whom my wife loves very much.
She is a natural poet soul, and you may be sure she has been saying
something to her which would be worth writing in a book, and which she
will always remember.”
And then the “ladye of high degree” turned and looked at her old
acquaintance in undisguised astonishment. John Stanley must have noticed
this and been embarrassed a moment, but Mrs. Ketchum came by just then
to be introduced, and she proved to be the kindred spirit for whom this
stranger had been searching. From her was gained much information, some
of which astonished her beyond belief. She made one or two more attempts
to rally her power over John Stanley later in the evening, but she too
had fallen under the spell of the lovely woman whose eyes her husband’s
followed wherever she went, and she finally gave it up.
The final surprise came to the stranger guest late in the evening, as
she was making her way through John Stanley’s study to the cloak room.
She had been told by the voluble Mrs. Ketchum that this room was Mr.
Stanley’s “den.” She had also noticed during the evening at different
times that people stopped opposite the picture that hung on the wall
over the mantel. She had not before been in a position to see what this
picture was for the crowd, but she had supposed it some master-piece
that Mr. Stanley had brought home from his travels. Her curiosity, or
her interest, or both, led her to pause now alone, and to look up.
As others were held under its spell, so was this woman for a moment. The
beauty and expression of the work of art caught her fancy, and the face
of the Master held her gaze, while her soul recognized and understood
the subject. In great astonishment she glanced around the room once more
and back. Could it be that John Stanley kept a picture like this in his
den? It was not like the John Stanley she had known.
And then a soft, little, white-gloved hand rested on her shoulder, and a
sweet, earnest voice said: “Isn’t it wonderful? I’m so glad to be where
I can look at it every day as much as I wish.”
[Illustration: “THE ‘LADYE OF HIGH DEGREE’ . . . SAW THEM STANDING ALSO.”]
Turning she saw the bride standing by her side. She scarcely knew how to
answer, and before she could do so she noticed that another had entered
the room, and she knew instinctively that Mr. Stanley had come.
“That is one of my treasures. Are you admiring it?” he said in the
strong voice that seemed so unlike his old one, and the guest murmured
something about the picture, and looking about uneasily excused herself
and slipped away.
They stood a moment before the picture together, the husband and wife.
They were tired with the evening’s talk, and a sight of this refreshed
them both and gave the promise of future joy.
The “ladye of high degree,” passing through that hall, having purposely
come by another route from the cloak room rather than through the study,
saw them standing also, and understood—that she did not understand, and
went out into the night with a lonely longing for something, she knew
not what.
As the two stood together the husband said: “Do you know, dear, that
picture has made the turning point in my life. Ever since it came in
here I have felt that his presence was with me wherever I went. And I
have you to thank for it all. And through it I have gained you, this
richest, sweetest blessing of my life. Do you know, I found a verse in
my Bible to-day that it seems to me fits me and that picture. It is
this: ‘The angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity
he redeemed them.’”
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
BY
EDITH M. NICHOLL BOWYER
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
=LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS=
“‘_It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le
Loutre_” 3
“_Suddenly the girl raised her head_” 27
“_M. l’Abbé commands_” 42
“_But Gabriel had neither eyes nor ears
for the priest_” 69
“‘_Wild Deer; tell Wild Deer_’” 82
“_Far away at the mouth of the inlet
. . . lay three small ships_” 91
“‘_And thou wilt make me a traitor too!’
he cried_” 120
“_They sat down side by side before the
empty hearth_” 131
[Illustration: “‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre.”]
_There is a history in all men’s lives,_
_Figuring the nature of the times deceased;_
_The which observed, a man may prophesy,_
_With a near aim, of the main chance of things_
_As yet not come to life; which in their seeds_
_And weak beginnings lie intreasured._
—_Shakespeare, Henry IV._
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
CHAPTER I
“It is the name my mother called me by,” quoth Gabriel sturdily.
For a moment there was silence, save for a murmur of horror that ran
through the assembled Acadians at the daring of a boy who thus defied
the fierce priest; yet his bearing was perfectly respectful.
“It is a heretic name!” exclaimed Le Loutre.
“Pardon, _M. l’Abbé_, but it is said not. My father also bare it, and
his father before him. Never willingly will I be called by any other.
Did not my mother swear on the crucifix to my dying sire that his child
should bear his name? And to break a holy vow—is not that of all things
the most sinful, O _mon père_?”
“Thy father died unshriven.”
“My father was of the Protestant faith,” rejoined the boy quickly. “He
died faithful to his own, though far from the land of his birth. He
would have carried my mother to join the colonists in Virginia, where
abide many of his kindred, but the prospect of leaving our Acadian land
did not please her, and he loved her more than kin or country. My father
was a good soldier and brave, monsieur; he was but true to the flag he
served, and to which all we of Acadia have sworn allegiance, and daily
break our vows!”
He raised his eyes of English blue, and looked straight into those of
the Abbé Le Loutre, black and angry as a thundercloud.
A fine figure of a seventeen-year-old lad he was. At his age many an
Acadian youth was beginning to dream of wife and home all his own. Tall
and strongly built, his light curls tossed back from a brow whose
tell-tale fairness showed through the ruddy bronze left by the suns and
storms of Acadia.
This time the exclamations of horror rose louder than before, and above
them was heard the piteous remonstrance of the village _curé_, “Ah, _mon
fils_, submit thyself to the good _abbé_.”
Gabriel’s fearless glance swept the rows of dull Acadian faces. It
seemed to him as if in actual bodily fear the villagers crouched before
the enraged priest, who drove, rather than led, his timid, ignorant
flock, and the gentle _curé_, his subordinate. And the whip with which
he goaded them was none other than the ferocious band of Micmac Indians,
to whom he had been sent by the French government, nominally as
missionary, but in reality that he might keep the Acadians, by fair
means or foul, in a continual state of rebellion to their easy-going
English rulers.
The murmurs died away into awed silence. Then, with a scornful lift of
the hand, Le Loutre turned from the boy and faced the trembling
villagers. His address at first was in the usual strain, only, if
possible, more intolerant and fanatic than at his last visit, and
Gabriel soon pushed impatiently out of the crowd, and flung himself down
upon the river’s bank. Presently, however, he found himself listening
intently. Here were threats more terrible, even, than of old. Gabriel
was brave; his father’s blood did not run in his veins for naught; but
for once he wondered not that his countrymen cowered beneath the lash of
that fierce tongue.
“The people of Acadia are the people of my mother,” he often said, “and
I love them. But they are cowards.”
And when he looked forth from the harbor mouth of Chebucto and swept
with his eyes the wide Atlantic, there burned in his young bosom a fire
that would have amazed his placid kinsmen had they known of it, content,
as they were, with the daily round of humble submission to the priests,
petty legal quarrels or equally petty gossip with the neighbors, and
daily tilling of the soil—a fire that was kindled a hundred years
before in one who sailed the seas with Raleigh, and which burned anew in
this young scion of an ancient race.
“I want to go, to see, to do!” he would cry, flinging wide his arms.
But now, as he gave unwilling ear to Le Loutre, his boyish heart sank.
Could the _abbé_ in truth fulfill these threats of driving the people to
French soil, whether they would or no? Could he force them, in the name
of God and the king, to forsake their pleasant homes in which the
English, whatever might be their crimes against the French, at least
allowed the Acadians to live in peace, unpunished too during all these
years for their want of loyalty to sworn allegiance? Gabriel’s eyes
traveled beyond that dominant figure, and dwelt upon the savage band of
“converts” gathered behind the priest. Yes, he could, and would!
Wrapt in his own thoughts, Gabriel noticed neither the dispersion of the
people nor the ominous fact that his grandfather, Pierre Grétin, was
accompanied on his homeward way by Le Loutre himself. His eyes were upon
the flowing river, and the light step of his Cousin Margot failed to
arouse him. Her sweet face was close to his, and her small hand on his
shoulder ere he stirred.
“Gabriel, I have somewhat to say to thee.”
“What is it, _ma mie_?”
“Wilt thou not depart to-night to thy friends whom thou dost sometimes
visit without the walls of the new Halifax, by the harbor called of us
Chebucto? There lives that English priest who taught thee discontent
with our blessed religion and with our beloved _curé_.”
“Not with our _curé_, Margot. He is good; he makes all religion
beautiful and true. But wouldst thou blame me because my heart turns to
the faith of my father? That in which my mother might have found courage
to rear me had she lived?”
“No, _mon cousin_, no, not blame. But grievous danger threatens all who
defy the _abbé_, and thee more than others, because of thy hated English
blood. But listen, Gabriel; dost thou indeed love Margot as though she
were thine own sister?”
The boy was silent a moment, then he answered simply:
“That I cannot tell thee, Margot, seeing that I never had a sister. But
I love thee as I love none other besides.”
“That is well,” she said with equal simplicity, “because to save thy
life for my sake thou must act contrary to thy nature.”
He sprang to his feet, his blue eyes flashing so that for a moment
Margot quailed before him.
“You would not have me play the coward and liar?” he cried. “That I
cannot do, even for thee. I am an Acadian—yes. Yet neither of these
things will I be!”
“I too am an Acadian,” replied the young girl with quiet dignity, “yet
am I not false. Timid I may be, for such is the wont of my sex.”
“Pardon, _ma cousine_, pardon,” exclaimed Gabriel remorsefully. “Thou
knowest how it is with me; my heart beats, and the words rush, and it is
all over.”
“Wilt thou never learn prudence?” she retorted, smiling. “We Acadians
have learned it in nigh forty years of lying helpless like a lamb
betwixt two snapping wolves.”
“Prudence, dost thou call it, Margot? My father called it by a harsher
name; and even my mother said that was a poor thing we did, to live, a
free people, under one flag; untaxed, ministered to by our own priests,
the very necessaries of life supplied to us, and yet intriguing, forever
intriguing, with those of the other flag.”
“The flag under which we live is an alien flag,” said gentle Margot.
“That may be; but have we ever been called upon to fight for it? And now
that we are summoned to swear the full oath of allegiance, we have
richly deserved this mild rebuke. The French are cruel; we go with them
only through fear of the Indians.”
“The _gran’-père_, he goes with none,” interposed the girl with a flash
of spirit. “He tills the soil in peace, meddling not with French or
English.”
“Ah, but even he will have to choose ere many days are past; the _abbé_
does not bring here his flock for naught. And,” cried the lad, clenching
his fists, “who would be a neutral? Not I!” Then more quietly: “Hast
thou not heard them tell, Margot, how when France yielded Acadia to
England we were free, all of us, to move within the year to French soil
if we would? But we would neither go nor remain and take the oath of
fealty; nevertheless we were permitted to stay unsworn for seventeen
years, intriguing then even as we do now. At last the oath was won from
us, and more than twenty years since then have come and gone, and once
again, because of our untruth and the cruelties practised upon English
settlers, the word has gone forth that we must swear anew. What kind of
a people, then are we, Margot, to be thus double-faced? Thirteen
thousand souls, and withal afraid of priests and Indians! Not daring,
not one of us, to play the man and come out boldly for the one flag or
the other. Oh, we are cowards—cowards all!”
He flung himself upon the ground and covered his face with his hands.
To simple, yet wise little Margot these bursts of passion on the part of
her cousin were almost incomprehensible. Her nature was a still, clear
pool, whilst his was as the young torrent leaping down the rocks,
unconscious of its own power, but eager to join the strong and swelling
stream beneath, upon whose bosom the great ships float down to the deep
sea. But although she did not understand, love gave her sympathy. She
kneeled beside him, and once more laid her hand upon his shoulder; but
the words she would have uttered died in her throat, and instead she
exclaimed in accents of terror:
“O Gabriel, Gabriel, arise. It is the _gran’-père_ who calls, and with
him is still the _abbé_.”
In an instant the lad was on his feet.
“Gabriel, _mon fils_!”
The thin, cracked voice floated across the meadows from the door of the
small hut, which was considered by even prosperous Acadians like Grétin
all-sufficient for the family needs. Without a moment’s hesitation
Gabriel took his cousin’s hand, and led her, half crying now, toward
their home, where the tall form of the priest was plainly visible,
towering over that of the grandfather.
* * * * *
These were stirring times for Acadie. Lord Cornwallis was governor of
the province—the Cornwallis described by Walpole as “a brave, sensible
young man, of great temper and good nature.” He needed to be all this
and more, for the Acadians were a difficult people to deal with.
Vacillating, ignorant, and priest-ridden, it was the easiest thing in
the world for the French to hold them in actual fact, while by treaty
ceding them to England, an alien power and race. Fear, however, played a
large part in French influence; and this was invariably the case
throughout the long dissensions betwixt France and England. Indian
savagery was winked at, even encouraged, by French authorities in their
dealings both with English and Acadians; and the fair escutcheon of
France was defaced by many a stain of blood cruelly, wantonly,
treacherously shed. That the Acadians should be in sympathy with France
rather than with England was natural; their wrong-doing consisted not in
that, but in their readiness to accept English protection while plotting
steadily with the French against the flag to which they had sworn fealty
rather than move to French soil. They were now in a somewhat sorry
plight.
The long-patient English government, through Cornwallis, was requiring
of them a fresh oath, and better faith in keeping it, if they continued
to reside in the province, whilst the governor of those French
possessions, now called Cape Breton and Prince Edward’s Island, was
using every means in his power, hideous threats included, to induce them
to come definitely under the French flag. What those means might
eventually be even such young creatures as Margot and Gabriel knew only
too well.
The cousins found their grandfather looking troubled and distressed, and
the priest still wearing the menacing air which had all that day awed
his village audience.
“It is full time you of Port Royal bethought you of your duty to your
religion and your king instead of forever quarreling among yourselves,
and enriching pettifogging men of law. But for thee, Grétin, though
special indulgence has ever been shown thee, it will be well that thou
shouldst take thought for thy family before it is too late. Thou knowest
my flock of old,” alluding to his savage converts, “and the kind of
lambs they are. Homes await the loyal subjects of God and the king on
the Isle of St. Jean and Isle Royale, and if they see not what is best
for their own souls’ good I have the means to make them see it!”
Grétin was both morally and intellectually the superior of those among
whom he lived, and he was also braver than his neighbors, but of what
avail is superiority when a man stands alone? It was for this reason,
combined with the habit of subjection to priestly authority, that he
replied hastily:
“Yes, _M. l’Abbé_, it is even as you say.
“This boy must be disciplined,” continued the priest sternly.
“Yes, _M. l’Abbé_, so it must be.”
It was at this moment that “the boy” presented himself, his head erect,
his face pale, and holding the hand of his cousin.
“Drop the maiden’s hand and follow me!” was the _abbé’s_ harsh
salutation. “I have that to say which is not for feminine ears.”
Gabriel obeyed, but there was something in his air which, though
promising submission, meant submission within definite limits.
Le Loutre entered the hut and closed the door on the peaceful, pastoral
scene without, lit up by the rays of the declining sun. Then seating
himself on a bench, rude and plain as were the furnishings of all the
homes of the frugal and industrious Acadians, however rich in land and
stock, he addressed Gabriel standing respectfully before him.
“What is thine age?”
“I shall be eighteen at the Christmastide.”
“Humph! a well-grown youth! Dost thou call thyself boy or man?”
An irrepressible smile curled Gabriel’s fresh lips, but he answered
demurely:
“Neither, _mon père_.”
“Dare not to trifle with me, son of a heretic!” broke out the priest,
his imperious temper rising. Accustomed to see all men cringe before
him, this lad’s fearless demeanor was particularly galling to Le Loutre.
He controlled himself again, however, and proceeded with that
persuasiveness of which when it suited him he was master:
“It is as man, not boy, I call upon thee this day to serve God and the
king, and to prove thyself worthy of the confidence I would repose in
thee. I give thee thy just due, thou hast a good courage, and it is men
of such mettle that Louis requires, _men_, hearest thou?”
Gabriel’s frank, yet searching, gaze was riveted on the priest’s face;
and so keen were those blue eyes that Le Loutre shifted his, momentarily
disconcerted. For perhaps the first time in his remarkable career he was
conscious of difficulty in explaining the righteousness, according to
his creed, of “doing evil that good may come.” Not that he himself
doubted; he was too honest a zealot for that; but in this case
explanation was somehow not easy.
“Thou knowest,” he said at length, “of this new oath that the heretics
would extort from God’s people. To keep them in the fold and preserve
their souls alive at any cost is my priestly duty; but in order to
accomplish this I must have loyal aid. My Micmacs waver, they have even
made a treaty with the English. This cannot be permitted to endure. It
is therefore the king’s wish that they be secretly encouraged to break
it, and to this end loyal Acadians in disguise must accompany them when
they go to Halifax. Later these same faithful subjects will continue
their work for the holy cause in the old way.”
Le Loutre paused and regarded Gabriel fixedly. The boy’s face was alight
with sudden comprehension. It was not the priest’s custom to speak
openly of his plans, but he was fully aware that he was now dealing with
no ordinary dull-witted Acadian peasant. What an invaluable ally this
half-heretic lad would be could he only mold him to his will.
Gabriel had not lived his brief span of life in Port Royal for nothing.
He already knew that Le Loutre was quite capable of using force to drive
the Acadians from their thriving farms to make new homes for themselves
on French soil, rather than that they should pledge their word to the
English again, even though that pledge might be broken as before. And
there was evidently some scheme more serious in process of hatching than
the well-worn one of painting and disguising Acadians and sending them
out with the Micmacs to plunder and slay English settlers. The ancient
farce of “Indian warfare” was to wear a new face. The existence of peace
between the two countries had never been any hindrance to French
scheming. Gabriel had only too vivid recollections of the fate of
certain Acadians, who had been cajoled or frightened into joining those
Indian war-parties, and who, when taken prisoner by the English, had
been disowned by the French and declared to have “acted of their own
accord.”
The lad’s heart was heavy within him. If he defied the priest and
refused to stoop to that which in his eyes was baseness and treachery,
his life would be made a torment, nay, perhaps forfeited, none could
foretell where Le Loutre would stop. And worse, far worse than this, the
_gran’-père_, hitherto well regarded by the bigoted priest and granted
many indulgences, would be ruthlessly hunted from the dear home to the
bleak, uncleared shores of Isle Royale, or, as the English named it,
Cape Breton. The _gran’-père_—he was old—he would certainly die
without the strong grandson to help him. And Margot? Ah, it was too
bitter! In spite of himself Gabriel covered his eyes with his hand as if
to shut out the frightful vision.
The face of Le Loutre glowed with triumph. He had not expected so easy a
victory. To his present scheme this youth, with his knowledge of the
English tongue and the customs of the fort, was well-nigh indispensable;
moreover, his intelligence and his sense of honor were alike keen, and
once pledged to him, the priest knew that he would never turn traitor.
Under pretense of trading in furs a French vessel had brought to Acadie
guns and ammunition enough to arm both Acadians and Indians, and the
latter were already being secretly bribed by the Intendant at Louisburg
through Le Loutre; for a signal act of treachery was now required of
them.
But the priest had triumphed too soon. When at length Gabriel raised his
head, though his young face looked almost ghostly in the dying light,
his eyes were shining with high resolve. Not that the path of duty was
as yet perfectly clear before him, or that he knew whither it might
lead, but he was resolute to take no other. Nevertheless he understood
that mere defiance would not help either himself or those far dearer
than self. Therefore he controlled himself and said quietly:
“_M. l’Abbé_ has without doubt heard of that _prêtre_ from the New
England who instructs a flock outside the walls of Halifax?”
Le Loutre scowled darkly.
“Art thou a heretic already? I feared as much.”
“No, _M. l’Abbé_,” replied the boy in the same restrained tones; “yet I
confess that the faith of my fathers holds much of interest for me. And
he is good, _monsieur_, oh, good! like our own beloved _curé_.”
Here he hesitated; then took courage, and went on rapidly:
“He bade me always to remember, even if I should not in the end turn to
my father’s faith, that one of its noblest commands is: Never do evil
that good may come. Also that my father obeyed that command. O _mon
père_, choose some one else for thy purpose; one who is not divided in
heart as I, but who hates the English as my blood will not let me do,
and to whom the Holy Catholic Church is the only church!”
For a moment it seemed as though the priest would strike the pleading
face upturned to his, so fierce a flame of wrath swept over him, but
instead he said with a sneer:
“And thou wouldst thrust the words of a heretic down the throat of a
priest of God and the king? There is but one explanation, boy, thou art
a coward!”
The hot blood surged into Gabriel’s cheeks. All his prudence was tossed
aside beneath the lash of that tongue. Flinging back his head he
confronted Le Loutre with an air which compelled, as it never had failed
to do, the reluctant admiration of the man to whom courage seemed the
best of God’s gifts to mortals.
“_M. l’Abbé_,” said the boy, in the low tones of an unbending resolve,
“I am no coward; but I should be both coward and liar were I to do your
bidding.”
For a breathing space the two pairs of eyes held one another like
wrestlers. Then:
“As thou wilt,” rejoined the priest coldly. “But forget not that no
traitors to God and the king can dwell at ease in Acadie. Mine are no
empty threats.”
He flung wide the door and called to the waiting Micmacs. As they
stepped out of the surrounding gloom, the pine torches carried by them
illuminated their ferocious countenances. Margot sprang forward and cast
herself upon her knees before the priest.
“O _mon père, mon père_, do with me what you will, inflict on me any
penance that seems unto you good; but spare, oh, spare my cousin, if
only for the sake of the _gran’-père_!”
The girl’s agonized pleading rang out into the night. Then, in a voice
rendered tremulous by years and infirmity, but still not devoid of
dignity, Grétin himself spoke.
“_M. l’Abbé_,” he said, “the boy is of heretic blood—yes. But also is
he of my blood—mine, who am a faithful servant of the true church. If
he has been led astray, I myself will see to it that he returns to the
fold. For he is a good lad, and the prop and staff of my old age.”
Le Loutre turned on the _gran’-père_ his piercing eyes.
“Thou hast reason, Grétin. Thou hast indeed been a faithful servant of
the church, but art thou that now? Do not thy religion and thy king
demand of thee that thou shouldst leave, with all that is thine, the air
breathed by pestilential heretics, and dost thou not still linger,
battening in their green pastures, yea, feeding from their hand? Art
thou, therefore, fit to be the guide of erring youth? It may be too,
that thou wilt have to suffer for his sin if he repent not.”
The old man bowed his head, and a low moan escaped him.
“Hurt not the lad,” he murmured. “He is as the very apple of my eye.”
“My Micmacs will look to his repentance,” retorted the priest grimly.
“In the saving of the soul the body may have to endure somewhat, but
holy church is merciful to the penitent.”
As he spoke Gabriel sprang from the detaining hands, of the Indians, and
kneeling at the feet of the old man, lifted the shriveled fingers and
laid them upon his own fair head.
“Bless me, even me, O _mon père_,” he cried.
But the _gran’-père_ fell upon his neck and wept.
“Oh, Gabriel, my son, my son!”
Before he could so much as speak to Margot, the Indians, at a sign from
Le Loutre, relentless always in the performance of what he believed to
be his duty and now enraged by defeat, seized the youth and disappeared
with him into the forest. Lingering only to make the sign of the cross
over the helpless and bereaved pair, Le Loutre himself followed.