When he reached the college the Angelus had long since rung. In the
corridor he met one of the Fathers, who, instead of questioning him,
returned his salutation with a grave gentleness that struck him. He
had turned into Father Sobriente's quiet study with the intention of
reporting himself, when he was disturbed to find him in consultation
with three or four of the faculty, who seemed to be thrown into some
slight confusion by his entrance. Clarence was about to retire hurriedly
when Father Sobriente, breaking up the council with a significant glance
at the others, called him back. Confused and embarrassed, with a dread
of something impending, the boy tried to avert it by a hurried account
of his meeting with Susy, and his hopes of Father Sobriente's counsel
and assistance. Taking upon himself the idea of suggesting Susy's
escapade, he confessed the fault. The old man gazed into his frank eyes
with a thoughtful, half-compassionate smile. “I was just thinking
of giving you a holiday with--with Don Juan Robinson.” The unusual
substitution of this final title for the habitual “your cousin” struck
Clarence uneasily. “But we will speak of that later. Sit down, my son;
I am not busy. We shall talk a little. Father Pedro says you are
getting on fluently with your translations. That is excellent, my son,
excellent.”
Clarence's face beamed with relief and pleasure. His vague fears began
to dissipate.
“And you translate even from dictation! Good! We have an hour to spare,
and you shall give to me a specimen of your skill. Eh? Good! I will walk
here and dictate to you in my poor English, and you shall sit there and
render it to me in your good Spanish. Eh? So we shall amuse and instruct
ourselves.”
Clarence smiled. These sporadic moments of instruction and admonition
were not unusual to the good Father. He cheerfully seated himself at
the Padre's table before a blank sheet of paper, with a pen in his hand.
Father Sobriente paced the apartment, with his usual heavy but noiseless
tread. To his surprise, the good priest, after an exhaustive pinch of
snuff, blew his nose, and began, in his most lugubrious style of pulpit
exhortation:--
“It has been written that the sins of the father shall be visited upon
the children, and the unthinking and worldly have sought refuge from
this law by declaring it harsh and cruel. Miserable and blind! For do we
not see that the wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vainglory
is willing to risk punishment to HIMSELF--and believes it to be
courage--must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equal
suffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer for? In
the spectacle of these innocents struggling against disgrace, perhaps
disease, poverty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defying
spirit? Let us imagine, Clarence.”
“Sir?” said the literal Clarence, pausing in his exercise.
“I mean,” continued the priest, with a slight cough, “let the thoughtful
man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws
of God and society--keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he
called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of
human weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody--a gambler by profession,
an outlaw among men, an outcast from the Church; voluntarily abandoning
friends and family,--the wife he should have cherished, the son he
should have reared and educated--for the gratification of his deadly
passions. Yet imagine that man suddenly confronted with the thought
of that heritage of shame and disgust which he had brought upon his
innocent offspring--to whom he cannot give even his own desperate
recklessness to sustain its vicarious suffering. What must be the
feelings of a parent--”
“Father Sobriente,” said Clarence softly.
To the boy's surprise, scarcely had he spoken when the soft protecting
palm of the priest was already upon his shoulder, and the snuffy but
kindly upper lip, trembling with some strange emotion, close beside his
cheek.
“What is it, Clarence?” he said hurriedly. “Speak, my son, without fear!
You would ask--”
“I only wanted to know if 'padre' takes a masculine verb here,” replied
Clarence naively.
Father Sobriente blew his nose violently. “Truly--though used for either
gender, by the context masculine,” he responded gravely. “Ah,” he added,
leaning over Clarence, and scanning his work hastily, “Good, very good!
And now, possibly,” he continued, passing his hand like a damp sponge
over his heated brow, “we shall reverse our exercise. I shall deliver
to you in Spanish what you shall render back in English, eh? And--let us
consider--we shall make something more familiar and narrative, eh?”
To this Clarence, somewhat bored by these present solemn abstractions,
assented gladly, and took up his pen. Father Sobriente, resuming his
noiseless pacing, began:
“On the fertile plains of Guadalajara lived a certain caballero,
possessed of flocks and lands, and a wife and son. But, being also
possessed of a fiery and roving nature, he did not value them as he did
perilous adventure, feats of arms, and sanguinary encounters. To this
may be added riotous excesses, gambling and drunkenness, which in time
decreased his patrimony, even as his rebellious and quarrelsome spirit
had alienated his family and neighbors. His wife, borne down by shame
and sorrow, died while her son was still an infant. In a fit of equal
remorse and recklessness the caballero married again within the year.
But the new wife was of a temper and bearing as bitter as her consort.
Violent quarrels ensued between them, ending in the husband abandoning
his wife and son, and leaving St. Louis--I should say Guadalajara--for
ever. Joining some adventurers in a foreign land, under an assumed name,
he pursued his reckless course, until, by one or two acts of outlawry,
he made his return to civilization impossible. The deserted wife and
step-mother of his child coldly accepted the situation, forbidding his
name to be spoken again in her presence, announced that he was dead, and
kept the knowledge of his existence from his own son, whom she placed
under the charge of her sister. But the sister managed to secretly
communicate with the outlawed father, and, under a pretext, arranged
between them, of sending the boy to another relation, actually
dispatched the innocent child to his unworthy parent. Perhaps stirred by
remorse, the infamous man--”
“Stop!” said Clarence suddenly.
He had thrown down his pen, and was standing erect and rigid before the
Father.
“You are trying to tell me something, Father Sobriente,” he said, with
an effort. “Speak out, I implore you. I can stand anything but this
mystery. I am no longer a child. I have a right to know all. This that
you are telling me is no fable--I see it in your face, Father Sobriente;
it is the story of--of--”
“Your father, Clarence!” said the priest, in a trembling voice.
The boy drew back, with a white face. “My father!” he repeated. “Living,
or dead?”
“Living, when you first left your home,” said the old man hurriedly,
seizing Clarence's hand, “for it was he who in the name of your cousin
sent for you. Living--yes, while you were here, for it was he who for
the past three years stood in the shadow of this assumed cousin, Don
Juan, and at last sent you to this school. Living, Clarence, yes; but
living under a name and reputation that would have blasted you! And
now DEAD--dead in Mexico, shot as an insurgent and in a still desperate
career! May God have mercy on his soul!”
“Dead!” repeated Clarence, trembling, “only now?”
“The news of the insurrection and his fate came only an hour since,”
continued the Padre quickly; “his complicity with it and his identity
were known only to Don Juan. He would have spared you any knowledge of
the truth, even as this dead man would; but I and my brothers thought
otherwise. I have broken it to you badly, my son, but forgive me?”
An hysterical laugh broke from Clarence and the priest recoiled before
him. “Forgive YOU! What was this man to me?” he said, with boyish
vehemence. “He never LOVED me! He deserted me; he made my life a lie.
He never sought me, came near me, or stretched a hand to me that I could
take?”
“Hush! hush!” said the priest, with a horrified look, laying his huge
hand upon the boy's shoulder and bearing him down to his seat. “You know
not what you say. Think--think, Clarence! Was there none of all those
who have befriended you--who were kind to you in your wanderings--to
whom your heart turned unconsciously? Think, Clarence! You yourself
have spoken to me of such a one. Let your heart speak again, for his
sake--for the sake of the dead.”
A gentler light suffused the boy's eyes, and he started. Catching
convulsively at his companion's sleeve, he said in an eager, boyish
whisper, “There was one, a wicked, desperate man, whom they all
feared--Flynn, who brought me from the mines. Yes, I thought that he
was my cousin's loyal friend--more than all the rest; and I told him
everything--all, that I never told the man I thought my cousin, or
anyone, or even you; and I think, I think, Father, I liked him best
of all. I thought since it was wrong,” he continued, with a trembling
smile, “for I was foolishly fond even of the way the others feared him,
he that I feared not, and who was so kind to me. Yet he, too, left me
without a word, and when I would have followed him--” But the boy broke
down, and buried his face in his hands.
“No, no,” said Father Sobriente, with eager persistence, “that was his
foolish pride to spare you the knowledge of your kinship with one so
feared, and part of the blind and mistaken penance he had laid upon
himself. For even at that moment of your boyish indignation, he never
was so fond of you as then. Yes, my poor boy, this man, to whom God led
your wandering feet at Deadman's Gulch; the man who brought you here,
and by some secret hold--I know not what--on Don Juan's past, persuaded
him to assume to be your relation; this man Flynn, this Jackson Brant
the gambler, this Hamilton Brant the outlaw--WAS YOUR FATHER! Ah,
yes! Weep on, my son; each tear of love and forgiveness from thee hath
vicarious power to wash away his sin.”
With a single sweep of his protecting hand he drew Clarence towards
his breast, until the boy slowly sank upon his knees at his feet. Then,
lifting his eyes towards the ceiling, he said softly in an older tongue,
“And THOU, too, unhappy and perturbed spirit, rest!”
* * * * *
It was nearly dawn when the good Padre wiped the last tears from
Clarence's clearer eyes. “And now, my son,” he said, with a gentle
smile, as he rose to his feet, “let us not forget the living. Although
your step-mother has, through her own act, no legal claim upon you, far
be it from me to indicate your attitude towards her. Enough that YOU are
independent.” He turned, and, opening a drawer in his secretaire, took
out a bank-book, and placed it in the hands of the wondering boy.
“It was HIS wish, Clarence, that even after his death you should never
have to prove your kinship to claim your rights. Taking advantage of
the boyish deposit you had left with Mr. Carden at the bank, with his
connivance and in your name he added to it, month by month and year by
year; Mr. Carden cheerfully accepting the trust and management of the
fund. The seed thus sown has produced a thousandfold, Clarence, beyond
all expectations. You are not only free, my son, but of yourself and in
whatever name you choose--your own master.”
“I shall keep my father's name,” said the boy simply.
“Amen!” said Father Sobriente.
Here closes the chronicle of Clarence Brant's boyhood. How he sustained
his name and independence in after years, and who, of those already
mentioned in these pages, helped him to make or mar it, may be a matter
for future record.