"Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm
you spent upon it?"
"Yes, Noel, the result far surpasses my hopes, and I am impatient for
you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of
the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of
the Order."
"Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is
annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property
to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded
character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly
angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and
reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors
debtors."
"The same Noel Herriott of college days!"
"Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man
does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still
'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual
promotion?"
"I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple.
When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest
from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have
withheld--your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work."
"Meaning that nothing less than the three vows will assure you of my
safety?"
"That is beyond all that I ever dared to hope, but your cordial
approbation would cheer me more than the indorsement of any other man.
Generous though you are in financial assistance, your mental attitude
toward our Order is that of the smiling tolerance with which one watches
a child building a house of cards."
"However tentative my opinion relative to the scope and permanence of
your religious movement, you cannot doubt that I earnestly desire the
success to which the sanctity of your motive entitles you. Partial as I
am to gymnastic methods, I allow no athletic feats in my mental
processes; I neither run nor leap to conclusions, and you must give me
time. You and I always approach vital questions by different paths: you
lean generally to collectiveness; I usually prefer the slower leverage
of individualism. You are burning the candle of life at both ends, and
trying to realize your noble ideals; I plod far behind, with only a
feeble taper and indulge no higher hope than to idealize my realities."
"When will you come to the lovely home you have given us? There is one
room we have called 'Founder's,' and set apart for you; and, Noel, no
sun sets that has not brought us to our knees in prayer for you who made
it possible for us to own a chapel. When shall we welcome you?"
"Not now. I must go home, where matters need attention. Strange, is it
not, that the magic of a name should outlive all it represents? That
lonely old stone house staring at its shadow on the lake has no vital
element of home except my horses and dogs, and one Maltese cat that
sleeps in my arm-chair. When Nina married Senator Kent the last thread
that tied me to anything like domesticity snapped, and I followed my
bent and prowled from land to land."
"Why do you not marry some sweet, gentle woman and settle yourself?"
"Scarcely the advice one might expect from the priestly Father of an
Anglican celibate order. Has your creed narrowed to such alternatives?
Either a cell at Calvary or the snare and disillusions of marriage?
Unfortunately for me, women have exerted only a traditional influence on
my life. My own young mother died before I could remember her, and I was
consigned to tutors when I should have been trundling hoops. I went
early to college, and after father's second marriage was rarely at home;
hence my acquaintance with women in the home circle is nebulous and
legendary. As a boy I disdained sweethearts; as a man they disdain me.
The only woman I ever really cared for would no more marry me than a
stone slab in a cemetery; so, with many thanks, I cannot utilize your
counsel, and it only remains for you to keep a cell for me at Calvary.
Some day at eventide I may creep in, and you will kindly shrive and
bless me."
Mr. Herriott had been leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped
behind his head, and when he rose he towered six feet two inches,
smiling gravely at the upturned face of Father Temple, whose sombre
clerical habit contrasted vividly with the white yachting flannels worn
by his friend.
"Ah, Noel, what a Viking you look! Save prize fighting, is there
anything in the realm of athletics you have not accomplished?"
"I fear you would not compliment me with even that civilized exception
if you had seen a skirmish, minus weapons, that I had with a hairy,
tattooed Dyak in a Borneo jungle where I hunted orchids. Vernon, if you
trained your muscles more, and let up a little on your soul, allowed it
a breathing spell, you would not look so flaccid and anaemic. Don't
prefer monkish Latin to Juvenal: _mens sana in corpore sano_! You
observe, respect for your Reverence prevents my offering you the
Rabelais parody. Come, dine with me to-night."
"No, thank you. I am to give a brief 'retreat.' Tell me about my cousin
Eglah; you crossed the ocean in the same steamer."
"You have not seen her?"
"For a few moments only. She is a beautiful girl."
"What remains to be said--since you accord her the mantle of beauty,
whose folds, broader even than charity's, hide all defects? Where shall
I begin? Being her cousin, you must know what I have merely heard: that
she swept through college like a southern tornado--or should I have said
like a meteor?--carrying off the honors, and was the youngest graduate
who had ever turned the heads of the spectacled lecturers. Yet it
appears she values her trophy merely because her laurels pleased her
father, at whose feet she sits in adoration. In her physique, gymnastic
training leaves nothing to be improved; she won badges, and can hold her
own at basket-ball, tennis, rowing, and swimming. Is not the catalogue
complete? So much for mental attainments and physical perfection, but in
the domain of womanly emotions she is simply an unknown quantity--a
latter-day sphinx, fresh and fair before drifting desert sands deface
her. If a lover should ever win her heart he will certainly be entitled
to it, by the supreme right of discovery. Her affection for Judge Kent
absolutely rules her, and in one respect she is unique, she is as
utterly incapable of flirtations as an unfledged owl."
"On account of the family connection you have been thrown so intimately
into her society that I hoped you could tell me something of her
religious tendencies."
"I am such a confirmed tramp that my visits to the family have been
brief and interrupted by long absences. Eglah always appealed peculiarly
to my sympathy because of the pathetic antagonism of her environment.
Your cousin, Judge Kent, was very much disliked at the South, where
sectional political rancor was, is, and will be rife, and his child
suffered keenly on that account. When she came north to live, her social
surroundings were even worse, because she furiously resented every
reflection upon the people of the South, where the Maurices were
conspicuous in war records. Her efforts at loyalty all around the circle
have not made smooth sailing for her, and her motives were doubtless
complex. You are curious about her 'religious tendencies'? If you are
wise you will not stir any Calvary leaven into the pure sweet flour of
her soul, unless you covet war _a outrance_ with that nondescript
personage Mrs. Mitchell--an anomalous blend, alert as a lynx, wary as a
fox, stealthy as a cougar--who serves Eglah in divers and sundry
capacities: an amalgamated foster-mother, housekeeper, maid, companion,
chaperon, and confidante. She is a Simon-pure puritan, prim as
Priscilla, and her processes of reasoning are quite as broad as the edge
of a razor. That she viciously opposes all forms of 'ritualism' I happen
to know from listening to a discussion between her and Eglah, in which
the whole bundle of dogmas was thrashed out, from 'historic episcopate'
and 'confession' to incense, candles, and 'reservation of the
sacrament.' What a pile of chaff they built! Eglah's appreciation of
sensuous beauty and classical music inclines her to gorgeous vestments,
jewelled windows, and the rhythmic chanting of choristers that lift
their chins like Raphael's cherubs, but Mrs. Mitchell finds in the
severe simplicity of her own tabernacle an added sanctity, and your
Calvary House will be to her that of Rimmon. In Rome Judge Kent had a
touch of fever which frightened Eglah into telegraphing for me at Basle,
where I was attending a scientific congress, so we came home together."
"If Eglah's enthusiasm could be aroused in our mission work, she would
wield an incalculable power for good."
"Vernon--pardon the lapse into argot--'don't!' Let the child pick her
own way to peace. She is not addicted to enthusiasms: one attack long
ago destroyed her susceptibility to subsequent seizures; she can be
enthusiastic over only one teraph--her father. Must you go? Wait a
moment. Friendship is frank, and I am sorry to see you losing the vigor
that in college days distinguished you. Fast less, and sleep more. Come
home with me and hunt and fish and row, and let other people's souls
enjoy a vacation."
As they shook hands Father Temple asked:
"And what have scientific congresses done for your soul, Noel?"
"Drawn me closer, I hope, to the Creator whose subtle and inexorable
laws are best revealed to the faithful student that fearlessly analyzes
His universal work. The sole aim of scientists is 'to admit nothing
false, and to omit nothing true.' Vernon, have faith in me as of old,
and keep a cell whitewashed for me at Calvary House. Truly--
"So many paths lead up to God,
'Twere strange if any soul should miss them all."
With his hand on the stair rail the minister paused and looked back.
"One thing I wish to ask is whether Eglah had any special admirers
abroad? American heiresses are attractive."
"She had as many beaux as she chose to permit. Two attaches of American
legations were particularly attentive, and a handsome English naval
officer whose father is a duke will doubtless cross the ocean to renew
his acquaintance. Possess your soul in patience. Her heart is as sound
asleep as when she dreamed in her crib, and the man who wakes and wins
it will travel no macadamized road. Before Lent she will be in New York
for a week, and when Congress adjourns the family will come to me on the
Lake for a visit."
Given a man of thirty-three, unusually good-looking, possessing by
inheritance a large fortune, dowered with infinite leisure upon which no
professional duties laid intrusive claim, handicapped by no church
obligations, and the world assumes that he has inevitably run the gamut
of those iniquities set by Satan as snares for the idle rich. Intensely
virile as was Noel Herriott, his polished placidity of manner and
courteous conservatism masked in some degree the strength and tenacious
obstinacy of a character that presented enigmatical phases to those who
knew him best. Heredity and education had combined in kneading him
physically, mentally, and morally along rather peculiar curves during
the plastic period of boyhood, and the finishing touches that determined
the mould came from his parting interview with his Presbyterian father,
when Fergus Herriott sent him away to college.
"My son, God gave you a remarkably fine body. Neither neglect nor abuse
it, but be sure you master it from the start, else you will be the slave
of your own flesh. Bad habits are the leeches that would suck a Hercules
to effeminacy. Steer as clear of the sins labelled "Thou shalt not" as
you would of that leper island down in the Pacific. The ten commandments
are equal links in the moral chain, and it is no man's privilege to pick
and choose which he will break or which he will keep; because if he
violates one, it is merely a question of temptation, necessity, and
opportunity when he will transgress all. If he bears false witness and
lies, he will steal money as he filched character; if he covets his
neighbor's wife, the time comes when he murders her husband. _Falsus in
uno, falsus in omnibus._ You are going where you will hear much fine
talk about 'lofty, broadening, philosophic ideals' and 'progressive,
altruistic standards of humanitarianism and honor.' Now mark you, God's
laws are not 'progressive,' they are absolutely fixed, and when you are
as old as I am you will have learned that 'man's honor,' unless based on
them, is merely a sliding scale set up on a quicksand. My boy, try to
lead such a clean life that when the mirror of records is held up to you
in the final judgment you will not squirm and want to look the other
way; and now, my last word is, you had the great misfortune to lose your
dear, sweet mother in this world--be sure you deserve to find her in the
next."
During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a
folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped,
old-fashioned writing.
"Be honest first, then generous--never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals
and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable
mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy.
Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that
a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible
self-respect."
Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed
"Souls were dangerous things to carry straight
Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;"
but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a
certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his
classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir
Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn
courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never
suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused,
well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his
father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon
after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden
key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have
chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant
scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology.
His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of
aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially
pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several
European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America,
Pacific Islands, and British North America.
Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established
temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old
Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the
property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained
in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New
York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they
relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully
run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation,
and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some
degree to the easy _camaraderie_ maintained between Eglah and himself:
on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his
that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate
love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the
little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that
flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had
opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt--save the
memory of his father--he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered
silent homage.