Beyond this comforting assurance of my religion, there was but one idea
floating through my confused and fever-consumed brain, and that was a
longing vision rather than an idea--a vision of my mother's downy,
rose-scented beds; and then, as next best, of the heaps of feathers,
covered with gay Indian blankets, which constituted the pride of the
Kaskaskian homes. Oh, to feel a thick pillow under my head, to stretch
my aching limbs on the yielding feathers! It was the one thing in life I
wanted. I longed for rest as a tired infant longs for his mother's soft
breast, and tender arms. The hope of it alone gave me courage to drag my
weighted feet over the last two miles of our way.
It was a little strange that the realization of the bliss of repose was
my first conscious thought after an illness of many days, so that I
could never realize that more than a night had intervened between the
longing and the realization, the agony and the relief. My first
conscious moment lasted just long enough for me to appreciate the
comfort of my couch; almost immediately I sank again into sleep or
unconsciousness. The next time I came to myself I was not only wide
awake, but alert and curious as I opened my eyes to note my
surroundings. They were rough limed walls with a low sloping ceiling;
bright-hued Indian rugs were upon the floor, and half-burned logs on
heavy dog-irons, with sputtering candle ends, burning upon a round
stand, in the farthest corner. In the shadow of the corner sat a figure,
its head against the wall. Some one had been good enough to sit up all
the night with me, and now that day was breaking, his eyes could be kept
open no longer, and he had fallen into a doze. I would be very quiet and
not wake him.
Presently the figure stirred, rose and came to the bedside. I recognized
Clark, even in the dimness of the gray dawn.
"You have been watching me, my Colonel?" I questioned, trying to smile,
and to put out the hand that was too feeble to answer to my will. Clark
came closer, saw my purpose, gave my hand a warm pressure, and lifted me
a little higher on my pillows.
"Have I been very ill?" I asked.
"You have been near enough the happy hunting ground to know the way, my
lad. But, thank God, you are better, and will live long enough, I trust,
to forget the route before you take another journey in that direction."
"Where are we?"
"In Kaskaskia, in one of the loft rooms of the Commandant's house."
"Is Ellen below?"
"Yes, and asleep, I hope; she and Angelique tend you by day, Legere,
Givens and I by night; but you must not talk yet a while; that's Dr.
Lafonte's orders. Drink this and go to sleep."
I obeyed like a child, settling myself deeper in the feathers, with a
sigh of content.
Upon my third awaking, I recognized Ellen's voice, and felt her soft
hand upon my brow.
"Ellen!" I whispered, and opened my eyes to look at the face bending
above mine with the rapture a saint might feel upon seeing some beatific
vision, long prayed for.
"Do not talk, Cousin Donald," she said, beaming a smile of cheerful
affection upon me; "Dr. Lafonte says you must be very quiet for a few
days more."
I managed, despite my weakness, to get hold of her hand, and clung to it
feebly. "I will be perfectly quiet," I answered in tones so weak that I
wondered if it could be really I who was speaking, "if you will sit
beside me and hold my hand."
She smiled, flushed a little, and as she held a glass of cordial to my
lips said coaxingly, "If you'll drink this and go to sleep, I will."
Then she sat down beside me, and held my nerveless fingers in her warm,
soft clasp, till I was dreaming an odd jumble of pleasant visions
through all of which flitted Ellen's face and form.
This sort of half dream life went on I know not how long. I only
remember an incident here and there--floating faces, cups held to my
lips, and then the pleasant drifting off into long periods of dreamless
rest. At last I was strong enough to sit part of each day in a
high-backed chair, and after that I saw little of Ellen. She came twice
each day for a brief visit, but Angelique brought my broth and wine,
helped me from bed to chair, smoothed my pillows, and sometimes sang me
to sleep with wild, sweet Acadian ballads. Clark came in and out with
cheery presence, and encouraging words--but now that summer had come
again he had more affairs to administer, and so less time to give me.
Givens would linger, though, when he came on his daily visit, to tell me
the gossip of the village, of which the half wild, half drowsy life
suited him well. Legere and others visited me almost daily, and my
monotonous life was not a lonely one, though forced inaction grew more
and more irksome as my strength returned.
"Clark," I said to him one day, "I can't stand this suspense any longer.
I want to know all, even if it be the worst. Since I am better, Ellen
comes in only when others are here, and makes prompt excuses to get
away. Her kindness is barely cousinly. And you too seem to avoid being
left alone with me. Have you spoken to Ellen?"
"Yes, I have spoken--though to do so, comported not fairly with our
compact. But my feelings overmastered me. I have avoided telling you
till you should be stronger."
"I am strong enough now," I answered, though I trembled from head to
foot; "tell me all--and quickly."
"It was one evening when we thought you dying. I followed her from the
room, and was moved to tell her your last words to me--when you left her
to my care, and bade me give her perfect freedom in the disposition of
her life, but left us your blessing could she love me enough to link her
fate with mine. She wept afresh at the recital of your words; and then
with friendly candor there was no mistaking, thanked me for my love, and
accepted my offer of protection, even while she told me that whether you
lived or died there was no hope for me. Her quiet decision awed me, and
forced back all the protestations I had formulated against her vow of
nunnery. She declared it was no rash or hasty one, made to be repented
of, but that she held it to be more sacred and binding than any other
claim upon her heart and life, and that she waited only for your
restoration to health to go, under Father Gibault's escort, and yours,
if you would, to the convent at Quebec."
"Comrade," I said, putting out my shaking hand to clasp his, "that is
not the news I expected--but it is much more distressing to me."
"Perhaps I am wrong to tell you, and am but making the harder for you
the final disappointment," continued Clark after a silence of some
moments, during which he seemed to be thinking deeply, "but I am not
convinced that Ellen looks forward to the life of a nun. I believe she
once made a foolish vow and thinks it sacrilege to break it. And if I
can read a woman's heart through her face, McElroy, Ellen O'Neil feels
for you a tenderness that is neither usual nor natural for a woman to
feel towards one she regards only as a distant kinsman. I believe she
loves you--yet I cannot honestly say I think you will win her. Her will
is strong, and her religion has so far been the dominant principle of
her life. One side of her nature is fitted to the martyr's role, the
other side is strongly human--throbs with the full current of youth,
loves daring and doing, experiencing and enjoying, even as you and I.
Which part of her complex nature will triumph I cannot foresee. This I
can say honestly, comrade," and Clark laid a hand upon my knee, and his
truth-speaking eyes looked straight into mine, "even with my own
grievous disappointment fresh upon me, I would see Ellen the happy and
joy-giving wife of my true-hearted friend with delight, compared to the
feeling with which I shall see her the self-immolated 'bride of the
church'--which is, in my opinion, but another name for victim to
superstition and priestly tyranny. The fates grant that you may win her,
McElroy."
An hour I sat in deep thought--then I made my vow. If in Ellen's heart
there dwelt but the weakest germ of love for me, it should grow on until
it uprooted all other influences. I bade the whole Roman Church
defiance. A girl's superstition to come between Ellen and her life's
fulfillment? between me and lifelong happiness? I swore it should not
be! She should love me more and more till love mastered her, choking
superstition and conquering her will. Once convinced, she would see it
all as I did, and be glad all her life that I had saved her from a fatal
mistake. I girded myself afresh for the conflict, as it were, each hour
of the days that followed, and planned my campaign against a maiden's
heart as carefully as a general plans an advance into the enemy's
country. My first move must be to keep her from reaching a final
decision as long as possible; my second to take her, upon some pretext,
back to the valley with me.
Meanwhile I hastened my recovery by every means possible, watching
impatiently the summer moving on to autumn. From my window I could see
the slow, gliding river, glancing in the sun's rays, and the stagnant,
spreading bayous, gay with spotted lilies, and fringed with swaying
grasses, while birds, as gayly colored as the blossoms, rode blithely
upon the springy reeds. The meadows were green with waving corn, or
yellow with the ripened grass, and the rich odor of the wild grapes came
upon the breeze with other and more elusive fragrances. But gliding
river, reed-fringed bayou, and luxuriant meadow, were not half so fair
to my real vision as the dear valley to my imaginary one. I longed to
see the undulating blue ranges, and the varied landscape, with the
comfortable farmhouses dotted over it. I was eager to be off for home,
to hear the late news from the war, and to bear Ellen away from Romish
influences.
At last spirit could wait the body's leisure no longer, and though still
weak and emaciated, I made a firm resolve to start for home within a
week or two. Then I sent Angelique with a message to Ellen, demanding a
private interview.
"Your message is earnest, almost peremptory, Cousin Donald," said Ellen,
coming in with a playful smile on her lips; "am I to have another
scolding, and for what? My conscience acquits me this time; I have
stopped coquetting with the officers, or walking alone without the
village; therefore I know not what wrong I have done to deserve a
kinsman's reprimand."
"'Tis not to scold, but to entreat that I have sent for you, Ellen," I
replied. "Will you sit down here before me, and give me your serious
attention for a brief while?" Perhaps it was the tone of my voice, or it
may have been that my face betrayed me, for Ellen flushed and dropped
her lids an instant over her eyes, as she took the chair I had
indicated, yet saying with an air of banter:
"My 'serious attention,' Cousin Donald? You plead for it as if 'twere a
rare favor, and one most difficult to obtain;--am I so seldom serious?"
"Two weeks from to-day, Ellen, I start back to Virginia," ignoring her
playful manner; "my duty calls me thither; but I cannot leave you here
in Kaskaskia without lawful guardian or protector. You have long known,
Ellen, that I love you with my whole being, that the dearest and most
sacred wish of my heart is to make you my wife. Will you marry me,
Ellen, and go back to Virginia to a home of your own, with the
protection and constant devotion of one whose whole life shall be
dedicated to your happiness?"
The flush on Ellen's cheeks leaped upward to her brow in a flame of
crimson; her eyes grew darker; and upon her face came a look of mingled
sorrow, yearning and resolve.
"Oh, my cousin, have I not said it often enough," with the
sob-suggesting catch, vibrating like harp tones through her words--"that
never can I be wife to any man? Do even you believe that all this time I
have been jesting on a subject so sacred--that I have but used pretense
of holy calling as a coquettish wile to lure men on? Yet how can I find
fault with you for having thought so, since my life has so belied my
words? I have been naught but a frivolous coquette these months past--as
if I would get all of worldly triumph, and food for vanity possible out
of my life, during the respite which circumstances have afforded me from
the fulfillment of my vow. Mine has been lip service, only, not yet have
I known true heart consecration. But I will know it, Donald, will
possess the true nun's heart, if all of self must be immolated by hourly
chastisement and self-denial to achieve it. I have solemnly pledged my
life to prayer, and penance, and holy service. Will not you, Cousin
Donald, my only friend and protector, my one source of human strength,
help me to keep my vow to God?" and she clasped her hands in passionate
entreaty, and lifted moist eyes and trembling lips to my serious gaze.
"Dear Ellen!" and I spoke with a new emotion of respect for the depth of
her feeling, "I want more than aught else to help you, but I do not
fully understand, nor see the reason for your being so determined, and
feeling so strongly--will you not tell me all, so that I can better
understand you? When was this vow you speak of made?"
"That bitter night I was lost upon the mountain, when, numb with cold,
and shaken with terror of the wolves pursuing us, I fell from the
rearing horse, frightened too by the wild beasts, and lay there in agony
of fear and pain, through long hours, listening to the wolves, as they
chased the poor horse, and each moment expecting to feel their fangs in
my flesh. I prayed as never I had prayed before, to the Holy Virgin and
her sacred Son, promising to consecrate all the rest of my life to
prayer and humble service, in some rigorous convent, if they would send
me deliverance from a violent death. Even as I prayed I fell into sleep,
or unconsciousness, and awoke in Father Givens' house. He nursed me back
to health, and I had it in my mind to induce him to take me to Baltimore
to the Convent of the Sacred Heart, had you not come by with the message
from Mr. Jefferson. I saw the scout's desire was to go with you, and I
would not stand between him and his wish. Already he had done too much
for a willful girl who had no claim upon his charities, save the claim
of common humanity. I gave all my energies to persuading him that a life
of adventure appealed to me even more strongly than the life of a
convent retreat, and so fed his inclination to join in the adventure
that he could not resist it. At last he consented to purchase for me the
coveted disguise as his foster son, and when once he had seen me wear
it, and watched my rifle practice, he grew interested in my plans, and
made no further difficulty.
"For the first weeks I was buoyed by the spirit of excitement, and
enjoyed the free, outdoor life I had been accustomed to as a child. Not
until you and Thomas joined us did I realize the boldness of my deed. I
dreaded to have you find me out, yet I could not bear to be left behind
in Kentucky. What the result might be haunted my thoughts and my dreams.
Again I added daily vows to daily prayers. Were I safely delivered once
more, delivered from the coil of questionable circumstances with which I
had rashly surrounded myself, I would without delay, find my way to some
peaceful convent and atone for all my willful past by years of devout
consecration. You know how wonderfully I was delivered--was spared even
blame or question; how fortunately I have since been placed.
"Were not all my prayers heard and answered? Dare I then break my
vows--lie to the holy Virgin and her sacred Son? Accept divine
deliverance, and repay with broken promises, violated oaths? Could you
love and trust a wife who would come to you with a sacrilege upon her
conscience?"
"My dear one!" answering her solemnly, as she had spoken, and taking the
fluttering fingers firmly in my own to still them; "I will not ask you
to violate a vow you regard so sacredly. I will live all my life with an
unsatisfied longing, an aching, hungry heart, rather than to say one
word to urge you against your conscience. But I think you reason and
feel morbidly. Is there no other life of consecration to God's service
for a woman than that to be found behind convent walls? Think you the
life of wife and mother less holy, less self-sacrificing, of less savory
incense to God than that of a nun?
"What service can a nun render to God that a consecrated wife and mother
may not offer Him? Prayer? Does not the wife pray with added fervor--for
herself, that she may live a worthy exemplar to those she loves--for
them, with more earnest zeal because love prompts each petition--and for
all the world more fervently because those she lives for are a part of
it. Deeds of unselfish charity? Are they less in God's sight, believe
you, than the daily immolation of her own wishes which each true wife
practices upon the altar of domestic duty. And what need we most in this
new world? Is it not consecrated men and women to spend all the powers
of their being for peace, purity and enlightenment? We hope to found in
this virgin land a wondrous republic where freedom of conscience and
equal opportunities will be offered to the downtrodden of all nations.
But we may not hope to perpetuate such republic, unless there be noble
women--women of the unusual intelligence and gifts with which God has
honored you--to strive with us toward that ideal."
"There is truth in most you say, Donald," a glow answering mine on her
face, her hands still and warm now in mine; "you move me always by your
calm reasoning. Yet I am bound by my vow. Did I let my selfish
inclinations plead, I might easily persuade myself that your logic is as
true for me as it would be for another, not so solemnly pledged as I am.
But the very leaning of desire warns me to guard my sacred promises the
more sturdily against temptation." In her earnestness she did not
realize the half confession she had made, but my heart leaped within me,
and a quiver of joy thrilled to my finger tips.
"Tell me, Ellen," and I held her hands in a tighter clasp, and claimed
the full gaze of her eyes, "had you never made this vow, could you
consent to be my wife--would there have been hope of happiness for me?"
"Oh, Donald!" a cry of entreaty, following the blush that swam upward to
the roots of her hair, "it is not fair to ask me--you have promised to
help me--you should not make my duty so hard--so very hard for me."
I kissed the hands now cold and trembling again, not with passion, but
with reverence on my lips, and laid them gently on her knee; then said,
with a mighty effort at self-control--for I would have given the world
to take her in my arms, and dared hope she would find it hard to resist
me:
"Forgive me, Ellen; I will ask you nothing; you shall follow your duty
as you see it. If you feel your promise binds you to the utmost
self-sacrifice, I shall use no power your confidence has given me to
persuade you from your duty. But why should you remain in this
wilderness unprotected--for I must needs follow my soldier's duty back
to Virginia--waiting the uncertain chance of safe convoy to Quebec, when
you could go under my escort to the valley, stay there with your lawful
protectors till the war is over, and then be escorted by them, with due
consent and proper honor to your chosen retreat in Baltimore? There you
will not only have wider sphere of usefulness among people of your own
race and language, but you will be near your parents' graves and in
reach of your relatives, should they need you, or you them. There I
might even visit you sometimes--it would be a consolation and a joy had
I only the happiness to hold your hand an instant, and to catch the old
dear smile through the grating of convent bars.
"Moreover, Ellen, though I say this not in harshness, you would feel, I
think, surer of God's blessing on your sacrifice if you were to enter
your holy life at peace with all men--without bitterness in your heart
toward the unfaithful guardians to whom your parents left you."
"That thought has troubled me," said Ellen, tears springing to her eyes,
and making a soft film over their velvet blueness; "it does not seem
meet for me to take the sacred veil with a spirit unforgiving and
unforgiven. I would welcome the opportunity to beg Uncle Thomas'
forgiveness, and to apologize to Aunt Martha for my willfulness. I had
no wish, believe me, Donald, to cause them suffering. I thought to
relieve Uncle Thomas of an obstacle to his domestic happiness, and Aunt
Martha of a source of much annoyance. Remorse has pursued me since I
knew of Thomas' following me, that he was willing to desert his parents
and his religion for me. I made what reparation I could by sending him
back to them, and his nature is not one to grieve long. If you, Cousin
Donald, would but carry to them my repentance, and obtain their
forgiveness, and their consent to my taking the veil, I might be able to
do sufficient penance for my other sins."
"The truest reparation you can make them, Ellen, the one they would most
value, and which will alone relieve them from the reproach of their
consciences, and the odium of their neighbors, will be to go back with
me, live in peace and amity with them for a time, and go from them in
kindness to your convent seclusion."
"It is indeed a cup of humbling you would hold to my lips," said Ellen,
paling suddenly--"yet doubtless I need to drink of that very cup. Pride,
I think, is my besetting sin."
"Pride and love of your own will, Ellen,--unseemly faults for a fair and
gentle woman--yet offset by rare virtues."
"Do not flatter me, Donald; let me face the truth; in showing me my real
self, you are my truest friend. Pride and self-will! when I should
possess 'a meek and quiet spirit,' and 'an humble and a contrite heart'
before I shall be ready for my holy calling."
"May it not be, Ellen, that you are mistaking your determination to
fulfill a rash vow, made under exciting circumstances, for a true call
founded on real consecration of heart and spirit? Talk with Father
Gibault; he is a holy man, yet a just and reasonable one; tell him all,
and ask him to help you to determine your path of duty. Then come and
tell me your decision--and with God's help, dear one, I will add to
yours all my strength and courage, to enable you to follow where your
conscience leads you. But oh, Ellen, will you not tell me once, just
once, that you do love me, and would give yourself to me if you were
free?"
"Donald! Donald! you must not disturb my soul by such entreaties!" she
cried in pleading tones. "Do you not see that if once it were said, it
could never again be unsaid?" and she left me hastily, her head drooping
like a flower upon its stalk.