CHAPTER X.

CONCLUSION.

This is the end of my story. But, like all stories, it requires that

some satisfaction should be given to the reader in regard to the

dramatic proprieties. We have our several heroes to dispose of. Phelim

Murray and Hugh Riley, who had both been arrested by the Council to

satisfy public opinion as to their complicity in the plot for the

escape, were both honorably discharged,--I suppose being found entirely

innocent! Roger Skreene swore himself black and blue, as the phrase is,

that he had not the least suspicion of the business in which he was

engaged; and so he was acquitted! I am also glad to be able to say that

our gallant Cornet Murray, in the winding-up of this business, was

promoted by the Council to a captaincy of cavalry, and put in command of

Christiana Fort and its neighborhood, to keep that formidable Quaker,

William Penn, at a respectful distance. It would gratify me still more,

if I could find warrant to add, that the Cornet enjoyed himself, and

married the lady of his choice, with whom he has, unknown to us, been

violently in love during these adventures, and that they lived happily

together for many years. I hope this was so,--although the chronicle

does not allow one to affirm it,--it being but a proper conclusion to

such a romance as I have plucked out of our history.

And so I have traced the tradition of the Cave to the end. What I have

been able to certify furnishes the means of a shrewd estimate of the

average amount of truth which popular traditions generally contain.

There is always a fact at the bottom, lying under a superstructure of

fiction,--truth enough to make the pursuit worth following. Talbot did

not live in the Cave, but fled there occasionally for concealment. He

had no hawks with him, but bred them in his own mews on the Elk River.

The birds seen in after times were some of this stock, and not the

solitary pair they were supposed to be. I dare say an expert naturalist

would find many specimens of the same breed now in that region. But let

us not be too critical on the tradition, which has led us into a quest

through which I have been able to supply what I hope will be found to be

a pleasant insight into that little world of action and passion,--with

its people, its pursuits, and its gossips,--that, more than one hundred

and seventy years ago, inhabited the beautiful banks of St. Mary's

River, and wove the web of our early Maryland history.

POSTSCRIPT.

I have another link in the chain of Talbot's history, furnished me by a

friend in Virginia. It comes since I have completed my narrative, and

very accurately confirms the conjecture of Chalmers, quoted in the note

of "The Landholder's Assistant." "As for Colonel Talbot, he was conveyed

for trial to Virginia, from whence he made his escape, and, after being

retaken, and, _I believe_, tried and convicted, was finally pardoned by

King James II." This is an extract from the note. It is now ascertained

that Talbot was not taken to England for trial, as Lord Baltimore, in

his letter of the 6th of July, 1685, affirmed it was the King's pleasure

he should be; but that he was tried and convicted in Virginia on the 22d

of April, 1686, and, on the 26th of the same month, reprieved by order

of the King; after which we may presume he received a full pardon, and

perhaps was taken to England in obedience to the royal command, to await

it there. The conviction and reprieve are recorded in a folio of the

State Records of Virginia at Richmond, on a mutilated and scarcely

legible sheet,--a copy of which I present to my reader with all its

obliterations and broken syllables and sad gashes in the text, for his

own deciphering. The MS. is in keeping with the whole story, and may be

looked upon as its appropriate emblem. The story has been brought to

light by chance, and has been rendered intelligible by close study and

interpretation of fragmentary and widely separated facts, capable of

being read only by one conversant with the text of human affairs, and

who has the patience to grope through the trackless intervals of time,

and the skill to supply the lost words and syllables of history by

careful collation with those which are spared. How faithfully this

accidentally found MS. typifies such a labor, the reader may judge from

the literal copy of it I now offer to his perusal.

[Transcriber's note: Gaps in the text below are signified with an

asterisk.]

By his Excellency

Whereas his most Sacred Majesty has been Graciously pleased

by his Royall Com'ands to Direct and Com'and Me ffrancis

Lord Howard of Effingham his Maj'ties Lieut and Gov'r. Gen'll.

of Virginia that if George Talbott Esq'r. upon his Tryall should

be found Guilty of Killing M'r Christopher Rowsby, that Execution

should be suspended untill his Majesties pleasure should

be further signified unto Me; And forasmuch as the sd George

Talbott was Indicted upon the Statute of Stabbing and hath

Received a full and Legall Tryall in open Court on y'e Twentieth

and One and Twentieth dayes of this Instant Aprill, before his

Majesties Justices of Oyer and Terminer, and found Guilty of y'e

aforesaid fact and condemned for the Same, I, therefore, *ffrancis

Lord Howard, Baron of *ffingham, his Majesties Lieu't and Gov'r.

Gen'll. Of Virginia, by Virtue of *aj'ties Royall Com'ands

to Me given there * doe hereby Suspend *tion of the

Sentence of death * his Maj'ties Justices

* Terminer on the * till his Majesties

*erein be * nor any

* fail as yo* uttmost

* and for y'r soe doing this sh*

Given under my and * Seale

the 26th dayof Apri*

EFFINGHAM

To his Majesties Justices

of Oyer and Terminer.

Recordatur E Chillon Gen'l Car*

[Endorsed]

Talbott's Repreif

from L'd Howard

1686 for Killing Ch'r. Rousby

Examined Sept. 24th

26th Aprill 1686

Sentence of

ag'* Col Ta

Suspended

Aprill 26* 1*86

PRINCE ADEB.

In Sana, oh, in Sana, God, the Lord,

Was very kind and merciful to me!

Forth from the Desert in my rags I came,

Weary and sore of foot. I saw the spires

And swelling bubbles of the golden domes

Rise through the trees of Sana, and my heart

Grew great within me with the strength of God;

And I cried out, "Now shall I right myself,--

I, Adeb the Despised,--for God is just!"

There he who wronged my father dwelt in peace,--

My warlike father, who, when gray hairs crept

Around his forehead, as on Lebanon

The whitening snows of winter, was betrayed

To the sly Imam, and his tented wealth

Swept from him, 'twixt the roosting of the cock

And his first crowing,--in a single night:

And I, poor Adeb, sole of all my race,

Smeared with my father's and my kinsmen's blood,

Fled through the Desert, till one day a tribe

Of hungry Bedouins found me in the sand,

Half mad with famine, and they took me up,

And made a slave of me,--of me, a prince!

All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them,

In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart,

Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against

The howling sea of my adversity.

At length o'er Sana, in the act to swoop,

I stood like a young eagle on a crag.

The traveller passed me with suspicious fear:

I asked for nothing; I was not a thief.

The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones,

Fed on the berries and the crusted pools,

Were a scant morsel. Once, a brown-skinned girl

Called me a little from the common path,

And gave me figs and barley in a bag.

I paid her with a kiss, with nothing more,

And she looked glad; for I was beautiful,

And virgin as a fountain, and as cold.

I stretched her bounty, pecking, like a bird,

Her figs and barley, till my strength returned.

So when rich Sana lay beneath my eyes,

My foot was as the leopard's, and my hand

As heavy as the lion's brandished paw;

And underneath my burnished skin the veins

And stretching muscles played, at every step,

In wondrous motion. I was very strong.

I looked upon my body, as a bird

That bills his feathers ere he takes to flight,--

I, watching over Sana. Then I prayed;

And on a soft stone, wetted in the brook,

Ground my long knife; and then I prayed again.

God heard my voice, preparing all for me,

As, softly stepping down the hills,

I saw the Imam's summer-palace all ablaze

In the last flash of sunset. Every fount

Was spouting fire, and all the orange-trees

Bore blazing coals, and from the marble walls

And gilded spires and columns, strangely wrought,

Glared the red light, until my eyes were pained

With the fierce splendor. Till the night grew thick,

I lay within the bushes, next the door,

Still as a serpent, as invisible.

The guard hung round the portal. Man by man

They dropped away, save one lone sentinel,

And on his eyes God's finger lightly fell;

He slept half standing. Like a summer wind

That threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf,

I stole from shadow unto shadow forth;

Crossed all the marble court-yard, swung the door,

Like a soft gust, a little way ajar,--

My body's narrow width, no more,--and stood

Beneath the cresset in the painted hall.

I marvelled at the riches of my foe;

I marvelled at God's ways with wicked men.

Then I reached forth, and took God's waiting hand:

And so He led me over mossy floors,

Flowered with the silken summer of Shirar,

Straight to the Imam's chamber. At the door

Stretched a brawn eunuch, blacker than my eyes:

His woolly head lay like the Kaba-stone

In Mecca's mosque, as silent and as huge.

I stepped across it, with my pointed knife

Just missing a full vein along his neck,

And, pushing by the curtains, there I was,--

I, Adeb the Despised,--upon the spot

That, next to heaven, I longed for most of all.

I could have shouted for the joy in me.

Fierce pangs and flashes of bewildering light

Leaped through my brain and danced before my eyes.

So loud my heart beat that I feared its sound

Would wake the sleeper; and the bubbling blood

Choked in my throat, till, weaker than a child,

I reeled against a column, and there hung

In a blind stupor. Then I prayed again;

And, sense by sense, I was made whole once more.

I touched myself; I was the same; I knew

Myself to be lone Adeb, young and strong,

With nothing but a stride of empty air

Between me and God's justice. In a sleep,

Thick with the fumes of the accursed grape,

Sprawled the false Imam. On his shaggy breast,

Like a white lily heaving on the tide

Of some foul stream, the fairest woman slept

These roving eyes have ever looked upon.

Almost a child, her bosom barely showed

The change beyond her girlhood. All her charms

Were budding, but half opened; for I saw

Not only beauty wondrous in itself,

But possibility of more to be

In the full process of her blooming days.

I gazed upon her, and my heart grew soft,

As a parched pasture with the dew of heaven.

While thus I gazed, she smiled, and slowly raised

The long curve of her lashes; and we looked

Each upon each in wonder, not alarm,--

Not eye to eye, but soul to soul, we held

Each other for a moment. All her life

Seemed centred in the circle of her eyes.

She stirred no limb; her long-drawn, equal breath

Swelled out and ebbed away beneath her breast,

In calm unbroken. Not a sign of fear

Touched the faint color on her oval cheek,

Or pinched the arches of her tender mouth.

She took me for a vision, and she lay

With her sleep's smile unaltered, as in doubt

Whether real life had stolen into her dreams,

Or dreaming stretched into her outer life.

I was not graceless to a woman's eyes.

The girls of Damar paused to see me pass,

I walking in my rags, yet beautiful.

One maiden said, "He has a prince's air!"

I am a prince; the air was all my own.

So thought the lily on the Imam's breast;

And lightly as a summer mist, that lifts

Before the morning, so she floated up,

Without a sound or rustle of a robe,

From her coarse pillow, and before me stood

With asking eyes. The Imam never moved.

A stride and blow were all my need, and they

Were wholly in my power. I took her hand,

I held a warning finger to my lips,

And whispered in her small expectant ear,

"Adeb, the son of Akem!" She replied

In a low murmur, whose bewildering sound

Almost lulled wakeful me to sleep, and sealed

The sleeper's lids in tenfold slumber, "Prince,

Lord of the Imam's life and of my heart,

Take all thou seest,--it is thy right, I know,--

But spare the Imam for thy own soul's sake!"

Then I arrayed me in a robe of state,

Shining with gold and jewels; and I bound

In my long turban gems that might have bought

The lands 'twixt Babelmandeb and Sahan.

I girt about me, with a blazing belt,

A scimitar o'er which the sweating smiths

In far Damascus hammered for long years,

Whose hilt and scabbard shot a trembling light

From diamonds and rubies. And she smiled,

As piece by piece I put the treasures on,

To see me look so fair,--in pride she smiled.

I hung long purses at my side. I scooped,

From off a table, figs and dates and rice,

And bound them to my girdle in a sack.

Then over all I flung a snowy cloak,

And beckoned to the maiden. So she stole

Forth like my shadow, past the sleeping wolf

Who wronged my father, o'er the woolly head

Of the swart eunuch, down the painted court,

And by the sentinel who standing slept.

Strongly against the portal, through my rags,--

My old, base rags,--and through the maiden's veil,

I pressed my knife,--upon the wooden hilt

Was "Adeb, son of Akem," carved by me

In my long slavehood,--as a passing sign

To wait the Imam's waking. Shadows cast

From two high-sailing clouds upon the sand

Passed not more noiseless than we two, as one,

Glided beneath the moonlight, till I smelt

The fragrance of the stables. As I slid

The wide doors open, with a sudden bound

Uprose the startled horses; but they stood

Still as the man who in a foreign land

Hears his strange language, when my Desert call,

As low and plaintive as the nested dove's,

Fell on their listening ears. From stall to stall,

Feeling the horses with my groping hands,

I crept in darkness; and at length I came

Upon two sister mares, whose rounded sides,

Fine muzzles, and small heads, and pointed ears,

And foreheads spreading 'twixt their eyelids wide,

Long slender tails, thin manes, and coats of silk,

Told me, that, of the hundred steeds there stalled,

My hand was on the treasures. O'er and o'er

I felt their long joints, and down their legs

To the cool hoofs;--no blemish anywhere:

These I led forth and saddled. Upon one

I set the lily, gathered now for me,--

My own, henceforth, forever. So we rode

Across the grass, beside the stony path,

Until we gained the highway that is lost,

Leading from Sana, in the eastern sands:

When, with a cry that both the Desert-born

Knew without hint from whip or goading spur,

We dashed into a gallop. Far behind

In sparks and smoke the dusty highway rose;

And ever on the maiden's face I saw,

When the moon flashed upon it, the strange smile

It wore on waking. Once I kissed her mouth,

When she grew weary, and her strength returned.

All through the night we scoured between the hills:

The moon went down behind us, and the stars

Dropped after her; but long before I saw

A planet blazing straight against our eyes,

The road had softened, and the shadowy hills

Had flattened out, and I could hear the hiss

Of sand spurned backward by the flying mares.--

Glory to God! I was at home again!

The sun rose on us; far and near I saw

The level Desert; sky met sand all round.

We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well,

And ate and slumbered. Somewhat, too, was said:

The words have slipped my memory. That same eve

We rode sedately through a Hamoum camp,--

I, Adeb, prince amongst them, and my bride.

And ever since amongst them I have ridden,

A head and shoulders taller than the best;

And ever since my days have been of gold,

My nights have been of silver.--God is just!

* * * * *

ELEUSINIA.[a]

[Footnote a: See Number XXIII., September, 1859.]

THE SAVIOURS OF GREECE.

Life, in its central idea, is an entire and eternal solitude. Yet each

individual nature so repeats--and is itself repeated in--every other,

that there is insured the possibility both of a world-revelation in the

soul, and of a self-incarnation in the world; so that every man's life,

like Agrippa's mirror, reflects the universe, and the universe is made

the embodiment of his life,--is made to beat with a human pulse.

We do all, therefore,--Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, or Saxon,--claim kinship

both with the earth and the heavens: with the sense of sorrow we kneel

upon the earth, with the sense of hope we look into the heavens.

The two Presences of the Eleusinia,--the earthly Demeter,[b] the

embodiment of human sorrow, and the heavenly Dionysus,[c] the

incarnation of human hope,--these are the two Great Presences of the

Universe; about whom, as separate centres,--the one of measureless

wanderings, the other of triumphant rest,--we marshal, both in the

interpretations of Reason and in the constructions of our Imagination,

all that is visible or that is invisible,--whatsoever is palpable in

sense or possible in idea, in the world which is or the world to come.

Incarnations of the life within us, in its two developments of Sorrow

and Hope,--they are also the centres through which this life develops

itself in the world: it is through them that all things have their

genesis from the human heart, and through them, therefore, that all

things are unveiled to us.

[Footnote b: Demeter is [Greek Gae-mhaetaer], Mother Earth.]

[Footnote c: The same as Iacchus and the Latin Bacchus.]

But these Two Presences have their highest interest and significance as

_foci_ of the religious development of the race: and inasmuch as all

growth is ultimately a religious one, it is in this phase that their

organic connections with life are widest and most profound. As such they

appear in the Eleusinia; and in all mythology they furnish the only

possible key for the interpretation of its mystic symbolism, its

hieroglyphic records, and its ill-defined traditions.

Accordingly we find that all mythology naturally and inevitably

flows about these centres into two distinct developments, which are

indicated,--

1. In Nature; inasmuch as they are first made manifest through symbols

which point to the two great forces, the _active_ and the _passive_,

which are concerned in all natural processes (_sol et terra subjacens

soli_); and,

2. In the primitive belief among all nations, that men are the offspring

of the earth and the heavens,--and in the worship equally prevalent of

the sun, the personal Presence of the heavens, as Saviour Lord, and of

the earth as sorrowing Lady and Mother.

Why the earth, in this primitive symbolism and worship, was represented

as the Sorrowing One, and the sun as Saviour, is evident at a glance.

It was the bosom of the earth which was shaken with storm and rent with

earthquake. She was the Mother, and hers was the travail of all birth;

in sorrow she forever gathered to herself her Fate-conquered children;

her sorrowful countenance she veiled in thick mists, and, year after

year, shrouded herself in wintry desolation: while he was the Eternal

Father, the Revealer of all things, he drove away the darkness, and in

his presence the mist became an invisible exhalation; and, as out of

darkness and death, he called into birth the flowers and the numberless

forests,--even as he himself was every morning born anew out of

darkness,--so he called the children of the earth to a glorious rising

in his light. Everything of the earth was inert, weighing heavily upon

the sense and the heart, only waiting its transfiguration and exaltation

through his power, until it should rise into the heavens; which was the

type of his translation to himself of his grief-oppressed children.

Under these symbols our Lord and Lady have been worshipped by an

overwhelming majority of the human race. They swayed the ancient world,

from the Indians by the Ganges, and the Tartar tribes, to the Britons

and Laplanders of Northwestern Europe,--having their representatives in

every system of faith,--in the Hindu _Isi and Isana_, the Egyptian _Isis

and Osiris_, the Assyrian _Venus and Adonis_, the _Demeter and Dionysus_

of Greece, the Roman _Ceres and Bacchus_, and the _Disa and Frey_ of

Scandinavia,--in connection with most, if not all, of whom there existed

festivals corresponding, in respect of their meaning and use, with the

Grecian Eleusinia.

Moreover, the various divinities of any one mythology--for example, the

Greek--were at first only representatives of partial attributes or

incidental functions of these Two Presences. Thus, Jove was the power of

the heavens, which, of course, centred in the sun; Apollo is admitted

to have been only another name for the sun; Æsculapius represents his

healing virtues; Hercules his saving strength; and Prometheus, who gave

fire to men, as Vulcan, the god of fire, was probably connected with

Eastern fire-worship, and so in the end with the worship of the sun.

Some of the goddesses come under the same category,--such as Juno,

sister and wife of Jove, who shared with him his aerial dynasty; as also

Diana, who was only the reflection of Apollo,[d] as the moon of the sun,

carrying his power on into the night, and exercising among women the

functions which he exercised among men. The representatives of our Lady,

on the other hand, are such as the ancient Rhea,--Latona, with her dark

and starry veil,--Tethys, the world-nurse,--and the Artemis of the East,

or Syrian Mother; to say nothing of Oreads, Dryads, and Nereids, that

without number peopled the mountains, the forests, and the sea.

[Footnote d: This connection of Diana with Apollo has led some to the

hasty inference, that the sun and moon--not the sun and earth--were the

primitive centres of mythological symbolism. But it is plain that the

sun and moon, as _active _forces referable to a single centre, stood

over against the earth as _passive._]

The confusion of ancient mythology did not so much regard its subjective

elements as its external development, and even here is easily accounted

for by the mingling of tribes and nations, hitherto isolated in their

growth,--but who, as they came together, in their mutual recognition of

a common faith under different names and rites, must inevitably have

introduced disorder into the external symbolism. But even out of this

confusion we shall find the whole Pantheon organized about two

central shrines,--those of the _Mater Dolorosa_ and the _Dominus

Salvator_,--which are represented also in Christendom, though detached

from natural symbols, in the connection of Christianity with the worship

of the Virgin.

The Eleusinia, collecting together, as it did, all the prominent

elements of mythology, furnishes, in its dramatic evolution through

Demeter and Dionysus, the highest and most complete representation of

ancient faith in both of its developments. In a former paper, we have

endeavored to give this drama its deepest interpretation by pointing to

the human heart as the central source of all its movements. We shall now

ask our readers to follow us out into these movements themselves,--that,

as before we saw how the world is centred in each human soul, we may now

see how each soul develops itself in the world; for thither it is that

the ever-widening cycles of the Eleusinian epos will inevitably lead us.

And first as an epos of sorrow: though centring in the earthly Demeter,

yet its movement does not limit itself by the remembrance of _her_ nine

days' search; but, in the torch-light procession of the fifth night,

widens indefinitely and mysteriously in the darkness, until it has

inclosed all hearts within the circuit of its tumultuous flight. Thus,

by some secret sympathy with her movements, are gathered together

about the central Achtheia all the _Matres Dolorosoe,_--our Ladies of

Sorrow;--for, like her, they were all wanderers.

They were so by necessity. All unrest involves loss, and thus leads to

search. It matters not if the search be unsuccessful; though the gadfly

sting as sharply the next moment as it did the last, still so must

continue her wanderings. Therefore that Jew, whose mythic fate it is to

wait forever upon the earth, the victim of an everlasting sorrow, is

also an everlasting wanderer. All suffering necessitates movement,--and

when the suffering is intense, the movement passes over into flight.

Therefore it is that the epos of suffering requires not merely time for

its accomplishment, but also space. Ulysses, the "much-suffering," is

also the "much-wandering."

Thus our Lady in the Eleusinian procession of search represents the

restless search of all her children.

Migrations and colonizations, ancient or modern,--what were they but

flights from some phase of suffering,--name it as we may,--poverty,

oppression, or slavery? It was the same suffering Io who brought

civilization to the banks of the Nile.

Thus, from the very beginnings of history or human tradition, out of

the severities of Scythian deserts there has been an endless series of

flights,--nomadic invasions of tribes impelled by no merely barbarian

impulse, but by some deep sense of suffering, flying from their Northern

wastes to the happy gardens of the South. In no other way can you

account for these movements. If you attribute them to ferocity, what

was it that engendered and nourished _that_? Call them the results of

a Divine Providence, seeking by a fresher current of life to revive

systems of civilization which through long ages of luxury have come to

frailty,--still it was through this severity of discipline alone that

Providence accomplished its end. Besides, these nomads were fully

conscious of their bitter lot; and those who fled not in space fled at

least in their dreams,--waiting for death at last to introduce them to

inexhaustible hunting-grounds in their happy Elysium.

The very mention of Rome suggests the same continually repeated series

of antecedent tragedy and consequent wandering,--pointing backward to

the fabled siege of Troy and the flight of Aeneas,--"_profugus_"

from Asia to Italy,--and forward to the quick-coming footsteps of the

Northern _profugi_, who were eager, even this side the grave, to enter

the Valhalla of their dreams.

It is said that the Phoenician cities sent out colonies from a desire of

gain, and because they were crowded at home. It is said, too, that,

in search of gold, thousands upon thousands went to El Dorado, to

California, and Australia; but who does not know that the greater part

of these thousands left their homes for reasons which, if fully exposed,

would reveal a tragedy in view of which gold appears a glittering

mockery?

The great movement of the race westward is but an extension of this

epic flight. Thus, the Pilgrim Fathers of New England,--the grandest

_profugi_ of all time,--or even the bold adventurers of Spain, would

have been moved only by intense suffering, in some form, to exchange

their homes for a wilderness.

The world is full of these wanderings, under various pretences of gain,

adventure, or curiosity, hiding the real impulse of flight. So with the

strong-flowing current in the streets of a great city; for how else

shall we interpret this intricate net-work of human feature and

movement,--this flux of life toward some troubled centre, and then its

reflux toward some uncertain and undefined circumference?

And as Nature is the mirror of human life, so at the source of those

vast movements by which she buries in oblivion her own works and the

works of man there is hidden the type of human suffering, both for the

race and the individual. And hence it is, that, over against the eternal

solitude within us, there ever waits without us a second solitude, into

which, sooner or later, we pass with restless flight,--a solitude

vast, shadowy, and unfamiliar in its outline, but inevitable in its

reality,--haunting, bewildering, overshadowing us!

* * * * *

"Who is it that shall interpret this intricate evolution of human

footsteps, in its meaning of sorrow?--who is it that shall give us

rest?" Such is the half-conscious prayer of all these fugitives,--of

our Lady and all her children. This it is which gives meaning to the

torch-light procession on the fifth night of the Festival; but to-morrow

it shall find an answer in the Saviour Dionysus, who shall change the

flight of search into the pomp of triumph.

* * * * *

But let us pause a moment. It is Palm Sunday! We are not, indeed, in

Syria, the land of palms. Yet, even here,--lost in some far-reaching

avenue of pines, where one could hardly walk upon a summer Sunday

without such sense of joy as would move him to tears,--even here all the

movements of the earth and the heavens hint of most jubilant triumph.

Thus, the green grass rises above the dead grass at our feet; the

leaf-buds new-born upon the tree, like lotos-buds springing up from

Ethiopian marble, give token of resurrection; the trees themselves tower

heavenward; and in victorious ascension the clouds unite in the vast

procession, dissolving in exhalation at the "gates of the sun"; while

from unnumbered choirs arise songs of exultant victory from the hearts

of men to the throne of God!

But whither, in divine remembrance,--whither is it that upon this Sunday

of all Sundays the thoughts of Christendom point? Back through eighteen

hundred years to the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, followed

by the children crying, "Hosanna in the highest heavens!" Of this it is

that the processions of Nature, in the resurrections of birth and the

aërial ascension of clouds,--of this that the upward processions of our

thoughts are commemorative!

Thus was the sixth day of the Eleusinia,--when the ivy-crowned Dionysus

was borne in triumph through the mystic entrance of Eleusis, and from

the Eleusinian plains, as from our choirs to-day, ascended the jubilant

Hosannas of the countless multitude;--this was the Palm Sunday of

Greece.

Close upon the chariot-wheels of the Saviour Dionysus followed, in

the faith of Greece, Aesculapius and Hercules: the former the Divine

Physician, whose very name was healing, and who had power over death,

as the child of the Sun; and the latter, who by his saving strength

delivered the earth from its Augean impurities, and, arrayed in

celestial panoply, subdued the monsters of the earth, and at last,

descending to Hades, slew the three-headed Cerberus and took away from

men much of the fear of death. Such was the train of the Eleusinian

Dionysus. If Demeter was the wanderer, he was the conqueror and centre

of all triumph.

And this reminds us of his Indian conquest. What did it mean? Admit that

it may have been only the fabulous march in triumph of some forgotten

king of mortal birth to the farthest limits of the East. Still the fact

of its association with Dionysus stands as evidence of the connection of

human faith with human victory. Let it be that Dionysus himself was only

the apotheosis of victorious humanity. In strict logic this is more than

probable. Yet why apotheosize conquerors at all? Why exalt all heroes to

the rank of gods?

The reason is, that men are unwilling to draw a limited meaning from any

human act. How could they, then, connecting, as they did, all victory

with hope,--how could they fall short of the most exalted hope, of the

most excellent victory; especially in instances like the one now under

our notice, where the material circumstances of the conquest as well

as of the conqueror's life have passed out of remembrance; when for

generations men have dwelt upon the dim tradition in their thoughts, and

it has had time to grow into its fullest significance,--even finding

an elaborate expression in sacred writings, in symbolic ritual, and

monumental entablature? Osiris, who subjected men to his reign of peace,

was also held to be the Preserver of their souls. Even Caesar, had he

lived two thousand years before, might have been worshipped as Saviour.

All extended power, measured by duration in time or vast areas of space,

becomes an incarnate Presence in the world, which awes to the dust

all who resist it, and exalts with its own glory all who trust in it.

Achtheia mourns all failures; and here it is that the human touches the

earth. But they who conquer, these are our Saviours; they shall follow

in the train of Dionysus; they shall lift us to the heavens, and

sanctify in our remembrance the Sunday of Palms!

But Dionysus not only looks back with triumphant remembrance to ancient

conquest, but has his victories in the present, also, and in the great

Hereafter. For triumph was connected with all Dionysiac symbols, hints

of which are preserved to us in representations found upon ancient

vases: such, for instance, as the figure of Victory surmounting the

heads of the ivy-crowned Bacchantes in their mystic orgies; or the

winged serpents which bear the chariot of the victor-god,--as if in

this connection even the reptiles, whose very name (_serpentes_) is

a synonyme for what creeps, are to be made the ministrants of his

conquering flight. The tombs of the ancients from Egypt to Etruria are

full of these symbols. Many of them have become dim as to their meaning

by oblivious time; but enough is evident to indicate the prominence

of hope in ancient faith. This appears in the very multiplicity of

Dionysiac symbols as compared with any other class. Thus, out of

sixty-six vases at Polignano, all but one or two were found to be

Dionysiac in their symbolism. And this instance stands for many others.

The _character_ of the scenes represented indicates the same prominence

of hope, sometimes as connected with the relations of life,--as, for

example, the representation, found upon a sepulchral cone, of a husband

and wife uniting with each other in prayer to the Sun. Frequent

inscriptions--such as those in which the deceased is carefully committed

to Osiris, the Egyptian Dionysus--point in the same direction; as

also the genii who presided over the embalmed dead, a belief in whose

existence surely indicated a hopeful trust in some divine care which

would not leave them even in the grave. Statues of Osiris are found

among the ruins of palaces and temples; but it was in the monuments

associated with death that they dwelt most upon his name and expressed

their faith in most frequent incarnation and inscription.

The epic movement of Eleusinian triumph was in its range as unlimited

as the movement of sorrow. Each found expression in sculptured

monument,--the one hinting of flight into darkness, and the other of

resurrection into light; each in its cycle inclosed the world; each

widened into the invisible; as the wail of Achtheia reached the heart of

Hades, so the paean of Dionysus was lost in the heavens.

* * * * *

But in what manner did this Dionysus make his _avatar_ in the world? For

he must needs have first touched the earth as human child, ere he could

be worshipped as Divine Saviour. Latona must leave the heavens and come

to Delos ere she can give birth to Apollo; for, in order to slay the

serpent, the child must himself be earth-born,--indeed, according to one

representation, he slew the Python out of his mother's arms. Neither the

serpent of Genesis nor the dragon of Revelation can be conquered save

by the seed of the woman. From this necessity of his earthly birth,

the connection of the Saviour-Child with the _Mater Dolorosa_ becomes

universal,--finding its counterpart in the Assyrian Venus with babe in

arm, in Isis suckling the child Horus, and even in the Scandinavian Disa

at Upsal accompanied by an infant. It is from swaddling-clothes, as the

nursling of our Lady, and out of the sorrowful discipline of earth, that

the child grows to be the Saviour, both for our Lady and for all her

children.

Hence, according to the tradition, Dionysus was born of Semele of the

royal house at Thebes; and Jove was his father. A little before his time

of birth,--so the story goes,--Jove visited Semele, at her own rash

request, in all the majesty of his presence, with thunderings and

lightnings, so that the bower of the virgin mother was laid in ruins,

and she herself, unable to stand before the revealed god, was consumed

as by fire. But Jove out of her ashes perfected the birth of his son;

whence he was called the Child of Fire, ([Greek: puripais],)--which

epithet, as well as this part of the fable, probably points to his

connection with the Oriental symbolism of fire in the worship of the

Sun.

And it is worth while, in connection with this, to notice the gradations

by which in the ancient mind everything ascended from the gross material

to a refined spirituality. As in Nature there was forever going on a

subtilizing process, so that

"from the root

Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves

More aëry, last the bright consummate flower

Spirits odorous breathes,"--

and as, in their philosophy, from the earth, as the principle of Nature,

they ascended through the more subtile elements of water, air, and fire,

to a spiritual conception of the universe; so, as regards their

faith, its highest incarnation was through the symbolism of fire, as

representative of that central Power under whose influence all things

arose through endless grades of exaltation to Himself,--so that the

earthly rose into the heavenly, and all that was human became divine.

The enthusiasm of victory and exaltation in the worship of Dionysus

tended of course to connect with him whatsoever was joyous and jubilant

in life. He was the god of all joy. Hence the fable which makes him the

author and giver of wine to men. Wherever he goes, he is surrounded by

the clustering vine and ivy, hinting of his summer glory and of his

kingly crown. Thus, the line of his conquests leads through the richest

fields of Southern Asia,--through the incense-breathing Arabia, across

the Euphrates and the Tigris, and through the flowery vales of Cashmere

to the Indian garden of the world: and as from sea to sea he establishes

his reign by bloodless victories, he is attended by Fauns and Satyrs and

the jovial Pan; wine and honey are his gifts; and all the earth is glad

in his gracious presence. Hence he was ever associated with Oriental

luxuriance, and was worshipped even among the Greeks with a large

infusion of Oriental extravagance, though tempered by the more subdued

mood of the West.

But that depth of Grecian genius, which made it possible for Greece

alone of all ancient nations to develop tragedy to anything like

perfection, insured also even in the most impassioned life the most

profound solemnity. Into the praises of Apollo, joyous as they

were,--where, to the exultant anthem was joined the evolution of the

dance beneath the vaulted sky, as if in his very presence,--for the sun

was his shechinah,--there enters an element of solemnity, which, in

certain connections, is almost overwhelming: as, for instance, in the

first book of the "Iliad,"--where, after the pestilence which has sent

up an endless series of funeral pyres,--after the strife of heroes

and the return of Chryseïs to her father, the priest of the angry

Apollo,--after the feast and the libation from the wine-crowned cups,

there follow the _apotropoea_, and the Grecian youths unite in the

song and the dance, which last, both the joyous paean and the tread of

exultant feet, until the setting sun. I know of nothing which to

an equal degree suggests this element of solemnity, that is almost

awe-inspiring from its depth, short of the jubilant procession of

saints, in the Apocalypse, with palms in their hands.

This element is also evident in the worship of Dionysus,--so that the

inspiration of joy must not be taken for the frenzy of intoxication,

though the symbol of the vine has often led to just this

misapprehension. Besides, Dionysus must not be too closely identified

with the Bacchanalian orgies, which were only a perversion of rites

which retained their original purity in the Eleusinia: and this latter

institution, it must be remembered, was from the first under the control

of the state,--and that state at the time the most refined on the face

of the earth.

Surely, it is not more difficult to give a pure and spiritual

significance to a vintage-festival or to the symbolic wine-cup of

Dionysus, than in the rhapsodies of a Persian or Hindu poet to symbolize

the attraction between the Divine Goodness and the human soul by the

loves of Laili and Majnum, or of Crishna and Radha,--to say nothing of

the exalted symbolism attached to the love of Solomon for his Egyptian

princess, and sanctioned by the most delicate taste.

Indeed, is it not true that whatsoever is most sensuous in connection

with human joy, and at the same time pure, is the very flower of life,

and therefore the most consummate revelation of holiness? Nothing in

Nature is so intensely solemn as her summer, in its infinite fulness of

growth and the unmeasured altitude of its heavens. And within the range

of human associations which shall we select as revealing the most

profound solemnity? Surely not the sight of the funeral train, nor of

the urn crowned with cypress,--of nothing which is associated with death

or weakness in any shape;--but the sight of gayest festivals, or the

paraphernalia of palace-halls,--the vision of some youthful maiden of

transcendent beauty crowned with an orange-wreath, within hearing of

marriage-bells and the whisperings of holy love,--or the aspirations of

the dance and the endless breathings of triumphant music. These are they

which come up most prominently in remembrance,--even as the whole race,

in its remembrances, instinctively looks back to the Orient,--to some

Homeric island of the morning, where are the palaces, the choral dances,

and the risings of the sun.[e] And as Memory has the power to purify the

past of all material grossness, Faith has the same power as regards the

present Hence, the closest connection of religious faith with the

most joyous festivals, with a finely moulded Venus or Apollo, with an

Ephesian temple or a splendid cathedral, or the sweetest symphonies of

music, does not mar, but reveals its natural beauty and strength.

[Footnote e: _Odyssey_, xii., 4.]

But most certainly the Greeks gave a profound spiritual meaning to the

Eleusinia, as also to the mystic connection of Demeter with Dionysus.

She gave them bread: but they never forgot that she gave them the bread

of life. "She gave us," says the ancient Isocrates, "two gifts that are

the most excellent: fruits, that we might not live like beasts; and that

initiation, those who have part in which have sweeter hope,--both as

regards the close of life, and for all eternity." So Dionysus gave them

wine, not only to lighten the cares of life, but as a token, moreover,

of efficient deliverance from the fear of death, and of the higher joy

which he would give them in some happier world. And thus it is, that,

from the earliest times and in all the world, bread and wine have been

symbols of sacramental significance.

Human life so elevates all things with its exaltation and clothes them

with its glory, that nothing vain, nothing trifling, can be found within

its range. He who opposes himself to a single fact thus of necessity

opposes himself to the whole onward and upward current, and must fall.

We have heard of Thor, who with his magic mallet and his two celestial

comrades went to Jötunheim in quest of adventures: and we remember the

goblet which he could not exhaust because of its mysterious connection

with the inexhaustible Sea; the race with Hugi, which in the end proved

to be a race with Thought; and the wrestle with the old nurse Elli, who

was no other than Time herself, and therefore irresistible. So do we all

get us mallets ingeniously forged by the dark elves;--we try a race with

human thought, and look vainly to come out ahead; we laugh at things

because they are old, but with which we struggle to no purpose; and the

cup which we confidently put to our lips has no bottom;--in fact, the

great world of Jötunheim has grown for so long a time and so widely that

it is quite too much for us,--and its tall people, though we come down

upon them, like Thor and his companions, from celestial heights, are too

stout for our mallet.

Nothing human is so insignificant, but that, if you will give it time

and room, it will become irresistible. The plays of men become their

dramas; their holidays change to holy days. The representations, through

which, under various names, they have repeated to themselves the glory

and the tragedy of their life,--old festivals once celebrated in Egypt

far back beyond the dimmest myths of human remembrance,--the mystic

drama of the Eleusinia, which we have been considering in its

overwhelming sorrow developed in hurried flight, and its lofty

hope through triumphal pomp and the significant symbolism of

resurrection,--the epos and the epic rhapsodies,--the circus and

the amphitheatre,--and even the impetuous song and dance of painted

savages,--all these, which at first we may pass by with a glance, have

for our deeper search a meaning which we can never wholly exhaust. Let

it be that they have grown from feeble beginnings, they have grown to

gigantic dimensions; and not their infantile proportions, but their

fullest growth is to be taken as the measure of their strength,--if,

indeed, it be not wholly immeasurable.

Upon some day, seemingly by chance, but really having its antecedent

in the remotest antiquity, a company of men participate in some simple

act,--of sacrifice, it may be, or of amusement. Now that act will be

reiterated.

"Quod semel dictum est stabilisque rerum

Terminus servet."

The subtile law of repetition, as regards the human will, is as sure

in Determination as it is in Consciousness. Habit is as inevitable as

Memory; and as nothing can be forgotten, but, when once known, is

known forever,--so nothing is done but will be done again. Lethe and

Annihilation are only myths upon the earth, which men, though suspicious

of their eternal falsehood, name to themselves in moments of despair

and fearful apprehension. The poppy has only a fabled virtue; but, like

Persephone, we have all tasted of the pomegranate, and must ever to

Hades and back again; for while death and oblivion only seem to be,

remembrances and resurrections there must be, and without end. Therefore

this before-mentioned act of sacrifice or amusement will be reiterated

at given intervals; about it, as a centre, will be gathered all the

associations of intense interest in human life; and the names connected

with its origin--once human names upon the earth--will pass upon the

stars, so that the _nomina_ shall have changed to _numina_, and be

taken upon the lips with religious awe. So it was with these old

festivals,--so with all the representations of human life in stone or

upon the canvas, in the fairy-tale, the romance, and the poem; at every

successive repetition, at every fresh resurrection, is evolved by human

faith and sympathy a deeper significance, until they become the

centres of national thought and feeling, and men believe in them as in

revelations from heaven; and even the oracles themselves, in respect of

their inherent meaning, as also of their origin and authority, rise

by the same ascending series of repeated birth,--like that at Delphi,

which, at first attributed to the Earth, then to Themis, daughter of

Earth and Heaven, was at last connected with the Sun and constituted one

of the richest gems in Apollo's diadem of light.

In the end we shall find that the whole world organizes about its centre

of Faith. Thus, under three different religious systems, Jerusalem,

Delphi, and Mecca were held to be each in its turn the _omphalos_ or

navel of the world. It follows inevitably that the _main_ movement of

the world must always be joyous and hopeful. By reason of this joy it is

that every religious system has its feast; and the sixth day--the day

of Iacchus--is the great day of the festival. The inscription which

rises above every other is "To the Saviour Gods."

We must look at history as a succession of triumphs from the beginning;

and each trophy that is erected outdoes in its magnificence all that

were ever erected before it. Nothing has suffered defeat, except as it

has run counter to the main movement of conquest. No system of faith,

therefore, can by any possibility pass away. Involved it may be in some

fuller system; its _material_ bases may be modified; its central source

become more central in the human heart, and so stronger in the world and

more immediate in its connection with the eternal; but the life itself

of the system must live forever and grow forever.

Still it is true that in the widest growth there is the largest

liability to weakness. "Thus it is," says Fouqué, "with poor, though

richly endowed man. All lies within his power so long as action is at

rest within him; nothing is in his power the moment action has displayed

itself, even by the lifting-up of a finger on the immeasurable world."

In the very extent of the empire of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a

Tamerlane, rests the possibility of its rapid dissolution. At the

giddiest altitude of triumph it is that the brain grows dizziest

and there is revealed the deepest chasm of possible defeat; and the

conqueror,

"Having his ear full of his airy fame,"

is just then most likely to fall like Herod from his aërial pomp to the

very dust. This consciousness, revealing at the highest moment of joy

its utmost frailty, led the ancients to suspect the presence of some Ate

or Nemesis in all human triumphs. We all remember the king who threw his

signet-ring into the sea, that he might in his too happy fortunes avert

this suspected presence; we remember, too, the apprehension of the

Chorus in the "Seven against Thebes," looking forward from the noontide

prosperity of the Theban king to some coming catastrophe.

But it is not without us that this Nemesis waits; she is but another

name for the fearful possibility which lurks in every human will, of

treachery to itself. And as solemnity rises to its acme in the most

sensuous manifestation of the glory of life,--so in all that most

fascinates and bewilders, at the very crisis of victorious exaltation,

at the very height of joyous sensibility, does this mysterious power

of temptation reveal her subtlest treachery; and sometimes in a single

moment does she change the golden-filleted Horæ, that are our ministers,

into frightful furies, which drive us back again from triumph into

flight.

What was it, then, which saved the Eleusinia from this defeat,--which

kept the movement of the Dionysiac procession from the ruin inevitably

consequent upon all intemperate joy? It was the presence of our Lady,

the sorrowing Achtheia, who was the inseparable companion of the joyous

conqueror,--who subdued the joy of victory, and preserved the strength

and holy purity of the great Festival. Demeter was thus necessary to

Dionysus,--as Dionysus to Demeter; and if in remembrance of him the

sepulchral walls were covered with scenes associated with festivity,--in

remembrance of her there must needs be a skeleton at every feast.

How inseparably connected in human thought is sorrow with all permanent

hope is indicated in the penances which men have imposed upon

themselves, from the earliest Gymnosophists of India, and the Stylitæ of

Syria, down to the monastic orders of the Romish Church in later times.

This is the meaning of the old Indian fable which made two of the

_Rishis_ or penitents to have risen by the discipline of sorrow from

some low caste,--it may be, from very Pariahs,--first to the rank of

Brahmins, and at last to the stars. The first initiation in which we

veil our eyes, losing all, is essential to our fresher birth, by

which in the second initiation all things are unveiled to us as our

inheritance: indeed, it is only through that which veils that anything

is ever revealed or possessed.

Through the same gate we pass both to glory and to tragic suffering,

each of which heightens and measures the other; and it is only so that

we can understand the function of sorrow in the Providence of God, or

interpret the sudden calamities which sometimes overwhelm human hopes at

their highest aspiration,--which from the most serene and cloudless sky

evoke storms which leave not even a wreck from their vast ruin.

Nor merely is sorrow efficient in those who hope, but in even a higher

sense does it attach to the character of Saviour. Apollo is, therefore,

fabled to have been an exile from heaven and a servant of Admetus;

indeed, Danaüs, in "The Suppliants" of Æschylus, appeals to Apollo for

protection on this very plea, addressing him as "the Holy One, and

an exiled God from heaven." Thus Hercules was compelled to serve

Eurystheus; and his twelve labors were typed in the twelve signs of the

zodiac. Æsculapius and Prometheus both suffered excruciating tortures

and death for the good of men. And Dionysus--himself the centre of all

joy--was persecuted by the Queen of Heaven and compelled to wander in

the world. Thus he wandered through Egypt, finding no abiding-place, and

finally, as the story runs, came to the Phrygian Cybele, that he might

know in their deepest meaning--even by the initiation of sorrow--the

mysteries of the Great Mother. And, very significantly, it is from this

same initiation that _His_ wanderings have their end and his world-wide

conquest its beginning; as if only thus could be realized the

possibility both of triumph for himself and of hope for his followers.

For these wanderers can find rest only in a _suffering_ Saviour, by the

vision of whose deeper Passion they lose their sense of grief,--as Io on

Caucasus in sight of the transfixed Prometheus, and the Madonna at the

Cross.

It is worthy of more attention than we can give it here, yet we cannot

pass over in silence the fact, so important in this relation, that

Grecian Tragedy, in all its wonderful development under the three great

masters, was directly associated, and in its ruder beginnings completely

identified, with the worship of Dionysus. And this confirms our previous

hint, that the same element which made tragedy possible for Greece must

also be sought for in the development of its faith. There are those who

decry Grecian faith,--at the same time that they laud the Grecian drama

to the skies: but to the Greeks themselves, who certainly knew more than

we do as regards either, the drama was only an outgrowth of their faith,

and derived thence its highest significance. Thus the mystic symbolism

of the dramatic Choruses, taken out of its religious connections,

becomes an insoluble enigma; and naturally enough; for its first use

was in religious worship,--though afterwards it became associated with

traditionary and historic events. Besides, it was supposed that the

tragedians wrote under a divine inspiration; and the subjects and

representations which they embodied were for the most part susceptible

of a deep spiritual interpretation. Indeed, upon a careful examination,

we shall find that very many of the dramas directly suggest the two

Eleusinian movements, representing first the flight of suppliants--as

of the Heraclidae, the daughters of Danaüs, and of Oedipus and

Antigone--from persecution to the shrine of some Saviour Deity,--and

finally a deliverance effected through sacrifice or divine

interposition. Examples of this are so numerous that we have no space

for a minute consideration.

But certainly it is plain that the Eleusinia, as being more central,

more purely spiritual, must in the thought of Greece have risen high

above the drama. The very dress in which the _mystae_ were initiated was

preserved as most sacred or deposited in the temple. Or if we insist

upon measuring their appreciation of the Festival by the more palpable

standard of numbers,--the temple at Eleusis, by the account of Strabo,

was capable of holding even in its mystic cell more persons than the

theatre. To be sure, the celebration was only once in five years,--but

it was all the more sacred from this very infrequency. Nothing in all

Greece--and that is saying very much--could compare with it in its depth

of divine mystery. If anything could, it would have been the drama; but

no wailings were ever heard from beneath the masks of the stage like the

wailings of Achtheia,--no jubilant song of the Chorus ever rose like the

paean of Dionysiac triumph.

* * * * *

Thus was the name of Dionysus connected with the palace and the temple,

with the sepulchral court of death and the dramatic representations of

life,--and everywhere associated with our Lady.

Sometimes, indeed, she seems to overshadow and hide him from our vision.

Thus was it when the Eumenides in their final triumph swept the stage,

and victory seemed all in the hands of invisible Powers, with no

human participant: even as throughout the Homeric epos there runs an

undercurrent of unutterable sadness; because, while to the Gods there

ever remains a sure seat upon Olympus, unshaken by the winds, untouched

by rain or snow, crowned with a cloudless radiance,--yet upon man

come vanity, sorrow, and strife; like the leaves of the forest he

flourisheth, and then passeth away to the "weak heads of the dead,"

([Greek: nekuon amenaena karaena],) conquered by purple Death and strong

Fate.

To the eye of sense, and in the circumscribed movements of this world,

the desolation seems complete and the defeat final. But the snows of

winter are necessary to the blossoms of spring,--the waste of death to

the resurrection of life; and from the vastest of all desolations does

our Lady lead her children in the loftiest of all flights,--even from

all sorrow and solitude,--from the wastes of earth and the desolation of

Æons, to ineffable joy in her Saviour Lord.

* * * * *

VICTOR AND JACQUELINE.

I.

Jacqueline Gabrie and Elsie Méril could not occupy one room, and remain,

either of them, indifferent to so much as might be manifested of the

other's inmost life. They could not emigrate together, peasants from

Domrémy,--Jacqueline so strong, Elsie so fair,--could not labor in the

same harvest-fields, children of old neighbors, without each being

concerned in the welfare and affected by the circumstances of the other.

It was near ten o'clock, one evening, when Elsie Méril ran up the

common stairway, and entered the room in the fourth story where she and

Jacqueline lodged.

Victor Le Roy, student from Picardy, occupied the room next theirs, and

was startled from his slumber by the voices of the girls. Elsie was

fresh from the theatre, from the first play she had ever witnessed; she

came home excited and delighted, ready to repeat and recite, as long as

Jacqueline would listen.

And here was Jacqueline.

Early in the evening Elsie had sought her friend with a good deal of

anxiety. A fellow-lodger and field-laborer had invited her to see the

play,--and Jacqueline was far down the street, nursing old Antonine

Duprè. To seek her, thus occupied, on such an errand, Elsie had the good

taste, and the selfishness, to refrain from doing.

Therefore, after a little deliberation, she had gone to the theatre, and

there forgot her hard day-labor in the wonders of the stage,--forgot

Jacqueline, and Antonine, and every care and duty. It was hard for her,

when all was ended, to come back to compunction and explanation, yet to

this she had come back.

Neither of the girls was thinking of the student, their neighbor; but

he was not only wakened by their voices, he amused himself by comparing

them and their utterances with his preconceived notions of the girls.

They might not have recognized him in the street, though they had often

passed him on the stairs; but he certainly could have distinguished the

pretty face of Elsie, or the strange face of Jacqueline, wherever he

might meet them.

Elsie ran on with her story, not careful to inquire into the mood of

Jacqueline,--suspicious of that mood, no doubt,--but at last, made

breathless by her haste and agitation, she paused, looked anxiously at

Jacqueline, and finally said,--

"You think I ought not to have gone?"

"Oh, no,--it gave you pleasure."

A pause followed. It was broken at length by Elsie, exclaiming, in a

voice changed from its former speaking,--

"Jacqueline Gabrie, you are homesick! horribly homesick, Jacqueline!"

"You do not ask for Antonine: yet you know I went to spend the day with

her," said Jacqueline, very gravely.

"How is Antonine Duprè?" asked Elsie.

"She is dead. I have told you a good many times that she must die. Now,

she is dead."

"Dead?" repeated Elsie.

"You care as much as if a candle had gone out," said Jacqueline.

"She was as much to me as I to her," was the quick answer. "She never

liked me. She did not like my mother before me. When you told her my

name, the day we saw her first, I knew what she thought. So let that go.

If I could have done her good, though, I would, Jacqueline."

"She has everything she needs,--a great deal more than we have. She is

very happy, Elsie."

"Am not I? Are not you, in spite of your dreadful look? Your look is

more terrible than the lady's in the play, just before she killed

herself. Is that because Antonine is so well off?"

"I wish that I could be where she is," sighed Jacqueline.

"You? You are tired, Jacqueline. You look ill. You will not be fit for

to-morrow. Come to bed. It is late."

As Jacqueline made no reply to this suggestion, Elsie began to reflect

upon her words, and to consider wherefore and to whom she had spoken.

Not quite satisfied with herself could she have been, for at length she

said in quite another manner,--

"You always said, till now, you wished that you might live a hundred

years. But it was not because you were afraid to die, you said so,

Jacqueline."

"I don't know," was the answer,--sadly spoken, "Don't remind me of

things I have said. I seem to have lost myself."

The voice and the words were effectual, if they were intended as an

appeal to Elsie. Fain would she now exclude the stage and the play from

her thoughts,--fain think and feel with Jacqueline, as it had long been

her habit to do.

Jacqueline, however, was not eager to speak. And Elsie must draw yet

nearer to her, and make her nearness felt, ere she could hope to receive

the thought of her friend. By-and-by these words were uttered, solemn,

slow, and dirge-like:--

"Antonine died just after sundown. I was alone with her. She did not

think that she would die so soon. I did not. In the morning, John

Leclerc came in to inquire how she spent the night. He prayed with her.

And a hymn,--he read a hymn that she seemed to know, for all day she was

humming it over. I can say some of the lines."

"Say them, Jacqueline," said the softened voice of Elsie.

Slowly, and as one recalls that of which he is uncertain, Jacqueline

repeated what I copy more entire:--

"In the midst of life, behold,

Death hath girt us round!

Whom for help, then, shall we pray?

Where shall grace be found?

In thee, O Lord, alone!

We rue the evil we have done,

That thy wrath on us hath drawn.

Holy Lord and God!

Strong and holy God!

Merciful and holy Saviour!

Eternal God!

Sink us not beneath

Bitter pains of endless death!

Kyrie, eleison!"

"Then he went away," she continued. "But he did not think it was the

last time he should speak to Antonine. In the afternoon I thought I saw

a change, and I wanted to go for somebody. But she said, 'Stay with me.

I want nothing.' So I sat by her bed. At last she said, 'Come, Lord

Jesus! come quickly!' and she started up in her bed, as if she saw

him coming. And as if he were coming nearer, she smiled. That was the

last,--without a struggle, or as much as a groan."

"No priest there?" asked Elsie.

"No. When I spoke to her about it, she said her priest was Jesus Christ

the Righteous,--and there was no other,--the High-Priest. She gave me

her Bible. See how it has been used! 'Search the Scriptures,' she said.

She told me I was able to learn the truth. 'I loved your mother,' she

said; 'that is the reason I am so anxious you should know. It is by

my spirit, said the Lord. Ask for that spirit,' she said. 'He is more

willing to give than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their

children.' She said these things, Elsie. If they are true, they must be

better worth believing than all the riches of the world are worth the

having."

The interest manifested by the student in this conversation had been on

the increase since Jacqueline began to speak of Antonine Duprè. It was

not, at this point of the conversation, waning.

"Your mother would not have agreed with Antonine," said Elsie, as if

there were weight in the argument;--for such a girl as Jacqueline could

not speak earnestly in the hearing of a girl like Elsie without result,

and the result was at this time resistance.

"She believed what she was taught in Domrémy," answered Jacqueline, "She

believed in Absolution, Extreme Unction, in the need of another priest

than Jesus Christ,--a representative they call it." She spoke slowly, as

if interrogating each point of her speech.

"I believe as they believed before us," answered Elsie, coldly.

"We have learned many things since we came to Meaux," answered

Jacqueline, with a patient gentleness, that indicated the perplexity

and doubt with which the generous spirit was departing from the old

dominion. She was indeed departing, with that reverence for the past

which is not incompatible with the highest hope for the future. "Our

Joan came from Domrémy, where she must crown the king," she continued.

"We have much to learn."

"She lost her life," said Elsie, with vehemence.

"Yes, she did lose her life," Jacqueline quietly acquiesced.

"If she had known what must happen, would she have come?"

"Yes, she would have come."

"How late it is!" said Elsie, as if in sleep were certain rest from

these vexatious thoughts.

Victor Le Roy was by this time lost in his own reflections. These girls

had supplied an all-sufficient theme; whether they slept or wakened was

no affair of his. He had somewhat to argue for himself about extreme

unction, priestly intervention, confession, absolution,--something to

say to himself about Leclerc, and the departed Antonine.

Late into the night he sat thinking of the marvel of Domrémy and

of Antonine Duprè, of Picardy and of Meaux, of priests and of the

High-Priest. Brave and aspiring, Victor Le Roy could not think of

these things, involved in the names of things above specified, as more

calculating, prudent spirits might have done. It was his business, as a

student, to ascertain what powers were working in the world. All true

characters, of past time or present, must be weighed and measured by

him. Result was what he aimed at.

Jacqueline's words had not given him new thoughts, but unawares they did

summon him to his appointed labor. He looked to find the truth. He must

stand to do his work. He must haste to make his choice. Enthusiastic,

chivalrous, and strong, he was seeking the divine right, night and

day,--and to ascertain that, as it seemed, he had come from Picardy to

Meaux.

Elsie Méril went to bed, as she had invited Jacqueline to do; to sleep,

to dream, she went,--and to smile, in her dreaming, on the world that

smiled on her.

Jacqueline sat by the window; leaned from the window, and prayed; her

own prayer she prayed, as Antonine had said she must, if she would

discover what she needed, and obtain an answer.

She thought of the dead,--her own. She pondered on the future. She

recalled some lines of the hymn Antonine had repeated, and she

wished--oh, how she wished!--that, while the woman lived, and could

reason and speak, she had told her about the letter she had received

from the priest of Domrémy. Many a time it had been on her lips to tell,

but she failed in courage to bring her poor affairs into that chamber

and disturb that dying hour. Now she wished that she had done it. Now

she felt that speech had been the merest act of justice to herself.

But there was Leclerc, the wool-comber, and his mother; she might rely

on them for the instruction she needed.

Old Antonine's faith had made a deep impression on the strong-hearted

and deep-thinking girl; as also had the prayers of John

Leclerc,--especially that last prayer offered for Antonine. It seemed to

authenticate, by its strong, unfaltering utterance, the poor old woman's

evidence. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever,"

were strong words that seemed about to take possession of the heart of

Jacqueline.

Therefore, while Elsie slept, she prayed,--looking farther than the

city-streets, and darkness,--looking farther than the shining stars.

What she sought, poor girl, stood in her silent chamber, stood in her

waiting heart. But she knew Him not, and her ear was heavy; she did not

hear the voice, that she should answer Him, "Rabboni!"

II.

A fortnight from this night, after the harvesters had left the fields of

M. Flaval, Jacqueline was lingering in the twilight.

The instant the day's work was done, the laborers set out for Meaux,

Their haste suggested some unusual cause.

John Leclerc, wool-comber, had received that day his sentence. Report of

the sentence had spread among the reapers in the field and all along the

vineyards of the hill-sides. Not a little stir was occasioned by this

sentence: three days of whipping through the public streets, to conclude

with branding on the forehead. For this Leclerc, it seemed, had

profanely and audaciously declared that a man might in his own behalf

deal with the invisible God, by the mediation of Christ, the sole

Mediator between God and man. Viewed in the light of his offence, his

punishment certainly was of the mildest. Tidings of his sentence were

received with various emotion: by some as though they were maddened

with new wine; others wept openly; many more were pained at heart; some

brutally rejoiced; some were incredulous.

But now they were all on their way to Meaux; the fields were quite

deserted. Urged by one desire, to ascertain the facts of the trial,

and the time when the sentence would be executed, the laborers were

returning to the town.

Without demonstration of any emotion, Jacqueline Gabrie, quiet,

silent, walked along the river-bank, until she came to the clump of

chestnut-trees, whose shadow fell across the stream. Many a time,

through the hot, dreadful day, her eyes turned wistfully to this place.

In the morning Elsie Méril had promised Jacqueline that at twilight they

would read together here the leaves the poor old mother of Leclerc gave

Jacqueline last night: when they had read them, they would walk home by

starlight together. But now the time had come, and Jacqueline was alone.

Elsie had returned to town with other young harvesters.

"Very well," said Jacqueline, when Elsie told her she must go. It was

not, indeed, inexplicable that she should prefer the many voices to the

one,--excitement and company, rather than quiet, dangerous thinking.

But, thus left alone, the face of Jacqueline expressed both sorrow and

indignation. She would exact nothing of Elsie; but latterly how often

had she expected of her companion more than she gave or could give!

Of course the young girl was equal to others in pity and surprise; but

there were people in the world beside the wool-comber and his mother.

Nothing of vast import was suggested by his sentence to her mind. She

did not see that spiritual freedom was threatened with destruction. If

she heard the danger questioned, she could not apprehend it. Though she

had listened to the preaching of Leclerc and had been moved by it, her

sense of truth and of justice was not so acute as to lead her willingly

to incur a risk in the maintaining of the same.

She would not look into Antonine's Bible, which Jacqueline had read so

much during the last fortnight. She was not the girl to torment herself

about her soul, when the Church would save it for her by mere compliance

with a few easy regulations.

More and more was Elsie disappointing Jacqueline. Day by day these girls

were developing in ways which bade fair to separate them in the end.

When now they had most need of each other, their estrangement was

becoming more apparent and decided. The peasant-dress of Elsie would not

content her always, Jacqueline said sadly to herself.

Jacqueline's tracts, indeed, promised poorly as entertainment for an

hour of rest;--rest gained by hours of toil. The confusion of tongues

and the excitement of the city pleased Elsie better. So she went along

the road to Meaux, and was not talking, neither thinking, all the way,

of the wrongs of John Leclerc, and the sorrows of his mother,--neither

meditating constantly, and with deep-seated purpose, "I will not let

thee go, except thou bless me!"--neither on this problem, agitated then

in so many earnest minds, "What shall a man give in exchange for his

soul?"

Thus Jacqueline sat alone and thought that she would read by herself the

tracts Leclerc had found it good to study. But unopened she held the

little printed scroll, while she watched the home-returning birds, whose

nests were in the mighty branches of the chestnut-trees.

She needed the repose more than the teaching, even; for all day the

sun had fallen heavily on the harvesters,--and toiling with a troubled

heart, under a burning sun, will leave the laborer not in the best

condition for such work as Jacqueline believed she had to do.

But she had promised the old woman she would read these tracts, and this

was her only time, for they must be returned that night: others were

waiting for them with an eagerness and longing of which, haply,

tract-dispensers see little now. Still she delayed in opening them. The

news of Leclerc's sentence had filled her with dismay.

Did she dread to read the truth,--"the truth of Jesus Christ," as

his mother styled it? The frightful image of the bleeding, lacerated

wool-comber would come between her and the book in which that faith was

written for maintaining which this man must suffer. Strange contrast

between the heavy gloom and terror of her thoughts and the peaceful

"river flowing on"! How tranquil were the fields that spread beyond

her sight! But there is no rest or joy in Nature to the agitated and

foreboding spirit. Must we not have conquered the world, if we serenely

enter into Nature's rest?

Fain would Jacqueline have turned her face and steps in another

direction that night than toward the road that led to Meaux: to the

village on the border of the Vosges,--to the ancient Domrémy. Once her

home was there; but Jacqueline had passed forth from the old, humble,

true defences: for herself must live and die.

Domrémy had a home for her no more. The priest, on whom she had relied

when all failed her, was still there, it is true; and once she had

thought, that, while he lived, she was not fatherless, not homeless: but

his authority had ceased to be paternal, and she trusted him no longer.

She had two graves in the old village, and among the living a few faces

she never could forget. But on this earth she had no home.

Musing on these dreary facts, and on the bleeding, branded image of

Leclerc, as her imagination rendered him back to his friends, his

fearful trial over, a vision more familiar to her childhood than her

youth opened to Jacqueline.

There was one who used to wander through the woods that bordered the

mountains in whose shadow stood Domrémy,--one whose works had glorified

her name in the England and the France that made a martyr of her. Jeanne

d'Arc had ventured all things for the truth's sake: was she, who also

came forth from that village, by any power commissioned?

Jacqueline laid the tracts on the grass. Over them she placed a stone.

She bowed her head. She hid her face. She saw no more the river, trees,

or home-returning birds; heard not the rush of water or of wind,--nor,

even now, the hurry and the shout; that possibly to-morrow would follow

the poor wool-comber through the streets of Meaux,--and on the third day

they would brand him!

She remembered an old cottage in the shadow of the forest-covered

mountains. She remembered one who died there suddenly, and without

remedy,--her father, unabsolved and unanointed, dying in fear and

torment, in a moment when none anticipated death. She remembered a

strong-hearted woman who seemed to die with him,--who died to all the

interests of this life, and was buried by her husband ere a twelvemonth

had passed,--her mother, who was buried by her father's side.

Burdened with a solemn care they left their child. The priest of

Domrémy, and none beside him, knew the weight of this burden. How had he

helped her bear it? since it is the _business_ of the shepherd to look

after the younglings of the flock. Her hard earnings paid him for

the prayers he offered for the deliverance of her father from his

purgatorial woes. Burdened with a dire debt of filial love, the priest

had let her depart from Domrémy; his influence followed her as an

oppression and a care,--a degradation also.

Her life of labor was a slavish life. All she did, and all she left

undone, she looked at with sad-hearted reference to the great object of

her life. Far away she put all allurement to tempting, youthful joy.

What had she to do with merriment and jollity, while a sin remained

unexpiated, or a moment of her father's suffering and sorrow could be

anticipated?

How, probably, would these new doctrines, held fast by some through

persecution and danger, these doctrines which brought liberty to light,

be received by one so fast a prisoner of Hope as she? She had pledged

herself, with solemn vows had promised, to complete the work her mother

left unfinished when she died.

Some of the laborers in the field, Elsie among them, had hoped, they

said, that the wool-comber would retract from his dangerous position.

Recalling their words, Jacqueline asked herself would she choose to have

him retract? She reminded herself of the only martyr whose memory she

loved, the glorious girl from Domrémy, and a lofty and stern spirit

seemed to rouse within her as she answered that question. She believed

that John had found and taught the truth; and was Truth to be sacrificed

to Power that hated it? Not by a suicidal act, at least.

She took the tracts, so judging, from underneath the stone, wistfully

looked them over, and, as she did so, recalled these words: "You cannot

buy your pardon of a priest; he has no power to sell it; he cannot even

give it. Ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, upbraiding not.

'If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how

much more shall your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that

ask him!'"

She could never forget these words. She could never forget the

preacher's look when he used them; nor the solemnity of the assenting

faith, as attested by the countenances of those around her in that

"upper room."

But her father! What would this faith do for the departed?

Yet again she dared to pray,--here in this solitude, to ask for that

Holy Spirit, the Enlightener. And it was truly with trembling, in

the face of all presentiments of what the gift might possibly, must

certainly, import to her. But what was she, that she could withstand

God, or His gift, for any fear of the result that might attend the

giving of the gift?

Divinely she seemed to be inspired with that courageous thought. She

rose up, as if to follow the laborers who had already gone to Meaux. But

she had not passed out from the shadow of the great trees when another

shadow fell along her path.

III.

It was Victor Le Roy who was so close at hand. He recognized Jacqueline;

for, as he came down the road, now and then he caught a glimpse of her

red peasant-dress. And he accepted his persuasion as it had been an

assurance; for he believed that on such a night no other girl would

linger alone near the place of her day's labor. Moreover, while passing

the group of harvesters, he had observed that she was not among them.

The acquaintance of these young persons was but slight; yet it was of

such a character as must needs increase. Within the last fortnight they

had met repeatedly in the room of Leclerc's mother. On the last night of

her son's preaching they had together listened to his words. The young

student with manly aspirations, ambitious, courageous, inquiring, and

the peasant girl who toiled in fields and vineyards, were on the same

day hearkening to the call, "Ho, every one that thirsteth!" with the

consciousness that the call was meant for them.

When Victor Le Roy saw that Jacqueline perceived and recognized him, he

also observed the tracts in her hand and the trouble in her countenance,

and he wondered in his heart whether she could be ignorant of what had

passed that day at Meaux, and if it could be possible that her manifest

disturbance arose from any perplexity or disquietude independent of the

sentence that had been passed on John Leclerc. His first words brought

an answer that satisfied his doubt.

"She has chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her," said

he, as he came near. "The country is so fair, could no one of them all

except Jacqueline see that? Were they all drawn away by the bloody

fascination of Meaux? even Elsie?"

"It was the news that hurried her home with the rest," answered she,

almost pleased at this disturbance of the solitude.

"Did that keep you here, Jacqueline?" he asked. "It sent me out of the

city. The dust choked me. Every face looked like a devil's. To-morrow

night, to-morrow night, the harvesters will hurry all the faster.

Terrible curiosity! And if they find traces of his blood along the

streets, there will be enough to talk about through the rest of the

harvesting. Jacqueline, if the river could be poured through those

streets, the sacred blood could never be washed out. 'Tis not the

indignity, nor the cruelty, I think of most, but the barbarous, wild

sin. Shall a man's truest liberty be taken from him, as though, indeed,

he were not a man of God, but the spiritual subject of his fellows? If

that is their plan, they may light the fires,--there are many who will

not shrink from sealing their faith with their blood."

These words, spoken with vehemence, were the first free utterance

Victor Le Roy had given to his feelings all day. All day they had been

concentrating, and now came from him fiery and fast.

It was time for him to know in whom and in what he believed.

Greatly moved by his words, Jacqueline said, giving him the tracts,--

"I came from Domrémy, I am free. No one can be hurt by what befalls me.

I want to know the truth. I am not afraid. Did John Leclerc never give

way for a moment? Is he really to be whipped through the streets, and on

the third day to be branded? Will he not retract?"

"Never!" was the answer,--spoken not without a shudder. "He did not

flinch through all the trial, Jacqueline. And his old mother says,

'Blessed be Jesus Christ and his witnesses!'"

"I came from Domrémy," seemed to be in the girl's thought again; for

her eyes flashed when she looked at Victor Le Roy, as though she could

believe the heavens would open for the enlightening of such believers.

"She gave me those to read," said she, pointing to the tracts she had

given him.

"And have you been reading them here by yourself?"

"No. Elsie and I were to have read them together; but I fell to

thinking."

"You mean to wait for her, then?"

"I was afraid I should not make the right sense of them."

"Sit down, Jacqueline, and let me read aloud. I have read them before.

And I understand them better than Elsie does, or ever will."

"I am afraid that is true, Sir. If you read, I will listen."

But he did not, with this permission, begin instantly.

"You came from Domrémy, Jacqueline," said he. "I came from Picardy. My

home was within a stone's throw of the castle where Jeanne d'Arc was a

prisoner before they carried her to Rouen. I have often walked about

that castle and tried to think how it must have been with her when they

left her there a prisoner. God knows, perhaps we shall all have an

opportunity of knowing, how she felt when a prisoner of Truth. Like a

fly in a spider's net she was, poor girl! Only nineteen! She had lived

a life that was worth the living, Jacqueline. She knew she was about

to meet the fate her heart must have foretold. Girls do not run such a

course and then die quietly in their beds. They are attended to their

rest by grim sentinels, and they light fagots for them. I have read the

story many a time, when I could look at the window of the very room

where she was a prisoner. It was strange to think of her witnessing the

crowning of the King, with the conviction that her work ended there and

then,--of the women who brought their children to touch her garments or

her hands, to let her smile on them, or speak to them, or maybe kiss

them. And the soldiers deemed their swords were stronger when they had

but touched hers. And they knelt down to kiss her standard, that white

standard, so often victorious! I have read many a time of that glorious

day at Rheims."

"And she said, _that_ day,' Oh, why can I not die here?'" said

Jacqueline, with a low voice.

"And when the Archbishop asked her," continued Victor, "'Where do you,

then, expect to die?' she answered, 'I know not. I shall die where God

pleases. I have done what the Lord my God commanded me; and I wish that

He would now send me to keep my sheep with my mother and sister.'"

"Because she loved Domrémy, and her work was done," said Jacqueline,

sadly. "And so many hated her! But her mother would be sure to love.

Jeanne would never see an evil eye in Domrémy, and no one would lie in

wait to kill her in the Vosges woods."

"It was such as you, Jacqueline, who believed in her, and comforted her.

And to every one that consoled her Christ will surely say, 'Ye blessed

of my Father, ye did it unto me!' Yes, to be sure, there were too many

who stood ready to kill her in all France,--besides those who were

afraid of her, and fought against our armies. Even when they were taking

her to see the Dauphin, the guard would have drowned her, and lied about

it, but they were restrained. It is something to have been born in

Domrémy,--to have grown up in the very place where she used to play, a

happy little girl. You have seen that fountain, and heard the bells she

loved so much. It was good for you, I know."

"Her prayers were everywhere," Jacqueline replied. "Everywhere she heard

the voices that called her to come and deliver France. But her father

did not believe in her. He persecuted Jeanne."

"A man's foes are of his own household," said Victor. "You see the same

thing now. It is the very family of Christ--yes! so they dare call

it--who are going to tear and rend Leclerc to-morrow for believing the

words of Christ. A hundred judges settled that Jeanne should be burned;

and for believing such words as are in these books"--

"Read me those words," said Jacqueline.

So they turned from speaking of Joan and her work, to contemplate

another style of heroism, and to question their own hearts.

Jacqueline Gabrie had lived through eighteen years of hardship and

exposure. She was strong, contented, resolute. Left to herself, she

would probably have suffered no disturbance of her creed,--would have

lived and died conforming to the letter of its law. But thrown under

the influence of those who did agitate the subject, she was brave and

clear-headed. She listened now, while, according to her wish, her

neighbor read,--listened with clear intelligence, intent on the truth.

That, or any truth, accepted, she would hardly shrink from whatever it

involved. This was the reason why she had really feared to ask the Holy

Ghost's enlightenment! So well she understood herself! Truth was truth,

and, if received, to be abided by. She could not hold it loosely. She

could not trifle with it. She was born in Domrémy. She had played under

the Fairy Oak. She knew the woods where Joan wandered when she sought

her saintly solitude. The fact was acting on her as an inspiration,

when Domrémy became a memory, when she labored far away from the wooded

Vosges and the meadows of Lorraine.

She listened to the reading, as girls do not always listen when they sit

in the presence of a reader such as young Le Roy.

And let it here be understood--that the conclusion bring no sorrow, and

no sense of wrong to those who turn these pages, thinking to find the

climax dear to half-fledged imagination, incapable from inexperience of

any deeper truth, (I render them all homage!)--this story is not told

for any sake but truth's.

This Jacqueline did listen to this Victor, thinking actually of the

words he read. She looked at him really to ascertain whether her

apprehension of these things was all the same as his. She questioned

him, with the simple desire to learn what he could tell her. Her hands

were very hard, so constant had been her dealing with the rough facts of

this life; but the hard hand was firm in its clasp, and ready with its

helpfulness. Her eyes were open, and very clear of dreams. There was

room in them for tenderness as well as truth. Her voice was not the

sweetest of all voices in this world; but it had the quality that would

make it prized by others when heart and flesh were failing; for it would

be strong to speak then with cheerful faith and an unfaltering courage.

Jacqueline sat there under the chestnut-trees, upon the river-bank,

strong-hearted, high-hearted, a brave, generous woman. What if her days

were toilsome? What if her peasant-dress was not the finest woven in the

looms of Paris or of Meaux? Her prayers were brief, her toil was long,

her sleep was sound,--her virtue firm as the everlasting mountains.

Jacqueline, I have singled you from among hordes and tribes and legions

upon legions of women, one among ten thousand, altogether lovely,--not

for dalliance, not for idleness, not for dancing, which is well; not for

song, which is better; not for beauty, which, perhaps, is best; not for

grace, or power, or passion. There is an attribute of God which is more

to His universe than all evidence of power. It is His truth. Jacqueline,

it is for this your name shall shine upon my page.

And, manifestly, it is by virtue of this quality that her reader is

moved and attracted at this hour of twilight on the river-bank.

Her intelligence is so quick! her apprehension so direct! her

conclusions so true! He intended to aid her; but Mazurier himself had

never uttered comments so entirely to the purpose as did this young

girl, speaking from heart and brain. Better fortune, apparently, could

not have befallen him than was his in this reading; for with every

sentence almost came her comment, clear, earnest, to the point.

He had need of such a friend as Jacqueline seemed able to prove herself.

His nearest living relative was an uncle, who had sent the ambitious and

capable young student to Meaux; for he gave great promise, and was worth

an experiment, the old man thought,--and was strong to be thrown out

into the world, where he might ascertain the power of self-reliance. He

had need of friends, and, of all friends, one like Jacqueline.

From the silence and retirement of his home in Picardy he had come

to Meaux,--the town that was so astir, busy, thoroughly alive!

Inexperienced in worldly ways he came. His face was beautiful with its

refinement and power of expression. His eyes were full of eloquence;

so also was his voice. When he came from Picardy to Meaux, his old

neighbors prophesied for him. He knew their prophecies, and purposed to

fulfil them. He ceased from dreaming, when he came to Meaux. He was not

dreaming, when he looked on Jacqueline. He was aware of what he read,

and how she listened, under those chestnut-trees.

The burden of the tracts he read to Jacqueline was salvation by faith,

not of works,--an iconoclastic doctrine, that was to sweep away

the great mass of Romish superstition, invalidating Papal power.

Image-worship, shrine-frequenting sacrifices, indulgences, were esteemed

and proved less than nothing worth in the work of salvation.

"Did you understand John, when he said that the priests deceived us and

were full of robberies, and talked about the masses for the dead, and

said the only good of them was to put money into the Church?" asked

Jacqueline.

"I believe it," he replied, with spirit.

"That the masses are worth nothing?" she asked,--far from concealing

that the thought disturbed her.

"What can they be worth, if a man has lived a bad life?"

"_That_ my father did _not!_" she exclaimed.

"If a man is a bad man, why, then he is. He has gone where he must be

judged. The Scripture says, As a tree falls, it must lie."

"My father was a good man, Victor. But he died of a sudden, and there

was no time."

"No time for what, Jacqueline? No time for him to turn about, and be a

bad man in the end?"

"No time for confession and absolution. He died praying God to forgive

him all his sins. I heard him. I wondered, Victor, for I never thought

of his committing sins. And my mother mourned for him as a good wife

should not mourn for a bad husband."

"Then what is your trouble, Jacqueline?"

"Do you know why I came here to Meaux? I came to get money,--to earn it.

I should be paid more money here than I got for any work at home, they

said: that was the reason. When I had earned so much,--it was a large

sum, but I knew I should get it, and the priest encouraged me to think

I should,--he said that my heart's desire would be accomplished. And I

could earn the money before winter is over, I think. But now, if"----

"Throw it into the Seine, when you get it, rather than pay it to the

liar for selling your father out of a place he was never in! He is safe,

believe me, if he was the good man you say. Do not disturb yourself,

Jacqueline."

"He never harmed a soul. And we loved him that way a bad man could not

be loved."

As Jacqueline said this, a smile more sad than joyful passed over her

face, and disappeared.

"He rests in peace," said Victor Le Roy.

"It is what I must believe. But what if there should be a mistake about

it? It was all I was working for."

"Think for yourself, Jacqueline. No matter what Leclerc thinks or I

think. Can you suppose that Jesus Christ requires any such thing as this

of you, that you should make a slave of yourself for the expiation of

your father? It is a monstrous thought. Doubt not it was love that

took him away so quickly. And love can care for him. Long before this,

doubtless, he has heard the words, 'Come, ye blessed of my father!' And

what is required of you, do you ask? You shall be merciful to them that

live; and trust Him that He will care for those who have gone beyond

your reach. Is it so? Do I understand you? You have been thinking to

_buy_ this good _gift_ of God, eternal life for your father, when of

course you could have nothing to do with it. You have been imposed upon,

and robbed all this while, and this is the amount of it."

"Well, do not speak so. If what you say is true,--and I think it may

be,--what is past is past."

"But won't you see what an infernal lie has been practised on you, and

all the rest of us who had any conscience or heart in us, all this

while? There _is_ no purgatory; and it is nonsense to think, that, if

there were, money could buy a man out of it. Jesus Christ is the one

sole atonement for sin. And by faith in Him shall a man save his soul

alive. That is the only way. If I lose my soul, and am gone, the rest

is between me and God. Do you see it _should_ be so, and must be so,

Jacqueline?"

"He was a good man," said Jacqueline.

She did not find it quite easy to make nothing of all this matter, which

had been the main-spring of her effort since her father died. She could

not in one instant drop from her calculations that on which she had

heretofore based all her activity. She had labored so long, so hard, to

buy the rest and peace and heavenly blessedness of the father she loved,

it was hardly to be expected that at once she would choose to see that

in that rest and peace and blessedness, she, as a producing power, had

no part whatever.