Sir Christopher: A Romance of a Maryland Manor in 1644. Goodwin Maud Wilder
over the balustrade.
"Yes, Poppet, what is it?"
"Thou didtht not come upstairs as thou didtht promise when the nuts were served…"
"Dearest, I could not. I was in talk with Sir Christopher."
"But thou didtht promise, and how oft have I heard thee say, 'A promise is a promise'?"
Elinor started from her chair to go toward the stair; but Father White stayed her with uplifted finger.
"Let me deal with him," he said under his breath; "'tis time the lad learned the difference between the failure which is stuff o' the conscience, and that which is the fault of circumstances." Then aloud, "Cecil, wilt thou close thine eyes and come down to me when thou hast counted a hundred?"
"Ay, that will I."
"Without fail?"
"Why, surely! There is naught I would love better than toathting my toeth by the great fire."
"Very well, then; shut thine eyes and begin!"
Cecil counted faithfully to the stroke of a hundred, and then springing to his feet with a shout, started down the stair, but to his surprise the priest was nowhere to be seen. Cecil searched behind the settle and under the table as if one could fancy Father White's stately figure in such undignified hiding-place! At length the child gave up the search and called aloud, —
"Where art thou?"
"Here, in this little room," answered a muffled voice, and Cecil ran to the door only to find it securely fastened by a bolt within.
"Come in," cried the voice.
"I cannot; it ith bolted."
"But you promised – "
"But the door ith fatht."
"What of that? 'A promise is a promise.'"
By this time Cecil, perceiving that jest and lesson were both pointed at him, stood with quivering lip, ready at a single further word to burst into tears; but the kind father, flinging wide the door, caught him in his arms, saying, "We must not hold each other responsible, my boy, for promises which God and man can make impossible of fulfilment. We must be gentle and charitable and easy to be entreated for forgiveness; and so good-night to mother, and I will lay thee again in thy trundle-bed."
"Has Sir Christopher Neville left us also?" asked Mary Brent, as Father White came down from Cecil's room and joined her and Elinor at the fire.
"He has."
"A strange man!" said Father White.
Elinor colored.
"Ay," answered Mary Brent; "I cannot make out why Giles hath taken such a liking to him. To me he seems proud and reserved, with something in his tone that suggests that he is turning the company into a jest. For myself I did not see anything droll in his story of the fried whetstone."
Elinor shrugged her shoulders.
"If every man were condemned that told a tale in which others could see nothing droll, we should need a Tyburn Hill here in Maryland."
"Ay, but what's the use of telling a droll story if it be not droll? I do not understand Sir Christopher."
"I don't think you do."
"I think I do."
It was Father White who spoke, and his shrewd gray eyes were fixed upon Elinor, who turned to the fire without a word.
Mary Brent sat tapping her foot on the floor.
"'Tis strange he should have left without a word," she said at last.
"Never fear, Mary! We have not lost him. He is too large to be mislaid like a parcel. He did but go out to fulfil a behest of mine, and if Father White understands him, as he says he does, he will have divined that it was an errand of courtesy and good-will on which he set out."
A silence fell on the group. Then Father White, looking out, exclaimed: "'Tis a bitter night and the snow is falling again! No wonder the settlers grumble over such a winter in this land where they were promised all sunshine and flowers."
"Yes," said Mary Brent. "If the weather is to be like this, we might as well have settled on the bleak Massachusetts coast."
"It cannot last long. The natives all say they never knew such a season. They fear to go abroad at night, there are so many half-starved wild beasts prowling around."
Elinor rose and began to pace the floor uneasily.
"But," continued Father White, "there are more reasons than those of climate for preferring Maryland to Massachusetts. How wouldst thou have prospered in a Puritan colony?"
"I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways."
"Yet," interrupted Elinor, "they too are serving God in their own way."
Mary Brent shook her head. "I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood's Barn."
Elinor murmured something about "toleration."
"Toleration!" repeated her cousin scornfully. "I hate the word. He that tolerates any religion against his own is either a hypocrite or a backslider."
"Shall there be no liberty of conscience?"
"Ay, but liberty to think wrong is no liberty."
"These be deep matters, my daughters, and best left to the schoolmen," said Father White. "None doubt that Mistress Brent hath kept her fidelity unspotted to the Church. Let Elinor Calvert pattern after her kinswoman."
Thereafter Father White turned again to the subject of missions, and the two women listened till the hour-glass had been turned and the candles began to burn low in their sockets. At last Mary Brent grew somewhat impatient. If she had a vice it was excess of punctuality. She was willing to share her last crust with a stranger; but he must be on hand when it came out of the oven. The hours for meals and especially for bedtime were scrupulously observed in her household, and to-night it irked her to be kept up thus beyond her usual hour for retiring.
Elinor, perceiving this and feeling some sense of responsibility for the cause, said at last, —
"I pray thee, Cousin, wait no longer the coming of Sir Christopher, whose errand has kept him beyond what I counted on, else I would not have given my consent. Father White and I will sit up to await his coming. Go thou to bed, and see that the counterpane is drawn high over Cecil, for the howling of the wind promises a cold night."
"Poor little one!" said Mary Brent, rising and evidently glad of an excuse for retiring, "I will see that he is tucked in warm and snug. Sir Christopher is to sleep next Father White. I have had his bed made with our new homespun sheets."
As Mistress Brent passed out of sight up the stairs, Elinor turned to Father White with tears standing in her eyes, —
"How good she is!" she murmured.
"Ay, a good woman – her price is above rubies. I pray that by her example and influence you may be held as true as she to your duties to God and His Holy Church."
Elinor stirred uneasily. The movement did not escape the priest's eye, accustomed to studying every symptom of the soul's troubles as a physician studies the signs of bodily tribulations.
"My daughter," he continued, "is your heart wholly at peace – firmly stayed upon the living rock?"
"No! no!" cried Elinor, "it is rather a boat tossed upon the waves at the mercy of every tempest that sweeps the waters."
"How strange!" said Father White, speaking softly as to a suffering child. "How strange that you thus of your own will are tossed about, and run the risk of being cast upon the rocks; yea, of perishing utterly in the whirlwind, when peace is waiting for you, to be had for the asking."
"I would I knew how to find it."
"Even as St. Peter found it when he too was in peril of deep waters, by calling upon the name of the Lord. Come, my daughter, come with me to the altar, that we may