University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.
TWO MEET AGAIN.

MRS. BARRÈ had rested, after her watch, and
early in the afternoon she walked out, down
the harbor; this time alone. She passed Marchants'
Cove, and turn, and hill, and narrow way, to
Franks' Cove; and crossing the stile, and going along
the meadow-path, and through the gorge of the mountain
of rock, she stood in Mad Cove. The stony slope went
steeply hollowing down to the little shelf of land at the
water-side; the ridge of rock went along to the left, and
ended in the tall cliffs at the sea; near her was the
widow Freney's house; a little farther down, to the left,
the hovel of Tom Somerset; and down at the bottom of
the slope were the eight or ten houses of the other people,
and the flakes of the whole colony.

What difference there is between yesterday and to-day!
The great earth has turned over its twenty-four thousand
miles of land and sea, cities and woods and deserts, between;
twilight, darkness, day, have come between;
where a breath would have reached yesterday, there may
be, now, wide waves and storms between.

Mrs. Barrè stood thinking or remembering at the verge
of the cove.

By and by she drew near to Mrs. Freney's house, and
knocked.

The priests of the Roman Catholic denomination do
not visit generally among their people, unless to administer
sacraments; but as the door opened, Father Debree
was standing facing it, as pale and sad as the pale sad
lady who unexpectedly confronted him. She started at
the suddenness of the sight, closed her eyes for an instant,
but stood where she was.

There was a likeness of face and expression, beyond
that of the sadness and paleness, and of figure and bearing,
also. There was the same high forehead, and (except
that hers were darker) the same full, thoughtful, feeling
eyes.

“Must this be?” said the Priest.

“It IS; beyond all hope!” she answered.

“How can you hope it?”

“How can I any thing else?” she said; “I have but
one chief object in life.”

“But what should bring us together, if there be no
longer a common faith?”

“That there may be!”

“I did not know that I must meet this, in coming
to this far-off place!” the Priest said. “I cannot feel
the drawing of old ties!—I cannot see you!”

There was nothing like sternness or hardness in his
way of saying this, but of gentle, fixed resolve.

“I must! I must, while I have life!” she said, not
loudly but most earnestly.

Mrs. Freney stood, a silent and amazed listener; and
the children looked up, wondering.

“I beg pardon, Mrs. Freney,” said the lady; “I came
to ask about your child.”

Mrs. Freney was so bewildered, that she scarce knew
what to answer:—

“She's doing well, thank'ee, Ma'am;—I mean, he's
much the same.”

Father Debree said, turning to her (not without agitation):—

“If you can send your eldest child with me, I will send
back by her two or three little things for her brother!”

Again Mrs. Barrè spoke:—

“And I shall not follow you farther than just outside
the door; but I must say something more, now God has
given me opportunity.”

“Certainly,” he answered; I cannot be harsh or rude
to you. I will hear, this once, and bring all to an end.
Come, child! go on!”

The girl opened the door and passed out; the lady
gravely bowed to Mrs. Freney and followed, and Father
Debree, leaving a blessing in the house, went last.

He bade the girl sit down upon a stone, and walking a
few paces onward, stopped to talk with Mrs. Barrè.

“Why should we meet?” he asked.

“Why should we meet! How can we help meeting,
if there be heaven and hell hereafter, and if our Life and
Death depend upon our duty done or undone? I have
not changed; what I was, I am.”

“All human ties are loosed from me,” he said. “To
do a priest's work is my only duty, and my only wish. I
cannot, even in memory, recall any other tie.”

“What! is all common life and happiness and hope
and duty—is every thing that bound us together, perished
forever? Can you strike it away, because you will not
have it?—It all lives, here,” she continued, laying her
two hands on her bosom, “and will not die!”

“But it is dead with me!” he answered.

A pang, as from a winged arrow, seemed to shoot

through her; but when she spoke, her voice was little
broken.

“It may be so!” she said. “O Walter! I claim no
love. I do not ask for it. I only ask that there shall
not be a wall harder than iron between us! I only ask
that I may have leave, from time to time—only from
time to time—to speak to you, or write to you, and that
you will hear and answer me! That is not much!—not
much from you to me! If you are as you say, it cannot
hurt you!—Walter! Walter!”

Her eyes were only full of tears.

His face quivered; his frame was shaken.

“No, I cannot!” he said; “it must not be! It is impossible!”

“But I beseech you, for God's sake!” she said, clasping
her two hands to him.

“No!” he answered. “For God's sake, I must not!”

Tears stood in his eyes; how could he hinder them!

“Oh!” she cried, closing her eyes, and casting down
her face.

“Even as a priest, you might grant me this!”

“As a priest, I cannot do it! Oh! do not think it
cruelty or hardness of heart; my very heart is being
eaten out;—but I cannot!”

She left him, instantly, and walked very hurriedly
away.

On, on, on she went; up the harbor, as she had come;
into her own pretty little yard, into her house, up to her
chamber.

Little Mary came running into her mother's room, but
stopped; for her mother was kneeling at a chair, holding
a letter.

The child went down upon her little knees at another

chair, laying her cheek down upon her arm, with her face
toward her mother, and pretty soon beginning to play
gently with the coral beads about her neck.

As Mrs. Barrè rose, she came across and set her lips
upon the forehead of her pretty little daughter, and
smoothed her hair.

“Now, darling,” said she, “do you think you can do
an errand for me exactly as I tell you?” As she spoke
she folded the letter in white paper.

“Oh yes, mamma!” said Mary, eagerly, “I'm sure I
can.”

“There's a gentleman coming along, and you're to run
after him and give him this, and tell him it belongs to
him; and then you're to run back as fast as you can;
and don't stop for any thing. Can you?”

The little ambassadress was sure that she could do just
as she was bid, and Mrs. Barrè reiterated her instructions:—

“Mind; you're not to stop for any thing. If he
speaks to you, or calls you, you're to run back to me as
fast as you can.”

The child assented, and repeated her mother's words.

“It's a costly thing!” said Mrs. Barrè, looking forth,
as if from the quay her eyes were following towards the
far off, fateful ocean, the full-sailed ship that bore her all
in one venture.

“Now, dear! Quick! There he's going—don't forget!”
she exclaimed, breathless. “Run! and come
straight back!” The priest whom she had met in Mad
Cove was just passing.

Little Mary ran down stairs, and then out upon the
road, with her golden curls shaking and shining in the
sunlight. The gentleman turned and took the parcel

from her hand; then, having opened it, looked after her,
as if he would call; but presently he turned again and
walked on.

Little Mary only varied a little from her orders. Having
run away from him as fast as she could run, she
stopped, as a bird might stop, and looked back; but he
did not turn again, so she came in.

This time, too, as before, her mother was upon her
knees, and the child stood looking out of the window.
As her mother rose, she said:—

“That's the same one I saw the other day, mamma!”
Her mother was thinking her own thoughts.

Mary had a child's way.

“Why do you cry so much, when my papa's gone up
in sky, and brother Willie?” she asked.

Mrs. Barrè wept silently. The little prattler went on
prattling.

“If I could go up there, I'd ask Heavenly Father
where my papa was. He'd know, wouldn't He, mamma?
Heavenly Father would know, because He knows every
thing. He'd show me my papa; and I'd go up to him
and say, `I'm your little girl Mary, that you left at
mamma's house when you came up here,' and then he'd
know me.”

The little thing was not satisfied with the silent acquiescence
that she got.

“Mamma! Mamma!” she exclaimed, “I saw little
brother Willie!”

“When, dearie?” asked her mother, now heeding
her.

“Just now,—a little while ago,—and he leaded me by
my hand near to where Heavenly Father was sitting
on his great chair. Then Heavenly Father got up and

opened his closet and took down one of our little boy's
playthings, and gave it to our little Willie;—(He didn't
give any to me;) but He looked at Willie's little sister
as if He was glad to see me. Little Willie knew who I
was, mamma, because he saw my paper.”

“What paper, darling?” asked her mother, entirely
occupied with the child's story.

“My paper—don't you know? That you writed
`Mary Barrè' on, for your little girl. I throwed it away
up in sky, and wind blew it away up, so Willie could see
it; and Willie knew what little girl it was.”

“Come with me, you dear little dreamer!” said Miss
Dare, who suddenly appeared at the door; and, snatching
up Mary, she carried her off.

She set the child under the bowery branches of a
seringa, and stood among the shrubs and floating sprays
of creepers, which she had a year before gathered about
the house, a fairer thing than the sunshine that was playing
among them; and she sang for the child's pleasure a
song broken into pauses now and then, much as the sunshine
was, here and there, broken into shade. Perhaps
our readers have seen or will see how the song may have
been suggested.

Her voice was a fine, full alto, never needing any
effort, but now apparently kept low, for Mary's ear. The
air which she very likely adapted to the words, was

much the same in general as that of the `Bonny house o'
Airlie;' and her voice flew upward and flitted from part
to part among the words, as a bird from bough to bough;
but the song all lived in the singing.

The shriek seemed to split the air, and the shudder to
be shaking strong hearts, and a wail to wander sadly
over the sea, where the good ship had foundered. She
paused here for a while, and then began again in a sweet,
tripping measure:—

However it was that she fitted the music to the words,
it seemed much as if every line took its own form in
leaving the singer's lips, in the fittest melody.

A straying lock of her own hair was tossed by the
playful wind between her lips, and she stood silent again;
—the little girl clambered to the top of the fence and
seated herself there.

“Please sing, cousin Fanny!” she said, when she was
seated. Miss Dare sang again:—

“Here comes Mr. Naughton!” said the child from her
perch, like the topman from his lookout; “and somebody's
with him,—it's James Urston!”

Miss Dare hastened to take the little one down; and
as she was retreating into the house, the voice of the merchant-churchwarden-and-magistrate
was heard, urging
upon the young lover, who had abandoned his preparation
for the Romish priesthood, the excellence of, a life of celibacy;
and regretting that Mr. Wellon (though he was
unmarried, certainly) was not under the obligations of a
vow.

Miss Dare's song was broken off.