Then he was over and climbing quickly down. If only he had a lantern! He had to feel in the deep darkness around the lock. Ah, it was a cunning bolt, not a lock, and a bolt that could be reached only from the inside. He pulled it back with all his strength, for it was thick and strong, and the gate creaked open a little. The big dog was at it in an instant, thrusting it wide open with his mighty shoulders. Then he was racing towards the house with the dogs at his heels, and among them, stumbling, raced Father Alfred, with the poker swinging in his hand.
The mansion was totally dark, except for a long vertical sliver of light between draperies on the first floor. Father Alfred ran to it, tried to see within the room. He caught a glimpse of a white wall, the edge of a portrait, a rosy shadow of the fire. He tried the window, and it was locked. He ran to the door, and it was locked, also. Then he went back to the window and shattered the glass with the poker.
There were two thunderous sounds and a whine near his ear, and then the howling of a dog, which had apparently been hit. A gun, then. Father Alfred scrambled over the low sill of the window and was about to drop into the room when he heard another sound. The opening of the outer door, and then a faint stream of light, and in that light the shadow of a man. “Get him!” he shouted, wildly, to his friend the big dog, and the dog flew like a huge moth to the man, and there was a desperate scream. Father Alfred, satisfied, dropped into the rich room.
Lady McLeod, in a long white gown of silk and lace, lay facedown on the red carpet of the room, motionless, her golden head dropped between her outflung arms. Groaning, the priest ran to her and bent over her, and fearfully turned her about. Her face was livid, her eyes staring and rolled up, her tongue partly protruding from her open mouth. There were purple splashes about her throat. She had been strangled. Praying, the priest felt for her pulse, though without hope. It was just perceptible. She was still alive. He raised his voice in a loud shout for help, and then he drew a deep breath and pressed his mouth to that of the girl and blew his breath into her throat. Vaguely he was aware of voices, screams, lights, the yelping of dogs, but all his attention was on the girl. He pressed her ribs in, released them, and blew his breath of life into her. He caught flashes, through the corner of his eye, of whirling skirts and cries for the police. He heard a door banging, then the rattle of harness, then the pounding of hoofs. Someone, he thought with detachment, has finally gone for help.
In and out, breath upon breath, pressure slowly but firmly on the delicate ribs. He had learned this method at school; it had saved many lads fished from pond and stream. He concentrated all his effort, all his silent prayers, all the extreme exactitude of which he was capable, to saving this life. Were the ribs beginning to contract and expand a little, on their own? He did not stop to see. He breathed in and out. And he prayed mentally.
Then the cold and swollen lips under his began to warm and stir. He gave himself a swift glance at the girl’s face now. The ashen color was being replaced by a whiter and clearer shade. The staring eyes were closed, and the golden lashes were fluttering. The priest continued his ministrations, until the girl started convulsively and strained for breath of her own, and caught it, and expelled it. She did this several times, and then the priest knew she would live. He tried to rise. The room swung about him, and he fainted.
From far off, after a long time, he heard a voice say, “It’s all over, laddie! Here, drink this.” There was a cold glass at his lips, and he obediently drank the brandy. “A brave laddie,” said the Chief Constable’s voice, and another man answered, “Aye, and he’s a’ that, sir.” Another masculine voice said, “Don’t drown him or strangle him with that, Bob. Let him swallow slowly.” Father Alfred swallowed slowly and gratefully, his eyes still closed, for a heavy weight seemed to be lying on them. He did not know where he was and it was not until he had swallowed all the brandy that he could remark to himself, “What is all this? Where am I?”
He opened his eyes painfully to a glare of many lamps. The room — what room? — appeared to be seething with men and women, though actually there were only the Chief Constable, three policemen, the doctor, and two of the servants. Then the priest recalled everything, and tried to sit up. He was lying, he noticed vaguely, on some long couch covered with green velvet.
He tried to cry out, to speak. The Chief Constable put his hand on his shoulder, and Father Alfred fell back, weakly. “Her ladyship is in her bed,” said the Chief Constable, “with one of her women with her (who is a nurse), and under a drug. She’ll be as right as rain, laddie, before another day is up. And it was you that saved her life!” he added, admiringly. “How did ye get on to it, at last?”
“I didn’t,” said the priest in a croaking voice. “The dog came for me, and told me.” He started. “The poor, brave dog! Where is he?”
The doctor said, “Bound up nicely, and sleeping, I trust, in his kennel. So he came for you, did he? Because he could not get into the house himself, and knew himself helpless against a gun. And there’s some that calls them dumb animals!”
“The man?” asked the priest, after a moment, and with fear. The Chief Constable’s face darkened with hate and rage. “The dog was holding him like death, with the help of the others, when we came. It’s young Laurance Highland.”
The priest could have wept. Laurance Highland, only son, only child, of Sir William and Lady Highland, the child of their middle age. The Highlands, vigorously practicing Catholics, devout people, good people, kindly and simple and charitable people. They so loved their son, the handsome, gay, laughing son, twenty-six years old, who had never injured a living thing in his life, not even a fox or rabbit, until the night he had killed Lord McLeod, for love of his wife.
The priest had to hear it all, even while he told himself over and over, I’d never have believed it! He was the only one I never really suspected. Not Laurance, who in a state of mortal sin had received Holy Communion piously every Sunday, and who had confessed in the Confessional only to the lightest of the venial sins. Why had he done this? To direct any suspicion anyone might have had of him, if anyone had suspected at all?
Apparently not even Lady McLeod had suspected him very much, for so she had whispered when they had gotten her into her bed. But he was unmarried, and young. He had also treated her with respect and deference and kindness, unlike the others who were actively wooing her. However, on this night, she had confronted him as she had confronted others, with drink, then with soft words, then with pretended love. And he had responded, and almost with pride had told her the truth, thinking that for what he had done she would fall into his arms! Into his drunken, groping arms, with exclamations of love!
They had been alone in the drawing-room, after all the guests had gone and the women were asleep high in their rooms under the roof. Lady McLeod, laughing, and with hate and murder in her heart, had disentangled herself with some excuse, and had run to the gunroom for the very pistol which had blown out the life of her husband. She had returned here, to find Laurance sprawled sleepily, but smilingly, on the green velvet couch. And she had told him that she was going to kill him.
He had, apparently, pretended to be sleepier and drunker than he actually was, for he had let his face become empty and slack and had raised himself a little on the couch, looking directly at the gun pointed at him. He was slender and athletic; from that half-reclining position he had hurled his body like a missile at the girl, and she had staggered back under the impact and had dropped the gun. He had then seized her by the throat, in his terror for what he had revealed, and had begun to strangle her thoroughly to death when Father Alfred had smashed the window. He caught a glimpse of the priest’s head, dropped the girl to the floor, picked up the gun, and had fired. Believing that he had hit the priest, because of the sharp howl of the dog, he had run to the door, and had been seized by the great dog.
“He has confessed it all, and is now in gaol,” said the Chief Constable. “And he will be hanged. There’s nae fight in him any longer, now that his par
ents know, may God have mercy on the puir souls.”
“But how could the dog, that big brute, have known, and have gotten over the wall so quickly, and brought the priest?” asked the doctor, marveling. “It’s not possible, of course, but the dog must have known, watching his mistress through the window, that she was in danger, long before Laurance had confessed, pridefully, to her in his drunkenness, long before she had gone for the gun, long before Laurance had taken her by the throat. It’s not possible — ”
“It’s a’ that,” said the Chief Constable, with solemnity. “We hae the evidence.”
The doctor shook his head again, marveling. “We shall never know,” he said.
“It is an evil thing to call an animal a brute,” said the other. With pity, he gave Father Alfred another drink of brandy, then, on second thought, gave one to himself and one to the doctor, and, after a pause, to his three men. They let the priest sip alone for a while, and wondered at his thoughts. He was thinking of how good the Highlands had been to him. It was they who had built the parochial school in the time of the ‘auld Faether’. It was they who were so generous for the missions. It was they — Tears filled the young priest’s eyes. He had never loved any woman but his mother, his three sisters, and one old aunt. In the abstract, he knew that men sometimes killed for a woman; he had never encountered the actuality before. Yet, though Laurance had killed for Lady McLeod, he had attempted to kill her also. The lust to murder, then, was stronger than love.
Man was utterly dark in his soul, vile in his thoughts, treacherous of speech and action, more beastly than any poor beast, not to be trusted. Yet One had died for him; One had considered him worth saving.
“Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us — Lord, have mercy,” whispered the young priest, while the tears ran down his face and he bent his head and clasped his hands.
He came the next day to see Lady McLeod, ringing the gate-bell and being admitted at once by the policeman on guard. But first he went to see his friend in the kennel, and was greeted by the bandaged one with love, laughter and pride. “We saved her,” he said. “We two.” The priest kissed the large shaggy head and rubbed the rough ears. “No, you did,” he said. Then he went to call on her ladyship, who was sitting up in her bed, her throat bandaged.
Her eyes began to brim with tears when she saw him and she held out her hand to him, and the woman with her discreetly left the room. But Father Alfred did not take the offered hand. He did not listen to the painfully whispered words of gratitude. He waited until she had finished. And then he looked into her eyes, sternly.
She bowed her head and clasped her hands, and whispered, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I accuse myself of attempted murder — ”
She made her full, if halting, confession, and then a perfect Act of Contrition. And the priest absolved her of her sins.
“Still,” said Father Alfred to his friends about the fire, “had she not done what she did the murderer would never have been caught. She was a brave woman. But, as St. Paul has said, we see through dark glasses now — She married one of George’s friends two years later, and they had four fine children.”
“And the good dog?” asked Grandmother.
“Oh, Lady McLeod gave him to me, in her gratitude, and we were fast friends until he died of a great age, in my arms. I never had a better or more understanding friend. And I sometimes wonder — It is possible that George, Lord McLeod was right, after all.”
Chapter Nine
The next night Father Weir, a tall lean Scotsman, said, “I often think of the tale of Father MacBurne and the Doughty Chieftain, of which he told us last year. He was a despot, if I remember, that chieftain, but a benevolent one. One wonders which is worse. A benevolent despot believes that he is wiser than his people; a cruel despot despises them. Yet, in their effects, they are the same.
“I once knew a cruel despot, and he was, of course, the unhappiest of men, for it is not in the nature of man, unless he is a devil — and there be so many devils! — to oppress his fellows.
“Ian MacVicar was a cruel despot, but he was a man with a soul, and so he was desperately unhappy. He was also proud and disdainful. He had little love in his life. But I must tell you of him.”
Father Thomas Weir and the Problem of Virtue
“I was a very young and naïve priest, and shy indeed, when I was sent to my first parish in the Highlands,” said Father Weir. “I hae a bad chest then, and it was thought it would do me good in the country air near the sea. My mother filled my valise with heavy woolens she had knitted and woven, and sent me off with two pairs of thick socks on my feet, and two pullovers on my chest. I was as thin as an eel, but my clothing fattened me. I smelled of camphorated oil, for my mother, God rest her soul, was a believer in it, and so I was sent off drenched in it under a layer of red flannel — also on my chest. I remember my face well, over all that, pinched and flushed, my eyes trembling with shyness.
“I was all atremble, too, at the thought of a parish of my own, with no superior to rescue me. My parish was poor; all Scottish parishes were poor in those days. There were thirty Catholic families in a hamlet of some six hundred others. The others were Scots Presbyterians. Their occupation was sheep, and trading, and fighting for amusement, and drinking, when the puir souls could afford it, for the nights were long and cold and there was not even a Punch and Judy there or a pantomime to bring merriment to the folk. Oh, but there were some braw fights on a Saturday; all things served, particularly religion. But Sunday was a death, spent in the kirk or sleeping or recovering from the raw whiskey festivities of the night before.
“The Scotsman, if a Catholic, does not approach his religion in the spirit of joy and fulfillment as does his Irish brother. He is as dour as his Presbyterian neighbor, and so I knew I was in for it, my father having been a Highlander. When he beats his breast at Mass he does a hearty job of it, not the little tap of the Englishman. It sets him to coughing for the rest of the celebration. The choir groans; it does nae chant. The Highlander, in the Confessional, is scrupulosity itself, to the point of eccentricity. I think few Scots Catholics are in hell; they would bore the devil, himself, with a constant recitation of their sins.”
The hamlet was even worse than the boyish priest had expected in his more depressed moments. It hung almost on the lip of a great cliff, and all the houses were of dull gray stone with thatched or slate roofs, and all the tiny cobbled streets, five of them, circled tightly about each other. To the right of the hamlet the brown and heathery hills rose, gloomy and harsh, and here the sheep grazed. Even in summer, when Father Weir arrived, it was very cold, the sun rarely shone, the sky massed itself over the hamlet in heavy dun blankets. The odor of the sea and the pines never left the harsh and blowing air, and added their own particular somberness to the locality. The prevailing colors were black, gray and brown, not to be lightened by the little flower gardens struggling to survive in that weather. The only center of gaiety was the pub, uninspiringly named ‘The Thistle’. All in all, it was far bleaker than any hamlet in Scotland which Father Weir had ever seen. It was very clean and very, very poor. It was also fierce.
The ‘wee kirk’, named, of course, St. Andrew’s, was so small as to appear toylike, and clean and bleak inside. Even the high altar was bleak, and the crucifix had been cleaned so often that all the gilt had disappeared and only bare wood remained. The statues were tiny, the homespun linens rough if starched within an inch of their coarse lives. The floor was stone, the wooden pews narrow and incredibly uncomfortable, the kneelers unpadded, as was the Communion rail. There was but one stained-glass window. This one, however, was strangely beautiful and expensive. “Squire MacVicar hae done that,” said the priest’s off-and-on housekeeper, a fat middle-aged lady who was co-owner of the local pub with her husband. For a moment the priest was cheered. A parishioner rich enough to present the kirk with a window like that not only had taste but was pious and kind-hearted. The housekeeper ruined his hopes by observing t
hat the Squire was not Catholic.
“Then, why hae he done it, Mrs. Logan?”
The housekeeper shrugged and did not answer. Being Scots, himself, the priest knew that he would receive no more information from this source. He might be able, within a year or two, to discover why the Squire had been so generous and so tolerant, but he doubted it. Three were more likely, picked up from many sources in fragments.
The rectory consisted of one fairly large room which was to serve as parlor and study, a bedroom hardly large enough for a sheep dog to turn about it, and a kitchen with brick walls and a large fireplace on which all the cooking was done. The fireplace was the only source of heat for the whole miniature cottage, and so if he was not to freeze to death promptly the priest would have to permit the kitchen door to be open at all times. This did not make for confidential chats in the parlor, and Father Tom suspected that Mrs. Logan would have her ear cocked all the time. There was nothing a woman loved more than to hear something spicy and juicy, preferably scandalous. The Scots might be reticent about solid information but they were gossips.
The walls of the cottage — that is, the two rooms outside the kitchen — were of grim dark wood, which were not lightened when the young priest hung his large crucifix where a fireplace ought to have been, and his rather bad daguerreotypes of his parents and a very bad and crude lithograph of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The furniture of the parlor consisted of one uncushioned settee (near where the fireplace ought to have been), two straight chairs as still as a frozen Scotsman, and a bare wooden table. There was also a rickety bookcase, with a few moldering books, mostly in Latin. Father Tom put his own collection of books beside these relics, and tried to feel less depressed.