A CONVERT OF THE MISSION
The largest tent of the Tasajara camp meeting was crowded to its utmostextent. The excitement of that dense mass was at its highest pitch. TheReverend Stephen Masterton, the single erect, passionate figure of thatconfused medley of kneeling worshipers, had reached the culminatingpitch of his irresistible exhortatory power. Sighs and groans werebeginning to respond to his appeals, when the reverend brother was seento lurch heavily forward and fall to the ground.
At first the effect was that of a part of his performance; the groansredoubled, and twenty or thirty brethren threw themselves prostrate inhumble imitation of the preacher. But Sister Deborah Stokes, perhapsthrough some special revelation of feminine intuition, grasped thefallen man, tore loose his black silk necktie, and dragged him freeof the struggling, frantic crowd whose paroxysms he had just evoked.Howbeit he was pale and unconscious, and unable to continue the service.Even the next day, when he had slightly recovered, it was found that anyattempt to renew his fervid exhortations produced the same disastrousresult.
A council was hurriedly held by the elders. In spite of the energeticprotests of Sister Stokes, it was held that the Lord "was wrestlin' withhis sperrit," and he was subjected to the same extraordinary treatmentfrom the whole congregation that he himself had applied to THEM. Proppedup pale and trembling in the "Mourners' Bench" by two brethren, hewas "striven with," exhorted, prayed over, and admonished, untilinsensibility mercifully succeeded convulsions. Spiritual therapeuticshaving failed, he was turned over to the weak and carnal nursing of"womenfolk." But after a month of incapacity he was obliged to yield to"the flesh," and, in the local dialect, "to use a doctor."
It so chanced that the medical practitioner of the district was a manof large experience, of military training, and plain speech. When,therefore, he one day found in his surgery a man of rude Western type,strong-limbed and sunburned, but trembling, hesitating and neurotic inmovement, after listening to his symptoms gravely, he asked, abruptly:"And how much are you drinking now?"
"I am a lifelong abstainer," stammered his patient in quiveringindignation. But this was followed by another question so franklyappalling to the hearer that he staggered to his feet.
"I'm Stephen Masterton--known of men as a circuit preacher, of theNorthern California district," he thundered--"and an enemy of the fleshin all its forms."
"I beg your pardon," responded Dr. Duchesne, grimly, "but as you aresuffering from excessive and repeated excitation of the nervous system,and the depression following prolonged artificial exaltation--it makeslittle difference whether the cause be spiritual, as long as there is acertain physical effect upon your BODY--which I believe you have broughtto me to cure. Now--as to diet? you look all wrong there.
"My food is of the simplest--I have no hankering for fleshpots,"responded the patient.
"I suppose you call saleratus bread and salt pork and flapjacks SIMPLE?"said the doctor, coolly; "they are COMMON enough, and if you wereworking with your muscles instead of your nerves in that frame of yoursthey might not hurt you; but you are suffering as much from eating morethan you can digest as the veriest gourmand. You must stop all that. Godown to a quiet watering-place for two months." . . .
"I go to a watering-place?" interrupted Masterton; "to the haunt of theidle, the frivolous and wanton--never!"
"Well, I'm not particular about a 'watering-place,'" said the doctor,with a shrug, "although a little idleness and frivolity with differentfood wouldn't hurt you--but you must go somewhere and change your habitsand mode of life COMPLETELY. I will find you some sleepy old Spanishtown in the southern country where you can rest and diet. If this isdistasteful to you," he continued, grimly, "you can always call it 'atrial.'"
Stephen Masterton may have thought it so when, a week later, he foundhimself issuing from a rocky gorge into a rough, badly paved, hillystreet, which seemed to be only a continuation of the mountain roaditself. It broadened suddenly into a square or plaza, flanked on eachside by an irregular row of yellowing adobe houses, with the inevitableverandaed tienda in each corner, and the solitary, galleried fonda, witha half-Moorish archway leading into an inner patio or courtyard in thecenter.
The whole street stopped as usual at the very door of the Missionchurch, a few hundred yards farther on, and under the shadow of the twobelfry towers at each angle of the facade, as if this were the ultimathule of every traveler. But all that the eye rested on was ruined,worn, and crumbling. The adobe houses were cracked by the incessantsunshine of the half-year-long summer, or the more intermittentearthquake shock; the paved courtyard of the fonda was so uneven andsunken in the center that the lumbering wagon and faded diligencia stoodon an incline, and the mules with difficulty kept their footing whilebeing unladen; the whitened plaster had fallen from the feet of the twopillars that flanked the Mission doorway, like bandages from a goutylimb, leaving the reddish core of adobe visible; there were apparentlyas many broken tiles in the streets and alleys as there were on theheavy red roofs that everywhere asserted themselves--and even seemed toslide down the crumbling walls to the ground. There were hopeless gapsin grille and grating of doorways and windows, where the iron bars haddropped helplessly out, or were bent at different angles. The walls ofthe peaceful Mission garden and the warlike presidio were alike lost inthe escalading vines or leveled by the pushing boughs of gnarledpear and olive trees that now surmounted them. The dust lay thick andimpalpable in hollow and gutter, and rose in little vapory clouds with asoft detonation at every stroke of his horse's hoofs. Over all this dustand ruin, idleness seemed to reign supreme. From the velvet-jacketedfigures lounging motionless in the shadows of the open doorways--somotionless that only the lazy drift of cigarette smoke betokened theirbreathing--to the reclining peons in the shade of a catalpa, or thesquatting Indians in the arroyo--all was sloth and dirt.
The Rev. Stephen Masterton felt his throat swell with his oldexhortative indignation. A gaudy yellow fan waved languidly in front ofa black rose-crested head at a white-curtained window. He knew he wasstifling with righteous wrath, and clapped his spurs to his horse.
Nevertheless, in a few days, by the aid of a letter to the innkeeper,he was installed in a dilapidated adobe house, not unlike those he hadseen, but situated in the outskirts and overlooking the garden and partof the refectory of the old Mission. It had even a small garden of itsown--if a strip of hot wall, overburdened with yellow and white roses, adozen straggling callas, a bank of heliotrope, and an almond tree couldbe called a garden. It had an open doorway, but so heavily recessedin the thick walls that it preserved seclusion, a sitting-room, and analcoved bedroom with deep embrasured windows that however excluded theunwinking sunlight and kept an even monotone of shade.
Strange to say, he found it cool, restful, and, in spite of the dust,absolutely clean, and, but for the scent of heliotrope, entirelyinodorous. The dry air seemed to dissipate all noxious emanations anddecay--the very dust itself in its fine impalpability was volatile witha spicelike piquancy, and left no stain.
A wrinkled Indian woman, brown and veined like a tobacco leaf,ministered to his simple wants. But these wants had also been regulatedby Dr. Duchesne. He found himself, with some grave doubts of hiseffeminacy, breakfasting on a single cup of chocolate instead of hisusual bowl of molasses-sweetened coffee; crumbling a crisp tortillainstead of the heavy saleratus bread, greasy flapjack, or the lard-friedsteak, and, more wonderful still, completing his repast with purplegrapes from the Mission wall. He could not deny that it was simple--thatit was even refreshing and consistent with the climate and hissurroundings. On the other hand, it was the frugal diet of the commonestpeasant--and were not those peons slothful idolaters?
At the end of the week--his correspondence being also restricted by hisdoctor to a few lines to himself regarding his progress--he wrote tothat adviser:
"The trembling and unquiet has almost ceased; I have less nightlyturmoil and visions; my carnal appetite seems to be amply mollified andsoothed by these viands, whatever ma
y be their ultimate effect upon theweakness of our common sinful nature. But I should not be truthful toyou if I did not warn you that I am viewing with the deepest spiritualconcern a decided tendency toward sloth, and a folding of the hands overmatters that often, I fear, are spiritual as well as temporal. I wouldask you to consider, in a spirit of love, if it be not wise to rouse myapathetic flesh, so as to strive, even with the feeblest exhortations,against this sloth in others--if only to keep one's self from fallinginto the pit of easy indulgence."
What answer he received is not known, but it is to be presumed that hekept loyal faith with his physician, and gave himself up to simple walksand rides and occasional meditation. His solitude was not broken inupon; curiosity was too active a vice, and induced too much exertion forhis indolent neighbors, and the Americano's basking seclusion, thoughunlike the habits of his countrymen, did not affect them. The shopkeeperand innkeeper saluted him always with a profound courtesy which awakenedhis slight resentment, partly because he was conscious that it wasgrateful to him, and partly that he felt he ought to have provoked inthem a less satisfied condition.
Once, when he had unwittingly passed the confines of his own garden,through a gap in the Mission orchard, a lissome, black-coated shadowslipped past him with an obeisance so profound and gentle that he wasstartled at first into an awkward imitation of it himself, and then intoan angry self-examination. He knew that he loathed that long-skirted,womanlike garment, that dangling, ostentatious symbol, that air ofsecrecy and mystery, and he inflated his chest above his loosely tiedcravat and unbuttoned waistcoat with a contrasted sense of freedom. Buthe was conscious the next day of weakly avoiding a recurrence of thismeeting, and in his self-examination put it down to his self-disciplinedobservance of his doctor's orders. But when he was strong again, andfitted for his Master's work, how strenuously he should improve theoccasion this gave him of attacking the Scarlet Woman among her slavesand worshipers!
His afternoon meditations and the perusal of his only book--theBible--were regularly broken in upon at about sunset by two or threestrokes from the cracked bell that hung in the open belfry which reareditself beyond the gnarled pear tees. He could not say that it wasaggressive or persistent, like his own church bells, nor that iteven expressed to him any religious sentiment. Moreover, it was not a"Sabbath" bell, but a DAILY one, and even then seemed to be only a signalto ears easily responsive, rather than a stern reminder. And the hourwas always a singularly witching one.
It was when the sun had slipped from the glaring red roofs, and theyellowing adobe of the Mission walls and the tall ranks of wild oatson the hillside were all of the one color of old gold. It was when thequivering heat of the arroyo and dusty expanse of plaza was blendingwith the soft breath of the sea fog that crept through the clefts of thecoast range, until a refreshing balm seemed to fall like a benedictionon all nature. It was when the trade-wind-swept and irritated surfacesof the rocky gorge beyond were soothed with clinging vapors; when thepines above no longer rocked monotonously, and the great undulating seaof the wild-oat plains had gone down and was at rest. It was at thishour, one afternoon, that, with the released scents of the garden, therecame to him a strange and subtle perfume that was new to his senses. Helaid aside his book, went into the garden, and, half-unconscious of histrespass, passed through the Mission orchard and thence into the littlechurchyard beside the church.
Looking at the strange inscriptions in an unfamiliar tongue, hewas singularly touched with the few cheap memorials lying upon thegraves--like childish toys--and for the moment overlooked the papisticemblems that accompanied them. It struck him vaguely that Death, thecommon leveler, had made even the symbols of a faith eternal inferior tothose simple records of undying memory and affection, and he was for amoment startled into doubt.
He walked to the door of the church; to his surprise it was open.Standing upon the threshold, he glanced inside, and stood for a momentutterly bewildered. In a man of refined taste and education that bizarreand highly colored interior would have only provoked a smile orshrug; to Stephen Masterton's highly emotional nature, but artisticinexperience, strangely enough it was profoundly impressive. The heavilytimbered, roughly hewn roof, barred with alternate bands of blue andIndian red, the crimson hangings, the gold and black draperies, affectedthis religious backwoodsman exactly as they were designed to affect theheathen and acolytes for whose conversion the temple had been reared. Hecould scarcely take his eyes from the tinsel-crowned Mother of Heaven,resplendent in white and gold and glittering with jewels; the radiantshield before the Host, illuminated by tall spectral candles in themysterious obscurity of the altar, dazzled him like the rayed disk ofthe setting sun.
A gentle murmur, as of the distant sea, came from the altar. In hisnaive bewilderment he had not seen the few kneeling figures in theshadow of column and aisle; it was not until a man, whom he recognizedas a muleteer he had seen that afternoon gambling and drinking in thefonda, slipped by him like a shadow and sank upon his knees in thecenter of the aisle that he realized the overpowering truth.
HE, Stephen Masterton, was looking upon some rite of Popish idolatry! Hewas turning quickly away when the keeper of the tienda--a man of slothand sin--gently approached him from the shadow of a column with a mutegesture, which he took to be one of invitation. A fierce protest ofscorn and indignation swelled to his throat, but died upon his lips. Yethe had strength enough to erect his gaunt emaciated figure, throwing outhis long arms and extended palms in the attitude of defiant exorcism,and then rush swiftly from the church. As he did so he thought he sawa faint smile cross the shopkeeper's face, and a whispered exchange ofwords with a neighboring worshiper of more exalted appearance came tohis ears. But it was not intelligible to his comprehension.
The next day he wrote to his doctor in that quaint grandiloquence ofwritten speech with which the half-educated man balances the slips ofhis colloquial phrasing:
Do not let the purgation of my flesh be unduly protracted. What with thesloth and idolatries of Baal and Ashteroth, which I see daily aroundme, I feel that without a protest not only the flesh but the spirit ismortified. But my bodily strength is mercifully returning, and I foundmyself yesterday able to take a long ride at that hour which they herekeep sacred for an idolatrous rite, under the beautiful name of "TheAngelus." Thus do they bear false witness to Him! Can you tell me themeaning of the Spanish words "Don Keyhotter"? I am ignorant of thesesensuous Southern languages, and am aware that this is not the correctspelling, but I have striven to give the phonetic equivalent. It wasused, I am inclined to think, in reference to MYSELF, by an idolater.
P.S.--You need not trouble yourself. I have just ascertained thatthe words in question were simply the title of an idle novel, and, ofcourse, could not possibly refer to ME.
Howbeit it was as "Don Quixote"--that is, the common Spaniard'sconception of the Knight of La Mancha, merely the simple fanatic andmadman--that Mr. Stephen Masterton ever after rode all unconsciouslythrough the streets of the Mission, amid the half-pitying, half-smilingglances of the people.
In spite of his meditations, his single volume, and his habit ofretiring early, he found his evenings were growing lonely and tedious.He missed the prayer meeting, and, above all, the hymns. He had a finebaritone voice, sympathetic, as may be imagined, but not cultivated. Onenight, in the seclusion of his garden, and secure in his distance fromother dwellings, he raised his voice in a familiar camp-meeting hymnwith a strong Covenanter's ring in the chorus. Growing bolder as he wenton, he at last filled the quiet night with the strenuous sweep of hischant. Surprised at his own fervor, he paused for a moment, listening,half frightened, half ashamed of his outbreak. But there was only thetrilling of the night wind in the leaves, or the far-off yelp of acoyote.
For a moment he thought he heard the metallic twang of a stringedinstrument in the Mission garden beyond his own, and remembered hiscontiguity to the church with a stir of defiance. But he was relieved,nevertheless. His pent-up emotion had found vent, and without thener
vous excitement that had followed his old exaltation. That night heslept better. He had found the Lord again--with Psalmody!
The next evening he chanced upon a softer hymn of the same simplicity,but with a vein of human tenderness in its aspirations, which his morehopeful mood gently rendered. At the conclusion of the first versehe was, however, distinctly conscious of being followed by the sametwanging sound he had heard on the previous night, and which even hisuntutored ear could recognize as an attempt to accompany him. But beforehe had finished the second verse the unknown player, after an ingeniousbut ineffectual essay to grasp the right chord, abandoned it withan impatient and almost pettish flourish, and a loud bang upon thesounding-board of the unseen instrument. Masterton finished it alone.
With his curiosity excited, however, he tried to discover the localityof the hidden player. The sound evidently came from the Mission garden;but in his ignorance of the language he could not even interrogatehis Indian housekeeper. On the third night, however, his hymn wasuninterrupted by any sound from the former musician. A sense ofdisappointment, he knew not why, came over him. The kindly overture ofthe unseen player had been a relief to his loneliness. Yet he had barelyconcluded the hymn when the familiar sound again struck his ears. Butthis time the musician played boldly, confidently, and with a singularskill on the instrument.
The brilliant prelude over, to his entire surprise and some confusion,a soprano voice, high, childish, but infinitely quaint and fascinating,was mischievously uplifted. But alas! even to his ears, ignorant ofthe language, it was very clearly a song of levity and wantonness,of freedom and license, of coquetry and incitement! Yet such was itsfascination that he fancied it was reclaimed by the delightful childlikeand innocent expression of the singer.
Enough that this tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered man arose and, overcomeby a curiosity almost as childlike, slipped into the garden and glidedwith an Indian softness of tread toward the voice. The moon shone fullupon the ruined Mission wall tipped with clusters of dark foliage.Half hiding, half mingling with one of them--an indistinct bulk oflight-colored huddled fleeces like an extravagant bird's nest--hungthe unknown musician. So intent was the performer's preoccupation thatMasterton actually reached the base of the wall immediately below thefigure without attracting its attention. But his foot slipped on thecrumbling debris with a snapping of dry twigs. There was a quick littlecry from above. He had barely time to recover his position before thesinger, impulsively leaning over the parapet, had lost hers, and felloutward. But Masterton was tall, alert, and self-possessed, and threwout his long arms. The next moment they were full of soft flounces,a struggling figure was against his breast, and a woman's frightenedlittle hands around his neck. But he had broken her fall, and almostinstantly, yet with infinite gentleness, he released her unharmed, withhardly her crisp flounces crumpled, in an upright position againstthe wall. Even her guitar, still hanging from her shoulder by a yellowribbon, had bounded elastic and resounding against the wall, but layintact at her satin-slippered feet. She caught it up with another quicklittle cry, but this time more of sauciness than fear, and drew herlittle hand across its strings, half defiantly.
"I hope you are not hurt?" said the circuit preacher, gravely.
She broke into a laugh so silvery that he thought it no extravaganceto liken it to the moonbeams that played over her made audible. She waslithe, yet plump; barred with black and yellow and small-waisted likea pretty wasp. Her complexion in that light was a sheen of pearl satinthat made her eyes blacker and her little mouth redder than any othercolor could. She was small, but, remembering the fourteen-year-oldwife of the shopkeeper, he felt that, for all her childish voice andfeatures, she was a grown woman, and a sudden shyness took hold of him.
But she looked pertly in his face, stood her guitar upright before her,and put her hands behind her back as she leaned saucily against the walland shrugged her shoulders.
"It was the fault of you," she said, in a broken English that seemed asmuch infantine as foreign. "What for you not remain to yourself in yourown CASA? So it come. You creep so--in the dark--and shake my wall, andI fall. And she," pointing to the guitar, "is a'most broke! And for allthees I have only make to you a serenade. Ingrate!"
"I beg your pardon," said Masterton quickly, "but I was curious. Ithought I might help you, and--"
"Make yourself another cat on the wall, eh? No; one is enough, thankyou!"
A frown lowered on Masterton's brow. "You don't understand me," he said,bluntly. "I did not know WHO was here."
"Ah, BUENO! Then it is Pepita Ramirez, you see," she said, tapping herbodice with one little finger, "all the same; the niece from ManuelGarcia, who keeps the Mission garden and lif there. And you?"
"My name is Masterton."
"How mooch?"
"Masterton," he repeated.
She tried to pronounce it once or twice desperately, and then shook herlittle head so violently that a yellow rose fastened over her ear fellto the ground. But she did not heed it, nor the fact that Masterton hadpicked it up.
"Ah, I cannot!" she said, poutingly. "It is as deefeecult to make go asmy guitar with your serenade."
"Can you not say 'Stephen Masterton'?" he asked, more gently, with areturning and forgiving sense of her childishness.
"Es-stefen? Ah, ESTEBAN! Yes; Don Esteban! BUENO! Then, Don Esteban,what for you sink so melank-olly one night, and one night so fierce? Themelank-olly, he ees not so bad; but the fierce--ah! he is weeked! Ess ithow the Americano make always his serenade?"
Masterton's brow again darkened. And his hymn of exultation had beenmistaken by these people--by this--this wanton child!
"It was no serenade," he replied, curtly; "it was in the praise of theLord!"
"Of how mooch?"
"Of the Lord of Hosts--of the Almighty in Heaven." He lifted his longarms reverently on high.
"Oh!" she said, with a frightened look, slightly edging away from thewall. At a secure distance she stopped. "Then you are a soldier, DonEsteban?"
"No!"
"Then what for you sink 'I am a soldier of the Lord,' and you will makedie 'in His army'? Oh, yes; you have said." She gathered up her guitartightly under her arm, shook her small finger at him gravely, and said,"You are a hoombog, Don Esteban; good a' night," and began to glideaway.
"One moment, Miss--Miss Ramirez," called Masterton. "I--that is you--youhave--forgotten your rose," he added, feebly, holding up the flower. Shehalted.
"Ah, yes; he have drop, you have pick him up, he is yours. I have drop,you have pick ME up, but I am NOT yours. Good a' night, COMANDANTE DonEsteban!"
With a light laugh she ran along beside the wall for a little distance,suddenly leaped up and disappeared in one of the largest gaps inits ruined and helpless structure. Stephen Masterton gazed after herstupidly, still holding the rose in his hand. Then he threw it away andre-entered his home.
Lighting his candle, he undressed himself, prayed fervently--sofervently that all remembrance of the idle, foolish incident was wipedfrom his mind, and went to bed. He slept well and dreamlessly. The nextmorning, when his thoughts recurred to the previous night, this seemedto him a token that he had not deviated from his spiritual integrity; itdid not occur to him that the thought itself was a tacit suspicion.
So his feet quite easily sought the garden again in the early sunshine,even to the wall where she had stood. But he had not taken into accountthe vivifying freshness of the morning, the renewed promise of life andresurrection in the pulsing air and potent sunlight, and as he stoodthere he seemed to see the figure of the young girl again leaningagainst the wall in all the charm of her irrepressible and innocentyouth. More than that, he found the whole scene re-enacting itselfbefore him; the nebulous drapery half hidden in the foliage, the cry andthe fall; the momentary soft contact of the girl's figure against hisown, the clinging arms around his neck, the brush and fragrance of herflounces--all this came back to him with a strength he had NOT felt whenit occurred.
He was turning hurrie
dly away when his eyes fell upon the yellow rosestill lying in the debris where he had thrown it--but still pure, fresh,and unfaded. He picked it up again, with a singular fancy that it wasthe girl herself, and carried it into the house.
As he placed it half shyly in a glass on his table a wonderful thoughtoccurred to him. Was not the episode of last night a special providence?Was not that young girl, wayward and childlike, a mere neophyte in heridolatrous religion, as yet unsteeped in sloth and ignorance, presentedto him as a brand to be snatched from the burning? Was not thisthe opportunity of conversion he had longed for--this the chance ofexercising his gifts of exhortation that he had been hiding in thenapkin of solitude and seclusion? Nay, was not all this PREDESTINED?His illness, his consequent exile to this land of false gods--thiscontiguity to the Mission--was not all this part of a supremely orderedplan for the girl's salvation--and was HE not elected and ordained forthat service? Nay, more, was not the girl herself a mere unconsciousinstrument in the hands of a higher power; was not her voluntary attemptto accompany him in his devotional exercise a vague stirring of thatpredestined force within her? Was not even that wantonness andfrivolity contrasted with her childishness--which he had at firstmisunderstood--the stirrings of the flesh and the spirit, and was he toabandon her in that struggle of good and evil?
He lifted his bowed head, that had been resting on his arm before thelittle flower on the table--as if it were a shrine--with a flash ofresolve in his blue eyes. The wrinkled Concepcion coming to her dutiesin the morning scarcely recognized her gloomily abstracted master inthis transfigured man. He looked ten years younger.
She met his greeting, and the few direct inquiries that his new resolveenabled him to make more freely, with some information--which a latertalk with the shopkeeper, who had a fuller English vocabulary, confirmedin detail.
"YES! truly this was a niece of the Mission gardener, who lived withher uncle in the ruined wing of the presidio. She had taken her firstcommunion four years ago. Ah, yes, she was a great musician, and couldplay on the organ. And the guitar, ah, yes--of a certainty. She was gay,and flirted with the caballeros, young and old, but she cared not forany."
Whatever satisfaction this latter statement gave Masterton, he believedit was because the absence of any disturbing worldly affection wouldmake her an easier convert.
But how continue this chance acquaintance and effect her conversion?For the first time Masterton realized the value of expediency; while hiswhole nature impelled him to seek her society frankly and publicly andexhort her openly, he knew that this was impossible; still more, heremembered her unmistakable fright at his first expression of faith;he must "be wise as the serpent and harmless as the dove." He must workupon her soul alone, and secretly. He, who would have shrunk from anyclandestine association with a girl from mere human affection, sawno wrong in a covert intimacy for the purpose of religious salvation.Ignorant as he was of the ways of the world, and inexperienced in theusages of society, he began to plan methods of secretly meeting her withall the intrigue of a gallant. The perspicacity as well as the intuitionof a true lover had descended upon him in this effort of mere spiritualconquest.
Armed with his information and a few Spanish words, he took theyellow Concepcion aside and gravely suborned her to carry a note tobe delivered secretly to Miss Ramirez. To his great relief and somesurprise the old woman grinned with intelligence, and her witheredhand closed with a certain familiar dexterity over the epistle and theaccompanying gratuity. To a man less naively one-ideaed it mighthave awakened some suspicion; but to the more sanguine hopefulness ofMasterton it only suggested the fancy that Concepcion herself mightprove to be open to conversion, and that he should in due season attemptHER salvation also. But that would be later. For Concepcion was alwayswith him and accessible; the girl was not.
The note, which had cost him some labor of composition, simple andalmost businesslike as was the result, ran as follows:
"I wish to see you upon some matter of grave concern to yourself. Willyou oblige me by coming again to the wall of the Mission tonight atearly candlelight? It would avert worldly suspicion if you brought alsoyour guitar."
The afternoon dragged slowly on; Concepcion returned; she had, withgreat difficulty, managed to see the senorita, but not alone; she had,however, slipped the note into her hand, not daring to wait for ananswer.
In his first hopefulness Masterton did not doubt what the answerwould be, but as evening approached he grew concerned as to the girl'sopportunities of coming, and regretted that he had not given her achoice of time.
Before his evening meal was finished he began to fear for herwillingness, and doubt the potency of his note. He was accustomedto exhort ORALLY--perhaps he ought to have waited for the chance ofSPEAKING to her directly without writing.
When the moon rose he was already in the garden. Lingering at first inthe shadow of an olive tree, he waited until the moonbeams fell onthe wall and its crests of foliage. But nothing moved among that ebonytracery; his ear was strained for the familiar tinkle of the guitar--allwas silent. As the moon rose higher he at last boldly walked to thewall, and listened for any movement on the other side of it. But nothingstirred. She was evidently NOT coming--his note had failed.
He was turning away sadly, but as he faced his home again he heard alight laugh beside him. He stopped. A black shadow stepped out frombeneath his own almond tree. He started when, with a gesture that seemedfamiliar to him, the upper part of the shadow seemed to fall away with along black mantilla and the face of the young girl was revealed.
He could see now that she was clad in black lace from head to foot. Shelooked taller, older, and he fancied even prettier than before. A suddendoubt of his ability to impress her, a swift realization of all thedifficulties of the attempt, and, for the first time perhaps, a dimperception of the incongruity of the situation came over him.
"I was looking for you on the wall," he stammered.
"MADRE DE DIOS!" she retorted, with a laugh and her old audacity, "youwould that I shall ALWAYS hang there, and drop upon you like a pear whenyou shake the tree? No!"
"You haven't brought your guitar," he continued, still more awkwardly,as he noticed that she held only a long black fan in her hand.
"For why? You would that I PLAY it, and when my uncle say 'Wherego Pepita? She is loss,' someone shall say, 'Oh! I have hear hertink-a-tink in the garden of the Americano, who lif alone.' And then--itess finish!"
Masterton began to feel exceedingly uncomfortable. There was somethingin this situation that he had not dreamed of. But with the persistencyof an awkward man he went on.
"But you played on the wall the other night, and tried to accompany me."
"But that was lass night and on the wall. I had not speak to you, youhad not speak to me. You had not sent me the leetle note by your peon."She stopped, and suddenly opening her fan before her face, so that onlyher mischievous eyes were visible, added: "You had not asked me then tocome to hear you make lof to me, Don Esteban. That is the difference."
The circuit preacher felt the blood rush to his face. Anger, shame,mortification, remorse, and fear alternately strove with him, butabove all and through all he was conscious of a sharp, exquisitepleasure--that frightened him still more. Yet he managed to exclaim:
"No! no! You cannot think me capable of such a cowardly trick?"
The girl started, more at the unmistakable sincerity of his utterancethan at the words, whose full meaning she may have only imperfectlycaught.
"A treek? A treek?" she slowly and wonderingly repeated. Then suddenly,as if comprehending him, she turned her round black eyes full upon himand dropped her fan from her face.
"And WHAT for you ask me to come here then?"
"I wanted to talk with you," he began, "on far more serious matters.I wished to--" but he stopped. He could not address this quaintchild-woman staring at him in black-eyed wonder, in either the measuredor the impetuous terms with which he would have exhorted a maturerresponsible being. He made a step
toward her; she drew back, striking athis extended hand half impatiently, half mischievously with her fan.
He flushed--and then burst out bluntly, "I want to talk with you aboutyour soul."
"My what?"
"Your immortal soul, unhappy girl."
"What have you to make with that? Are you a devil?" Her eyes grewrounder, though she faced him boldly.
"I am a Minister of the Gospel," he said, in hurried entreaty. "You musthear me for a moment. I would save your soul."
"My immortal soul lif with the Padre at the Mission--you moost seek herthere! My mortal BODY," she added, with a mischievous smile, "say toyou, 'good a' night, Don Esteban.'" She dropped him a little curtsyand--ran away.
"One moment, Miss Ramirez," said Masterton, eagerly; but she had alreadyslipped beyond his reach. He saw her little black figure passing swiftlybeside the moonlit wall, saw it suddenly slide into a shadowy fissure,and vanish.
In his blank disappointment he could not bear to re-enter the house hehad left so sanguinely a few moments before, but walked moodily in thegarden. His discomfiture was the more complete since he felt thathis defeat was owing to some mistake in his methods, and not theincorrigibility of his subject.
Was it not a spiritual weakness in him to have resented so sharply thegirl's imputation that he wished to make love to her? He should haveborne it as Christians had even before now borne slander and falsetestimony for their faith! He might even have ACCEPTED it, and let thetriumph of her conversion in the end prove his innocence. Or was hispurpose incompatible with that sisterly affection he had so oftenpreached to the women of his flock? He might have taken her hand, andcalled her "Sister Pepita," even as he had called Deborah "Sister." Herecalled the fact that he had for an instant held her struggling in hisarms: he remembered the thrill that the recollection had caused him,and somehow it now sent a burning blush across his face. He hurried backinto the house.
The next day a thousand wild ideas took the place of his former settledresolution. He would seek the Padre, this custodian of the young girl'ssoul; he would convince HIM of his error, or beseech him to give himan equal access to her spirit! He would seek the uncle of the girl, andwork upon his feelings.
Then for three or four days he resolved to put the young girl from hismind, trusting after the fashion of his kind for some special revelationfrom a supreme source as an indication for his conduct. This revelationpresently occurred, as it is apt to occur when wanted.
One evening his heart leaped at the familiar sound of Pepita's guitar inthe distance. Whatever his ultimate intention now, he hurriedly raninto the garden. The sound came from the former direction, but as heunhesitatingly approached the Mission wall, he could see that she wasnot upon it, and as the notes of her guitar were struck again, he knewthat they came from the other side. But the chords were a prelude to oneof his own hymns, and he stood entranced as her sweet, childlike voicerose with the very words that he had sung. The few defects were those ofpurely oral imitation, the accents, even the slight reiteration of the"s," were Pepita's own:
Cheeldren oof the Heavenly King, As ye journey essweetly ssing; Essing your great Redeemer's praise, Glorioos in Hees works and ways.
He was astounded. Her recollection of the air and words was the morewonderful, for he remembered now that he had only sung that particularhymn once. But to his still greater delight and surprise, her voice roseagain in the second verse, with a touch of plaintiveness that swelledhis throat:
We are traveling home to God, In the way our farzers trod, They are happy now, and we Soon their happiness shall see.
The simple, almost childish words--so childish that they might have beenthe fitting creation of her own childish lips--here died away with asweep and crash of the whole strings. Breathless silence followed, inwhich Stephen Masterton could feel the beatings of his own heart.
"Miss Ramirez," he called, in a voice that scarcely seemed his own.There was no reply. "Pepita!" he repeated; it was strangely like theaccent of a lover, but he no longer cared. Still the singer's voice wassilent.
Then he ran swiftly beside the wall, as he had seen her run, until hecame to the fissure. It was overgrown with vines and brambles almostas impenetrable as an abatis, but if she had pierced it in her delicatecrape dress, so could he! He brushed roughly through, and found himselfin a glimmering aisle of pear trees close by the white wall of theMission church.
For a moment in that intricate tracing of ebony and ivory made bythe rising moon, he was dazzled, but evidently his irruption into theorchard had not been as lithe and silent as her own, for a figure in aparti-colored dress suddenly started into activity, and running fromthe wall, began to course through the trees until it became apparentlya part of that involved pattern. Nothing daunted, however, StephenMasterton pursued, his speed increased as he recognized the flounces ofPepita's barred dress, but the young girl had the advantage of knowingthe locality, and could evade her pursuer by unsuspected turns anddoubles.
For some moments this fanciful sylvan chase was kept up in perfectsilence; it might have been a woodland nymph pursued by a wanderingshepherd. Masterton presently saw that she was making toward a tiledroof that was now visible as projecting over the presidio wall, andwas evidently her goal of refuge. He redoubled his speed; with skillfulaudacity and sheer strength of his broad shoulders he broke through adense ceanothus hedge which Pepita was swiftly skirting, and suddenlyappeared between her and her house.
With her first cry, the young girl turned and tried to bury herself inthe hedge; but in another stride the circuit preacher was at her side,and caught her panting figure in his arms.
While he had been running he had swiftly formulated what he shoulddo and what he should say to her. To his simple appeal for hercompanionship and willing ear he would add a brotherly tenderness, thatshould invite her trustfulness in him; he would confess his wrong andask her forgiveness of his abrupt solicitations; he would propose toteach her more hymns, they would practice psalmody together; even thispriest, the custodian of her soul, could not object to that; but chieflyhe would thank her: he would tell her how she had pleased him, and thiswould lead to more serious and thoughtful converse. All this was in hismind while he ran, was upon his lips as he caught her and for an instantshe lapsed, exhausted, in his arms. But, alas! even in that moment hesuddenly drew her toward him, and kissed her as only a lover could!
The wire grass was already yellowing on the Tasajara plains with thedusty decay of the long, dry summer when Dr. Duchesne returned toTasajara. He came to see the wife of Deacon Sanderson, who, having forthe twelfth time added to the population of the settlement, was not"doing as well" as everybody--except, possibly, Dr. Duchesne--expected.After he had made this hollow-eyed, over-burdened, undernourished womanas comfortable as he could in her rude, neglected surroundings, tochange the dreary chronicle of suffering, he turned to the husband,and said, "And what has become of Mr. Masterton, who used to be inyour--vocation?" A long groan came from the deacon.
"Hallo! I hope he has not had a relapse," said the doctor, earnestly. "Ithought I'd knocked all that nonsense out of him--I beg your pardon--Imean," he added, hurriedly, "he wrote to me only a few weeks ago that hewas picking up his strength again and doing well!"
"In his weak, gross, sinful flesh--yes, no doubt," returned the Deacon,scornfully, "and, perhaps, even in a worldly sense, for those who valuethe vanities of life; but he is lost to us, for all time, and lostto eternal life forever. Not," he continued in sanctimoniousvindictiveness, "but that I often had my doubts of Brother Masterton'ssteadfastness. He was too much given to imagery and song."
"But what has he done?" persisted Dr. Duchesne.
"Done! He has embraced the Scarlet Woman!"
"Dear me!" said the doctor, "so soon? Is it anybody you knew here?--notanybody's wife? Eh?"
"He has entered the Church of Rome," said the Deacon, indignantly, "hehas forsaken the God of his fathers for the tents of the idolaters; heis the consort of P
apists and the slave of the Pope!"
"But are you SURE?" said Dr. Duchesne, with perhaps less concern thanbefore.
"Sure," returned the Deacon angrily, "didn't Brother Bulkley, on accountof warning reports made by a God-fearing and soul-seeking teamster, makea special pilgrimage to this land of Sodom to inquire and spy out itswickedness? Didn't he find Stephen Masterton steeped in the iniquity ofpracticing on an organ--he that scorned even a violin or harmonium inthe tents of the Lord--in an idolatrous chapel, with a foreign femalePapist for a teacher? Didn't he find him a guest at the board of aJesuit priest, visiting the schools of the Mission where this youngJezebel of a singer teaches the children to chant in unknown tongues?Didn't he find him living with a wrinkled Indian witch who called him'Padrone'--and speaking her gibberish? Didn't he find him, who left herea man mortified in flesh and spirit and pale with striving with sinners,fat and rosy from native wines and fleshpots, and even vain and gaudyin colored apparel? And last of all, didn't Brother Bulkley hear that arumor was spread far and wide that this miserable backslider was to taketo himself a wife--in one of these strange women--that very Jezebel whoseduced him? What do you call that?"
"It looks a good deal like human nature," said the doctor, musingly,"but I call it a cure!"