Cupid of Campion

“I don’t blame you for crying,” said Clarence. “And I’ll bet your parents think you’re drowned.”

“There were ever so many people drowned in that flood, I have heard,” said Dora. “Anyhow I ought to be grateful to God for sparing my life.”

“I say, Dora. We’re both in the same boat. You know when I was shoved out into the river in my swimming suit, my clothes were lying on the shore. I’ll bet my ma is crying now.” And Clarence rubbed his shirt sleeves over his eyes.

“I miss my brothers and sisters so much,” continued the girl. “Ben and his wife are good and kind, but I do get so homesick. Sometimes I am so lonely.”

“I haven’t got any sisters to miss me,” pursued the boy. “I had two, but both of them were travelling with pa once in Mexico and they drank some polluted water and died of typhoid fever within two days of each other. And my little brother died when he was five. And now my father and mother will think I am dead, too.”

Again Clarence used his shirt sleeves to wipe his brimming eyes.

“Sometimes Clarence, I dream that I’m home again and that mama is holding me in her arms and kissing me, and then I’m so happy till I wake; and then sometimes I dream that I’m receiving Holy Communion, and I’m as happy as can be.”

“You are?” said Clarence.

“Of course. Why, I have not received Our Lord for months, and I’m – I’m just hungry for Him.”

“Dora, you are a good fellow.”

“You told me that last night.”

“Do you know that I’m thinking seriously of adopting you?”

“What?” cried the girl.

“Adopting you. I’m short on sisters, and you could help to fill the supply.”

“Oh, thank you; you think I’ll do, do you?”

“You’ll do first rate,” answered Clarence tranquilly and failing to detect the mischief in Dora’s glance. “First chance we get to see a lawyer, we’ll have it fixed up. Say, is there no way for us to escape?”

“I’m afraid not; you’ll see for yourself as we go on.”

At this point of the conversation, Pete came running towards them, and catching Dora’s eye, held up his hand.

“What does he want?” Clarence inquired.

“That’s his sign to tell us to get in the wagon.”

“What for?”

“Probably there are some people on the road. Here now, jump in. We have to stay till he tells that we are free to go out.”

For half an hour they remained hidden. They could hear outside strange voices and the passing of some vehicle.

“This is funny,” observed Clarence.

“Do you know, Clarence, that since I joined the gypsies I have never seen a stranger’s face till you came yesterday?”

Clarence meditated for a moment.

“Oh!” he said presently, and with his most engaging smile. “It was worth your while waiting, wasn’t it?”

CHAPTER VIII

In which Clarence enters upon his career as a gypsy, and makes himself a disciple of Dora

Clarence learned in the course of that day a good deal of his companions. It was a divided camp. Pete was the official leader, but his authority was weak. He was a dried-up man with furtive eyes and hang-dog aspect. He had a genius for breaking the law and getting into trouble. If there were twenty ways of doing a thing, Pete invariably chose the least honest. His range as a thief went from chickens to horses. In this, as in all other things, he was ably abetted by his shrewish wife. That remarkable woman had a gift for fortune-telling which was uncanny. It was not without reason that Dora suspected Pete’s wife of having dealings with the devil. The woman had an intense hatred for anything that savored of the Catholic faith. Her eyes, whenever they fell upon Dora, shot forth a baneful light. It was Ben who stood between the child and her malignity.

Ben was of different mould. He was brave, open and kind. A certain gentleness and refinement were observable in him and his wife. Dora noticed these things and pointed them out to Clarence. But she did not tell him, for she did not know it, that it was her presence, her example, her sweetness and modesty, which had, to a great extent, developed in the gypsy couple these lovely qualities.

And, in truth, it was Dora who was, in a sense, the real leader. She was the uncrowned queen. Neat, spotless in attire, graceful of form and of dazzling complexion, she was always fresh and bright and candid and sweet. Upon the perfect features there was a certain indefinable radiance – the radiance one finds so rarely on the faces of those who appear to have been thinking long and lovely thoughts of God and whose “conversation is in heaven.” Dora knew well the companionship of saints and angels. A keen sense of humor, made known now in rippling laughter, now in the twinkling of an eye, showed that the child was wholesomely human. Ben seemed to worship the ground she trod upon; his wife was a no less ardent devotee, and the little children vied with each other in winning her word or smile. Even Pete’s two graceless sons put aside their coarseness and what they could of their evil manners in her winning and dainty presence. Wherever she moved, she seemed to evoke from those she met undreamed-of acts of gentleness and sweetness and love. And indeed before the day was spent, the child unwittingly won a new devotee – Master Clarence himself. Clarence, be it known, was in most respects a normal boy. He was also unusually clean in thought and in word and in life. He had never used a really coarse expression, and he recoiled from any sort of foulness. If one were to ask why this was so, there would be no adequate answer, save that there is no accounting for the uncovenanted graces and mercies of God. A sort of instinct had guided the boy, during his three years at Clermont Academy, in the choice of his companions. He was always seeking the society of those he considered his betters. It took the lad little time to discover that Dora was pure, innocent, gentle, gracious, and high-minded above all whom he had ever met. Before nightfall, he too was her slave.

Let there be no misunderstanding. The reader who considers this a case of puppy love has missed the point. Clarence was at an age and development when the normal boy is little interested in the girl. But to him Dora was something apart. She was set high on a pedestal. She was an ideal. She stood to him for all that was good and beautiful and inspiring in human nature.

As for Dora herself, she had never before encountered a youth so blithe, so debonair, so clever of speech and quick of wit as the young adventurer. She perceived something in the boy of which he himself was scarcely aware – a knightliness, a gallantry that went with high ideals, a serene and lovely purity of heart. She, in turn, placed Clarence upon a pinnacle, and was in intent his devoted slave. Within twenty-four hours, she was unconsciously depending upon him.

On the very afternoon of their first day’s travel, she organized a “Catechism class,” consisting of Clarence, Ben, and his wife. It was held in the wagon and lasted for an hour. Before it was ended, each member knew how to make the sign of the cross, and Master Clarence himself, who had asked many questions and put many objections, was beginning to see that the Catholic Church was not so encrusted with superstitions, as he had supposed, nor in any wise, as he had once held, out of date.

Pete and his wife, upon understanding what was going on, were furious; the woman particularly so. The leader, afraid to wreak vengeance on Dora, singled out Clarence as the victim to his rage. Many a secret blow did the boy receive during the day’s journey.

At nightfall there came a heavy rain. All took shelter in the big tent. Clarence happened to remark how two nights previously he had been engrossed in a wonderful story called Treasure Island.

“What was it about?” asked Ben.

“Do you want me to tell it?”

“Oh, do,” cried Dora. “I haven’t read a story or heard one for ever and ever so long.”

“I like a nice story,” said Dorcas, Ben’s wife, beaming on the lad.

“Tell us Treasure Island,” begged one of the children.

And Clarence, thus adjured, set about recounting that wondrous tale of ships and pirates and buried treasures. At the first words, Pete and his wife left the tent. But the others remained, and listened to a lad who coupled an extraordinary memory with a flow of vivid language. The story was in its first quarter when Pete returned and, to the disappointment of all, announced bedtime. The guitar was brought, Gounod’s Ave Maria sung, and when sleep visited the eyes of Clarence, who kept himself awake to hear Dora’s good-night hymn to the Blessed Mother, it visited a youngster who in twenty-four hours had achieved a partnership with a singularly lovely child in the leadership of a gypsy band.

CHAPTER IX

In which Clarence gets some further knowledge of a shrine, which has much to do with the most important events of this veracious narrative, and pays back the gypsy, Pete with compound interest

It was the third day of Clarence’s experiences as a gypsy. He and Ben and Dorcas had become great friends. Often the young gypsy couple chose to walk with Dora and the boy, and, in their talks, the subject was not infrequently religion. Clarence was quick to grasp the truths of faith, and, indeed, became a sort of assistant professor, supplementing the explanations of Dora with knowledge gained from his own wide range of reading.

Pete and his wife were at no pains to conceal their fury at the turn of events brought about by the arrival of Clarence. There was poison in their looks and venom in their tongues. Ezra made himself a sharer of this unlovely couple’s feelings. He hated Clarence intensely; it was hatred born of envy. The memory of his defeat still rankled. One or the other of these three was always watching the boy, night and day.

On this particular morning, Clarence had, after breakfast, wandered into the forest to gather some flowers for Dora’s altar. The little girl had the day previous brought him into her tent and shown him a little shrine of Our Lady Immaculate.

“I pray before it,” she said, “and I have promised our Blessed Mother that if she have me restored to my home, I will join some Order in her honor where I can give most of my time to prayer and meditation.”

“So you intend to become a contemplative?” asked Clarence, looking at the child with renewed interest.