Cupid of Campion

“I was with gypsies till yesterday evening; but I left without taking my supper.”

“Who in the world are you?”

“My name is Clarence Esmond. About a week ago I was over at McGregor – ”

“Halloa!” cried the Rector. “Why, they’re dragging the river for you.”

“They might as well stop; it’s no use,” said Clarence, taking the last piece of toast and looking regretfully at the empty beefsteak dish.

“My, but this is an adventure!” exclaimed the President. “So you’re not a moist corpse after all.”

The Squire’s eyes were sticking out of his head.

“If you were only dead,” he said to Clarence, “you’d be worth a thousand dollars to me.”

“I’m sorry I can’t please everybody,” said the youth, taking up the last slab of cornbread. “Am I expected to apologize for being alive?”

“Did you sleep last night?” continued the Rector.

“How could I? I was in the river most of the time.”

“But the river,” said the Rector, “has a very fine bed.”

Clarence broke into laughter.

“Thank you so much, sir,” he said, “I never, never, never enjoyed a meal so much in all my born days.”

“You’re welcome,” said Father Keenan. He turned to the wide-eyed squire, adjuring that thoroughly excited young man to go see whether the complete outfit of clothing were awaiting Clarence in the parlor. Their talk was brief; but when Father Keenan turned to address Clarence, the lad’s head was sunk upon his breast. He was sound asleep.

“Never mind about those clothes, Squire; or, rather, have them sent over to the infirmary.” Saying which, Father Keenan took Clarence, including table-cover and coat, in his arms, and conveyed him to the infirmary, where, warmly wrapped in a comfortable bed, he slept unbrokenly till after five o’clock in the afternoon.

Returning to his room, the Rector took up the morning paper. In examining the mail, he had, when Clarence’s arrival interrupted him, noticed the large headlines announcing a dreadful railroad wreck in the west; a broken bridge, a Pullman sleeper and a passenger car immersed in a flooded river. Suddenly, as his eyes ran down the list of the missing, he gasped.

For there in black type were the names of Mr. Charles Esmond, mining expert, and wife.

CHAPTER XIII

In which Clarence as the guest of Campion College makes an ineffectual effort to bow out the Bright-eyed Goddess of Adventure

Father George Keenan, while Clarence slept, was an unusually busy man. He telephoned, he wrote letters, he sent telegrams. All the machinery of communication was put into requisition. Within an hour the work of dragging the water near Pictured Rocks was discontinued; by noontime a telegram arrived saying that Mr. and Mrs. Esmond were still missing and were in all probability drowned or burned to death; and early in the afternoon the proprietor of a hotel in McGregor arrived in person. The Esmonds had been at his place and had gone, leaving as their address “The Metropole,” Los Angeles, California. But alas, they had not reached their proposed destination.

The hotel man was conducted by the Rector into the infirmary and brought to the side of the sleeping boy. He was breathing softly, the roses had returned to his cheeks and his head was pillowed in his right hand.

“That’s him, all right,” said the hotel keeper after a brief survey. “I’d know him anywheres. There ain’t many boys around here got such rosy cheeks and such fair complexions. There ain’t many boys who’ve got such bright, fluffy hair, and I don’t know a single one who’s got his hair bobbed the way he has.”

On returning to his room, Father Keenan opened a special drawer in his desk and sorted out from a bundle of papers an envelope with a post-mark indicating that it had reached him several days before. He took out the letter and read it again.

“Dear Father Keenan: Probably you don’t remember me. I was a boy with you at St. Maure’s College – and a very poor boy at that. Other fellows had pocket money; I had none – most of the time. I hadn’t been there long when you ‘caught on,’ as we used to say. During the five months we were together you seemed to know when I needed a nickel or a dime, and, in a way that was yours, you managed to keep me supplied. I say it was your way, for you got me to take the money as though I were doing you a favor. The amount you gave me must have been six or seven dollars, all told; and I really don’t think I had sense enough at the time to understand how really kind you were. Many years have passed, and the older I get, the more grateful I feel. Up to a few years ago, I had lost track of you completely. I didn’t know even that you had become a Jesuit. Well, Father George, I happened to see in our Catholic paper last week that you were Rector of Campion College, a boarding school. If you are one-tenth as kind to the boys under your care as you were to me, you’ll be just the sort of President needed in such a place. The memory of our days in St. Maure’s has helped me to live a good life and to practice my faith, surrounded though I be with enemies of the Church. There are three Catholic families here in a population of three thousand. God has blessed me in my business. I have my own home, a loving wife and five of the nicest children in the State of Missouri. Also, to speak of things more material, a grain store and a comfortable bank account.

“I am sending you with this a check for one hundred dollars, payment on your loans of pocket money with compound interest, and then some. Of course, you may do with the money as you please. But if I may make a suggestion – don’t think me sentimental – it would please me if you were to put aside forty or fifty dollars of it to help out some poor boy in the way of clothes, books, and pocket money.

“In sending you this I do not wish you to consider our account closed. So long as God continues to bless and prosper me, I intend sending you from time to time – every quarter, I trust – a like donation. May the money I send do as much good as you did me.

“I still remember the old boys of our day affectionately. Nearly all of them were kind to me. One in particular, a black-haired, dark-complexioned, mischievous little fellow, who was full of heart, I can never forget. I never met him but he sent me off supplied with candy. His name was Tom Playfair. What’s become of him?

“Pray for me, dear Father George, and especially for my wife, who is an angel, and our children, who promise to be worthy of their mother. My love and my gratitude go with this letter.

    “Sincerely and gratefully,
    “John S. Wilcox.”

“Strange!” meditated the Rector. “I just remember Wilcox; but I do not remember ever having given him a cent. Anyhow, I see my way to spend that fifty dollars as he suggests. Poor Esmond is an orphan, I fear. Well, the money goes to him.”

On getting word at half-past five o’clock that Master Esmond was awake and calling for food, Father Keenan hastened to the infirmary.

Clarence, fully dressed in a “purloined” set of clothes, was seated at a table and vigorously attacking a large slab of cornbread, a dish of hash, and a plate of pancakes. In the attack, executed with neatness and dispatch, and in which the youth played no favorites, Clarence had already aroused the amused admiration of the Brother Infirmarian.

“How do you do, Father Rector?” cried the boy, rising and bowing. “I feel able now to tell you that I’m grateful to you beyond words for your kindness. Your breakfast was the best breakfast ever served, that bed I slept on the softest, this supper the finest I could get, and the Brother, who’s been waiting on me as though I were the Prodigal Son is as kind and hospitable as though he took me for an angel.”

“Nobody would take you for an angel who saw you eating,” said the big Brother with a chuckle.

“How do you feel, my boy?” asked the Rector, as, catching Clarence by the shoulders, he forced him back into his seat.

“Feel? I feel like a morning star. I feel like a fighting-cock.”

“Ready, I suppose, for any sort of adventure?”

Clarence laid down his knife and fork once more.

“Adventure! Excuse me. I’ve got over that period of my life for good. No more adventures for me. Only a few days ago I came down the street of McGregor just crazy for adventure. I called her the bright-eyed goddess. I actually invoked her. I begged her to get out her finest assortment of adventures and show me. Well, she did. She got hold of me, and she didn’t let go till I got to bed here this morning. Oh, no. No more bright-eyed goddess for me. If I were to see her coming along the street, I’d duck into a back alley. I’m through with her ladyship for the rest of my natural life.”

“Indeed?” said the Rector.

Clarence was mistaken. The bright-eyed goddess was not done with him yet.

CHAPTER XIV

In which Clarence tells his story and gets the Reverend Rector to take a hand against the Bright-eyed Goddess

“Suppose,” suggested the College President, as Clarence with a sigh of satisfaction came to an end of his meal, “you tell us your story.”

“It is a long one.”

“Wait till I come back,” implored the Infirmarian. “I want to hear it. I’ve been infirmarian in boarding college a great many years, but I’ve never yet seen any sick boy quite so healthy and with such an appetite as Clarence.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Brother. I often feel like apologizing for that appetite of mine.”

“Clarence,” said the Rector as the Infirmarian went off with the empty dishes, “have you any relations, besides your father and mother, living?”

“Just stacks of them, sir.”