Sir Christopher: A Romance of a Maryland Manor in 1644

CHAPTER III

BLESSING AND BANNING

"Mother! Moth-er!"

It was Cecil's voice on the landing, and Cecil's white nightgowned figure hanging over the balustrade.

"Yes, Poppet, what is it?"

"Thou didtht not come upstairs as thou didtht promise when the nuts were served…"

"Dearest, I could not. I was in talk with Sir Christopher."

"But thou didtht promise, and how oft have I heard thee say, 'A promise is a promise'?"

Elinor started from her chair to go toward the stair; but Father White stayed her with uplifted finger.

"Let me deal with him," he said under his breath; "'tis time the lad learned the difference between the failure which is stuff o' the conscience, and that which is the fault of circumstances." Then aloud, "Cecil, wilt thou close thine eyes and come down to me when thou hast counted a hundred?"

"Ay, that will I."

"Without fail?"

"Why, surely! There is naught I would love better than toathting my toeth by the great fire."

"Very well, then; shut thine eyes and begin!"

Cecil counted faithfully to the stroke of a hundred, and then springing to his feet with a shout, started down the stair, but to his surprise the priest was nowhere to be seen. Cecil searched behind the settle and under the table as if one could fancy Father White's stately figure in such undignified hiding-place! At length the child gave up the search and called aloud, —

"Where art thou?"

"Here, in this little room," answered a muffled voice, and Cecil ran to the door only to find it securely fastened by a bolt within.

"Come in," cried the voice.

"I cannot; it ith bolted."

"But you promised – "

"But the door ith fatht."

"What of that? 'A promise is a promise.'"

By this time Cecil, perceiving that jest and lesson were both pointed at him, stood with quivering lip, ready at a single further word to burst into tears; but the kind father, flinging wide the door, caught him in his arms, saying, "We must not hold each other responsible, my boy, for promises which God and man can make impossible of fulfilment. We must be gentle and charitable and easy to be entreated for forgiveness; and so good-night to mother, and I will lay thee again in thy trundle-bed."

"Has Sir Christopher Neville left us also?" asked Mary Brent, as Father White came down from Cecil's room and joined her and Elinor at the fire.

"He has."

"A strange man!" said Father White.

Elinor colored.

"Ay," answered Mary Brent; "I cannot make out why Giles hath taken such a liking to him. To me he seems proud and reserved, with something in his tone that suggests that he is turning the company into a jest. For myself I did not see anything droll in his story of the fried whetstone."

Elinor shrugged her shoulders.

"If every man were condemned that told a tale in which others could see nothing droll, we should need a Tyburn Hill here in Maryland."

"Ay, but what's the use of telling a droll story if it be not droll? I do not understand Sir Christopher."

"I don't think you do."

"I think I do."

It was Father White who spoke, and his shrewd gray eyes were fixed upon Elinor, who turned to the fire without a word.

Mary Brent sat tapping her foot on the floor.

"'Tis strange he should have left without a word," she said at last.

"Never fear, Mary! We have not lost him. He is too large to be mislaid like a parcel. He did but go out to fulfil a behest of mine, and if Father White understands him, as he says he does, he will have divined that it was an errand of courtesy and good-will on which he set out."

A silence fell on the group. Then Father White, looking out, exclaimed: "'Tis a bitter night and the snow is falling again! No wonder the settlers grumble over such a winter in this land where they were promised all sunshine and flowers."

"Yes," said Mary Brent. "If the weather is to be like this, we might as well have settled on the bleak Massachusetts coast."

"It cannot last long. The natives all say they never knew such a season. They fear to go abroad at night, there are so many half-starved wild beasts prowling around."

Elinor rose and began to pace the floor uneasily.

"But," continued Father White, "there are more reasons than those of climate for preferring Maryland to Massachusetts. How wouldst thou have prospered in a Puritan colony?"

"I trust even there I should have been true to Mother Church, and perchance converted some of the heretics from the error of their ways."

"Yet," interrupted Elinor, "they too are serving God in their own way."

Mary Brent shook her head. "I care not to talk of them. In truth had I known this Neville was a Protestant, I had never urged him for thy tenant at Robin Hood's Barn."

Elinor murmured something about "toleration."

"Toleration!" repeated her cousin scornfully. "I hate the word. He that tolerates any religion against his own is either a hypocrite or a backslider."

"Shall there be no liberty of conscience?"

"Ay, but liberty to think wrong is no liberty."

"These be deep matters, my daughters, and best left to the schoolmen," said Father White. "None doubt that Mistress Brent hath kept her fidelity unspotted to the Church. Let Elinor Calvert pattern after her kinswoman."