Part 15 (1/2)

What more indeed! With the rain beating down upon your unsheltered heads, and the torrents threatening to engulf you; faint with journeyings; a-hungered often; weak with fastings; pallid with prayer,--what more _can_ you ask in the same line? say I.

Pere Fidelis coughed a little, and was somewhat feverish. I could see that his life was not elastic; his strength was even then failing him.

”Pere Amabilis is an artisan: he built this house, and it is small enough; but some day he will build a house for me but six feet long and _so_ broad,” said Pere Fidelis, shrugging his shoulders; whereat Pere Amabilis, who looked like a German student with his long hair and spectacles, turned aside to wipe the moisture from the lenses, and said nothing, but laid his hand significantly upon the shoulder of his friend, as if imploring silence. Alas for him when those lips are silent for ever!

I wondered if they had no recreation.

”O yes. The poor pictures at the Chapel of the Palms are ours, but we have not studied art. And then we are sometimes summoned to the farther side of the island, where we meet new faces. It is a great change.”

For a year before the arrival of Pere Amabilis, who was not sooner able to follow his friend, Pere Fidelis was accustomed to go once a month to a confessional many miles away. That his absence might be as brief as possible, he was obliged to travel night and day. Sometimes he would reach the house of his confessor at midnight, when all were sleeping: thereupon would follow this singular colloquy in true native fas.h.i.+on. A rap at the door at midnight, the confessor waking from his sleep.

_Confessor_. ”Who's there?”

_Pere Fidelis_. ”It is I!”

_Conf._ ”Who is I?”

_Pere F._ ”Fidelis!”

_Conf._ ”Fidelis who?”

_Pere F._ ”Fidelis kahuna pule!” (Fidelis the priest.)

_Conf._ ”Aweh!” (An expression of the greatest surprise.) ”_Entre_, Fidelis kahuna pule.”

Then he would rise, and the communion that followed must have been most cheering to both, for _mon pere_ even now is merry when he recalls it.

These pilgrimages are at an end, for the two priests confess to one another: conceive of the fellows.h.i.+p that hides away no secret, however mortifying!

The whole population must have been long asleep before we thought of retiring that night, and then arose an argument concerning the fittest occupant of the solitary bed. It fell to me, for both were against me, and each was my superior. When I protested, they held up their fingers and said, ”Remember, we are your fathers and must be obeyed.” Thus I was driven to the bed, while mine hosts lay on the bare floor with saddles for pillows.

It was this self-sacrificing hospitality that hastened my departure. I felt earth could offer me no n.o.bler fellows.h.i.+p,--that all acts to come, however gracious, would bear a tinge of selfishness in comparison with the reception I had met where least expected.

I am thankful that I had not the heart to sleep well, for I think I could never have forgiven myself had I done so. When I woke in the early part of the night, I saw the young priests bowed over their breviaries, for I had delayed the accustomed offices of devotion, and they were fulfilling them in peace at last, having me so well bestowed that it was utterly impossible to do aught else for my entertainment.

Once more the morning came. I woke to find Pere Amabilis at work, hammer in hand, sending his nails home with accurate strokes that spoke well for his trained muscle. Pere Fidelis was concocting coffee and directing the volunteer cooks, who were seeking to surpa.s.s themselves upon this last meal we were to take together. In an hour _mon pere_ was to start for the Chapel of the Palms, while I wended my way onward through a new country, bearing with me the consoling memory of my precious friends. I can forgive a slight and forget the person who slights me, but little kindnesses probe me to the quick. I wonder why the twin fathers were so very careful of me that morning? They could not do enough to satisfy themselves, and that made me miserable; they stabbed me with tender words, and tried to be cheerful with such evident effort that I couldn't eat half my breakfast, though, as it was, I ate more than they did--G.o.d forgive me!--and altogether it was a solemn and memorable meal.

A group of natives gathered about us seated upon the floor; it was impossible for Pere Fidelis to move without being stroked by the affectionate creatures who deplored his departure. Pere Amabilis insisted upon adjusting our saddles, during which ceremony he slyly hid a morsel of cold fowl in our saddle-bags.

That parting was as cruel as death. We shall probably never see one another again; if we do, we shall be older and more practical and more worldly, and the exquisite confidence we have in one another will have grown blunt with time. I felt it then as I know it now--our brief idyl can never be lived over in this life.

Well, we departed: the corners of our blessed triangle were spread frightfully. Pere Fidelis was paler than ever; he caught his breath as though there wasn't much of it, and the little there was wouldn't last long; Pere Amabilis wiped his spectacles and looked utterly forsaken; the natives stood about in awkward, silent groups, coming forward, one by one, to shake hands, and then falling back like so many automatons.

Somehow, genuine grief is never graceful: it forgets to pose itself; its muscles are perfectly slack and unreliable.

The sea looked grey and forbidding as it shook its s.h.a.ggy breakers under the cliff: life was dismal enough. The animals were unusually wayward, and once or twice I paused in despair under the p.r.i.c.kly suns.h.i.+ne, half inclined to go back and begin over again, hoping to renew the past; but just then Hoke felt like staggering onward, and I began to realize that there are some brief, perfect experiences in life that pa.s.s from us like a dream, and this was one of them.

In the proem to this idyl I seem to see two shadowy figures pa.s.sing up and down over a lonesome land. Fever and famine do not stay them; the elements alone have power to check their pilgrimage. Their advent is hailed with joyful bells: tears fall when they depart. Their paths are peace. Fearlessly they battle with contagion, and are at hand to close the pestilential lips of unclean death. They have lifted my soul above things earthly, and held it secure for a moment. From beyond the waters my heart returns to them. Again at twilight, over the still sea, floats the sweet Angelus; again I approach the chapel falling to slow decay: there are fresh mounds in the churchyard, and the voice of wailing is heard for a pa.s.sing soul. By-and-by, if there is work to do, it shall be done, and the hands shall be folded, for the young apostles will have followed in the silent footsteps of their flock. Here endeth the lesson of the Chapel of the Palms.

KAHeLE.