Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876

"Perhaps we shall know some time; but here is home, and will he speak of it to Mistress White, do you think?"

"Not ever, I suppose," said Schmidt; and we went in.

The sight we saw troubled me. In the little back parlor, at a round mahogany table with scrolled edges and claw toes, sat facing the light Mistress White. She was clad in a gray silk with tight sleeves, and her profusion of rich chestnut hair, with its willful curliness that forbade it to be smooth on her temples, was coiled in a great knot at the back of her head. Its double tints and strange changefulness, and the smooth creamy cheeks with their moving islets of roses that would come and go at a word, were pretty protests of Nature, I used to think, against the demure tints of her pearl-gray silken gown. She was looking out into the garden, quite heedless of the older dame, who sat as her wont was between the windows, and chirruped now and then, mechanically, "Has thee a four-leaved clover?" As I learned some time after, one of our older clerks, perhaps with a little malice of self-comfort at the fall of his senior's principles, had, on coming home, told her laughingly all the story of the morning. Perhaps one should be a woman and a Friend to enter into her feelings. She was tied by a promise and by a sense of personal pledge to a low and disgraced man, and then coming to love another despite herself she had grown greatly to honor him. She might reason as she would that only a sense of right and a yearning for the fullness of a righteous life had made him give up his profession and fellows and turn aside to follow the harder creed of Fox, but she well knew with a woman's keenness of view that she herself had gone for something in this change; and now, as sometimes before, she reproached herself with his failures. As we came in she hastily dried her eyes and went out of the room. At dinner little was said, but in the afternoon there was a scene of which I came to know all a good while later.

Some of us had gone back to the afternoon work when Mr. Wholesome, who had lingered behind, strayed thoughtfully into the little back garden. There under a thin-leaved apricot tree sat Mistress White, very pretty, with her long fair fingers clasped over a book which lay face down on her lap. Presently she was aware of Richard Wholesome walking to and fro and smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe, then, as yet in England, called a churchwarden. These were two more than commonly good-looking persons, come of sturdy English breeds, fined down by that in this climate which has taken the coarseness of line and feature out of so many of our broods, and has made more than one English painter regret that the Vandyke faces had crossed the ocean to return no more.

Schmidt and I looked out a moment into the long vista where, between the rose-boughs bending from either wall under the apricot, we could see the gray silvery shimmer of the woman's dress, and beyond it, passing to and fro, the broad shoulders of the ex-captain.

"Come," I said, "walk down with me to the wharf."

"Yet leave me," he returned. "I shall wisely do to sit here on the step over the council-fire of my pipe. Besides, when there are not markets and flowers, and only a straight-down, early-afternoon sun, I shall find it a more noble usage of time to see of my drama another scene. The actors are good;" and he pointed with his pipe-stem down to the garden. "And this," he said, "is the mute chorus of the play," indicating a kitten which had made prey of the grand-dame's ball of worsted, and was rolling it here and there with delight.

"But," I answered, "it is not right or decent to spy upon others' actions."

"For right!" he said. "Ach! what I find right to me is my right; and for decent, I understand you not. But if I tell you what is true, I find my pleasure to sit here and see the maiden when at times the winds pull up the curtain of the leaves."

"Well! well!" said I, for most of the time he was not altogether plain as to what he meant, as when he spoke of the cat as a chorus—"Well! well! you will go out with me on the water at sundown?"

"That may be," he answered; and I went away.

I have observed since then, in the long life I have lived, that the passion called love, when it is a hopeless one, acts on men as ferments do on fluids after their kind—turning some to honest wine and some to vinegar. With our stout little German all trials seemed to be of the former use, so that he took no ill from those hurts and bruises which leave other men sore and tender. Indeed, he talked of Mistress White to me, or even to Wholesome, whom he much embarrassed, in a calm, half-amused way, as of a venture which he had made, and, having failed, found it pleasant to look back upon as an experience not altogether to be regretted. We none of us knew until much later that it was more than a mere fancy for a woman who was altogether so sweet and winsome that no man needed an excuse for loving her. When by and by I also came to love a good woman, I used to try myself by the measure of this man's lack of self-love, and wonder how he could have seen with good-will the woman he cared for come to like another man better. This utter sweetness of soul has ever been to me a riddle.

An hour passed by, when Schmidt heard a footfall in the room behind him, and rising saw an old member of the Society of Friends who came at times to our house, and was indeed trustee for a small estate which belonged to Mistress White. Nicholas Oldmixon was an overseer in the Fourth street meeting, and much looked up to among Friends as a prompt and vigilant guardian of their discipline. Perhaps he would have been surprised to be told that he had that in his nature which made the post of official fault-finder agreeable; but so it was, I fancy, and he was here on such an errand. The asceticism of Friends in those days, and the extent to which Mr. Oldmixon, like the more strict of his sect, carried their views as to gravity of manner and the absence of color in dress and furniture, were especially hateful to Schmidt, who lived and was happy in a region of color and sentiment and gayety. Both, I doubt not, were good men, but each was by nature and training altogether unable to sympathize with the other.

"Good-evening!" said Schmidt, keeping his seat in the low window-sill.

Mr. Oldmixon returned, "Thee is well, I trust?"

"Ach! with such a sun and the last roses, which seem the most sweet, and these most lovely of fall-flowers, and a good book and a pipe," said Schmidt, "who will not be well? Have you the honest blessing of being a smoker?"

"Nay," said the Quaker, with evident guarding of his words. "Thee will not take it amiss should I say it is a vain waste of time?"

"But," answered Schmidt, "time hath many uses. The one is to be wasted; and this a pipe mightily helps. I did think once, when I went to meeting, how much more solemn it would be for each man to have a pipe to excuse his silence."

"Thee jests idly, I fear," said the Friend, coloring and evidently holding himself in check. "Is that friend Wholesome in the garden? I have need to see him."

"Yea," said Schmidt, with a broad smile, "he is yonder under a tree, like Adam in the garden. Let us take a peep at Paradise."

Mr. Oldmixon held his peace, and walked quietly out of the window and down the graveled path. There were some who surmised that his years and his remembrance of the three wives he had outlived did not altogether suffice to put away from him a strong sentiment of the sweetness of his ward. Perhaps it was this notion which lit up with mirth the ruddy face of the German as he walked down the garden behind the slim ascetic figure of the overseer of meeting in his broad hat and drab clothes. On the way the German plucked a dozen scarlet roses, a late geranium or two and a few leaves of motley Poinsetta.

Wholesome paused a moment to greet quietly the new-comer, and straightway betook himself absently to his walk again to and fro across the garden. Mistress White would have had the old overseer take her seat, but this he would not do. He stood a moment near her, as if irresolute, while Schmidt threw himself down on the sward, and, half turning over, tossed roses into the gray lap of Mistress White, saying, "How prettily the God of heaven has dressed them!"

Mistress White took up the flowers, not answering the challenge, but glancing under her long lashes at the ex-captain, to whom presently the overseer turned, saying, "Would thee give me a word or two with thee by ourselves, Richard?"

"There are none in the parlor," said Priscilla, "if thee will talk there."

"If," said Wholesome, "it be of business, let it wait till to-morrow, and I will call upon thee: I am not altogether myself to-day."

"Nay," said Nicholas, gathering himself up a little, "thee must know theeself that I would not come to thee here for business: thee knows my exactness in such matters."

"And for what, then, are you come?" said Wholesome with unusual abruptness.

"For speech of that in thee conduct which were better, as between an elder friend and a younger, to be talked over alone," said Mr. Oldmixon severely.

Now, Wholesome, though disgusted by his lack of power to keep the silent pledges he had given when he entered the Society of Friends, was not dissatisfied with his conduct as he judged it by his own standard of right. Moreover, like many warm-hearted people, he was quick of temper, as we have seen. His face flushed, and he paused beside the overseer: "There are none here who do not know most of what passed this morning; but as you do not know all, let me advise you to hold your peace and go your ways, and leave me to such reproach as God may send me."

"If that God send thee any," muttered Schmidt.

But Nicholas Oldmixon was like a war-horse smelling the battle afar off, and anything like resistance to an overseer in the way of duty roused him into the sternness which by no means belonged to the office, but rather to the man. "If," he said, "any in membership with us do countenance or promote tumults, they shall be dealt with as disorderly persons. Wherefore did thee give way to rash violence this morning?"

Priscilla grew pale, I think. She said, "Friend Nicholas, thee forgets the Christian courtesy of our people one to another. Let it rest a while: friend Richard may come to think better of it by and by."

"And that I trust he may never," muttered Schmidt.

But the overseer was not to be stayed. "Thee would do better to mind the things of thy house and leave us," he said. "The ways of this young man have been more than once a scandal, and are like to come before the preparative meeting to be dealt with."

"Sir," returned Wholesome, approaching him and quite forgetting his plain speech to make it plainer, "your manners do little credit to your age or your place. Listen: I told you to speak no more of this matter;" and he seized him by the lappel of his coat and drew him aside a few paces. "For your own sake, I mean. Let it die out, with no more of talk or nonsense."

"For my sake!" exclaimed the overseer; "and why? Most surely thee forgets theeself."

"For your own sake," said Wholesome, drawing him still farther away, and bending toward him, so that his words were lost to Schmidt and Priscilla, "and for your son John's. It was he I struck to-day."

Mr. Oldmixon grew white and staggered as if stricken. "Why did thee not come and tell me?" he said. "It had been kinder; and where is that unhappy man?"

"I do not know," returned Wholesome.

"Nevertheless, be it he or another, thee was in the wrong, and I have done my duty,—God help us all! and is my son yet alive?" and so saying, he turned away, and without other words walked through the house with uncertain steps and went down the street, while Wholesome, with softened face, watched him from the doorstep. Then he went back quietly into the garden, and turning to Schmidt, said, "Will you oblige me by leaving me with Mistress White? I will explain to thee by and by."

Schmidt looked up surprised, but seeing how pale and stern he looked, rose and went into the house. The woman looked up expectant.

"Priscilla, the time has come when thee must choose between me and him."

"He has come back? I knew always he would come."

"Yes, he has come back: I saw him to-day," said Wholesome, "and the John Oldmixon of to-day is more than ever cruel and brutal. Will thee trust me to make thee believe that?"

"I believe thee," she returned; "but because he is this and worse, shall I forget my word or turn aside from that which, if bitter for me, may save his soul alive?"

"And yet you love me?"

"Have I said so?" she murmured with a half smile.

The young man came closer and seized both hands in his: "Will it not be a greater sin, loving me, to marry him?"

"But he may never ask me, and then I shall wait, for I had better die fit in soul to be yours than come to you unworthy of a good man's love."

He dropped her hands and moved slowly away, she watching him with full eyes. Then he turned and said, "But should he fall—fall as he must—and come to be what his life will surely make him, a felon whom no woman could marry—"

"Thee makes duty hard for me, Richard," she answered. "Do not make me think thee cruel. When in God's good time he shall send me back the words of promise I wrote when he went away a disgraced man, to whom, nevertheless I owed my life, then—Oh, Richard, I love thee! Do not hurt me. Pray for me and him."

"God help us!" he said. "We have great need, to be helped;" and suddenly leaning over he kissed her forehead for the first time, and went away up the garden and into the house.

EDWARD KEARSLEY.

MODERN HUGUENOTS

It demands a good deal of energy, and it involves a little hardship, to see the Protestant communities of the High Alps of France, but the picturesque and historic interests of the journey furnish a sufficient motive and make ample amends. I can think of no route so entirely unhackneyed to recommend to blasé tourists. The point of departure is Grenoble, reached in an hour or so from Chambéry, and in itself well worth turning aside from the Mont Cenis thoroughfare to visit. As far as Corps the way lies over the beaten track of the Salette pilgrims, of which the charms are recorded in many a devout description.

It happened to us, however, to get a preliminary glimpse of French Protestantism in a characteristic, although wholly modern, development before leaving Grenoble. We applied to the Protestant clergyman there for information respecting the details of our proposed tour. Pleased with our project, he told us the story of a mission which he had established under circumstances altogether unique, and invited us to join him in paying it a visit. The scene of his enterprise was a sunny little village lying high among vineyarded hills, and bearing the name of Notre Dame des Commiers. Owing to its remoteness and insignificance, the Roman Catholic authorities had never replaced its last priest, who withdrew during the turmoils of the Revolution. For all their ecclesiastical needs the people were obliged to descend to the next village, the curé of which gave them little pastoral care beyond the thrifty collection of his dues. Learning these facts, our Grenoble friend determined to take advantage of the situation. He presented himself in the village and told the people he was willing to become their pastor. He only asked them to acknowledge the validity of baptism and marriage performed by him, and to pledge him their support in the struggle with the priests that would probably ensue. Later, he said, he hoped to convince them that he taught a better religion than that at the hands of whose ministers they had suffered such neglect. A majority of the villagers accepted his proposal, and by a formal act constituted themselves a Protestant commune. By so doing they were able to secure recognition by the government as belonging to the National Protestant Church of France. It was not long before the parishioners grew warmly attached to their new pastor. His position of assistant at Grenoble enabled him to assume the sole charge of the enterprise. Week after week he made the tedious stage-coach journey, walking up the two-mile hill at the foot of which he had to quit the highway. Often in winter he toiled for hours through deep snow and faced violent storms in making the ascent. In the worst weather it sometimes happened that the whole journey from Grenoble had to be made on foot. For two years he carried on the work unaided, holding his services in such rude quarters as he was able to secure. The village is now, after an interval of seven years since the missionary's first visit, adorned with a pretty chapel and school-house and provided with a resident minister.

In talking with the people we found abundant proof that their Protestant faith is both intelligent and practical. Such of them as were not busy in the fields surrounded their old pastor with greetings that touchingly expressed their affection and gratitude, and we, as his friends, had a share in the demonstration. One stalwart, clear-eyed old woman obliged us to sit down in front of her chalet, cheerfully explaining that she had just been burned out, and that the shed in which she had found a shelter was not fit for us to enter. She would take no refusal of her offer to fetch us grapes, and ran all the way to and from her vineyard on the opposite hillside, returning in an incredibly short time, scarcely out of breath, and carrying a basket heavy with great white and purple clusters. As she stood watching with delight our appreciation of her produce—the only sweet and luscious grapes, by the way, that we found throughout the autumn in that land of vines—she talked frankly of her religious vicissitudes, summing up as follows: "The priests used to say to me that I had turned Protestant because that is an easier religion than the Roman Catholic. But I have not found it so at all. Il est beaucoup plus facile de me confesser que de me corriger." Presently another woman came up the hill, bending painfully under the weight of two water-pails hanging from the ends of a yoke that rested on her shoulders. "Ah," said our hostess, "if they would but let us build the aqueduct, we should not have that ugly work to do." And then we learned that among the small minority of Roman Catholics left in the village, to care for whom, as soon as it was found a wolf had entered the fold, a priest arrived promptly enough, there prevail the wildest superstitions concerning the Protestants. Among many improvements introduced by the latter an aqueduct had been planned to furnish the hamlet with wholesome water. The project was defeated by the opposition of the Roman Catholics, who considered it a scheme for poisoning them en masse. It was here that we heard for the first time the epithet Huguenots applied as a term of reproach and derision to the Protestants. Afterward, in regions where Protestants have a history of centuries, we found it commonly used in the same way.

Our visit to Notre Dame des Commiers was like reading a living page of early Reformation history, and the whole neighborhood made a fitting stage for such a reproduction. Some six or seven miles from Grenoble we passed the restored but still, in parts at least, historic château of Lesdiguières at Vizille. Nearer our mountain-village we stopped to admire an ivy-covered bit of tower-ruin, associated by a grim tradition with the same Dauphiné hero. A prisoner confined here by the apostate constable had, says the legend, a lady true who came every night and clasped her lover's hand stretched out to her between the bars of his dungeon window. Lesdiguières discovered the rendezvous, and the spot is still pointed out where his soldier was stationed one fatal night to chop off the hand that sought its accustomed pledge. The historical associations of our excursion were, indeed, somewhat confused, but a fresh feature was added to its interest by the departure, which we chanced to witness, of Monsieur Thiers from the Château de Vizille, now occupied by Casimir Perier, whom the ex-president had been visiting.

The two days' diligence journey from Grenoble to the département des Hautes-Alpes was over one of those broad macadamized highways which make driving a luxury in many parts of Europe. If we were more huddled than in the less-antiquated Swiss diligences, we had the compensation of far more original fellow-travelers than one is apt to find among the tourists that monopolize those vehicles. There were generally two or three priests, half a dozen merry peasants, and a sprinkling of small officers and country-townspeople, who respectively lost no time in establishing a pleasant intimacy with their neighbors. The unflagging chatter, in which all joined vivaciously, and often all at once, was in striking contrast with the silent gloom which would have enshrouded a similar party of English or American travelers. It was impossible to resist the contagion of cheerfulness or to refuse to mingle more or less in the talk.

On the second evening, having trusted to the map and the very meagre information supplied by Murray, we found ourselves deposited at an isolated wayside cabaret. It presently transpired that St. Bonnet, where we expected to pass the Sunday, was some half mile or more off the high-road on which this was the nearest station. While we waited in a long, low, dimly-lighted room for the guide we had bespoken, two gendarmes and a peasant sat listening to, or rather looking at, a vivid account of some shooting adventure given in extraordinary pantomime by a deaf and dumb huntsman. In time a withered gnome trundling a wheelbarrow took possession of us and our light belongings, and led us forth into the night. We traversed the valley, mounted the hill on the other side, and at last entered the deeper night of a lampless village, and began to thread its steep, black streets. The only gleam of light was at what seemed to be the central fountain. Many women were gathered there, chatting as they filled their pails or stood with the replenished vessels poised on their heads. The inn was of a piece with all those at which we lodged in Dauphiné, deficient in everything for which an inn exists. The feature of these inns which I remember, I think, with the least relish was the condition of the floors. It is literally true that they are never washed. A daily sprinkling is the only cleansing process they undergo: its effect is to soften the wood until it begins to absorb a large proportion of the rubbish which is often but never thoroughly swept up, and grows black and evil-odored. This result is most manifest, of course, and most offensive in the dining-rooms.

St. Bonnet offered even less than we anticipated of interest. On the Sunday morning we gladly drove away in such an equipage as the place afforded to the not very distant village of St. Laurent en Champsaur. Here we reached our first point in what was fifty years ago the parish of Felix Neff, and has been for centuries a refuge of Protestantism. It is a hamlet of stone cottages, lying on a kind of plateau and overlooking a wide and fertile valley. The surrounding hills, though mostly bare, were broken and beautified on that still autumn morning with dim clefts of shadow. The sun was not yet high, and broad masses of purple fell here and there across the plain and the brawling stream that divides it, still the Drac, which we had seen an almost stately river near Grenoble.

Having already learned something of the local habits, we bade our driver take us to the temple. That is the distinctive name of a Protestant church in these Roman Catholic lands. The morning service was in progress when we entered the square and austere little chapel. Every pew was occupied, the men and women taking different sides of the one stone-paved aisle. A gentle-looking old man was reading from a book with much clearness and expression, and in a singularly pleasant voice, what we soon found to be an excellent sermon. At its close a quaint, slow hymn was sung, and the congregation was dismissed. To our amusement, the simple folk formed a double line outside the door to inspect us as we emerged. It was easy to imagine their interest in an apparition so unusual as foreign visitors, and we submitted to their curious but entirely respectful scrutiny, wishing that our aspect might give them half the satisfaction we had in watching their eager faces and noting their droll costumes. Ludicrously high stocks and "swallow-tail" coats of brown homespun made the dress of the men different from that of corresponding rustics in America. The chief peculiarity in the women's attire was a straw hat, of which the towering crown, decked with huge bows, and the vast flapping brim, were like an extravagant caricature of the poke-bonnets of our grandmothers.