The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ have begotten their natural offspring, heresies against the State; and Governments do not yet awaken to the fact that they who scorn the altar will not respect the throne. The whole force of what are called Liberal institutions has been to weaken the influence of the clergy; and yet it is precisely on that same influence you will have to fall back. It is beneath the solemn shadow of the Church you’ll seek your refuge yet!”

      “No, no, father,” said the Archduke, with a laugh; “we have another remedy.”

      “The mitre is stronger than the mitraille, after all,” said D’Esmonde, boldly. “Believe me, sir, that the solemn knell that tolls an excommunication will strike more terror through Christendom than all your artillery.”

      Either the remark or the tone in which it was uttered was unpleasing to the Prince; indeed, all the Abbe’s courtesy at times gave way to an almost impetuous boldness, which royalty never brooks, for he turned away haughtily, and joined the others at a distant part of the room.

      There was something of scorn in the proud look which D’Esmonde gave after him, and then slipped from the chamber with noiseless step and disappeared. Inquiring the way to the Princess’s apartment, the Abbé slowly ascended the stairs, pondering deeply as he went. Nina was passing the corridor at the moment, and, supposing that he had mistaken the direction, politely asked if she could offer him any guidance. Scarcely noticing the questioner, he replied, —

      “I was looking for the Princesse de Midchekoff’s apartments.”

      “It is here, sir; but she is indisposed.”

      “If you would say that the Abbé D’Esmonde – ”

      He had got thus far when, lifting his eyes, his glance fell upon her features; and then, as if spell-bound, he stood silently gazing at her. Nina’s cheek grew crimson under the stare; but her eyes met his with unshaken firmness.

      “If I were to disbelieve all probabilities,” said he, slowly, “I should say that I see an old friend before me. Are you not the daughter of Huertos, the Toridor of Seville?”

      “Fra Eustace!” said Nina, stepping back and staring steadily at him.

      “No longer so, Lola; I am the Abbé D’Esmonde now,” said he, while a faint flush tinged his pale features.

      “And I am Nina, the ‘Cameriera,’” replied she, scornfully. “See how unequally fortune has dealt with us!”

      D’Esmonde made a sign towards the door, which she at once understood and answered, —

      “Yes, in the service of the Princess.”

      “This is indeed a strange meeting, Lola.”

      “Call me Nina,” said the girl, flushing, “or I shall remember old times, and my Spanish blood will little bear such memories.”

      “Where can we talk together, Nina?”

      “Come this way, holy father,” said she, with a half-sneering smile. “I suppose a poor girl may receive her confessor in her chamber.”

      D’Esmonde walked after her without speaking. While crossing a gallery, she unlocked a door, and admitted him into a small but neatly furnished room.

      “Dear Lola,” said the priest, as, taking her hand, he looked affectionately at her, – “I must needs call you by the old name, – what turn of fortune has brought you here?”

      “It is a question well becomes you,” said the girl, releasing her hand from his grasp, and drawing herself proudly up. “You cut the bark adrift, and you wonder that it has become a wreck!”

      “How this old warmth of temper recalls the past, and how I love you for it, as I grieve over it, Lola; but be calm, and tell me everything, just as you used to tell me years ago.”

      “Oh, if I had the same pure heart as then!” cried the girl, passionately. “Oh, if I could but shed tears, as once I did, over each slight transgression, and not have my spirit seared and hardened, as the world has made it!”

      “We cannot carry the genial freshness of youth into the ripe years of judgment, Lola. Gifts decay, and others succeed them.”

      “No more of this casuistry. You are, I see, the same, whatever changes time may have made in me; but I have outlived these trickeries. Tell me, frankly, what do you want with me?”

      “Must there needs be some motive of self-interest in renewing an old but interrupted friendship, Lola? You remember what we once were to each other?”

      “Oh that I could forget it! – oh that I could wash out the thought, or even think it but a dream! But how can you recall these memories? If the sorrow be mine, is not the shame all yours?”

      “The shame and the sorrow are alike mine,” said D’Es-monde, in a voice of deep dejection, “You alone, of all the world, were ever able to shake within me the great resolves that in prayer and devotion I had formed. For you, Lola, I was, for a space, willing to resign the greatest cause that ever man engaged in. Ay, for love of you, I was ready to peril everything – even to my soul! Is not this enough for shame and sorrow too? Is not this humiliation for one who wears the robe that I do?”

      “You were a student in those days,” said Nina, with a sneering smile; “and I never heard you speak of all those dreadful sacrifices. You used to talk of leaving the college with a light heart. You spoke of the world as if you were impatient to mingle with it. You planned I know not how many roads to fortune and advancement. Among other careers, I remember” – and here she burst into a scornful laugh, that made the priest’s cheek grow crimson with passion – “I remember how you hit upon one which speaks rather for your ardor than your prudence. Do you forget that you would be a Toridor, – you whose cheek grew pale and whose heart sickened as my father’s horse lay embowelled in the ring, and who fainted outright when the bull’s horns were driven into the barricade near you. You a Toridor! A Toridor should have courage!” And as she spoke, her eyes flashed with the fire of passion.

      “Courage!” said the priest, in a voice almost guttural from emotion; “and is there no other courage than the vulgar defiance of personal danger, – the quality of the veriest savage and the merest brute in creation? Is there nothing more exalted in courage than to face bodily peril? Are all its instincts selfishness? What think you of the courage of him who, in all the conscious strength of intellect, with powers to win an upward way amongst the greatest and the highest, can stoop to a life of poverty and neglect, can give up all that men strive for, – home, affection, family, citizenship, – content to toil apart and alone, – to watch, to fast, and pray, and think, – ay, think till the very brain reels with labor, – and all this for a cause in which he is but a unit! Courage! Tell me not of courage beside that of him who dares to shake the strongest thrones, and convulses empires with his word, whose counsels brave the might of armies, and dare even kings to controvert; and, greatest of all, the courage that for a cause can risk salvation! Yes, Lola, he who to save others hazards his own eternity! Have I not done it?” cried he, carried away by an impetuous rush of feeling. “Have I not overborne the truth and sustained the falsehood? Have I not warped the judgments, and clouded the faculties, and misdirected the aspirations of many who came to me for counsel, knowing that if there might be evil now there would be good hereafter, and that for present and passing sorrow there would be a glorious day of rejoicing? To this end have I spoke Peace to the guilty man and Hope to the hardened! Not for him, nor for me, but for the countless millions of the Church, – for the mighty hosts who look to her for succor and consolation! This I call courage!”

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