'As Gold in the Furnace' Part 2

"Dear me! dear me! Are not your Aunt Helen's children and their friends good enough a.s.sociates for you?"

"Quite good enough. But, sir, you mistake my meaning. I had two reasons for refusing. I do not care for dancing, and do not care to be made a mere convenience of, nor do I wish to be patronized by my cousin Garrett. My other reason was that I was anxious and worried, having received no word from you since I told you of my earnest desire to study for the priesthood."

"Ah! Yes, to be sure. You may think my abrupt leaving you last night was a strange proceeding. It was. I am sorry I vexed you. I want to be kind."

"Thank you, Father; I am sure you do."

Mr. Henning was not a demonstratively affectionate man, and it must be charged to heredity that his own child possessed decidedly similar characteristics, especially in all absence of demonstrativeness. Roy loved his father deeply, but no terms of endearment or outward show of affection, so far as the boy could remember, had ever pa.s.sed between them. If Roy had only known he could have crept very close to his father's heart this morning. If Roy could have known just then, he would have seen his father's heart sore and sensitive, trying to discipline itself into renouncing its life-long ambition--that of his son's advancement. He had so earnestly wished the boy to adopt his own profession. Was he not already getting along in years? Would not a partner in his law practice become ere long an imperative necessity?

He had too clear and too well-trained a mind not to see the futility of attempting to thwart the boy's inclinations. He was too sincere a Catholic of principle and too well instructed in the obligations of his faith to wish effectually to prevent or destroy a vocation, and yet--oh, it was hard! It was a sore trial to give up his dream of years!

"Thank you, Father; I am sure you wish to be kind."

Roy, seeing that his father had remained silent an unusually long time, repeated his remark. The elder man's lips twitched. The muscles of his cheeks moved with the strong emotions he was experiencing.

"Oh, Roy, Roy! Think what it all means for me! My shattered hopes for you! I know that as a Catholic I dare not thwart you in following so high a vocation, nor would I have it on my conscience to do so. But all my shattered hopes of you! I have wealth and position, but they are not everything. I have looked forward to you as my prop and stay and my honor in my declining years. Must you--must you leave us? Are you sure of this call? Is it not a mere pa.s.sing fancy, such as many good and pure boys have? Are you sure that your duty does not point to your family rather than to the seminary? Are you sure, my lad?"

The old gentleman's words were almost pa.s.sionate. Young Henning was unwontedly affected. He had never been placed in so peculiar a position. His father evidently regarded him now, spoke to him, even appealed to him, as to a man, with a man's responsibilities. For a moment he was thrilled with exquisite pleasure in being so treated, but he did not waver in his purpose. He knew that he would probably add to his father's regrets, yet he was conscious that he could not hold out the faintest hope that the parental wish, which appeared to run contrary to what he now conceived to be his plain duty, would be gratified.

"My dear father," he said, "I am sorry to cause you pain, but I believe I have this vocation and I must, in conscience, follow it."

There was a long pause.

"Well--what must be, must be, I suppose, but, my child, have you well considered the step? Are you willing to live on a meager pittance, as most priests do? Are you willing to lead a life of penurious denial and of study? Can you face the ordeal of the confessional for hours at a time, listening to tales of misery, wretchedness, and degradation?

Can you be strong with the strong, and not too strong with the weak?

Can you bear all this? Are you sure of yourself?"

Now Roy Henning, during the previous year at St. Cuthbert's had thought over the question of his vocation time and time again, examining himself rigorously as to his fitness, and, as far as his experience allowed, reviewing the life of the ordinary parish priest. He saw clearly that no one embraced the priestly life from a purely natural motive. Such as did, he argued, must become failures, and unfit for their state. He had, as every one who has a true vocation, a higher motive than a merely natural one. With him the supernatural was paramount, and in its light all prosaic, squalid, unheroic circ.u.mstances sank into insignificance. He, therefore, answered:

"Yes, sir, I have thought it all over. I firmly believe I have a vocation, and after I graduate, I think it will be my duty to enter a seminary with a view to probing and testing it."

"I will not thwart you, my boy; I dare not. But do you think yourself worthy of so high a calling?"

"I do not, indeed, Father; but my confessor encourages me to go on."

Mr. Henning sighed on discovering that the opinion of the boy's confessor was averse to his wishes--sighed as if giving up his last hope of being able to change his son's views. He then altered his manner suddenly, as if ashamed of having displayed emotion before any member of his family. He was again the sharp, shrewd man of affairs.

"Very well, sir," he said, with a crispness in his voice which hitherto had been absent; "you take your degree the coming year. After that you have my permission to enter a seminary. I will be responsible for your expenses until your ordination. As you desire, however, to enter a hard and self-denying life I consider it my duty to test you myself to some extent during the coming school year."

In the midst of the delight at his father's capitulation, Roy looked up in surprise. He wondered what was coming next.

"You must apply yourself wholly and solely to your studies. I shall allow you only twenty-five dollars for your private expenses, and I desire and insist that for the last year of your college life you relinquish all sports of whatsoever kind."

"Father!" cried the poor boy in dismay; and oh, the heart-sinking that was expressed in that one word!

"I mean precisely what I say," persisted Mr. Henning, almost relentlessly; "a priest's life is one of constant self-sacrifice and denial. You can not begin to practise those virtues too soon."

"But, Father, I am captain of the ball nine, and the football eleven, at college!" And there was a world of appeal in the boy's voice.

"I am sorry, under the circ.u.mstances, to hear it. Abstinence from baseball and football and boating and all sorts of contests is the condition under which I sanction your plans, which, pardon me if I say it, I can not but consider chimerical. The test I have selected will prove how right or wrong I am in my opinion. You will take only enough exercise to keep a sound mind in a sound body."

Whether Roy Henning's father was acting judiciously or otherwise, we will not undertake to say. We merely give the facts. Mr. Henning was desirous to see how his son would act under circ.u.mstances which he readily admitted would be particularly trying.

It is probable that many boys will be inclined to think that Roy Henning was not in such a very sad plight after all, and perhaps would be willing to exchange places with him if their pocketbooks were exchanged too. It is true that many a boy goes to college with far less spending money than that which was to be Roy's share for his graduating year. It must be understood, in order to make Roy's position clear, that the boy was generous to a fault, and never having stinted his expenditures at college, or been stinted in the supply, he was looked to for pecuniary a.s.sistance by all sorts of college a.s.sociations whose financial condition, as most collegians are aware, is perennially in a state of collapse. He was one of the most popular boys, because his purse was always open.

His father had, indeed, arranged a severe test for him. He little realized what the trials of a rich boy's poverty were. Little did he imagine to what hours of guiltless ignominy he was unwittingly condemning his son. We must do the lawyer the justice to say that had he imagined but one-tenth of the trials which were to come upon his son by his restrictive action, he would have been the last man to have imposed the conditions.

Roy Henning accepted them unreservedly, and the conversation at the beginning of the first chapter shows us how fully and completely he intended to obey his father's injunctions.

CHAPTER IV

ROY AND GARRETT

Henning was not overwhelmingly delighted when he learned that Andrew Garrett was to accompany him to St. Cuthbert's. He knew his cousin's disposition fairly well and did not expect to derive much pleasure from his presence at college, although he was aware that the relationship would occasion more or less close intimacy.

Never were two boys more dissimilar in character. Henning had been molded at St. Cuthbert's for five or six years. He had imbibed that spirit which is found among the students of every well-conducted Catholic college--that peculiar something which is so difficult to define, but which is so palpable in its effects, elevating and rendering the Catholic student the comparatively superior being he is.

Those who have intelligently watched this college phenomenon admit that the tone, or spirit, or influence, or whatever it may be, is like nothing else on earth, so that if nothing else were accomplished, this result gives abundant reason for the existence of our Catholic colleges. If one were asked to define the exact process, to point out the various means employed, in transforming a crude youth into the manly, generous, self-possessed young man of high ideals and n.o.ble purpose, it would be found a most difficult thing to do.

Roy Henning was a fair example of what Catholic training does for a well-disposed youth. He was not perfect, as we shall probably see later on in our story; yet he had qualities that endeared him to all who knew him. Hating any appearance of meanness, he was ever the champion of the weak or the oppressed, as many a boy who was not the "under-dog" found to his cost. His cheerful, manly piety made religion attractive. There was nothing squeamish or mawkish about him.

Everybody who knew him would laugh at the idea that Henning and effeminacy had the remotest connection. If the truth were told of him at this time he was, owing to his splendid health and sound physique, verging on the opposite of effeminacy.

Under the tutelage of such boys as Hunter, Claude Winters, Clavering, and others, he had developed into a really fine athlete. The "muscles of his brawny arms were" literally "strong as iron bands," and that one was certainly to be pitied who, if under Roy's displeasure, came in close contact with him.

Andrew Garrett was his cousin's ant.i.thesis. He was about the same inches as Roy, who measured five feet ten inches in his stocking feet, but beyond this all resemblance ceased. Andrew was not an athlete. He was of spare build, but did not look healthy. His chest was narrow, his arms and legs spindling and flabby. He had no muscle, because he took little exercise, and was, consequently, frequently bilious, which often resulted in his saying or doing much meaner and pettier things than he intended. It would be difficult to find two more dissimilar characters than these two cousins.

In justice to Andrew Garrett it must be stated that when he came with his cousin to St. Cuthbert's he had not the slightest knowledge of the conditions under which Roy was laboring. Owing to what he had previously known of the state of Roy's purse both at home and during vacation time, he had not the slightest suspicion that now his cousin's paternal allowance had been inconveniently curtailed. Whether he would have acted differently had he known all the circ.u.mstances is a matter of conjecture. Garrett was a factor in much of the annoyance Roy Henning suffered during the year.

For several days after the arrival of Andrew Garrett, Mr. Shalford, the prefect, watched him closely. Being a cousin of Henning, the prefect thought it was natural that he would a.s.sociate with the Henning-Bracebridge-Shealey-Beecham set, and be one of those to whom no particular attention need be given. He was not a little surprised to discover that these boys had very little to do with him. There was no overt act on their part by which Garrett could be said to have been snubbed or "dropped," but the prefect saw that there seemed to be a tacit understanding among these boys to let Garrett severely alone. No one had any particular liking for him, and it is quite probable that had he not been Henning's cousin, he would have experienced several times a very unpleasant quarter of an hour.

Roy Henning was now one of the leaders among the forthcoming graduates.

His influence was now as great as Hunter's or Winter's had been in the previous year, and his relationship with Garrett saved that boy much annoyance, which, by his want of tact and a lack of companionableness, he would have brought upon himself.

"You do not seem to get along with the other boys, Garrett," said Mr.

Shalford kindly, one day not long after the conversation recorded in our first chapter.

"I guess I can manage without them," was the ungracious reply.

"I don't think you can, my boy," said Mr. Shalford.

"Well, I do. I think I can manage my own affairs."

The prefect did not know whether this speech was intended as a rebuff to his advances, but he took a charitable view of it, and ascribed it to awkwardness, rather than to intentional boorishness. He said:

"Let me tell you, Andrew, that you can do no such thing."