St. Cuthbert's Part 24

The conversation was one of great interest and pleasure to myself, and while I could give no definite promise I made no secret of the attractiveness of their proposal.

"You will be so good as to present our regards to the mistress of the manse," said one of them, as they rose to go.

"Thank you, it will give me great pleasure," I responded; "my wife is a Southerner. Her father, who is not living now, fought at Gettysburg. My wife's standing instruction is to say that he was not killed in battle, for that was many years ago, and she has the Southern instinct for youth."

"And the Southern talent for it too, I reckon," the courtly gentleman replied. "We are mighty glad to hear that she belongs to us. Surely we will have a friend at Court. Let her be considered our plenipotentiary-extraordinary. Does her heart still turn towards her Southern home?"

"I am sure it does," I made reply, "but it has been long garrisoned within these rock-bound walls, and I know she has come to love them. I have often heard her say that there is no trellis for Southern vines like these mountainous hearts, true and faithful as the eternal hills themselves."

"I don't wonder at it," another of the deputation interposed. "From what I have seen and learned of these folk, I think they are our nearest kin.

The Scotch and the Southern nature are alike, the same intensity of feeling, but with them it glows and burns, while with us it flames and sparkles."

"The same stream," suggested the first, "but ours breaks easier into flood."

"Well, I hope the flood will bear her back to her native sh.o.r.e," said the youngest member of the committee, who was a colonel, having been born during the Civil War.

We all laughed pleasantly at our racial distinctions and the gentlemen withdrew.

"We will not tell you good-bye, for we hope to see you soon again," was the last word I heard, the Southern idiom and the Southern cordiality both in evidence.

Definite action on the part of the Charleston church soon followed the return of their representatives. And I knew not what to do.

In the hope of relieving my perplexity, I accepted an invitation to spend a Sabbath with the St. Andrew's people and occupy their proffered pulpit.

My heart had sore misgivings when I said good-bye to Issie Hogg; her years were but thirteen; and every year had bound her closer and closer to my heart till I knew she was more dear to me than any other child save one. The sands of life were nearly run and I feared greatly lest they might be spent before I should return.

New Jedboro was winter-wrapped when I left it, and, taking steamer from New York, I disembarked at Charleston into almost intoxicating sweetness. Their dear South land was aflame with early summer, and my idea of Paradise was revised. How could these Southern hearts be otherwise than warm and fragrant! All the land about seemed like nature's temple breathing forth its silent anthem and celebrating its perpetual ma.s.s.

Yet all its vernal beauty seemed but as a portal to the inner shrine, the sanctuary of Southern hospitality. Which hospitality is a separate brand and hath no rival this side the Gates of Pearl. Let all who would feel the surprise of heaven's welcome forego the luxury of a visit to a Southern home; for they have stolen that celestial fire to kindle their waiting hearths.

I was committed to the care of one of the families of St. Andrew's whose household numbered five; and every heart had many doors all open wide.

That is, open wide till you had entered, for then they seemed tight closed, locked with a golden key. Ancient pride seemed to be their family possession, never flaunted, but suppressed rather--and you knew it only because your own heart acknowledged that this must be its rightful dwelling place.

I noted again the pleasing custom of Southern ladies, who shake hands on introduction, and forever after. The candid graciousness that marks the act is in happy contrast to the self-conscious agitation of the underbred and the torpid panic of their stifled bow.

My host and hostess were persons of rare interest. Some of England's best blood was in their veins; it had come to them by way of Virginia, in their eyes the last medium of refinement. The final touch of sanguinary indigo is given only at Virginia's hands, the Virginian aristocracy being a blessed union of the English chivalric and the American intrinsic, the heraldic of the old world blended with the romantic of the new--which might make the Duke of Devonshire proud to receive reordination at their hands.

English aristocracy ambles on in an inevitable path, high banked by centuries--but the Virginian hath leaped the hurdle of the ocean and still retained its coronet; which proves that it was fashioned in eternity after the express pattern of their patrician heads.

As I describe the lofty source of this gracious Southern household, I bethink myself that to this day I cannot tell how I came to know that theirs was an ancient family. No reference to it from their own lips can I recall; certainly no boast, except the tranquil boast of proud serenity and n.o.ble bearing, and the n.o.blesse oblige of loving hearts.

Grave courtesy and sweet simplicity and mirthful dignity seemed to be the heirlooms which they shared as common heritors; and, chiefest of credentials, when they stood in the library amid the shades of ancestors preserved in oils, I felt no sense of humour in the situation.

This is a great tribute; for the plebeian may boast his ancestors but he dare not paint them; and many a pioneer aristocrat hath compa.s.sed his undoing because he thus tried to put new wine into old bottles. Wishing to found a family, he proceeds to find one, and both are covered with shame as with a garment.

Many of our new world n.o.bility, finding in sudden wealth the necessity for sudden pedigree, have resurrected their ancestors and tried in vain to touch them into gentleness, committing to an artist the secret task of G.o.d. Even those who have made fortune in oils, consistently restoring their innocent forefathers by the same, have only advertised their weakness with their wares.

It is true that the Vardell family coat-of-arms was not concealed--but it was not brandished or expounded. In quiet but vigilant emblazonry, it seemed to stand apart, like some far back member of the family in whose pride it shared.

Which reminded me, by contrast, of a call I had once made upon a certain Northern family, conspicuously rich and conspicuously new. While waiting in the drawing-room, I observed four different crests, or coats-of-arms, framed and hanging in a separate place, smirking to one another in token of their youthful fortune; for the lines had fallen unto them in pleasant places.

Soon the mistress of the mansion swept into the room, her locomotion accompanied by a wealthy sound, silk skirts calling unto silk skirts as deep calleth unto deep. A little pleasant conversation ensued, which, among other things informed me that the Turkish rug beneath me had cost six hundred dollars; whereupon I anxiously lifted my unworthy feet, my emotion rising with them. After both had subsided, I sought to stir the sacred pool of memory, pointing reverently to one of the aforesaid emblems of heraldry.

"That is your family coat-of-arms, Mrs. Brown, is it not?" I asked, throwing wide the door for the return of the n.o.ble dead.

"Yes," she answered proudly, "that is my one, and that one there is Mr.

Brown's, and those other two are the children's; the yellow one is Victoria's and the red one is Louisa Alexandra's. Mr. Brown bought them in New York, and we thought when we were getting them we might just as well get one apiece for the children too."

How rich and reckless, I reflected, is the spendthrift generosity of our new world rich!

I could not but recall how those mean old English families make one such emblem do for centuries, and the children have to be content with its rusty symbols. But this lavish enterprise cheered me by its refreshing contrast; for every one was new, and each child had one for its very own.

There is no need to dwell on the succeeding Sabbath. St. Andrew's church bore everywhere the evidences of wealth and refinement. Large and sympathetic congregations were before me, evidently hospitable to the truth; for Huguenot and Scotch-Irish blood does not lose its ruling pa.s.sion, and South Carolina has its generous portion of them both.

I sorely missed the psalms, without which, to those who have acquired the stern relish, a service lacks its greatest tonic. But my poor efforts seemed well received and the flood of Southern fervour burst forth later on, as we sat around the Vardells' dinner table.

I was being initiated into the mystic sweets of "syllabub," a Southern concoction of which my sober Scotch folks had never heard. Whoso takes it may not look upon the wine when it is red, for its glow is m.u.f.fled by various other moral things; but the wine, waiting patiently at the bottom, cometh at last unto its own; and the glow which was absent from the cup may be soon detected upon the face of him who took it, beguiled by the innocent foliage amidst which the historic serpent lurks.

Webster defines it as a dish of cream, flavoured with wine, and beaten to a froth. But Webster was from Ma.s.sachusetts and his advantages were few. The cultured Southerner, more versed in luxury than language, knoweth well that it is a dish of wine, flavoured with cream, and not beaten at all since the foundation of the world.

Southerners incline to eulogy; and syllabubs insist upon it. Wherefore, after the third syllabub had run the same course that its fathers had run, Miss Sadie turned to me and said:

"That was a perfectly lovely sermon you preached to us this morning."

"You are very frank," quoth I, for I was unaccustomed to compliments, one every six or seven years, and an extra thrown in at death, being the limit of Scotch enthusiasm.

"Well," replied Miss Sadie, "I hope I am. I think it is sweet and lovely to tell people if you like them. What's the use of waiting till they're dead, before you say nice things about your friends? If folks love me, or think me nice, I want them to tell me so while I'm alive."

"I love you and I think you are sweet and beautiful," said I, obedient.

Then came a dainty Southern cry--not the bold squeal of other girls, nor the loud honking of those who mourn for girlhood gone--but the woman-note which only the Southern girl commands in its perfection.

"Father! Do you hear what that preacher said to me just now?" she cried archly. "Isn't it perfectly dreadful for him to say things like that to a simple maiden like me? You awful man!"

"Our guest is only flesh and blood, Sadie," answered the courtly father when his laughing ceased, "so I presume, like the rest of us, he thinks you lovely. As for his telling you so, he was only carrying out your own instructions."

"I don't see how you could have done anything else," laughed Mrs.

Vardell. "You shut him up to it, you know, Sadie. After your precept, to have said nothing nice would have meant that there was nothing nice to say."

"But seriously," resumed Miss Sadie, turning again to me, "that was really a lovely sermon this morning. It is beautiful to be able to help a whole congregation like that."

"Yes," chimed in Miss Vardell, Sadie's sweet senior, "it was perfectly fascinating. I shall never forget it as long as I live."

"I really think you will have to let us speak our mind," added their mother. "Your Geneva gown was so becoming; I do so wish our Southern ministers would adopt it. And the sermon was perfect. I especially admired the way it seemed to grow out of the text; they seemed to grow together like a vine twining around a tree."

I endured this tender pelting with the best grace I could command, though this was the first time I had ever been the centre of such a hosannah thunder-storm. The tribute to the kinship of text and sermon, however, was really very pleasing to me. Just at this juncture, when a new batch of compliments was about to be produced, smoking hot, an aged aunt, the prisoner of years, ventured an enquiry.

"I wish I could have been there--but I am far past that," she said.

"What was the text, Sadie?"