The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 142

Perico evinced all his grat.i.tude to Martha in a manner more heartfelt than fluent.

"You must not thank me" said the good woman, "for truly, the face I put on when I saw you brought was not one of welcome; but I have taken a liking to you because I see that you are a good son and a good Christian."

Perico hung his head in deep grief and humiliation. His physical weakness had deadened in him the blind and furious impulse which had exalted him, as such impulse does sometimes exalt gentle and timid natures to a point past the limit which strong-minded and even violent men respect.

All that effervescence which caused such a surging of his pa.s.sions, as gas causes the juice of the grape to ferment, had ceased, as the foam subsides upon the wine, leaving reflection, which, without diminishing the greatness of his wrongs, condemned his method of redressing them.

All the horror which the future inspired returned to Perico with returning strength, and it was not lessened when Andres, taking the occasion one day when his wife was about her work, said to him:

"My friend, now that you are recovered you must seek your living somewhere else, for--the more friendship, the more frankness, sir--when you were out of your head you talked of a murder you had committed. If it is true, and they find you here, we shall suffer for it, and that will not be right; the just ought not to pay for sinners; well-regulated charity, let Martha, who pretends to know better, say what she will, begins at home. n.o.body but that pumpkin-headed wife of mine is capable of sustaining that Christian charity begins with one's neighbor. As to me, I tell you the truth, I want nothing to do with justice, for she has a heavy hand."

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Perico did not reply, but went with tearful eyes to take leave of Martha. The good soul felt his departure, for she had become fond of him. The memory of her son had attached Martha to the unfortunate young man, and the memory of his own mother had drawn Perico toward the woman who acted toward him a mother's part.

He took his gun, and was going out when he met the convict.

"Which way?" said the robber. "Do you clear out in this fashion, without so much as May G.o.d reward you! to the compa.s.sionate soul who picked you up? This isn't the right thing, comrade. Besides, where can you go hereabouts? Are you in a hurry to be put in the lock-up?"

Perico remained silent; he neither thought nor reasoned--had no will of his own. "Courage! and come along," proceeded the convict. "Here we are taking more trouble to help you than you will take to let yourself be helped." Perico followed him mechanically.

"Look, Martha," said Andres, seeing Perico at a distance in company with the robber, "look at your pet--and what a jewel he is, to be sure! There he goes with the convict."

"And what of it?" responded Martha. "I tell you, Andres, that he is a good son and a good Christian."

"An impostor and a vagabond, that has eaten up my hens--and you see where he is going, and yet say that he is good! The devil only understands women!"

Perico and the convict, making their way through thickets and difficult places, came at last to an elevation, upon which stood the captain leaning on his gun, and guarding the slumbers of eight men, who were lying around him on the slope. Near him grazed his beautiful horse, which lifted its head from time to time to regard its master.

"Here is this young man," said the convict as they drew near.

Without changing his position, the captain slowly turned his eyes and examined the new arrival from head to foot. His scrutiny finished, he asked,

"Are you a fugitive from justice?"

Perico inclined his head, but did not answer.

"There is no cause for fear," proceeded his questioner, and presently, in brief phrases, added,

"Men have fatal hours, and of these some are as red as blood and some as black as darkness itself. One is enough to destroy a man, and turn his heart to a stone which has neither pulse nor feeling, only weight.

He remains lost, for the past is past, and there is nothing to do but bear it with pluck. Life is a fight, in which one must look before him, like a brave man, and not behind, like a poltroon."

"I cannot do it," exclaimed Perico vehemently. "If you knew--"

The captain, with an imperative gesture, extended his arm to silence him, and continued.

"Here, each one carries his own secrets within himself, a sealed packet, without awakening in the others either curiosity or interest.

If you have nowhere to go, stay with us; here we defend all we have left, our life. Mine I do not guard because I value it, but to keep it from the headsman."

"But you rob?" said Perico.

"We must do something," responded the bandit, returning, like a tortoise, into his hard and impenetrable sh.e.l.l.

Perico neither accepted nor refused the proposition, he remained without volition, an inert body; chance disposed of his wretched existence, as the winds dispose of the dry and heavy sands of the desert.

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CHAPTER XVI.

But while Perico, after the occurrences which we have related, was dragging out a miserable existence among a band of criminals, what became of the other individuals of this family? To what extremes had they been carried by resentment, grief, despair, and revenge?

Pedro, from the fatal day on which he lost his son, had shut himself in his own house with his sorrow. The parish priest and some of his friends went from time to time to keep him company--not to console him, that was impossible, but to talk with him about his trouble, like those who relieve vessels of the bitter water of the sea, not to right them but to keep them from sinking. They had tried to persuade him to renew his intercourse with the family of Perico, but without success.

"No, no," he would answer on such occasions. "I have forgiven him before G.o.d and men; but have to do with his people as though it had not been, I cannot."

"Pedro, Pedro, that is not forgiveness," said the priest. "It is the letter but not the spirit of the law."

"Father," replied the poor man, "G.o.d does not ask what is impossible."

"No, but what he requires is possible."

"Sir, you want me to be a saint, and I am not one; it is enough for me to be a good Christian, and forgive. Have I molested them? Have I sought justice? What more can I do?"

"Pedro, returning good for evil, wise men walk in peace."

"Mercy, mercy, father! why shave so close as to lay bare the brains?

G.o.d help and favor them; but each in his own house, and G.o.d with us all."

Maria had hidden herself with her daughter in the retirement of her cottage, covering the despair and shame of the latter with the sacred mantle of maternal love, her only refuge from the unanimous disapproval and condemnation which she justly merited. The unfortunate victims, Anna and Elvira, remained alone, but sustained in their immense affliction by their religion and their conscience. Many months pa.s.sed in this way. At length two Capuchins came to the village to hold a mission. These missions were inst.i.tuted for the conversion of the wicked, the awakening of the luke-warm, the encouragement of the good, and the consolation of the sorrowful.

The missionaries preached at night, and the church was filled with people who came to hear the word of G.o.d, which teaches men to be pious and humble.

The good Maria succeeded in persuading her daughter to go to the missions, and Rita, hard, bitter, and selfish, in her shame and desperation, found in them repentance, with tears for the past, penance and humiliation for the present, and for the future the divine hand, which lifts the fallen one, who, bathed in tears, and prostrate in ashes, implores its help. One night the subject of the sermon was the forgiveness of injuries. Magnificent theme! Holy and sublime beyond all others! The earnest preacher knew how to improve it, and the believing people how to understand it.

At the conclusion the good missionary knelt before the crucifix, and with fervent zeal and ardent charity promised the Lord of mercy, in the name of that mult.i.tude kneeling at his feet, that on the succeeding night there should not be in the temple a single hard and unreconciled heart. A burst of exclamations and tears confirmed the promise of the devoted apostle.

The day which followed was one of peace and love, according to the spirit of the evangel. The most deeply-rooted enmities were ended; the most irreconcilable foes embraced each other in the streets; the angels in heaven had cause for rejoicing.

Pedro went to see Anna. Terrible to the unhappy man was the entering into that house. He approached Anna and embraced her in silence. The afflicted mother shook, and tried in vain to overcome her emotion. But when Pedro turned toward Elvira, as she stood wringing her thin hands, worn to a shadow and bathed in tears--when {794} he pressed to his paternal heart her whom he had looked upon and loved as a daughter, all his grief broke forth in the cry: "Daughter! daughter! you and I loved him!"

Rita, also, went to Anna's to beg for that which Pedro went to carry.

When she found herself in the presence of the mother-in-law she had outraged, she fell upon her knees. "I," she exclaimed, beating her breast, "have been the cause of all! I have not come to ask a forgiveness I do not deserve, but to beg of you to reprimand without cursing me." When she turned to Elvira, it was not enough to remain on her knees, she bent her face to the floor, moaning amidst her sobs.

"Since you are an angel, forgive!"

Maria supported her prostrate child, and implored Anna with her looks and tears. Anna and Elvira, without a word of reproach, raised and embraced her who had done so much to injure them; striving all they could from that day to reanimate her, for she was the most wretched of the three, because the guilty one.