CHAPTER XXX
Buford came down from Staunton the morning after my arrival to urge upon mother and Jean an immediate marriage. News had just come to him that made his presence in Philadelphia necessary within the fortnight, and he was so unwilling, he declared, to leave the valley until Jean was his own, beyond question of his right to return for her, that, rather than do so, he would forfeit the chance for pardon, and restoration of his property, which this call to Philadelphia seemed to promise him. With my help mother's objections were overborne, and it was settled that the ceremony should take place on the first day we could procure the services of a clergyman of the Church of England.
Under the establishment, a marriage solemnized by any other than an Episcopal rector was not strictly valid in law, and though such marriages had been spasmodically tolerated under certain circumstances, they were regarded with such ill favor by the courts that they often gave rise to unpleasant complications afterwards. It was, therefore, our custom to submit to the mortification of begging the nearest Episcopal clergyman to read the service, previous to the solemnization of the contract by our own minister. The nearest clergyman to us lived more than thirty miles distant, and as he spent much of his time in Williamsburg, it was a difficult matter to induce him to go any distance to legalize the marriage of dissenters. However, I preferred not to be the one to enlighten Buford on this subject.
Buford and I rode together to see the clergyman, while Thomas went to Staunton for a persuasive interview with Nelly – we to join him there next day. Our clergyman was at his midday meal when we arrived, and we were left to cool our heels in his draughty hall while he finished leisurely an evidently tempting repast. He came out to us after three quarters of an hour, cleaning his teeth with a golden pick, a string of hounds at his heels, and his top boots muddy from his morning ride. We introduced ourselves, and announced our business.
"You are modest in your request, sirs. Think you I have nothing else to do than to ride all over the State reading the marriage ceremony for dissenters? Such usually come to me. Bring your wenches behind you any afternoon this week and I'll make quick work of the marriage service for your benefit."
"This gentleman, sir, who is to marry my sister," I made calm answer, though restraining my anger with no small effort, "was late an officer in the British army, and is a member of the Church of England. He is entitled to your services, therefore, through the double claim of like politics and religion. His sister weds my cousin. To neither of them would it appear seemly to ride the width of two counties to seek their church's blessing on their marriage."
"You should have stated those facts before," responded the clergyman stiffly, but with sense enough of decency to flush as he turned to Buford. "Your rank and name again, please. I shall be glad to come to you any day and hour you may name. It is my duty and my privilege to go wherever needed by those of the established faith, but I do not consider it so to be gallivanting from hut to hut to marry all the heretics in this valley – who have made such ado about the tithings of their pitiful substance, that the State has been forced to heed their clamor, and we are cut down to a beggar's stipend."
"Since the State requires your services to legitimatize marriage, since you are paid to perform that duty – and from the scarcity of your parishioners I judge your other duties are by no means onerous – I see not how you can excuse yourself," was Buford's cool rejoinder "But you shall be well paid for your needful assistance, sir. Shall we say Thursday afternoon, McElroy? There is to be a second service in the evening, solemnized by your own minister, as you know, and this would better be got through with beforehand."
Buford, I saw, was seething inwardly by this time, and holding the reins on his passion with rigid grip; the clergyman, too, was waxing hot, and there was need to terminate the interview as soon as possible.
"It is small wonder, McElroy, that you Presbyterians are so set against an established church," commented Buford as we remounted our horses. "I understand as never before, that men appointed to holy office by royal or state patronage are more likely than otherwise to be men unfitted for the discharge of sacred duties; to them it is a living rather than a holy calling. Count me on your side, Donald, when you are ready to throw yourself into the fight for religious liberty, which is, I believe, the next war you Scotch Irish propose to engage in, now that your state independence has been won."
"The fight for religious liberty and for the separation of church and state is already on. All through the greater war our ministers have kept up a brisk warfare of yearly memorials and petitions to the State Assembly. Four years ago Mr. Jefferson drew up a statute of religious liberty which he offered to the Assembly, and which has since been brought up at each session for warm discussion. Sooner or later the measure will be carried, and you are right in supposing that that is the next fight in which I shall enlist; nor shall I forget your promise to be on my side the next time," and I laid my hand on Buford's arm. Already I felt almost a brother's affection for him.
"After this, Donald," said Buford with feeling, "your people shall be my people, your country my country, and your interests mine; and," he added more lightly, "if I meet many more mere holders of livings, like the clergyman we have just left, your religion shall be mine also."
"You and Jean shall settle that question to your mutual satisfaction," I answered, smiling; "if you can make an Episcopalian out of her you have my consent."
"She shall make anything out of me she wishes," and Buford's face and voice were softened by quick springing tenderness. "My one ambition shall be to make her happy."
"You will not find that a hard task," I answered, with a sigh for my own delayed happiness; "she loves you dearly."
"Look here, Donald. Some forts may not be taken by the most persistent siege; a bold assault is the only way. Miss Ellen loves you, but she dare not close the door for good and all on the morbid conscience to which she has so long listened. Surprise her into an irreclaimable step, and she will but love you the more for having mastered her will, since you have already mastered her heart."
"But how?" I questioned eagerly. "I was never shrewd at strategy, and am, at best, but a backwoodsman in love warfare."
"Procure a license for your marriage to-day, and Wednesday show it to her, refusing to listen to her plea for postponement.
"Ellen would hold no marriage valid for herself not solemnized by a priest."
"Call this but the civil contract and explain it is to get this unpleasant necessity for a Church of England ceremony over with. You will surprise her into the necessary step before she has time to listen to her doubts and fears, and can afford, then, to wait for priest's blessing before you shall claim her. I will bring you a priest on my return from Baltimore."
"Suppose Ellen should be angry?" and I shuddered at the bare thought.
"What woman was ever made angry by the daring determination of the man she loves, to win her at all hazards? If at first Ellen should seem angry, be deeply grieved, and declare your intention to go to Kentucky to join Clark, and fight the Indians. If she loves you, as she does, she will never consent to that."
Buford's suggestion appeared more and more feasible as my mind dallied with the tempting prospect. In the end three licenses were procured. Thomas, who acted for Ellen, swore profound secrecy, and I rode home with the folded paper on which hung my destiny feeling warm against my beating heart. The more I contemplated the rashness of my deed, next day, the more I feared Ellen's displeasure. When evening came, I was still in a state of excitement that seemed to key all my faculties to a higher pitch.
An Indian summer's day had been followed by a calm but buoyant night. The sky, unflecked by lightest cloud, sparkled overhead, an arch of congealed azure, amidst which the big bright moon shone with such radiant resplendence that the stars were quite outdone and gleamed almost apologetically, as if aware that this was not their hour. As the sky dipped down to meet the mountains, lifting their purple bulk in soft but distinct undulation, the sparkling blue melted to a fathomless, almost colorless mist, which cast over the dark blue range a mysterious reflection, exaggerating its bulk, its mystery, and its silence.
The night, I thought, was like Ellen, exhilarating, joy-giving, yet serious and thought-compelling – its beauty and sweetness far removed from the beauty and sweetness of common things, by a silent suggestion of unfathomed depths. I found her alone on the porch, a white shawl so draped about her that once again she looked as she did that night at the spring, when she was yet a child, like a spirit from some purer world.
"Ellen," I began, dropping down on the step below her, and compelling her dream-held eyes to recognize mine, "have I kept high carnival in my heart these last three days for naught, or are you but playing with my hopes? Surely, Ellen, promise is but delayed fulfillment."
"Has it made you very happy – the hope?" she asked, her tones soft and dreamy, like the far-away notes of a violin. "You are very sure that you will always be entirely content with me? The pleadings of my own heart, Donald, I might have resisted, but to bring you happiness, to bless and crown your life, as you say I alone can – to resist that temptation, Donald, was beyond my soul's strength. I may have been hard to win, dear, but your conquest is complete."
My right arm clasped her, and her head sank to my breast, as a bird into its nest, and rested there as quietly.
"Then you will grant my request, Ellen?" my heart throbbing tremulously. "Say you will! Even before I make it, that will be the sealing sign of your love and confidence."
"You could ask nothing I would refuse."
"Then marry me to-morrow, mavourneen!" and before she could answer, I dropped softly upon her lips the first kiss I had ever dared to claim.
"To-morrow, Donald?" she questioned, with more of curiosity than anger or even surprise; "how could that be? But it shall be soon, dear, almost as soon as you could ask."
Then I explained all, and told her how I had dreaded her anger, and yet felt that I could endure suspense no longer, but must somehow force her to make me the very happiest or most miserable of men.
"And you will wait for priest's blessing on our union, before you claim me, Donald – you have thought fully about it?"
"When you come to my home, Ellen, it shall be with the full and glad consent of your whole heart. This marriage to-morrow will be no more than the publishing of our banns, after all, but I shall be sure of you then; my heart will be at rest, and this annoying necessity for a Church of England ceremony will be done with. Our real marriage will be wholly a dear and solemn rite."
"Do you know, dear Donald," said Ellen, after a long silence while her heart beat against mine, "I am very glad it is all settled at last, that after to-morrow I shall have no right to question my soul, or even to pray for further guidance? Once I am your wife, dear, I shall give all my thoughts and prayers to wifely duty. Do not fear I shall still try your patient soul with doubts and regrets."
"I fear nothing, dear one, now that we are one. Do you know, mavourneen, that you can have no feeling, no thought, hereafter, that I shall not share, and that I shall experience no emotion you will not feel? Awful mystery, yet precious reality, this merging of two spirits into one!"
My eyes had turned from time to time to rest in rapt thankfulness upon sky and mountain; but now, suddenly, I was aware that the haunting mystery, lately brooding over the horizon, was gone, and in its place only a perfect peace beyond which the shining circle of the moon, climbing higher and higher in the azure dome, gave promise of joys beyond, infinite and eternal.
CHAPTER XXXI
Impatiently our household awaited Buford's return. Jean, his bride of two days, bore his absence, and the suspense of his still unsettled fate, with more fortitude than I the weary waiting for the coming of the priest, whose blessing was to give me my own – my Ellen. Each day, as I watched her minister more and more tenderly to Aunt Martha, who was slowly dying, and had now and then rare hours of confidential intercourse with her, my love, which I had thought already great beyond power of increase, grew and deepened, till every plan and aspiration centered around her, every thought and emotion was inspired by the glad consciousness of our mutual love.
Thomas and Nelly would not start to Kentucky while their mother lived, nor until after Buford's fate was settled.
There was much hot, foolish talk of banishing Tories, and the English government had been ordered to convey them to England. Through the strong influence which General Morgan and myself had been able to enlist for Buford, however, we hoped to procure for him, at least, a pardon. Both households lived on week after week in anxious suspense, made endurable by the love which brightened the lagging hours.
Meantime Ellen's home was building, planned as to its larger outlines after my vision, but in all details modeled to meet Ellen's tastes and wishes. Whenever the weather permitted, and it was possible for her to leave Aunt Martha – for even the new daughter could not take Ellen's place acceptably at the invalid's bedside – we rode together to the green knoll with its fair prospect, which our home was to crown, to inspect with almost affectionate interest each beam and brick, and to suggest, alter, and replan to the bewilderment of the tolerant workmen. Nevertheless the slow winter days dragged along, and Buford's repeated delays and excuses wore my patience to a thin edge as spring approached. Was I to wait forever for my long withheld happiness?
Aunt Martha had been beyond all suffering for a week, and Thomas and Nelly were almost determined to start to their waiting field of labor without again seeing Buford, when he returned – taking us all by surprise at last.
But he brought no priest with him. "None would come so far," he said, "in such unsettled times." One indeed had been at first willing, but could not get the requisite dispensation from his superior. He, Buford, would be obliged to go back at once to Philadelphia, but he could stand the separation no longer and had returned for Jean. Why not Ellen and I go with them, stop in Baltimore to be married, and then go on to Philadelphia to help him? With me to intercede, personally, for him, he felt sure of obtaining not only pardon but the restoration of his estates.
I took this disappointing news across the fields to Ellen. Surely the fate of Tantalus was not much worse than mine!
"Yes, I'll go to Baltimore with you, Donald," she said cheerily – seeming so little disappointed over this further delay that I was for the moment hurt. "Indeed, if you can help your brother, it is your duty to go. Moreover, I shall like a wedding journey, and I have always wanted to go to Baltimore and to Philadelphia."
That put a new phase on the matter. Since it would give Ellen pleasure to take the journey, and we would take it together, I could endure a few more days of waiting. And a happy journey it was, in our own four-horse post chaise, notwithstanding the roads were muddy, and the March weather precarious. Still more happy its ending.
Ellen and I were married in the Cathedral by the solemn ceremony of the Catholic Church, with only the priest's assistance – the choir boys, and Jean and Buford for witnesses. Afterwards Ellen went into the confessional, while I waited alone for her in the dimly lighted, reverence-inspiring edifice. She joined me, presently, her face both tender and radiant.
"The good Father, Donald," she whispered, slipping a warm little hand into mine, "bade me obey my husband, and follow my conscience in all things – even should that lead me into becoming a Protestant; for I must not let my religion come between me and my wifely duty, since marriage was a God appointed sacrament. You must never again say, my husband, that the Catholic faith is bigoted and superstitious."
"I trust I shall never say anything to wound my dear wife," I answered; "all her principles and feelings are sacred to me. As to her being a Protestant, that she shall never be unless she truly wishes it. As a loyal Catholic, I have learned to love her, and if she is happier still to be one, I shall love her none the less for that," and I kissed first the sweet, earnest face upturned to mine, and then the tiny jeweled cross which had been one of my gifts to her. Three weeks later Buford's pardon had been obtained, with a full restoration of his estates. He would return to Philadelphia, occupy the family mansion, and resume his father's business, for which indeed he had been destined and trained. But, first, he must take Jean back to her mother, as he had promised, and gain her consent to really giving up her only daughter. Buford's supposed poverty, indeed, had been a strong argument in his favor with my mother. If he had nothing, she argued, why should they not settle down on the home place? It was big enough for all and then she and Jean would never be separated. Buford's good fortune would be, I feared, a sad blow to dear mother. But, then, Ellen and I would live not far away, and she could often visit us; while Jean affirmed that her mother should spend part of each year in Philadelphia – for, after all, it was not much of a journey, with good stage roads all the way.
This is the true story of a somewhat eventful life, and I must e'en tell it as it happened. I cannot then conclude it by saying that Ellen and I lived in perfect happiness ever after. In truth we had our sorrows and disappointments, such sorrows and disappointments as are common to mortals – even our differences at times.
Yet, looking back upon our united lives, I see that they have been full and happy – almost realizing the radiant vision of my youth.
One of the incidents of it which gave us much pleasure, was a visit, some years after our marriage, from good Father Gibault. His love for Ellen and hers for him was almost that of a real father and daughter, and his interest in our children that of a grandfather. Especially did he take delight in the manly blue-eyed son we had named for him. Before he bade us farewell, to return to his beloved land of Illinois, he absolved Ellen finally from her allegiance to her old faith, bidding her, since her conscience allowed it, be one in creed also with the husband to whom she was fully united in life and purpose. Though devoted priest of a faith, held bigoted by some, he too believed that creeds are man made, and that God lives not in doctrines, but in our hearts and in our deeds.