: Up in Ardmuirland by Barrett Michael - Short stories; Villages Fiction; Scotland Fiction; Catholics Fiction

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Epilogue

ALIDE

DR. JULIUS STECK

"If it were not that I must play true to my clerical gown, Max, I could for very delight in the glory of this October afternoon caper one of my lately-learned waltzes on the roadside. Gods! what a gift life is on such a day as this! Do, you not feel this mountain air tingling like wine through your veins? My blood is all aglow within me--my heart is as light as flame." It was a rich, vibrant, sonorous voice, and yet it had a boyish ring of merriment that seemed in no wise to belong to the soberly-clad student who walked demurely by his companion's side through the quiet, shining meadows.

"Julius Steck!" exclaimed his comrade, who spoke with a lazy, good-humored drawl, "for the love of sport remember who and what you are. A learned young bachelor of divinity to begin by invoking the heathen gods,--to yearn after a waltz in the open fields, and a heart like flame, forsooth! a pretty thing to carry into a country parsonage to kindle a conflagration among the lasses!"

"Nay, Max," returned the other, "I will be grave enough when occasion requires. How could I so soon forget my last and dearest sweetheart behind us in the city,--the Minster of Strasburg? Is not this the first bright afternoon since early June that we two have not mounted at sunset to that spacious platform high above the dusky streets, and quaffed our Rhenish to the dying day? And you fancy that I will throw away a heart devoted to the loyal service of my Lady of the Cathedral on the first pair of apple-colored cheeks and china-blue eyes that we meet on the wayside? Besides," he added, with a sudden mock gravity, "do I look like a fellow to captivate a pretty damsel?" And he doffed his broad-brimmed clerical hat and looked full and squarely at Max.

Was the lad a consummate actor who could, assume at will whatever countenance he desired, or was this expression of sheepish pedantry natural to the possessor of that resonant voice? It must have been clever pantomime, for as Max saw it he burst into uncontrollable laughter, that resounded with jolly echoes through the responsive air. The outline of the face from brow to throat was delicate and strong as that of a young Greek god, and yet a ludicrous and almost homely effect was given by the sleek brown locks combed smoothly back from the temples and turned behind the ears, by the thickly-framed gold spectacles which obstructed any gleam from the dark eyes behind them, and, above all, by this prim look of mingled shrewdness and timidity. He was taller than his companion, but the proportions of his figure were concealed by the long black gown, which formed the principal part of his costume as a theological student.

"Capital, capital, Dr. Steck!" exclaimed Max, clapping his hand on the young bachelor's shoulder. "But make haste and cover your head, for in a few moments we shall be in sight of the parsonage. And yet I can hardly say whether you are best with or without that hideous plate of a hat. At any rate, I am not responsible for whatever happens while you are in my charge. I warn you beforehand that the girls are pretty and engaging, and as for them, if they can listen to--yes, or look with patience on--such an infernal Jesuitical milksop, I will wash my hands of them all."

They walked on for a few minutes in silence, Max with his hand still resting affectionately on Steck's shoulder, and Steck with his head upraised, eagerly inhaling the honeyed air of the harvest-fields, and, with the eyes of an artist rather than of a boy just turned twenty, gazing at the green and purple masses and sun-bathed outlines of the peaks that stood out against the pale gold sky. There was just enough breeze to make a continuous rustle and murmur in the glistening leaves overhead, and to send long-rolling ripples and waves of motion over the grass of the wide-lying meadows. A clear bird-carol now and then, the incessant all-pervading drone of the crickets, at intervals the merry laughter of voices in a far-away meadow, prolonged by the myriad echoes of the neighborhood,--these sweet out-door sounds were all that broke upon the ears of the two young men; and the gentleness, the peace, the unspeakable beauty of the October landscape seemed to gain upon them, and to overpower with quieting suggestions even the exuberant buoyancy of spirits natural to their age.

Max Waldstein was a genial, open-hearted fellow of two or three and twenty. A square, somewhat receding brow, wide blue eyes, a highly-colored complexion, a round, fair, curly head, set off with coarse and prominent ears, a large mouth, adorned with healthy white teeth, a thick, well-shaped nose, and a projecting jaw, overgrown with a reddish-yellow beard,--all these formed an excellent index to the mind and character of the young law-student, who had attached himself almost as to a girl to the magnetic, myriad-sided nature of his fellow-lodger, the boy-artist. New and unaccountable to plain Max were the mercurial moods, the exaltations and despondencies, the irrepressible, child-like delight occasioned by such simple things as a burst of sunlight on a cloudy day, the sudden, unexpected song of a bird, a glimpse of a fair woman-face, a rhyme of some old poet, a shade of color on some faded canvas, or, above all, the outlines and structure of Strasburg Cathedral. But Waldstein made no attempt to follow or fathom the caprices of his imaginative friend. Like many others in that grave old minster-shadowed city, he was led out of himself into an enthusiasm of admiration and affection for the brilliant, beautiful young favorite of the gods, who, bringing all the gifts, had burst upon Strasburg and taken up his abode there early in the preceding spring. Numberless were the holiday excursions planned by these two youthful heads and enjoyed with a wide circle of boon companions, the spice of such amusements being not unfrequently heightened by an escapade somewhat wilder than usual, an adventure of more than ordinary daring, on the part of the younger of the two. Max's only gift, a shrewd, practical sense, enabled him readily to discern the qualities of those around him, and a loyal, generous nature, unspoiled by affectation or envy, brought him into sympathy with men of far higher capacities than his own. With whimsical self-depreciation, he was forever wishing to display the endless talents and attractions of his comrade, who must be brought forth into the light at all costs, forgiven any mad prank, and allowed to follow his pleasure as he chose, in consideration of the halo about his head and the tenderness of his heart. "Let us make the most of the lad while he is with us," Waldstein would say; "such a youth is not for our little Strasburg circle of good fellows. What can he not do? What does he not adorn in touching? It rests but with himself to be the painter, the poet, the tragedian, the statesman--what do I know?--the genius of the age. Come, comrades, let us up to his room now, and drag him from his jurisprudence, and make a day of it on the river."

We all know that in later years neither the sweetest allurements nor the sharpest trials could swerve this royal nature from its chosen path of serenity and wisdom. But at this early period, with the fulness of so rich a life seething in his veins, in the first fresh wonder and delight, with every wreath of honor awaiting apparently but the reach of his outstretched hand to claim and bind it about his brow, who shall say that the intoxication did not mount to his exalted brain, engendering a boyish vanity and self-consciousness, sending through his frame an occasional thrill of not ignoble pride in the very wealth of his own personality?

For many weeks Waldstein had been trying to prevail upon his friend to accompany him to the parsonage, some six leagues beyond Strasburg, where he was wont to spend much of his leisure time, invariably descanting after his visit upon the hospitality of Pastor Duroc and his wife and the beauty of the country surrounding their home, and occasionally letting slip a significant allusion to the charms of the elder daughter, Rahel. But the boy had always an excuse for declining: he must go study the Cathedral, and work out the unexecuted conception of the architect's brain in leaving incomplete that bold and aerial spire; he must prepare himself for the approaching examination, and devote himself more assiduously to his ponderous volumes of jurisprudence, for which he had originally come to Strasburg; or now was the moment to saunter down to the river-side and add a few strokes to his sketch of the city at sunset. Finally, when Max had ceased to press the point, the capricious lad one morning proposed the visit himself. His delicate fancy had been aroused the previous evening by an exquisite prose idyl which he had read before he slept. It was a translation recently made of a story of English clerical life. The homely pathos, the quaint simplicity, the pleasing variety of natural incidents that enlivened the sprightly flow of the narrative, the healthy atmosphere that breathed of trim, inland, hawthorn-hedged meadows, all these wrought upon his lightly-moved spirit and gave him the desire to transport himself to kindred scenes. Early in the morning he burst into Waldstein's room with the "Vicar of Wakefield" in his hand.

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