Much to the surprise of Father McClosky, the key declined to enter the key-hole, for excellent Communistic reasons: there was a key already there. Moreover, voices, one very loud, the other very tearful, sounded on the other side of the door.
The priest drew back, with a sorrowful gesture. “It’s Mrs. Kellar,” he said. “She is what we call our Matron, for want of a better name; die Hausfrau, the Germans call her. She sees to the rooms, gives out the bed-linen and so on, and is an invaluable person, so clean and conscientious. But—well, one must have les défauts de ses qualités, as the French say; and though she is a born ruler and manager, she has got a tongue and a temper. Of course, she has a pass-key to every room, and I suppose something has gone wrong in here, and she is scolding the unfortunate perpetrator.”
“Then we had better go in; I dare say it is nothing of any consequence that has happened,” said Ernest Clare, much amused by his friend’s correct English, which betrayed an inward perturbation very flattering to Frau Kellar’s powers of eloquence.
“I suppose we had,” said the little man hesitatingly; but with the touch of the door-knob his courage seemed to return. “Sure, she’s a well-meaning woman,” he said with a smile; “and as for temper, it’s not an Irishman that can cast a stone at her, from Malachi with the Collar of Gold, to the blessed St. Kevin himself.”
“Here he opened wide the door;” but there was a great deal more than darkness within. It was a neatly but plainly furnished sitting-room, with a brown-painted pine table, covered with a red cloth, four cane-seated chairs, and one large rocking-chair, a few empty pine bookshelves lining one side, an engraving or so, and a cheerful-looking carpet, on which—alas!—a hod of coals had been overturned. A small, pale, nervous-looking girl, with weak blue eyes and reddish hair, was on her knees beside the coals, picking them up in a weakly ineffective manner, that seemed to add fuel to the flame of Frau Kellar’s righteous anger, to the outpouring of which the victim returned no answer save the tears which dropped fast over the bridge of her nose, and, being brushed aside by a grimy hand, by no means added to her beauty.
The entrance of the two clergymen seemed to put the last stroke to her misery, for she immediately fell over on her face upon the coals, and lay there, making no sound, but shaking from head to foot with hysterical passion.
“Why, what’s all this?” said the priest good-humoredly. “Is that Lena Schaefer? You haven’t been making Lena cry, Mrs. Kellar?”
“The lazy good-for-nothing!” cried Mrs. Kellar. “Will tears pick up the coals, I should like to know?”
“Not so well as a pair of hands,” said Mr. Clare cheerfully. “Come, Miss Lena, since this is to be my room, I have the best right to work in it, haven’t I?”
He picked up the thin, light form as if she had been a child, and set her, literally, to dry off, in the rocking-chair, which she only half filled, and whence, overcome with amazement, she peeped from under the shadow of her apron at the handsome gentleman on his knees remedying the results of her carelessness.
“It’s a poor welcome for you, Mr. Clare,” said Frau Kellar. “I came in to see if everything was in order, and found the fire nearly gone out; so I rang for Lena, as these rooms are her business, and the silly thing, before she could get the coal on the fire, dropped the hod, and then couldn’t do nothing but cry.”
As she explained, she had made a futile effort to assist in remedying the evil, which Mr. Clare had silently but decidedly refused.
“Sure, I suppose she came in such haste that her hand shook. Isn’t it right I am, Lena?”
“The bell rang so loud it frightened me,” said Lena, who had been making a brave struggle for self-control. “I didn’t forget the fire, Father; it was only that I didn’t put on quite enough coal.”
“And ain’t the best of us liable to errors of judgment?” said the priest. “Give the child leave to run away now, Mrs. Kellar, and bathe her eyes. She’ll feel better when she’s had her dinner.”
“I’d like to sweep up the dust for you, sir,” said the girl, with a look of appealing confidence, which made her face, despite its homeliness and grimy tear-stains, not absolutely unattractive.
“To-morrow,” said Ernest Clare, smiling down at her, “to-morrow you shall do whatever you like, but for to-day Father McClosky’s advice is the best. A good dinner is the medicine you need.” He bowed her from the room as if she had been the first lady in the land—poor Lena, who had never had the door opened for her since she was tall enough to reach the knob—and said as she passed him, “I am glad you have the care of these rooms, for I am sure you will take great pains with them; but I will try to give you as little trouble as possible.”
Lena did not reply; poor girl, her face and eyes were not in condition even to look an answer; but she went away with a heart overrunning with gratitude, and a firm determination that, while she had strength to crawl, Mr. Clare should never have cause to complain of neglect.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Kellar had seized the hearth-broom, and was busily getting rid of the relics of the catastrophe. No one offered to relieve her of the duty; the priest had seated himself, and was quietly looking on, and Ernest Clare passed through the open door into his bedroom, in order to remove from his hands the traces of his late occupation.
“Sure, it’s a pity,” began the priest, after a moment or two—
“Don’t speak to me, Father McClosky,” said the woman, half petulantly; “ain’t I calling myself worse names yet than I’ve called Lena already?”
“But calling names is no good, Mrs. Kellar; though I admit there’s a power of satisfaction in it at times.”
“That’s so, Father. That poor girl! Did not Dr. Richards say that the best hope for her health is in the regular hours and regular work here? and didn’t I take her from her father’s house to have her under my eye”—
“Well, well, we are none of us perfect,” said the priest consolingly; “but I think ye should try to remember one thing, Mrs. Kellar. It’s a great thing we are doing here for the poor, and there’s a many would like to see something of the kind prevail all through the land; but that sort of thing, Mrs. Kellar, ye may call it Communism, or Socialism, or whatever ye like, but av there isn’t self-control and loving-kindness at the bottom of it, ’twill be a hell on earth.”
“Indeed, you are right, Father, and I’ve said so already many a time,” returned Frau Kellar, with her apron to her eyes; “but it don’t tie my tongue when I once get to scolding.”
“Nothing will do that but the grace of God,” said the priest. “Av ye was a Catholic, ye’d have the Sacraments to help ye; but, sure, even as a Protestant, ye have Him who is above all Sacraments. There’s a little book I lent Miss Sally once about the Blessed Laurence. He was a poor lay brother in a monastery; but he had an abiding sense of the presence of God, even amongst his pots and kettles. Sure, he said it made no difference to him whether he was kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, itself, or working in his kitchen—it was the monastery cook he was—for God was with him just the same. And so, av his pots boiled over, or his subordinates failed in their duty, or whatever happened, he was always at peace, and never ruffled or excited about anything.”
“I could never be as good as that,” sighed Frau Kellar.
“Sure, Rome wasn’t built in a day,” returned the priest encouragingly. “Anyhow, it’s the only cure for speaking first and thinking after, to have your mind full of Him and your heart of His love. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, and then the afterthought would find nothing to repent of.”
“You’ll lend me the book, won’t you, Father?” she asked humbly. “Do you suppose the Blessed Laurence was better than Miss Sally?”
“I’ll lend ye the book with pleasure, but ye’ll find little there beyond what I’ve told ye. There was but little to say of a poor, ignorant man that could not even read. And as for Miss Sally, sure, it’s not for me to measure degrees of goodness; but I’ll tell ye one thing, if Miss Sally is a saint, she’s not aware of it. Is it going you are? God be good to you,” and, as he pressed her hand, the good little man added, “Av ye was a Catholic, ye know, I could be of more use to ye.”
“Sure, I ought to have tried harder to convert her to the true faith,” he thought, when he was left alone; “but she might have been the death of poor Lena av I’d distracted her mind with arguments, so I applied the remedy that was handiest; but it’s the best, after all, for all beliefs, and maybe He don’t see the difference between Catholic and Protestant that some of us do here below.”
“Bryan,” said Mr. Clare, re-entering at this moment. He took his stand on the hearth-rug, and looked down upon his friend with a look that was half amused and all reverent; then he said, “I don’t wonder now at the success of ‘Prices.’ I understand it.”
“Do ye, now?” said the priest, returning a glance in which sympathy was mingled with a comical embarrassment; for Father McClosky was exceedingly shy, not only of his own good works, but of having his dealings with one heretic known to another. Also he stood rather in awe of the keen, clear, logical brain opposite him.
“I believe so,” replied Mr. Clare, laughing outright, “except in one point, and that a minor one. Is the present stock company nominally the same—of course I know it is not exactly—that owned the Maennerchor Club House twelve years ago?”
“That’s aisely answered,” replied the priest, with an air of relief at which his friend laughed again. “It is, nominally. There was maybe twenty or a dozen shareholders at that time who wanted the club-house chiefly for their own recreation; for the most of them was rich men, and, so it paid expenses, they didn’t look for dividends. When Miss Sally took the care of it, and they began to see how things was going, they behaved mighty well; first, they reduced the par value of a share to five dollars, as we have it now, and gave every shareholder one vote and no more. And, shure, that’s fair enough,” continued the Father, with a conscientious desire to be logical whenever he could; “for av a rich man has twenty votes in a meeting of shareholders, why shouldn’t he vote twenty times for president?”
“Because human nature is happily illogical, and seldom follows out false premises to their ultimate conclusions,” said Ernest Clare, with a gravity which was belied by the twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, get out with your logic and your ultimate conclusions! It’s because the fellow that tried it on first would be mobbed, that’s why. Conclusions, indeed!”
“Well, go on,” with a laugh; “what was the effect of manhood suffrage in this particular instance?”
“The ultimate effect—since ye like the word so well—is that they get five per cent on their money, and have their recreation just the same. For the club-house is mostly as it was, and, shareholders not necessarily belonging to the club, the members have their parlor, dining-room, and hall to themselves whenever they like. The only difference is that the hall is never rented to the public now; and on occasions of balls, concerts, and the like, they ain’t apt to shut out any regular patrons of ‘Prices’ who want to get in.”
“Are any of the old shareholders now members of the board of managers?”
“Four or five of them, and we’ve the same president and secretary. But the real business is transacted by the executive committee, three in number, and two constituting a quorum.”
“It’s a flexible arrangement, at any rate.”
“It’s beautiful,” said the priest with enthusiasm, “and works as easy as rolling off a log.”
“Ah! that simile reminds me of my own situation. I have emphatically rolled off my log.”
“Ye wrote me ye had resigned your charge.”
“Resigned! Did you ever hear of the grand bounce?” said Mr. Clare drolly. “Because that’s what I got for preaching Socialism.”
“Mother of Moses! Tell us about that.”
“Well, you know I always held the opinion that to call nothing one’s own, to hold all things in common, is the flower and crown of Christianity. But it was merely an opinion, not a belief; I was what you might call a dilettante Socialist. My first call was to a fashionable church as assistant, as you remember; and when this last charge was offered me, I slipped into it, some way. I suppose I had become accustomed to a life among people of wealth and cultivation; and, besides, there was at the time some external pressure, though quite unconscious on the part of the person who exerted it. I wanted to be in a position which no one need be ashamed to share with me.”
His voice had grown hoarse and low, and Father McClosky bent his brow on his hand without attempting a reply. After a moment the speaker continued,—
“Well, that is all over now; and I can thank Him for her life and—for her death. But it cut to the roots of my life; it tore the scales from my eyes, and showed me the true meaning of all that I saw around me. I could be a dilettante no longer. Yet just because the commonplace business arrangements of the world had suddenly become so terrible, so openly subversive of God’s order and out of harmony with His creation, I did my utmost to avoid giving offence. I could not expect my people to see at a glance the hollowness and falsity of all they had been trained to believe right and just, or to spring with one bound to the height which I had attained through many struggles and much tribulation. But one cannot be so gentle, so considerate, that a congregation of millionnaires will not take offence at being told that every dollar they own, beyond what is needful for themselves and their families, is a wrong to Christ’s poor; that the Jewish land-laws were of divine appointment, and a model for our imitation; and that every man, woman, and child has a moral right, and should have a legal one, to an equal share of the wealth—not the money—belonging to the nation.”
Father McClosky drew a long breath. “Ye said that to them?” he said.
“You think it required courage; but I assure you the difficulty was to restrain my words, not to bring them out. I had much ado sometimes to keep from calling them a generation of vipers, and warning them to flee from the wrath to come. But the millionnaire of to-day is in much the same position as the Southern slaveholder of the last generation. The houses, lands, stocks, bonds, and what not of the one appear to him as much his rightful possession as the negroes of the other did to him. And the analogy can be traced still farther; for, convince the millionnaire that his dollars are not rightfully his, and how is he going to get rid of them?”
“Ye’re right enough there,” said the priest; “he can’t bury money, drown it, or give it away without doing infinite harm to other people. It’s the old story, Clare; the fathers ate the sour grapes, and the childer has the toothache. But what brought your matters to a crisis at last?”
“A course of lectures on the Sermon on the Mount,” said Mr. Clare, smiling, “after which they could bear with me no longer. I am bound to say, however, that they acted in as delicate and gentlemanly a manner as possible. They did not even call a formal vestry meeting to ask me to resign; it was merely intimated to me by my senior warden that if I had any other opening in view, he thought—personally—that it would be better to consider it, as the doctrine I had lately preached might be true, but it wasn’t exactly practical, and not very acceptable to the people. He was very kind—good old man!—but it was evident that he looked upon me as a crank, pure and simple.”
“Sure, I can imagine the whole interview,” said the Father, shaking with laughter at Mr. Clare’s evident effort not to imitate the senior warden’s voice and gestures. “But what are ye going to do about it?”
“Well,” he replied, “I have, as I told you, a few hundred dollars in hand; and I don’t know a parish in the United States where I could stay for a year, preaching as I must preach. The only thing I see is to fall back on my trade, working with my hands, like St. Paul, and chargeable to no man. Then I should be God’s freeman, and able to lift up my voice against the crying evils of the day, not being in bondage to any man.”
Father McClosky sprang from his seat and paced the room excitedly; but the very excess of his sympathy made him try to act as brake or cog-wheel upon his friend’s enthusiasm.
“Ye blatherskite!” he said, “I suppose ye’ll be after starting a new church, with yourself for pope!”
“On the contrary, I am orthodox of the orthodox,” said Mr. Clare. “I had a talk with my bishop a day or two ago, and found him very sympathetic, though with a reserved opinion that I was making too much ado about very little. No, McClosky, to every age its own conflicts. The sixteenth century did its work pretty thoroughly; a new Church in our days is an anachronism. The great battles of the nineteenth century must be fought, not among the hills of dogma, but in the plain of Conduct, which is watered by the river of Brotherly Love.”
“And do you expect a Catholic to join ye in underrating dogma?”
“God’s heaven bends alike over hill and plain,” said the other gently.
“Sure it’s a beautiful poet ye are,” said the priest with would-be sarcasm. He continued his walk for a few more moments, then said slowly, “But it’s not denyin’ I am that such soldiers as you are wanted on the right side. It’s mighty little brotherly love for any but themselves that Socialism has shown so far.”
“I hope to see the day,” said Ernest Clare calmly, “when the Golden Rule will be the Socialist’s motto, and the Sermon on the Mount his vade mecum. They must be if we are to have law and order, not a reign of anarchy. And that is why, Bryan, I feel that my course is not much ado about nothing. One way or the other, Socialism must come; and it will be all the difference in the world whether Christianity leads or follows the movement.”
“I make but little doubt that Holy Church will be equal to the occasion,” said Father McClosky; “sure she has the principle in herself, in her clergy and her religious orders. What is a monastery or nunnery but a commune?”
“You are right! And I fancy the Spirit of the Age has something to say to the revival of the religious orders in my own church, though our new monks and nuns would be the first to protest against that view of the matter. No, I don’t doubt the willingness of any body of Christians to fall into line, once the change is made and established by law; I only doubt our readiness to lead; yet, unless we do lead, I see small hope of the new kingdom being established.”
“Without violence,” corrected the priest.
“At all,” said the other. “The kingdom of the Prince of Peace cannot be established by the sword.”
Father McClosky rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “And what is it ye mean to do?” he said.
“To maintain myself by my trade; if possible, in connection with ‘Prices;’ after that, to do what I can.”
“Then the first thing ye’d better be at,” said the Father, “is to come to dinner; for, sure, the clock is on the stroke of one!”