Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman

"You, dear Jean, are well again and happy if your face is index to your feelings," I said, when my first eager questions had been answered. "Have father and mother already been won over to Buford's cause? I knew they never could stand to see our little maid wear sad face, and lose all her pretty bloom."

"It was not all done by my reproachful looks," she answered, smiling and blushing. "Ellen's influence more than any other has changed them. Oh, Donald, she is the dearest girl, and her tact is wonderful! Neither father nor mother know when it was done, but gradually she has made them like Captain Buford, till now they are willing for his sake as well as for mine. Mother told me yesterday that they but waited for your full approval to withdraw all objection to our marriage."

"Then, little sister, Buford's happiness is assured, and yours too, I believe. He is a brave and an honorable gentleman, and likely to make his wife a happy woman. His poverty, for most of his property will be confiscated, doubtless, is the one drawback, but if I get my western bounty lands, I shall be able to make up for that. A deed to one-half of my share shall be my wedding gift to you."

"Dear Donald, you are the very dearest of brothers," and Jean perched herself upon the arm of my chair, kissed my forehead, and began to thread my somewhat neglected locks with her slender fingers. "Will you think me presumptuous, brother, if I ask you a personal question?" she began presently, with apparent hesitation.

"I can hardly think of a question my little sister would not have the right to ask me," turning my head to smile encouragement upon her.

"Did you ever think Nelly Buford a coquette?" she asked, waiting for my answer with amusing anxiety.

"Can any one who has ever known her exonerate her from the charge?" I replied with a smile – "unless it is Buford, who has never guessed his sister's weakness. Is it high treason in his eyes for his prospective wife to harbor such suspicions?"

"Oh, we never discuss family matters; I was thinking only of your opinion of Nelly."

"Is my judgment upon coquettes so valuable?"

"Then you do not love Nelly, Donald? Oh! I'm so glad!"

"No, I do not love Nelly Buford, though she's a winsome maiden. But why rejoice, little sister? Do you disapprove of too close family entanglements?"

"I could not be happy if it were not so," Jean responded enigmatically.

"And why?" Indifferent to Jean's meaning, my thoughts wandered off to the far greater likelihood of my love for Ellen bringing me unhappiness.

"She has promised to marry Thomas!"

"Thomas?" I almost sprang from my chair with surprise. "Thomas and Nelly Buford to be married?" and then I laughed long and heartily.

Jean laughed too. "It is funny, Don, for at first Thomas barely endured Nelly. I believe his indifference nettled her into a determination to win him. She seems entirely unsuited to a parson's wife, much less a missionary's. Thomas declares he is going to Kentucky as a border missionary, and that Nelly is willing to go with him anywhere."

"And give up her Tory principles, and her Episcopal faith? Wonder of wonders is this love which overleaps all barriers as easily as a hunter takes his ditch. Does Ellen know of this?"

"Yes, and seems to be very happy over it. I think she feels now for the first time easy in conscience, since Thomas' happiness, as well as his calling is assured."

"And what says Aunt Martha?"

"She says very little about it, though we all know that Nelly would not have been her choice for Thomas. She told Ellen, when first she heard it, that she had interfered, already, too much with the lives that other people had to live, and that she no longer felt that confidence in her own judgment she once had; that humility was the latest flower of her Christian experience, and though but a weak and sickly bloom, she wished to cherish it."

"Poor Aunt Martha. She has suffered much, then?"

"Yes, but mother and Ellen say she has grown daily gentler under her sufferings."

"Only natures of true worth are 'refined by the furnace of affliction,' to my observation – Aunt Martha evidently deserved not the youthful scorn I felt for her. But tell me more of Ellen – she is, you think, really happy to be Aunt Martha's nurse?"

"Yes, Ellen is more light-hearted recently than I have ever known her; Aunt Martha called her, talking to mother yesterday, 'a well-spring of happiness,' and said it made her very thankful when she considered how Providence had forced upon her a daughter against her time of need, in spite of her utter undeservingness."

Scarcely could I wait to greet my parents, I was so eager to see Ellen, to fathom the true cause of her unaccustomed gayety of spirits, which even the love-absorbed Jean had noticed. I found her so busy with household duties, and attentions to Aunt Martha, that I was obliged to content myself, after the first greetings – which told me without need of words that I was forgiven – with the vision of her flitting about busily, and the exchange of an occasional meaningless remark. When reluctantly I rose to go, Uncle Thomas asked me to stay to tea, and I accepted so eagerly, that I think Aunt Martha guessed, at last, my secret. Either because of that, or the way my truant gaze followed Ellen's every movement. At any rate she surmised the real reason of my prompt visit to them, and when supper was over, came to my help with something of my own mother's tactfulness.

"Donald," she said, "take Ellen out to the porch, and make her rest while you tell her all about Yorktown – as you told it to me while she was at the dairy; Ellen never takes time to rest unless I make her. Thomas will sit with me."

For a while we talked perfunctorily, and with embarrassed self-consciousness, like children who are bidden to be sociable; and I did describe to her the final scenes at Yorktown, but with such lack of interest in my own story – my mind all the time on other words I wished to speak – that there was no spirit in the narrative. Disgusted with my bungling of such an inspiring subject, I broke off abruptly, then after a silence surcharged with emotion – "Oh, heart of my heart," I asked, "have you ready the answer to my letter?"

"Almost," and there was the dear harp-like tremor in her tones, which bespoke deep feeling.

"Meantime I may feed on hope, may I not, mavourneen?"

"Some men need only their own resolution, Donald, to base assurance upon," and she smiled at me, in such wise that I grew suddenly dizzy, then gliding away from me to the top of the steps – "you are one of those masterful men, cousin, whose will is not to be gainsaid by any weaker vessel."

"So I fail not this time, I can trust my will for all the rest of my life," I answered – "but you know full well, Ellen, that with you I am very coward," following her, and capturing the hands she had clasped about a column of the porch. "Dearest one, I have waited long, and, it seems to me, most patiently and humbly – ask not, I beseech you, much more of my fortitude." Then I kissed softly the blue-veined wrists, where her heart's blood pulsed warmest, and asked once more, "May I hope, mavourneen?" getting for answer a low, but tenderly spoken "Yes, but ask no more, now. Be patient, dear Donald, only a little longer," and once more she lifted her quivering eyelids, and flashed a smile upon me which filled my veins with an all-pervading thrill of fiery joy. Again I kissed the white wrists, looked into her eyes for one instant, spoke a murmured word of joy, then – lest I could no longer resist the mad impulse to clasp her in my arms, and ease all my violent emotion in passionate caresses – turned, and, without daring to grant myself a single backward glance, walked swiftly away in the starlight. No single self-conquest of my life cost me the effort of that one.

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.