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Padre Ignacio .......................................................................................................................................................1

Owen Wister............................................................................................................................................1

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VI...........................................................................................................................................................14

At Santa Ysabel del Mar the season was at one of those moments when the air rests quiet over land and sea.

The old breezes were gone; the new ones were not yet risen. The flowers in the mission garden opened wide;

no wind came by day or night to shake the loose petals from their stems. Along the basking, silent,

manycolored shore gathered and lingered the crisp odors of the mountains. The dust hung golden and

motionless long after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like a floor of sapphire, whereon to

walk beyond the setting sun into the East. One white sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from

dawn till afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and the Padre had hoped that it might be the ship his

homesick heart awaited. But it had slowly passed. From an arch in his garden cloisters he was now watching

the last of it. Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The Padre put his glasses in his lap. For a

short while he read in his breviary, but soon forgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny ridges, then

at the huge blue triangle of sea which the opening of the hills let into sight. "Paradise," he murmured, "need

not hold more beauty and peace. But I think I would exchange all my remaining years of this for one sight

Across the unstirred fragrance of oleanders the bell for vespers began to ring. Its tones passed over the Padre

as he watched the sea in his garden. They reached his parishioners in their adobe dwellings near by. The

gentle circles of sound floated outward upon the smooth, immense silenceover the vines and peartrees;

down the avenues of the olives; into the planted fields, whence women and children began to return; then out

of the lap of the valley along the yellow uplands, where the men that rode among the cattle paused, looking

down like birds at the map of their home. Then the sound widened, faint, unbroken, until it met Temptation in

the guise of a youth, riding toward the Padre from the South, and cheered the steps of Temptation's jaded

"For a day, one single day of Paris!" repeated the Padre, gazing through his cloisters at the empty sea.

Once in the year the motherworld remembered him. Once in the year, from Spain, tokens and hometidings

came to him, sent by certain beloved friends of his youth. A barkentine brought him these messages.

Whenever thus the motherworld remembered him, it was like the touch of a warm hand, a dear and tender

caress; a distant life, by him long left behind, seemed to be drawing the exile homeward from these alien

shores. As the time for his letters and packets drew near, the eyes of Padre Ignacio would be often fixed

wistfully upon the harbor, watching for the barkentine. Sometimes, as today, he mistook other sails for hers,

but hers he mistook never. That Pacific Ocean, which, for all its hues and jeweled mists, he could not learn to

love, had, since long before his day, been furrowed by the keels of Spain. Traders, and adventurers, and men

of God had passed along this coast, planting their colonies and cloisters; but it was not his ocean. In the year

that we, a thin strip of patriots away over on the Atlantic edge of the continent, declared ourselves an

independent nation, a Spanish ship, in the name of Saint Francis, was unloading the centuries of her own

civilization at the Golden Gate. San Diego had come earlier. Then, slowly, as mission after mission was built

along the soft coast wilderness, new ports were establishedat Santa Barbara, and by Point San Luis for San

Luis Obispo, which lay inland a little way up the gorge where it opened among the hills. Thus the world

reached these missions by water; while on land, through the mountains, a road led to them, and also to many

more that were too distant behind the hills for ships to servea rough road, long and lonely, punctuated with

church towers and gardens. For the Fathers gradually so stationed their settlements that the traveler might

each morning ride out from one mission and by evening of a day's fair journey ride into the next. A lonely,

rough, dangerous road, but lovely, too, with a name like musicEl Camino Real. Like music also were the

names of the missionsSan Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey de Francia, San Miguel, Santa Ynestheir very

So there, byandby, was our continent, with the locomotive whistling from Savannah to Boston along its

eastern edge, and on the western the scattered chimes of Spain ringing among the unpeopIed mountains. Thus

grew the two sorts of civilizationnot equally. We know what has happened since. Today the locomotive

is whistling also from The Golden Gate to San Diego; but still the old missionroad goes through the

mountains, and along it the footsteps of vanished Spain are marked with roses, and broken cloisters, and the

But this was 1855. Only the barkentine brought to Padre Ignacio the signs from the world that he once had

known and loved so dearly. As for the new world making a rude noise to the northward, he trusted that it

might keep away from Santa Ysabel, and he waited for the vessel that was overdue with its package

As the little, ancient bronze bell continued swinging in the tower, its plaintive call reached something in the

Padre's memory. Softly, absently, he began to sing. He took up the slow strain not quite correctly, and

At length he heard himself, and, glancing at the belfry, smiled a little. "It is a pretty tune," he said, "and it

always made me sorry for poor Fra Diavolo. Auber himself confessed to me that he had made it sad and put

the hermitage bell to go with it, because he too was grieved at having to kill his villain, and wanted him, if

possible, to die in a religious frame of mind. And Auber touched glasses with me and saidhow well I

remember it!'Is it the good Lord, or is it merely the devil, that makes me always have a weakness for

rascals?' I told him it was the devil. I was not a priest then. I could not be so sure with my answer now." And

then Padre Ignacio repeated Auber's remark in French: "'Estce le bon Dieu, oui estce bien le diable, qui

veut tonjours que j'aime les coquins?" I don't know! I don't know! I wonder if Auber has composed anything

He cast a farewell look at the ocean, and took his steps between the monastic herbs, the jasmines and the

oleanders to the sacristy. "At least," he said, "if we cannot carry with us into exile the friends and the places

we have loved, music will go whither we go, even to an end of the world such as this.Felipe!" he called to

his organist. "Can they sing the music I taught them for the Dixit Dominus tonight?"

"Then we will have that. And, Felipe" The Padre crossed the chancel to the small, shabby organ. "Rise, my

child, and listen. Here is something you can learn. Why, see now if you cannot learn it from a single hearing."

The swarthy boy of sixteen stood watching his master's fingers, delicate and white, as they played. Thus, of

his own accord, he had begun to watch them when a child of six; and the Padre had taken the wild,

"There, Felipe!" he said now. "Can you do it? Slower, and more softly, muchacho mio. It is about the death

The boy listened. "Then the father has played it a tone too low," said he, "for our bell rings the note of sol, or

something very near it, as the father must surely know." He placed the melody in the right keyan easy

"Ah, my Felipe," he exclaimed, "what could you and I not do if we had a better organ! Only a little better!

See! above this row of keys would be a second row, and many more stops. Then we would make such music

as has never yet been heard in California. But my people are so poor and so few! And some day I shall have

"They care nothing for us, Felipe. They are not of our religionor of any religion, from what I can hear.

The Padre retired once more to the sacristy, while the horse that brought Temptation came over the hill.

The hour of service drew near; and as the Padre waited he once again stepped out for a look at the ocean; but

the blue triangle of water lay like a picture in its frame of land, bare as the sky. "I think, from the color,

The bell rang a last short summons to prayer. Along the road from the south a young rider, leading a

packanimal, ambled into the mission and dismounted. Church was not so much in his thoughts as food and,

after due digestion, a bed; but the doors stood open, and, as everybody was passing within them, more variety

was to be gained by joining this company than by waiting outside alone until they should return from their

devotions. So he seated himself in a corner near the entrance, and after a brief, jaunty glance at the

sunburned, shaggy congregation, made himself as comfortable as might be. He had not seen a face worth

keeping his eyes open for. The simple choir and simple fold, gathered for evensong, paid him no

attentiona rough American bound for the mines was but an object of aversion to them.

The Padre, of course, had been instantly aware of the stranger's presence. To be aware of unaccustomed

presences is the sixth sense with vicars of every creed and heresy; and if the parish is lonely and the

worshipers few and seldom varying, a newcomer will gleam out like a new book to be read. And a trained

priest learns to read keenly the faces of those who assemble to worship under his guidance. But American

vagrants, with no thoughts save of golddigging, and an overweening illiterate jargon for speech, had long

ceased to interest this priest, even in his starvation for company and talk from the outside world; and

therefore after the intoning he sat with his homesick thoughts unchanged, to draw both pain and enjoyment

from the music that he had set to the Dixit Dominus. He listened to the tender chorus that opens William Tell;

and, as the Latin psalm proceeded, pictures of the past rose between him and the altar. One after another

came these strains he had taken from operas famous in their day, until at length the Padre was murmuring to

some music seldom long out of his heartnot the Latin verse which the choir sang, but the original French

"Ah, voile man envie, Voila mon seul desir: Rendez moi ma patrie, Ou laissez moi mourir."

But one wish I implore, One wish is all my cry: Give back my native land once more, Give back, or let me

Then it happened that his eye fell again upon the stranger near the door, and he skaightway forgot his Dixit

Dominus. The face of the young man was no longer hidden by the slouching position he had at first taken. "I

only noticed his clothes at first," thought the Padre. Restlessness was plain upon the handsome brow, and

violence was in the mouth; but Padre Ignacio liked the eyes. "He is not saying any prayers," he surmised,

presently. "I doubt if he has said any for a long while. And he knows my music. He is of educated people. He

cannot be American. And nowyes, he has takenI think it must be a flower, from his pocket. I shall have

him to dine with me." And vespers ended with rosy clouds of eagerness drifting across the Padre's brain.

But the stranger made his own beginning. As the priest came from the church, the rebellious young figure

was waiting. "Your organist tells me," he said, impetuously, "that it is you who"

"May I ask with whom I have the great pleasure of speaking?" said the Padre, putting formality to the front

The stranger's face reddened beneath its sunbeaten bronze, and he became aware of the Padre's pale

features, molded by refinement and the world. "I beg your lenience," said he, with a graceful and confident

utterance, as of equal to equal. "My name is Gaston Villere, and it was time I should be reminded of my

"Indeed, yes, Padre. But your music has amazed me. If you carried such associations asAh! the days and

the nights!"he broke off. "To come down a California mountain and find Paris at the bottom! The

The young man gave an exclamation. "The whole world is ringing with it!" he cried.

"But Santa YsabeI del Mar is a long way from the whole world," murmured Padre Ignacio.

"Indeed, it would not appear to be so," returned young Gaston. "I think the Comedie Francaise must be round

A thrill went through the priest at the theater's name. "And have you been long in America?" he asked.

"An American!" exclaimed the surprised Padre, with perhaps a tone of disappointment in his voice. "But no

Americans who are yet come this way have beenhave been"he veiled the tooblunt expression of his

thought"have been familiar with The Huguenots," he finished, making a slight bow.

Villere took his undermeaning. "I come from New Orleans," he returned, "and in New Orleans there live

many of us who can recognize awho can recognize good music wherever we hear it." And he made a slight

The Padre laughed outright with pleasure and laid his hand upon the young man's arm. "You have no

It was with the air and gait of mutual understanding that the two now walked on together toward the Padre's

"I should have thought," said Gaston, looking lightly at the desert and unpeopIed mountains, "that now and

The evening had now ripened to the long afterglow of sunset. The sea was the purple of grapes, and

Often he had thought of this resemblance, but never till now met any one to share his thought. The courtly

proprietor of San Fernando and the other patriarchal rancheros with whom he occasionally exchanged visits

across the wilderness knew hospitality and inherited gentle manners, sending to Europe for silks and laces to

give their daughters; but their eyes had not looked upon Granada, and their ears had never listened to William

"It is quite singular," pursued Gaston, "how one nook in the world will suddenly remind you of another nook

that may be thousands of miles away. One morning, behind the Quai Voltaire, an old, yellow house with

"I heard Rachel in Valerie that night," the young man went on. "Did you know that she could sing, too. She

sang several verses by an astonishing little Jew violoncellist that is come up over there."

The Padre gazed down at his blithe guest. "To see somebody, somebody, once again, is very pleasant to a

They had delayed on the threshold to look at the beauty of the evening, and now the priest watched his

parishioners come and go. "How can one make companions" he began; then, checking himself, he said:

"Their souls are as sacred and immortal as mine, and God helps me to help them. But in this world it is not

immortal souls that we choose for companions; it is kindred tastes, intelligences, andand so I and my

books are growing old together, you see," he added, more lightly. "You will find my volumes as behind the

He had fallen into talk more intimate than he wished; and while the guest was uttering something polite about

the nobility of missionary work, he placed him in an easychair and sought aguardiente for his immediate

refreshment. Since the year's beginning there had been no guest for him to bring into his rooms, or to sit

Such another library was not then in California; and though Gaston Villere, in leaving Harvard College, had

shut Horace and Sophocles for ever at the earliest instant possible under academic requirements, he knew the

Greek and Latin names that he now saw as well as he knew those of Shakspere, Dante, Moliere, and

Cervantes. These were here also; but it could not be precisely said of them, either, that they made a part of the

young man's daily reading. As he surveyed the Padre's august shelves, it was with a touch of the histrionic

Southern gravity which his Northern education had not wholly schooled out of him that he said:

"I fear I am no scholar, sir. But I know what writers every gentleman ought to respect."

It was when his eyes caught sight of the music that the young man felt again at ease, and his vivacity returned

to him. Leaving his chair, he began enthusiastically to examine the tall piles that filled one side of the room.

The volumes lay piled and scattered everywhere, making a pleasant disorder; and, as perfume comes from a

flower, memories of singers and chandeliers rose bright from the printed names. Norma, Tancredi, Don

Pasquale, La Vestale, dim lights in the fashions of today, sparkled upon the exploring Gaston, conjuring the

radiant halls of Europe before him. "The Barber of Seville!" he presently exclaimed. "And I happened to hear

But Seville's name brought over the Padre a new rush of home thoughts. "Is not Andalusia beautiful?" he

"Semiramide!" cried Gaston, lighting upon that opera. "That was a week!" I should like to live it over, every

"Did you reach Malaga from Marseilles or Gibraltar?" asked the Padre, wistfully.

"Then you saw Provence! And did you go, perhaps, from Avignon to Nismes by the Pont du Gard? There is a

place I have made herea little, little placewith olivetrees. And now they have grown, and it looks

something like that country, if you stand in a particular position. I will take you there tomorrow. I think you

"Another resemblance!" said the volatile and happy Gaston. "We both seem to have an eye for them. But,

believe me, Padre, I could never stay here planting olives. I should go back and see the original onesand

And, with a volume of Meyerbeer open in his hand, Gaston hummed: "'Robert, Robert, toi que j'aime.' Why,

Padre, I think that your library contains none of the masses and all of the operas in the world!"

"I will make you a little confession," said Padre Ignacio, "and then you shall give me a little absolution."

"I suppose I could not permit myself this luxury," began the Padre, pointing to his operas, "and teach these to

my choir, if the people had any worldly associations with the music. But I have reasoned that the music

The ringing of a bell here interrupted him. "In fifteen minutes," he said, "our poor meal will be ready for

you." The good Padre was not quite sincere when he spoke of a "poor meal." While getting the aguardiente

for his guest he had given orders, and he knew how well such orders would be carried out. He lived alone,

and generally supped simply enough, but not even the ample table at San Fernando could surpass his own on

"Your halfbreeds will think I am one of themselves," said Gaston, showing his dusty clothes. "I am not fit to

be seated with you." But he did not mean this any more than his host had meant his remark about the food. In

his pack, which an Indian had brought from his horse, he carried some garments of civilization. And

presently, after fresh water and not a little painstaking with brush and scarf, there came back to the Padre a

young guest whose elegance and bearing and ease of the great world were to the exiled priest as sweet as was

They repaired to the hall and took their seats at the head of the long table. For the Spanish centuries of stately

They were the only persons of quality present; and between themselves and the gente de razon a space

intervened. Behind the Padre's chair stood an Indian to waft upon him, and another stood behind the chair of

Gaston Villere. Each of these servants wore one single white garment, and offered the many dishes to the

gente fina and refilled their glasses. At the lower end of the table a general attendant wafted upon

mescladosthe halfbreeds. There was meat with spices, and roasted quail, with various cakes and other

preparations of grain; also the brown fresh olives and grapes, with several sorts of figs and plums, and

preserved fruits, and white and red winethe white fifty years old. Beneath the quiet shining of candles,

There at one end of this feast sat the wild, pastoral, gaudy company, speaking little over their food; and there

at the other the pale Padre, questioning his visitor about Rachel. The mere name of a street would bring

memories crowding to his lips; and when his guest told him of a new play he was ready with old quotations

from the same author. Alfred de Vigny they spoke of, and Victor Hugo, whom the Padre disliked. Long after

the dulce, or sweet dish, when it was the custom for the vaqueros and the rest of the retainers to rise and leave

the gente fina to themselves, the host sat on in the empty hail, fondly talking to his guest of his bygone Paris

and fondly learning of the later Paris that the guest had seen. And thus the two lingered, exchanging their

enthusiasms, while the candles waned, and the longhaired Indians stood silent behind the chairs.

"But we must go to my piano," the host exclaimed. For at length they had come to a lusty difference of

opinion. The Padre, with ears critically deaf, and with smiling, unconvinced eyes, was shaking his head,

"Come and convert me, then," said Padre Ignacio, and he led the way. "Donizetti I have always admitted.

There, at least, is refinement. If the world has taken to this Verdi, with his streetband musicBut there,

now! Sit down and convert me. Only don't crush my poor little Erard with Verdi's hoofs. I brought it when I

came. It is behind the times, too. And, oh, my dear boy, our organ is still worse. So old, so old! To get a

proper one I would sacrifice even this piano of mine in a momentonly the tinkling thing is not worth a sou

to anybody except its master. But there! Are you quite comfortable?" And having seen to his guest's needs,

and placed spirits and cigars and an ashtray within his reach, the Padre sat himself comfortably in his chair

By midnight all of the opera that Gaston could recall had been played and sung twice. The convert sat in his

chair no longer, but stood singing by the piano. The potent swing and flow of rhythms, the torrid, copious

inspiration of the South, mastered him. "Verdi has grown," he cried. "Verdi is become a giant." And he

swayed to the beat of the melodies, and waved an enthusiastic arm. He demanded every note. Why did not

Gaston remember it all? But if the barkentine would arrive and bring the whole music, then they would have

it right! And he made Gaston teach him what words he knew. "'Non ti scorder,'" he sang"'non ti scordar di

me.' That is genius. But one sees how the world moves when one is out of it. 'A nostri monti ritorneremo';

home to our mountains. Ah, yes, there is genius again." And the exile sighed and his spirit voyaged to distant

Then the host remembered his guest. "I am ashamed of my selfishness," he said. "It is already tomorrow."

"I have sat later in less good company," answered the pleasant Gaston. "And I shall sleep all the sounder for

"You have dispensed roadside alms," said the Padre, smiling, "and that should win excellent dreams."

Thus, with courtesies more elaborate than the world has time for at the present day, they bade each other

goodnight and parted, bearing their late candles along the quiet halls of the mission. To young Gaston in his

bed easy sleep came without waiting, and no dreams at ail. Outside his open window was the quiet, serene

darkness, where the stars shone clear, and tranquil perfumes hung in the cloisters. But while the guest lay

sleeping all night in unchanged position like a child, up and down between the oleanders went Padre Ignacio,

walking until dawn. Temptation indeed had come over the hill and entered the cloisters.

Day showed the ocean's surface no longer glassy, but lying like a mirror breathed upon; and there between

the short headlands came a sail, gray and plain against the flat water. The priest watched through his glasses,

and saw the gradual sun grow strong upon the canvas of the barkentine. The message from his world was at

hand, yet today he scarcely cared so much. Sitting in his garden yesterday, he could never have imagined

such a change. But his heart did not hail the barkentine as usual. Books, music, pale paper, and printthis

was all that was coming to him, some of its savor had gone; for the siren voice of Life had been speaking

with him face to face, and in his spirit, deep down, the love of the world was restlessly answering it. Young

Gaston showed more eagerness than the Padre over this arrival of the vessel that might be bringing Trovatore

in the nick of time. Now he would have the chance, before he took his leave, to help rehearse the new music

"And you still forgive Verdi the sins of his youth?" he said to his host. "I wonder if you could forgive mine?"

"Ah, don't go away soon!" pleaded the exile. It was the first unconcealed complaint that had escaped him, and

But Gaston was too much elated with the enjoyment of each new day to comprehend the Padre's soul. The

shafts of another's pain might hardly pierce the bright armor of his gaiety. He mistook the priest's entreaty, for

"Stay here under your care?" he asked. "It would do me no good, Padre. Temptation sticks closer to me than a

brother!" and he gave that laugh of his which had disarmed severer judges than his host. "By next week I

should have introduced some sin or other into your beautiful Garden of Ignorance here. It will be much safer

Soon after breakfast the Padre had his two mules saddled, and he and his guest set forth down the hills

together to the shore. And, beneath the spell and confidence of pleasant, slow riding and the loveliness of

"And, seriously," said he, "if I missed nothing else at Santa Ysabel, I should long forhow shall I say

it?for insecurity, for danger, and of all kindsnot merely danger to the body. Within these walls, beneath

"Too safe!" These echoed words upon the lips of the pale Padre were a whisper too light, too deep, for

"Why," the young man pursued in a spirit that was but half levity, "though I yield often to temptation, at

times I have resisted it, and here I should miss the very chance to resist. Your garden could never be Eden for

"Absent!" Still lighter, still deeper, was this whisper that the Padre breathed.

"I must find life," exclaimed Gaston, "and my fortune at the mines, I hope. I am not a bad fellow, Father. You

can easily guess all the things I do. I have never, to my knowledge, harmed any one. I didn't even try to kill

my adversary in an affair of honor. I gave him a mere fleshwound, and by this time he must be quite

Gaston stopped, and the Padre, looking keenly at him, saw the violence that he had noticed in church pass

"That's nothing dishonorable," said Gaston, answering the priest's look. And then, because this look made

him not quite at his ease: "Perhaps a priest might feel obliged to say it was dishonorable. She and her father

werea man owes no fidelity before he isbut you might say that had been dishonorable."

"And that is often wrong!" said the Padre, gently and gravely. "But I'm not your confessor."

"No," said Gaston, looking down. "And it is all over. It will not begin again. Since leaving New Orleans I

have traveled an innocent journey straight to you. And when I make my fortune I shall be in a position to

"Ah, you remember how those things are!" said Gaston: and he laughed and blushed.

"Yes," said the Padre, looking at the anchored barkentine, "I remember how those things are."

For a while the vessel and its cargo and the landed men and various business and conversations occupied

them. But the freight for the mission once seen to, there was not much else to detain them.

The barkentine was only a coaster like many others which had begun to fill the sea a little more of late years,

and presently host and guest were riding homeward. Side by side they rode, companions to the eye, but wide

apart in mood; within the turbulent young figure of Gaston dwelt a spirit that could not be more at ease, while

Yet still the strangeness of his situation in such a remote, resourceless place came back as a marvel into the

young man's lively mind. Twenty years in prison, he thought, and hardly aware of it! And he glanced at the

silent priest. A man so evidently fond of music, of theaters, of the world, to whom pressed flowers had meant

something onceand now contented to bleach upon these wastes! Not even desirous of a brief holiday, but

finding an old organ and some old operas enough recreation! "It is his age, I suppose," thought Gaston. And

then the notion of himself when he should be sixty occurred to him, and he spoke.

"Do you know, I do not believe," said he, "that I should ever reach such contentment as yours."

"I am certain that it must be a great possession," Gaston continued; "and yetand yetdear me! life is a

"Only one for me!" cried Gaston. "Action, men, women, thingsto be there, to be known, to play a part, to

sit in the front seats; to have people tell one another, 'There goes Gaston Villere!' and to deserve one's

prominence. Why, if I was Padre of Santa Ysabel del Mar for twenty years no! for one yeardo you

know what I should have done? Some day it would have been too much for me. I should have left these

savages to a pastor nearer their own level, and I should have ridden down this canyon upon my mule, and

stepped on board the barkentine, and gone back to my proper sphere. You will understand, sir, that I am far

from venturing to make any personal comment. I am only thinking what a world of difference lies between

natures that can feel as alike as we do upon so many subjects. Why, not since leaving New Orleans have I

met any one with whom I could talk, except of the weather and the brute interests common to us all. That

"And, sirpardon me if I do say thisare you not wasted at Santa Ysabel del Mar? I have seen the priests at

the other missions. They are the sort of good men that I expected. But are you needed to save such souls as

"But the body and the mind!" cried Gaston. "My God, are they nothing? Do you think that they are given to

us for nothing but a trap? You cannot teach such a doctrine with your library there. And how about all the

cultivated men and women away from whose quickening society the brightest of us grow numb? You have

held out. But will it be for long? Are you never to save any souls of your own kind? Are not twenty years of

mesclados enough? No, no!" finished young Gaston, hot with his unforeseen eloquence; "I should ride down

"No. Anything but that. You are surprised that I shouldchooseto stay here. Perhaps you may have

"Oh no. Put such an idea out of your head, my son. You may remember that I was going to make you a

You have seen," began Padre Ignacio, "what sort of a man Iwas once. Indeed, it seems very strange to

myself that you should have been here not twentyfour hours yet, and know so much of me. For there has

come no one else at all"the Padre paused a moment and mastered the unsteadiness that he had felt

approaching in his voice"there has been no one else to whom I have talked so freely. In my early days I

had no thought of being a priest. By parents destined me for a diplomatic career. There was plenty of money

andand all the rest of it; for by inheritance came to me the acquaintance of many people whose names you

would be likely to have heard of. Cities, people of fashion, artiststhe whole of it was my element and my

choice; and byandby I married, not only where it was desirable, but where I loved. Then for the first time

Death laid his staff upon my enchantment, and I understood many things that had been only words to me

hitherto. To have been a husband for a year, and a father for a moment, and in that moment to lose allthis

unblinded me. Looking back, it seemed to me that I had never done anything except for myself all my days. I

left the world. In due time I became a priest and lived in my own country. But my worldly experience and my

secular education had given to my opinions a turn too liberal for the place where my work was laid. I was

soon advised concerning this by those in authority over me. And since they could not change me and I could

them, yet wished to work and to teach, the New World was suggested, and I volunteered to give the rest of

my life to missions. It was soon found that some one was needed here, and for this little place I sailed, and to

these humble people I have dedicated my service. They are pastoral creatures of the soil. Their vineyard and

cattle days are apt to be like the sun and storm around themstrong alike in their evil and in their good. All

their years they live as childrenchildren with men's passions given to them like deadly weapons, unable to

measure the harm their impulses may bring. Hence, even in their crimes, their hearts will generally open soon

to the one great key of love, while civilization makes locks which that key cannot always fit at the first turn.

And coming to know this," said Padre Ignacio, fixing his eyes steadily upon Gaston, "you will understand

how great a privilege it is to help such people, and how the sense of something accomplishedunder

"Yes," said Gaston Villere. Then, thinking of himself, "I can understand it in a man like you."

"Do not speak of me at all!" exclaimed the Padre, almost passionately. "But pray Heaven that you may find

"That is the whole of my story," the priest continued, with no more of the recent stress in his voice. "And now

I have talked to you about myself quite enough. But you must have my confession." He had now resumed

entirely his halfplayful tone. "I was just a little mistaken, you see too selfreliant, perhapswhen I

supposed, in my first missionary ardor, that I could get on without any remembrance of the world at all. I

found that I could not. And so I have taught the old operas to my choirsuch parts of them as are within our

compass and suitable for worship. And certain of my friends still alive at home are good enough to remember

this taste of mine and to send me each year some of the new music that I should never hear of otherwise.

Then we study these things also. And although our organ is a miserable affair, Felipe manages very cleverly

to make it do. And while the voices are singing these operas, especially the old ones, what harm is there if

sometimes the priest is thinking of something else? So there's my confession! And now, whether Trovatore is

come or not, I shall not allow you to leave us until you have taught all you know of it to Felipe."

The new opera, however, had duly arrived. And as he turned its pages Padre Ignacio was quick to seize at

once upon the music that could be taken into his church. Some of it was ready fitted. By that afternoon Felipe

and his choir could have rendered "Ah! se l' error t' ingombra" without slip or falter.

Those were strange rehearsals of Il Trovatore upon this California shore. For the Padre looked to Gaston to

say when they went too fast or too slow, and to correct their emphasis. And since it was hot, the little Erard

piano was carried each day out into the mission garden. There, in the cloisters among the jessamine, the

orange blossoms, the oleanders, in the presence of the round yellow hills and the blue triangle of sea, the

Miserere was slowly learned. The Mexicans and Indians gathered, swarthy and blackhaired, around the

tinkling instrument that Felipe played; and presiding over them were young Gaston and the pale Padre,

walking up and down the paths, beating time or singing now one part and now another. And so it was that the

wild cattle on the uplands would hear Trovatore hummed by a passing vaquero, while the same melody was

For three days Gaston Villere remained at Santa Ysabel del Mar; and though not a word of restlessness came

from him, his host could read San Francisco and the goldmines in his countenance. No, the young man

could not have stayed here for twenty years! And the Padre forbore urging his guest to extend his visit.

"But the world is small," the guest declared at parting. "Some day it will not be able to spare you any longer.

Again, as upon the first evening, the two exchanged a few courtesies, more graceful and particular than we,

who have not time, and fight no duels, find worth a man's while at the present day. For duels are gone, which

is a very good thing, and with them a certain careful politeness, which is a pity; but that is the way in the

eternal profit and loss. So young Gaston rode northward out of the mission, back to the world and his fortune;

and the Padre stood watching the dust after the rider had passed from sight. Then he went into his room with

a drawn face. But appearances at least had been kept up to the end; the youth would never know of the elder

Temptation had arrived with Gaston, but was destined to make a longer stay at Santa Ysabel del Mar. Yet it

was perhaps a week before the priest knew this guest was come to abide with him. The guest could be

Sail away on the barkentine? A wild notion, to be sure! although fit enough to enter the brain of such a young

scapegrace. The Padre shook his head and smiled affectionately when he thought of Gaston Villere. The

youth's handsome, reckless countenance would shine out, smiling, in his memory, and he repeated Auber's

old remark, "Is it the good Lord, or is it merely the devil, that always makes me have a weakness for rascals?"

Sail away on the barkentine! Imagine taking leave of the people hereof Felipe! In what words should he

tell the boy to go on industriously with his music? No, this was not imaginable! The mere parting alone

would make it for ever impossible to think of such a thing. "And then," he said to himself each new morning,

when he looked out at the ocean, "I have given to them my life. One does not take back a gift."

Pictures of his departure began to shine and melt in his drifting fancy. He saw himself explaining to Felipe

that now his presence was wanted elsewhere; that than would come a successor to take care of Santa Ysabel

"For I am old now. I should not be long has in any case." He stopped and pressed his hands together; he had

caught his Temptation in the very act. Now he sat staring at his Temptation's face, close to him, while then in

One morning Felipe told him that the barkentine was here on its return voyage south. "Indeed." said the

Padre, coldly. "The things are ready to go, I think." For the vessel called for mail and certain boxes that the

mission sent away. Felipe left the room in wonder at the Padre's manner. But the priest was laughing secretly

to see how little it was to him where the barkentine was, or whether it should be coming or going. But in the

afternoon, at his piano, he found himself saying, "Other ships call here, at any rate." And then for the first

time he prayed to be delivered from his thoughts. Yet presently he left his seat and looked out of the window

The season of the winemaking passed, and the preserving of all the fruits that the mission fields grew.

Lotions and medicines was distilled from garden herbs. Perfume was manufactured from the petals of flowers

and certain spices, and presents of it despatched to San Fernando and Ventura, and to friends at other places;

for the Padre had a special recepit. As the time ran on, two or three visitors passed a night with him; and

presently there was a word at various missions that Padre Ignacio had begun to show his years. At Santa

Ysabel del Mar they whispered, "The Padre is not well." Yet he rode a great deal over the hills by himself,

and down the canyon very often, stopping where he had sat with Gaston, to sit alone and look up and down,

now at the hills above, and now at the ocean below. Among his parishioners he had certain troubles to soothe,

certain wounds to heal; a home from which he was able to drive jealousy; a girl whom he bade her lover set

right. But all said, "The Padre is unwell." And Felipe told them that the music seemed nothing to him any

more; he never asked for his Dixit Dominus nowadays. Then for a short time he was really in bed, feverish

with the two voices that spoke to him without ceasing. "You have given your life," said one voice. "And,

therefore," said the other, "have earned the right to go home and die." "You are winning better rewards in the

service of God," said the first voice. "God can be better served in other places," answered the second. As he

lay listening he saw Seville again, and the trees of Aranhal, where he had been born. The wind was blowing

through them, and in their branches he could hear the nightingales. "Empty! Empty!" he said, aloud. And he

lay for two days and nights hearing the wind and the nightingales in the far trees of Aranhal. But Felipe,

Then the wind in the trees died down, and the Padre could get out of bed, and soon be in the garden. But the

voices within him still talked all the while as he sat watching the sails when they passed between the

headlands. Their words, falling for ever the same way, beat his spirit sore, like blows upon flesh already

"Has the Padre any mall for Santa Barbara?" asked Felipe. "The ship bound southward should be here

At Felipe's words the voices had stopped, as a clock finishes striking. Silence, strained like expectation, filled

the Padre's soul. But in place of the voices came old sights of home again, the waving trees at Aranhal; then it

would be Rachel for a moment, declaiming tragedy while a houseful of faces that he knew by name watched

her; and through all the panorama rang the pleasant laugh of Gaston. For a while in the evening the Padre sat

at his Erard playing Trovatore. Later, in his sleepless bed he lay, saying now and then: "To die at home!

Surely I may be granted at least this." And he listened for the inner voices. But they were not speaking any

more, and the black hole of silence grew more dreadful to him than their arguments. Then the dawn came in

at his window, and he lay watching its gray grow warm into color, until suddenly he sprang from his bed and

looked at the sea. Blue it lay, sapphirehued and dancing with points of gold, lovely and luring as a charm;

and over its triangle the southbound ship was approaching. People were on board who in a few weeks would

be sailing the Atlantic, while he would stand here looking out of this same window. "Merciful God!" he cried,

sinking on his knees. "Heavenly Father, Thou seest this evil in my heart! Thou knowest that my weak hand

cannot pluck it out! My strength is breaking, and still Thou makest my burden heavier than I can bear." He

stopped, breathless and trembling. The same visions was flitting across his closed eyes; the same silence

gaped like a dry crater in his soul. "There is no help in earth or heaven," he said, very quietly; and he dressed

It was still so early that few of the Indians were stirring, and one of these saddled the Padre's mule. Felipe

was not yet awake, and for a moment it came in the priest's mind to open the boy's door softly, look at him

once more, and come away. But this he did not, nor even take a farewell glance at the church and organ. He

bade nothing farewell, but, turning his back upon his room and his garden, rode down the canyon.

The vessel lay at anchor, and some one had landed from ha and was talking with other men on the shore.

"Then you'll save me a journey. I promised him to deliver these into your own hands."

"A bag of golddust," he explained, "and a letter. I wrote it at his dictation while he was dying. He lived

The stranger bowed his head at the stricken cry which his news elicited from the priest, who, after a few

My dear Friend,It is through no man's fault but mine that I have come to this. I have had plenty of luck,

and lately have been counting the days until I should return home. But last night heavy news from New

Orleans reached me, and I tore the pressed flower to pieces. Under the first smart and humiliation of broken

faith I was rendered desperate, and picked a needless quarrel. Thank God, it is I who have the punishment. By

dear friend, as I lie here, leaving a world that no man ever loved more, I have come to understand you. For

you and your mission have been much in my thoughts. It is strange how good can be done, not at the time

when it is intended, but afterward; and you have done this good to me. I say over your words, "Contentment

with Renunciation," and believe that at this last hour I have gained something like what you would wish me

to feel. For I do not think that I desire it otherwise now. My life would never have been of service, I am

afraid. You am the last person in this world who has spoken serious words to me, and I want you to know that

now at length I value the peace of Santa Ysabel as I could never have done but for seeing your wisdom and

goodness. You spoke of a new organ for your church. Take the golddust that will reach you with this, and

do what you will with it. Let me at least in dying have helped some one. And since them is no aristocracy in

soulsyou said that to me; do you remember? perhaps you will say a mass for this departing soul of

mine. I only wish, must my body must go under ground in a strange country, that it might have been at Santa

"'At Santa Ysabel del Mar, where your feet would often pass.'" The priest repeated this final sentence aloud,

"Those are the last words he ever spoke," said the stranger, "except bidding me goodby."

Then a smile of great beauty passed over his face, and he addressed the strange. "I thank you. You will never

"It is nothing," answered the stranger, awkwardly. "He told me you set great store on a new organ."

Padre Ignacio turned away from the ship and rode back through the gorge. When he had reached the shady

place where once he had sat with Gaston Villere, he dismounted and again sat there, alone by the stream, for

many hours. Long rides and outings had been lately so much his custom that no one thought twice of his

absence; and when he resumed to the mission in the afternoon, the Indian took his mule, and he went to his

seat in the garden. But it was with another look that he watched the sea; and presently the sail moved across

Gaston's first coming was in the Padre's mind; and, as the vespers bell began to ring in the cloistered silence,

For the repose of Gaston's young, worldloving spirit, they sang all that he had taught them of Il Trovatore.

After this day, Felipe and all those who knew and loved the Padre best, saw serenity had returned to his

features; but for some reason they began to watch those features with more care.

"Still," they said, "he is not old." And as the months went by they would repeat: "We shall have him yet for

Thus the season rolled round, bringing the time for the expected messages from the world. Padre Ignacio was

"As of old," they said, cheerfully, who saw him. But Renunciation with Contentment they could not see; it

One day Felipe went to call him from his garden seat, wondering why the ringing of the bell had not brought

him to vespers. Breviary in lap, and hands folded upon it, the Padre sat among his flowers, looking at the sea.

Out there amid the sapphireblue, tranquil and white, gleamed the sails of the barkentine. It had brought him

a new message, not from this world; and Padre Ignacio was slowly borne in from the garden, while the