Slain By The Doones | Page 6

he had no money.
The Fords had been excellent Catholics always; but Thomas and Deborah Pring, who managed everything while I was overcome, said that the church, being now so old, must have belonged to us, and therefor might be considered holy. The parson also said that it would do, for he was not a man of hot persuasions. And so my dear father lay there, without a stone, or a word to tell who he was, and the grass began to grow.
Here I was sitting one afternoon in May, and the earth was beginning to look lively; when a shadow from the west fell over me, and a large, broad man stood behind it. If I had been at all like myself, a thing of that kind would have frightened me; but now the strings of my system seemed to have nothing like a jerk in them, for I cared not whither I went, nor how I looked, nor whether I went anywhere.
"Child! poor child!" It was a deep, soft voice of distant yet large benevolence. "Almost a woman, and a comely one, for those who think of such matters. Such a child I might have owned, if Heaven had been kind to me."
Low as I was of heart and spirit, I could not help looking up at him; for Mother Pring's voice, though her meaning was so good, sounded like a cackle in comparison to this. But when I looked up, such encouragement came from a great benign and steadfast gaze that I turned away my eyes, as I felt them overflow. But he said not a word, for his pity was too deep, and I thanked him in my heart for that.
"Pardon me if I am wrong," I said, with my eyes on the white flowers I had brought and arranged as my father would have liked them; "but perhaps you are the clergyman of this old church." For I had lain senseless and moaning on the ground when my father was carried away to be buried.
"How often am I taken for a clerk in holy orders! And in better times I might have been of that sacred vocation, though so unworthy. But I am a member of the older church, and to me all this is heresy."
There was nothing of bigotry in our race, and we knew that we must put up with all changes for the worst; yet it pleased me not a little that so good a man should be also a sound Catholic.
"There are few of us left, and we are persecuted. Sad calumnies are spread about us," this venerable man proceeded, while I gazed on the silver locks that fell upon his well-worn velvet coat. "But of such things we take small heed, while we know that the Lord is with us. Haply even you, young maiden, have listened to slander about us."
I told him with some concern, although not caring much for such things now, that I never had any chance of listening to tales-about anybody, and was yet without the honour of even knowing who he was.
"Few indeed care for that point now," he answered, with a toss of his glistening curls, and a lift of his broad white eyebrows. "Though there has been a time when the noblest of this earth--but vanity, vanity, the wise man saith. Yet some good I do in my quiet little way. There is a peaceful company among these hills, respected by all who conceive them aright. My child, perhaps you have heard of them?"
I replied sadly that I had not done so, but hoped that he would forgive me as one unacquainted with that neighbourhood. But I knew that there might be godly monks still in hiding, for the service of God in the wilderness.
"So far as the name goes, we are not monastics," he said, with a sparkle in his deep-set eyes; "we are but a family of ancient lineage, expelled from our home in these irreligious times. It is no longer in our power to do all the good we would, and therefore we are much undervalued. Perhaps you have heard of the Doones, my child?"
To me it was a wonder that he spoke of them thus, for his look was of beautiful mildness, instead of any just condemnation. But his aspect was as if he came from heaven; and I thought that he had a hard job before him, if he were sent to conduct the Doones thither.
"I am not severe; I think well of mankind," he went on, as I looked at him meekly; "perhaps because I am one of them. You are very young, my dear, and unable to form much opinion as yet. But let it be your rule of life ever to keep an open mind."
This advice