Mariquita Part 6

With Mariquita that which we call the supernatural life was not occasional and spasmodic. That inspiration of Our Lord was not, as with so many, a gulp, or periodic series of gulps, but a breathing as steady and soundless as the natural breathing of her strong, sane, flawless body.

She did not, like the self-conscious pietist, listen to it. She did not, like the pathological pietist, test its pulse or temperature. The pathological pietist is still self-student, though studious of self in a new relation; still breathes her own breath at second-hand, and remains indoors within the four walls of herself.

Of herself Mariquita knew little. That G.o.d had given her, in truth, existence; that she knew. That _she_ was, because He chose. That He had been born, and died, and lived again, for her sake, as much as for the sake of any one of all the saints, though not more than for the sake of the human being in all the world who thought least of Him: that she knew. That He loved her incomparably better than she could love herself or any other person--that she knew with a reality of knowledge greater than that with which any lover ever knows himself beloved by the lover who would give and lose everything for him. That He had already set in her another treasure, the capacity of loving Him--that also she knew with ineffable reverence and gladness, and that the power of loving Him grew in her, as the power of knowing Him grew.

But concerning herself Mariquita knew little except such things as these. She had studied neither her own capacities nor her own limitations, neither her tastes, nor her gifts. That Sarella thought her stupid, she was hardly aware, and less than half aware that Sarella was wrong. No human creature had ever told her that she was beautiful, and she had never made any guess on the subject with herself. She never wondered if she were happy, or ever unjustly disinherited of the means of happiness. Whether, in less strait thrall of circ.u.mstance, she might be of more consequence, even of more use, she never debated. She had not dreamed of being heroic; had no chafing at absence of either sphere or capacity for being brilliant. Her life was pa.s.sing in a silence singularly profound among the lives of G.o.d's other human creatures, and its silence, unhumanness, oblivion (that deepest of oblivion lying beneath what _has_ been known though forgotten) did not vex her, and was never thought of. Her duties were coa.r.s.e and common; but they were those G.o.d had set in her way and sight, and she had no impatience of them, no scorn for them, but just did them. They were not more coa.r.s.e or common than those He had himself found to His hand, and done, in the house at Nazareth where Joseph was master, and, after Joseph, Mary was mistress, and He, their Creator, third, to obey and serve them.

It would be greatly unjust to Mariquita to say that the monotone of her life was made golden by the bright haze in which it moved. She lived not in a dream, but in an atmosphere. She was not a dreamy person, moving through realities without consciousness of them. She saw all around her, with living interest, only she saw beyond them with interest deeper still, or rather their own significance for her was made deeper by her sense of what was beyond them, and to which they, like herself, belonged. She was very conscious of her neighbors, not only of the human neighbors, but also of the live creatures not human; and each of these had, in her reverence, a definite sacredness as coming like herself from the hand of G.o.d.

There was nothing pantheistic in this; seeing everything as G.o.d's she did not see it itself Divine, but every natural object was to her clear vision but a thread in the clear, transparent veil through which G.o.d showed Himself everywhere. When St. Francis "preached to the birds" he was in fact listening to their sermon to him; and Mariquita, in her close neighborly friends.h.i.+p with the small wild creatures of the prairie, was only wors.h.i.+pping the ineffable, kind friendliness of G.o.d, who had made, and who fed, them also. The love she gave them was only one of the myriad silent expressions of her love for Him, who loved them. They were easier and simpler to understand than her human neighbors. It was not that, for an instant, she thought them on the same plane of interest--but we must here interrupt ourselves as she was interrupted.

CHAPTER XI.

Mariquita had been alone a long time when Gore, riding home, came suddenly upon her.

She was sitting where a clump of trees cast now a shadow, and it was only in coming round them that he saw her when already very near her.

The ground was soft there, and his horse's hoofs had made scarcely any sound.

She turned her head, and he saluted her, at the same moment slipping from the saddle.

"I thought you were far away," she said.

"I have been far away--at Maxwell. It has been a long ride."

"Yes, that is a long way," she said. "But I never go there."

"No? I went to hear Ma.s.s."

She was surprised, never having thought that he was a Catholic.

"I did not know you were a Catholic," she told him.

"No wonder! I have been here a month and never been to Ma.s.s before."

"It is so far. I never go."

"You _are_ a Catholic, then?"

"Oh, yes; I think all Spaniards are Catholics."

"But not all Americans," Gore suggested smiling.

"No. And of course, we are Americans, my father and I."

"Exactly. No doubt I knew your names, both surname and Christian name, were Spanish, and I supposed you were of Catholic descent--"

"Only," she interrupted with a quiet matter-of-factness, "you saw we never went to Ma.s.s."

"Perhaps a priest comes here sometimes and gives you Ma.s.s."

"No, never. If it were not so very far, I suppose my father would let me ride down to Maxwell occasionally, at all events. But he would not let me go alone, and none of the men are Catholics; besides, he would not wish me to go with one of them; and then it would be necessary to go down on Sat.u.r.day and sleep there. Of course, he would not permit that.

But," and she did not smile as she said this, "it must seem strange to you, who are a Catholic, to think that I, who am one also, should never hear Ma.s.s. Since I left the Convent and came home I do not hear it. That may scandalize you."

"I shall never be scandalized by you," he answered, also without smiling.

"That is best," she said. "It is generally foolish to be scandalized, because we can know so little about each other's case."

She paused a moment, and he thought how little need she could ever have of any charitable suspension of judgment. He knew well enough by instinct, that this inability to hear Ma.s.s must be the great disinheritance of her life here on the prairie, her submission to it, her great obedience.

"But," she went on earnestly, "I hope you will not take any scandal at my father either--from my saying that he would not permit my going down to Maxwell and staying there all night on Sat.u.r.day so as to hear Ma.s.s on Sunday morning. (There is, you know, only one Ma.s.s there, and that very early, because the priest has to go far into the county on the other side of Maxwell to give another Ma.s.s.) We know no family down there with whom I could stay. He would think it impossible I should stay with strange people--or in an hotel. Our Spanish ideas would forbid that."

"Oh, yes; I can fully understand. You need not fear my being so stupid as to take scandal. I have all my life had enough to do being scandalized at myself."

"Ah, yes! That is so. One finds that always. Only one knows that G.o.d is more indulgent to one's faults than one has learned to be oneself; that patience comes so very slowly, and slower still the humility that would teach one to be never surprised at any fault in oneself."

Gore reverenced her too truly to say, "Any fault would surprise _me_ in you." He only a.s.sented to her words, as if they were plain and cold matter-of-fact, and let her go on, for he knew she had more to say.

"I would like," she told him, "to finish about my father. Because to you he may seem just careless. You may think, 'But why should not _he_ take her down to Maxwell and hear Ma.s.s himself also?' Coming from the usual life of Catholics to this life of ours on the prairies, it may easily occur to you like that. You cannot possibly know--as if you had read it in a book--a man's life like my father's. He was born far away from here, out in the desert--in New Mexico. His father baptized him--just as _he_ baptized me. There was no priest. There was no Ma.s.s.

How could he learn to think it a necessary part of life? no one can learn to think necessary what is impossible. From that desert he came to this wilderness; very different, but just as empty. No Ma.s.s here either, no priest. How could he be expected to think it necessary to ride far, far away to find Ma.s.s? It would be to him like riding away to find a picture gallery. He _couldn't_ be away every Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. That would not be possible; and what is not possible is no sin. And what is no sin on three Sundays out of four, or one Sunday out of two, how should it seem a sin on the other Sunday? I hope you will understand all that."

"Indeed, yes! I hope you do not think I have been judging your father!

That would be a great impertinence."

"Towards G.o.d--yes. That is His business, and no one else understands it at all. No, I did not think you would have been judging. Only I thought you might be troubled a little. It is a great loss, my father's and mine, that we live out here where there is no Ma.s.s, and where there are no Sacraments. But Our Lord does the same things differently. It is not hard for Him to make up losses."

One thing which struck the girl's hearer was that the grave simplicity of her tones was never sad. It seemed to him the perfection of obedience.

"My father," she went on, "is very good. He always tells the truth.

Those who deal in horses are said to tell many lies about them. He never does. He is very just--to the men, and everybody. And he does not grind them, nor does he insult them in reproof. He hates laziness and stupidity, and will not suffer either. Yet he does not gibe in finding fault nor say things, being master, to which they being servants may not retort. That makes fault-finding bitter and intolerable. He works very hard and takes no pleasure. He greatly loved my mother, and was in all things a true husband. That was a great burden G.o.d laid on him--the loss of her, but he carried it always in silence. You can hardly know all these things."

Gore saw that she was more observant than he had fancied--that she had been conscious of criticism in him of her father, and was earnest in exacting justice for him.

"But," he said, "I shall not forget them now."

"I shall thank you for that," she told him, beginning to move forward towards the homestead that was full in sight, half a mile away. "And it will be getting very late. Tea is much later on Sunday, for the men like to sleep, but it will be time now."

They walked on together, side by side, he leading his horse by the bridle hung loosely over his shoulder. The horse after its very long journey of to-day and yesterday was tired out, and only too willing to go straight to his stable.

They did not now talk much. Don Joaquin, watching them as they came from the house door, saw that.

CHAPTER XII.