Old Creole Days: A Story of Creole Life, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  THREE FRIENDS.

  The roundest and happiest-looking priest in the city of New Orleans wasa little man fondly known among his people as Pere Jerome. He was aCreole and a member of one of the city's leading families. His dwellingwas a little frame cottage, standing on high pillars just inside a tall,close fence, and reached by a narrow out-door stair from the greenbatten gate. It was well surrounded by crape myrtles, and communicatedbehind by a descending stair and a plank-walk with the rear entrance ofthe chapel over whose worshippers he daily spread his hands inbenediction. The name of the street--ah! there is where light iswanting. Save the Cathedral and the Ursulines, there is very little ofrecord concerning churches at that time, though they were springing uphere and there. All there is certainty of is that Pere Jerome's framechapel was some little new-born "down-town" thing, that may havesurvived the passage of years, or may have escaped "Paxton's Directory""so as by fire." His parlor was dingy and carpetless; one could smelldistinctly there the vow of poverty. His bed-chamber was bare and clean,and the bed in it narrow and hard; but between the two was a dining-roomthat would tempt a laugh to the lips of any who looked in. The table wassmall, but stout, and all the furniture of the room substantial, made offine wood, and carved just enough to give the notion of wrinklingpleasantry. His mother's and sister's doing, Pere Jerome would explain;they would not permit this apartment--or department--to suffer. Therein,as well as in the parlor, there was odor, but of a more epicurean sort,that explained interestingly the Pere Jerome's rotundity and rosy smile.

  In this room, and about this miniature round table, used sometimes tosit with Pere Jerome two friends to whom he was deeply attached--one,Evariste Varrillat, a playmate from early childhood, now his brotherin-law; the other, Jean Thompson, a companion from youngest manhood, andboth, like the little priest himself, the regretful rememberers of afourth comrade who was a comrade no more. Like Pere Jerome, they hadcome, through years, to the thick of life's conflicts,--the priest'sbrother-in-law a physician, the other an attorney, and brother-in-law tothe lonely wanderer,--yet they loved to huddle around this small board,and be boys again in heart while men in mind. Neither one nor anotherwas leader. In earlier days they had always yielded to him who no longermet with them a certain chieftainship, and they still thought of him andtalked of him, and, in their conjectures, groped after him, as one ofwhom they continued to expect greater things than of themselves.

  They sat one day drawn thus close together, sipping and theorizing,speculating upon the nature of things in an easy, bold, sophomoric way,the conversation for the most part being in French, the native tongue ofthe doctor and priest, and spoken with facility by Jean Thompson thelawyer, who was half Americain; but running sometimes into English andsometimes into mild laughter. Mention had been made of the absentee.

  Pere Jerome advanced an idea something like this:

  "It is impossible for any finite mind to fix the degree of criminalityof any human act or of any human life. The Infinite One alone can knowhow much of our sin is chargeable to us, and how much to our brothers orour fathers. We all participate in one another's sins. There is acommunity of responsibility attaching to every misdeed. No human sinceAdam--nay, nor Adam himself--ever sinned entirely to himself. And so Inever am called upon to contemplate a crime or a criminal but I feel myconscience pointing at me as one of the accessories."

  "In a word," said Evariste Varrillat, the physician, "you think we arepartly to blame for the omission of many of your Paternosters, eh?"

  Father Jerome smiled.

  "No; a man cannot plead so in his own defence; our first father triedthat, but the plea was not allowed. But, now, there is our absentfriend. I tell you truly this whole community ought to be recognized aspartners in his moral errors. Among another people, reared under wisercare and with better companions, how different might he not have been!How can we speak of him as a law-breaker who might have saved him fromthat name?" Here the speaker turned to Jean Thompson, and changed hisspeech to English. "A lady sez to me to-day: 'Pere Jerome, 'ow dat is adreadfool dat 'e gone at de coas' of Cuba to be one corsair! Ain't it?''Ah, madame,' I sez, ''tis a terrible! I 'ope de good God will fo'giveme an' you fo' dat!'"

  Jean Thompson answered quickly:

  "You should not have let her say that."

  "_Mais_, fo' w'y?"

  "Why, because, if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the moreto do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,"--theattorney changed to French,--"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken outletters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic ofCarthagena!'"

  "_Ah, bah_!" exclaimed Doctor Varrillat, and both he and hisbrother-in-law, the priest, laughed.

  "Why not?" demanded Thompson.

  "Oh!" said the physician, with a shrug, "say id thad way iv you wand."

  Then, suddenly becoming serious, he was about to add something else,when Pere Jerome spoke.

  "I will tell you what I could have said, I could have said: 'Madame,yes; 'tis a terrible fo' him. He stum'le in de dark; but dat good Godwill mek it a _mo' terrible fo'_ dat man oohever he is, w'at put 'atlight out!'"

  "But how do you know he is a pirate?" demanded Thompson, aggressively.

  "How do we know?" said the little priest, returning to French. "Ah!there is no other explanation of the ninety-and-nine stories that cometo us, from every port where ships arrive from the north coast of Cuba,of a commander of pirates there who is a marvel of courtesy andgentility"--[1]

  [Footnote 1: See gazettes of the period.]

  "And whose name is Lafitte," said the obstinate attorney.

  "And who, nevertheless, is not Lafitte," insisted Pere Jerome.

  "Daz troo, Jean," said Doctor Varrillat. "We hall know daz troo."

  Pere Jerome leaned forward over the board and spoke, with an air ofsecrecy, in French.

  "You have heard of the ship which came into port here last Monday. Youhave heard that she was boarded by pirates, and that the captain of theship himself drove them off."

  "An incredible story," said Thompson.

  "But not so incredible as the truth. I have it from a passenger. Therewas on the ship a young girl who was very beautiful. She came on deck,where the corsair stood, about to issue his orders, and, more beautifulthan ever in the desperation of the moment, confronted him with a smallmissal spread open, and her finger on the Apostles' Creed, commanded himto read. He read it, uncovering his head as he read, then stood gazingon her face, which did not quail; and then with a low bow, said: 'Giveme this book and I will do your bidding.' She gave him the book and badehim leave the ship, and he left it unmolested."

  Pere Jerome looked from the physician to the attorney and back again,once or twice, with his dimpled smile.

  "But he speaks English, they say," said Jean Thompson.

  "He has, no doubt, learned it since he left us," said the priest.

  "But this ship-master, too, says his men called him Lafitte."

  "Lafitte? No. Do you not see? It is your brother-in-law, Jean Thompson!It is your wife's brother! Not Lafitte, but" (softly) "Lemaitre!Lemaitre! Capitaine Ursin Lemaitre!"

  The two guests looked at each other with a growing drollery on eitherface, and presently broke into a laugh.

  "Ah!" said the doctor, as the three rose up, "you juz kip dadcog-an'-bull fo' yo' negs summon."

  Pere Jerome's eyes lighted up--

  "I goin' to do it!"

  "I tell you," said Evariste, turning upon him with sudden gravity, "ivdad is troo, I tell you w'ad is sure-sure! Ursin Lemaitre din kyarenut'n fo' doze creed; _he fall in love!_"

  Then, with a smile, turning to Jean Thompson, and back again to PereJerome:

  "But anny'ow you tell it in dad summon dad 'e hyare fo' dad creed."

  Pere Jerome sat up late that night, writing a letter. The remarkableeffects upon a certain mind, effects which we shall presently find himattributing solely to the influences of surrounding nature, may find forsome a
more sufficient explanation in the fact that this letter was butone of a series, and that in the rover of doubted identity andincredible eccentricity Pere Jerome had a regular correspondent.