and here it is necessary to record certain things which led up to this—to peter—most extraordinary of meetings: things which those who do not believe in the miracles wrought by love and prayer might regard as almost incredible coincidences.
one afternoon, it was in the week between christmas and the new year, father o’sullivan was in the westminster hospital. he had been with a sick man for the last half-hour or so, cheering him on his high-road to recovery. he had only just left him—he was, in fact, in the corridor—when a nursing sister, a catholic, came up to him.
“father,” she said, “there’s a man—a gentleman—who would like to see you; he’s a catholic and dying. i asked him to let me send for a priest yesterday, and again to-day, but he refused. a few moments ago, however, i happened to mention your name and say that you were in the hospital. he asked me then to fetch you.”
“ah!” said father o’sullivan, smoothing his chin, as was the way with him—if he had worn a beard he would have been stroking it; “where is he?”
“in here, father.” and she led the way through a ward, and into a small room that opened out of it.
father o’sullivan looked at the man lying on the bed. his eyes were closed, and his face almost deathly pale against the red coverlet which was pulled up to his chin.
father o’sullivan sat down by the bedside. the man opened his eyes and looked at him.
“well, father,” he said, with a faint attempt at a smile.
and then, in spite of the pallor, the thinness, father o’sullivan recognized him. he saw in him a man he had known from boyhood, one who had attended his confessional, though for about six years he had entirely lost sight of him.
“hugh ellerslie!” exclaimed he.
“you remember me?” said hugh.
“of course, of course,” replied father o’sullivan, “though it’s six years or thereabouts since i saw you.”
“i know,” said hugh wearily. “i want to talk to you, father. they tell me i’m dying.”
“well, now,” said the old priest compassionately, “and if that’s so, isn’t it a good thing i’m here to help you make your peace, to have you tell me what it is is troubling you?”
for a moment hugh was silent,
“i’ve a confession to make, father,” he said presently. the sister moved towards the door.
“no,” said hugh, “don’t go. how long have i got to live?”
“some hours at least,” said the sister gently.
hugh smiled. “well, you’d better both hear what i’ve got to say. it won’t take long, but i can think of nothing else till i’ve said it. perhaps you, sister, will write down what is necessary. i can sign it presently, and, at all events, there will be two witnesses.”
at a sign from father o’sullivan the nurse crossed to the other side of the bed.
“now, my son,” said father o’sullivan quietly, tenderly.
“i have let another man suffer instead of me,” said hugh steadily. “his name—please get that down clearly, sister—is peter carden.”
father o’sullivan did not move, but he drew a long breath. and there are some people who say that the age of miracles is past!
“there’s no need to enter into all particulars,” went on hugh; “it would mean rather complicated business details that really don’t signify. but get this down clearly. about five or six years ago, peter carden was accused of forgery and embezzlement. he was put on his trial and pleaded guilty. he got three years in portland gaol. he was innocent; he was shielding me. everything of which he was accused, and to which he pleaded guilty, was done by me. is that clear, father?”
“perfectly clear, my son.”
“we were friends,” went on hugh, “school friends, college friends. peter always hauled me out of scrapes. he stuck to me through thick and thin. i believe this last time it was as much for my old mother’s sake as mine that he stood by me. she was very fond of peter. i said,” a slow colour mounted in the white face, “that it was for her sake that i let him do it; it wasn’t—at least, not only that. i was a coward. she died about a year after peter had been in prison. i might have come forward then. i didn’t; i went abroad. i came back to england only about six months ago.” he stopped.
“anything else?” asked father o’sullivan gravely and tenderly.
“that’s all,” said hugh wearily, “at least, with regard to that. i’d like peter to know that, cur though i’ve been to him, i’ve always been fond of him. tell him, if you can, father, that i’ve tried to run straight since, because of him and what he did. i wasn’t getting on badly, but now——”
“he shall be told,” said father o’sullivan.
“do you know where he is?” asked hugh, “you speak as if you knew him.”
“i’ve heard of him,” replied father o’sullivan, “and though i don’t know where he is now, he shall be found.”
again hugh was silent. after a moment he spoke.
“if you’ve got all that down, sister, i’ll sign it. you’re sure it will be all right, father; that it will let every one know, and clear him entirely?”
“perfectly sure.”
the sister put the paper by hugh’s hand, and he signed a straggling, wavering signature. he let the pen fall. then he looked up at the sister.
“now,” he said, “there are other things. will you——?”
and the sister left the room, closing the door noiselessly behind her.
it was after seven o’clock before father o’sullivan finally left the hospital. he had left it once to fetch the sacraments for which hugh had asked. and then, when the full peace of forgiveness and union had fallen upon him, he had lain very still.
once when father o’sullivan had moved he had spoken wistfully.
“must you go, father?”
“not at all, as long as you’re caring for me to be with you.”
hugh turned his face on the pillow.
“if it hadn’t been you this afternoon, father!” he said.
“the good god understood that,” said father o’sullivan calmly, “and just sent me along to see tim donoghue, who’s the very saint of a fellow when he’s sick, and would have me be reading to him and praying for him by the hour, and me with other jobs to be looking after.”
“we’re all like that, perhaps,” said hugh, smiling.
“faith, and it’s a good thing too,” was the reply. “and to whom but your mother should you be going when you’re sick, and in whose arms but hers should you be dying?”
and then there was a silence, broken occasionally by little remarks from hugh, who, coward though he might have been once, and more than once, was no coward now that he was dying. and father o’sullivan had responded with little tender speeches, such as a mother indeed might make to a child.
and now he was walking towards muriel’s house in cadogan place, and thanking god in his kind, big old heart for a soul which had passed peacefully away.
