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                           DEFICIENT SAINTS




                           DEFICIENT SAINTS

                            A Tale of Maine

                                  BY

                           MARSHALL SAUNDERS

                               AUTHOR OF
                 "BEAUTIFUL JOE," "ROSE À CHARLITTE,"
                     "THE KING OF THE PARK," ETC.

                   "Keep who will the city's alleys,
                     Take the smooth-shorn plain,
                     Give to us the cedar valleys,
                      Rocks, and hills of Maine!"

                            [Illustration]

                                LONDON
                         GEORGE BELL AND SONS
                                 1903




                                  TO
                             THE CITIZENS
                                  OF
                           BEAUTIFUL BANGOR
                 THIS STORY IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
                             BY THE AUTHOR




                               CONTENTS.


     CHAPTER                                                       PAGE

         I. THE ELECT LADY AND HER DEATH-BOOK                        11

        II. AN UNEXPECTED DAUGHTER-IN-LAW                            24

       III. TO HIM THE WORLD WAS GAY                                 34

        IV. A FAVOUR SOLICITED                                       51

         V. A PASTORAL VISIT                                         62

        VI. STERN HER FACE AND MASCULINE HER STRIDE                  72

       VII. A DRIVE WITH A STRANGE GUIDE                             81

      VIII. OF MIXED BLOOD                                           98

        IX. TELL ME YOUR SECRETS                                    111

         X. A REFORM IN THE BILL OF FARE                            122

        XI. IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH                    136

       XII. IT IS ALL TRUE                                          148

      XIII. A DINNER-PARTY                                          162

       XIV. UNQUIET HEARTS                                          178

        XV. A FAMILY CEMENTED BY LOVE                               191

       XVI. A PARTIAL SURRENDER                                     200

      XVII. CAPTAIN WHITE CHOOSES A MONUMENT                        217

     XVIII. A STEP IN ADVANCE                                       230

       XIX. THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN LOSES ITS PASTOR      243

        XX. BURGLARS AT FRENCH CROSS                                254

       XXI. MISS GASTONGUAY INTERVIEWS HER PRISONER                 266

      XXII. CRIMINAL RECORDS                                        280

     XXIII. WHEN A MAN'S HAPPY                                      293

      XXIV. AN INVITATION TO A PICNIC                               307

       XXV. IN THE FRENCH CROSS WOOD                                316

      XXVI. THE PICNIC AND THE OLD PRISON WELL                      322

     XXVII. H. ROBINSON AND HIS REVELATION                          336

    XXVIII. CAPTAIN WHITE'S BALL PLAY                               350

      XXIX. NEWS OF THE WANDERER                                    363

       XXX. THE RETURN OF THE WANDERER                              369

      XXXI. H. ROBINSON AGAIN                                       378

     XXXII. A BRANCH CUT OFF                                        390

    XXXIII. THE PURITANS HAVE TRIUMPHED!                            406

     XXXIV. THE SON OF THE MORNING                                  418




                           DEFICIENT SAINTS.




                              CHAPTER I.

                  THE ELECT LADY AND HER DEATH-BOOK.


In the dining-room of the old stone Mercer mansion in the town of
Rossignol, Me., Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, sanctified vessel and uncommon
saint, charter member of the church of the United Brethren, chief
leader in religious work, and waggishly nicknamed by the ungodly about
her "the elect lady," sat looking earnestly at her death-book.

This death-book was her never-failing source of interest and chastened
entertainment. In it she had enrolled the names of the various friends
of whom she had been deprived by death, and for its enlargement and
adornment she collected photographs, cuttings from newspapers, and
items of information, with an assiduity superior to that of some of
her acquaintances, who prepared scrap-books merely for purposes of
diversion and amusement.

The covers of the book were ornamented with two silver plates engraved
with the names and ages of her two deceased husbands,--Sylvester Mercer
and Zebedee Prymmer. These plates had been taken from the coffins
of the two worthy men before they had been lowered to their graves.
Wedged under each plate were locks of hair shorn from the heads of the
dead men. Sylvester, according to his coffin plate, had been a man in
the prime of life. His lock of hair was soft and brown, while that
of Zebedee Prymmer, whose age was given as sixty-five, was stiff and
grizzled.

Mrs. Prymmer did not quail as her eye ran over these somewhat ghastly
souvenirs. She even sighed gently, and with eyes partly closed,--for
she nearly knew the contents of the book by heart,--repeated softly
some lines addressed to herself, written by Zebedee Prymmer before
death, but worded as if they had been penned after his flight to
regions above.

    "Mourn not, oh loved, oh cherished dear,
    I have no longer foes to fear,
    From here above, far in the sky,
    I see the pit wherein they'll lie.

    "They digged around me in the dust,
    But Providence sustained the Just,
    Come soon and join the dear upright,
    And triumph over sons of spite."

Mrs. Prymmer, musing enjoyably over these lines, had her attention
distracted by her cat, who was mewing around her feet, turning his
sleek face up to her sleek face, and pretending that he thought it was
breakfast-time instead of bedtime.

"I sha'n't give you any milk," she said, severely, "you had enough for
your supper; go to bed."

The cat fled down-stairs, and Mrs. Prymmer gazed across the room at
the clock. The sight of her round gray eyes was undimmed. All her
bodily faculties were in a good state of preservation, and undeterred
by the mournful fact that she had laid two husbands in the grave, she
was, perhaps, by no means averse to taking a third one. In the course
of time she would probably have another offer, for Rossignol was a
marrying-place, and she was somewhat of a belle among elderly widowers,
being still good-looking in spite of the artificial and unpleasing
compression of her lips, and the two lines up and down the corners of
her mouth.

She began to wonder just how her son would take the news of another
marriage on her part. She was a little afraid of this son, although
she loved him better than any one else in the world. He was the only
living person admitted into her death-book, and drawing his photograph
from between the leaves, she looked at it half lovingly, half
apprehensively. It was a not unstriking face that confronted her. He
was a curious combination, this boy of hers,--half Englishman, half
Yankee. His tall, firmly built figure, his reserve, and his pale face
were a legacy from his father, who was of direct English ancestry; his
business ability and calculating ways, and his granite- eyes,
that so swiftly and unerringly measured his fellow men with respect
to their usefulness or uselessness to him, were direct gifts to him
through his mother from a generation or two of New England traders.

She wondered once more just how he would look and what he would say if
some one were to observe suddenly to him, "So I hear your mother is
going to be married again."

Her plump shoulders quivered nervously, and she looked deeper into his
fathomless eyes. Probably he would be annoyed at first, but in time he
would calm down, and would go on living with her and a third husband
just as he had lived with her and a second one.

"He never liked Zebedee," she reflected, comfortably, "yet he was
always respectful to him. He's a pretty good boy is Justin," and she
passed one hand caressingly over the pale, composed face, and wished
earnestly that he would come home from the long and mysterious journey
that he had undertaken some weeks ago.

The house was very quiet now that he was away. A cousin who boarded
with her was also absent, and her solitary maid servant, who should
have been in bed, was roaming the streets with a sailor lover.

"Half-past ten," said Mrs. Prymmer, in a voice that boded no good to
the loitering maid, "and her hour is ten sharp. There she is,--the
witch," as a ring at the bell resounded through the silent house.

She got up and went quickly through the hall. "Mary!" she said as she
opened the door. "Mary!"

There was something so aggravating in her tone that it checked the
apology on the lips of the belated girl, and made her toss her head
angrily.

"Mary," repeated her mistress, warningly, "if this happens again I
shall consider it my duty to dismiss you without a character."

The maid hurried up-stairs, her back respectful, her face working
vigorously as she made mouths at an imaginary mistress in front of her.

Mrs. Prymmer was about to follow her when her attention was caught by
a sound of sleigh-bells coming from the snowy street. The old stone
house, in common with most of its neighbours, was perched on a bank
some distance from the street, and was approached by several flights of
steps cut into the terraces before it.

A sleigh was drawn up to the pavement below, and slowly descending
from it was her son, whom she had supposed to be in California. She
held her breath with pleasure. She had got him back again, her one
and only child, her son by her first marriage,--young Justin Mercer,
junior deacon in the church of the United Brethren, the hope of the
older members of the flock and the model of the rising generation. In
unbounded pride she noted his firm step, his unruffled appearance, the
uprightness of his figure, and the cool flash of the eye behind the
glasses that he always wore.

Instead of looking like one arriving home from a journey, he had rather
the appearance of one just about to leave home, and as calmly as if he
had seen her a few hours before he bent his tall figure to bestow a
filial embrace upon her.

In a sudden upsurging of maternal affection she responded warmly and
involuntarily, until the remembrance of his abrupt departure made her
draw back and survey him silently.

"Are you not glad to have me back?" he asked, with a slight smile.

"Yes, though your going away was none of the pleasantest," she said, in
an injured voice, while with the tips of her fingers she arranged on
her temples the thick crimped hair slightly disturbed by his caress.

"I am sorry for it, mother," he said, with the same curious smile, "and
I regret to state that, unpleasant as it was, you may find it was not
equal to my return."

"What do you mean?" she said, peevishly, "and why doesn't that man
fetch in your things?"

"I told him to hold his horses until I came back. I have a present for
you," and he turned and went down the steps while his mother returned
to the shelter of the porch.

Suddenly she became as rigid as the door-post behind her. The present
was taking on the shape of all things in the world most hateful to her.
A young girl of medium height was coming up the steps, and bending over
her in a protecting attitude was her son Justin.

They paused for an instant before her. Mrs. Prymmer had a brief
confused vision of a big, beautiful wax doll whose limpid eyes shone
out of a mist of light hair, then her son flashed her a swift glance,
and seeing that he could hope for no response, laid a hand on the
shoulder of the vision and withdrew it.

Mrs. Prymmer, brushing by the cabman who was staggering in under the
weight of a trunk, marched solemnly into the hall, opened the door of
the parlour, and, lighting the gas, sat down in an armchair of imposing
proportions and awaited an explanation.

Her son had conducted his companion to the dining-room. She heard a
few low-spoken words, then his heavy step came through the hall, and,
entering the room, he sat before her.

"I don't know what some women would call this," she said, compressing
her lips till there was nothing but a thin streak of red between them,
"but I call it an insult."

"It is not intended as an insult," he said. "Perhaps if you will wait
till I explain--"

"You can't explain away the fact that that is a woman," replied Mrs.
Prymmer, pointing an accusing finger toward the next room.

No, he could not. With all the words that he could utter, with all the
stock of logic at his command, Justin Mercer could not disprove the
fact that in the room beyond them was a young and uncommonly beautiful
woman.

"What do you mean by saying that she is a present for me?" asked his
discomfited mother. "I have one girl now. I suppose this is some
creature you have picked up on your travels."

Justin Mercer was not a man given to unseemly mirth, yet at this
disdainful remark he made a sound in his throat closely approaching a
laugh. "Did you look at her, mother?"

Mrs. Prymmer for a few instants forgot her vengeance in her curiosity.
It was no servant, but a lady that had passed her in the doorway. The
delicate face, with its clear-cut features and limpid eyes, was a
refined and not a vulgar one.

"Who is she?" she asked, peremptorily.

"She is my wife," he said, quietly.

"Your wife," gasped Mrs. Prymmer, and she half rose from her chair,
then staggered into it again, and laid her hand against the high back
for support, while all the furniture in the room, presided over by her
son's sober face, whirled slowly by her in a distracted procession.

"Shall I get you a glass of water?" he asked, sympathetically.

She made a prohibitory gesture. This was only the reflex action of the
blow struck when first she had seen the young girl accompanying him up
the steps. She knew then that he had brought home a wife. Moistening
her dry lips with her tongue so that she might compass the words, she
articulated, "This is the fruit of disobedience."

Her son did not reply to her, but there was no sign of regret on his
face, no word of apology on his tongue. He had found the fruit sweet,
and not bitter,--he had plucked it in defiance of her well-known
wishes. She had lost the little boy that she had led by the hand
for years,--the young man that had lingered by her side, apparently
indifferent to all feminine society but her own. She had lost him for
ever, and, making a motion of her plump hands as if she were washing
him and his affairs from them, she got up and moved toward the door.

"Don't you want to hear about my journey?" he asked, kindly.

She did indeed want to hear. She was suffering from a burning
inquisitiveness, yet she affected indifference, and said, coldly, "I
do, if you will tell me the truth."

"Did I ever tell you a lie?"

"No, but I daresay you will begin now,--'by their fruits ye shall know
them.' I thought you were never going to get married."

"I never said so."

"You acted it."

"You had better sit down, and I will tell you how it happened," he
said, soothingly.

Mrs. Prymmer hesitated, then, dominated by his slightly imperious
manner and her own ungovernable curiosity, she took on the air of a
suffering martyr, and reseated herself.

There was a large mirror over the mantelpiece, and the young man,
catching in it a glimpse of the contrast between his own pale face and
the ruddy one of his mother, murmured, "You are very fresh-looking for
fifty-five years."

It was not like Justin Mercer to make a remark about the personal
appearance of man, woman, or child. His mother glanced at him in
surprise, then for a brief space of time was mollified by his approval
of her comfortable appearance, although she murmured a stern reference
to gray hairs that are brought down by sorrow to the grave.

"Your face is full," he went on, in his composed voice, "and your hair
is thick and glossy like a girl's, and your eyes are bright,--as bright
as Derrice's there--"

The mention of his wife's name was inopportune. "Is that what you call
her?" asked his mother, with a scornful compression of the lips.

"Yes, Derrice Lancaster."

Mrs. Prymmer's countenance grew purple. "She is not a daughter of that
man?"

"She is."

"Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth," murmured the lady, upon whom
these repeated blows were beginning to have the effect of inducing
irrelevancy of Scripture quotations.

"If you like, I will tell you from the first," said her son.

"Do you want her to hear?" asked Mrs. Prymmer, with a glance toward the
sliding doors that divided the two rooms.

The young man's face changed quickly, and muttering, "It would be just
like her to listen,--the little witch," he got up and approached the
doors.

"Hello," said a mischievous voice, and he caught a gleam of bright
eyes and a smiling face at the gaping crack. Hastily opening the doors,
he passed through, and, firmly closing them behind him, stood over the
beautiful but slightly unformed and undeveloped figure sitting on the
sofa, that was drawn close up to the doors.

"Derrice," he said, reprovingly.

"What a trying time you are having with your mamma," she said, saucily.
"I was just about to interrupt. I want to