“I can but obey your desire, holy Father; but, at the same time, I do not know whether it becomes the son to grasp the hand of the foe who was not to be appeased even by Death, the reconciler—­who grossly insulted the father, the noblest of men, and, in him, the son too, at the grave itself.”

The patriarch shook his head with a supercilious smile, and a hot thrill shot through Orion as Benjamin laid his hand on his shoulder and said with grave kindness: 

“A Christian does not find it hard to forgive a sinner, an antagonist, an enemy; and it is a joy to me to pardon the son who feels himself injured through his lost father, blind and foolish as his indignation may be.  Your wrath can no more affect me, Child, than the Almighty in Heaven, and it would not even be blameworthy, but that—­and of this we must speak presently—­but that—­well, I will be frank with you at once—­but that your manner clearly and unmistakably betrays what you lack to make you a true Christian, and such a man as he must be who fills so conspicuous a position in this land governed by infidels.  You know what I mean?”

The prelate let his hand slip from the young man’s shoulder, looking enquiringly in his face; and when Orion, finding no reply ready, drew back a step or two, the old man went on with growing excitement: 

“It is humility, pious and submissive faith, that I find you lack, my friend.  Who, indeed, am I?  But as the Vicar, the representative of Him before whom we all are as worms in the dust, I must insist that every man who calls himself a Christian, a Jacobite, shall submit to my will and orders, without hesitation or doubt, as obediently and unresistingly as though salvation or woe had fallen on him from above.  What would become of us, if individuals were to take upon themselves to defy me and walk in their own way?  In one miserable generation, and with the death of the elders who had grown up as true Christians, the doctrine of the Saviour would be extinct on the shores of the Nile, the crescent would rise in the place of the Cross, and our cry would go up to Heaven for so many lost souls.  Learn, haughty youth, to bow humbly and submissively to the will of the Most High and of His vicar on earth, and let me show you, from your demeanor to myself especially, how far your own judgment is to be relied on.  You regard me as your father’s enemy?”

“Yes,” said Orion firmly.

“And I loved him as a brother!” replied the patriarch in a softer voice.  “How gladly would I have heaped his bier with palm branches of peace, such as the Church alone can grow, wet with my own tears!”

“And yet,” cried Orion, “you denied to him, whom you call your friend, what the Church does not refuse to thieves and murderers, if only they desire forgiveness and have received absolution from a priest; and that. . . .”

“And that your father did!” interrupted the old man.  “Peace be to him!  He is now, no doubt, gazing on the glory of the Lord.  And nevertheless I could forbid the priesthood here showing him honor at the grave.—­Why?  For what urgent reason was such a prohibition spoken by a friend against a friend?”