CHAPTER XVI.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

MISS SEABROOK did not come that afternoon, and her bust had to be set aside to await her pleasure for its completion. Wilfred was not permitted to make his engagement an excuse for any relaxation from toil. Antonio had appeared very pleased to know that Wilfred and Ida were betrothed, but when he had expressed his sanction and uttered tender wishes for their future, he intimated to Wilfred that he had better return to the studio and work whilst the light lasted. Wilfred went reluctantly enough, and in the days that followed, he thought it hard that neither Ida nor her father seemed to wish for more of his company than they had been wont to enjoy.

Wilfred was engaged upon work which taxed his skill to the utmost; nothing less than giving the final touches to the marble Psyche. He strove hard to do justice to his master’s fine conception, and the result was a work of art which attested the genius of Antonio Nicolari. The exquisite ethereal grace of the delicately moulded figure, the pure beauty of the upturned face, with its rapt, adoring gaze, the lovely hands and arms, the perfection which marked every detail, were such as only power of the highest order could produce.

Ida would not listen to Wilfred when he told her that the beauty of the statue did not equal the beauty of the original. Such a speech was excusable from a lover, but she knew well that though the features were modelled from her own, her father had idealised the countenance and glorified it with a beauty not of earth. As she looked at it, Ida could not help weeping to think that this, her father’s greatest work, must be his last.

And there were tears in Antonio’s eyes as he laid his trembling hand on the statue which he could not see, and listened to the eager, faltering tones in which Ida tried to tell him how beautiful it was. Bitter, beyond words to express, was his sense of loss as he stood there in his blindness, powerless to effect another stroke with chisel. Oh for one moment of sight in which to gaze on his loved work!

“No, no, Ida, it is not perfect,” he said sorrowfully. “If I could but look on it, I should see something to alter or to add, some touch that is needed to complete the harmony or more fully develop the meaning of the work. But it is vain to think of it. I am powerless now.”

The anguish in his tones pierced Ida’s heart. It was seldom such words escaped him. The artists and connoisseurs who flocked to the studio when it was known that a fresh masterpiece was on view there, were amazed to see in what calm, philosophic fashion Antonio Nicolari endured his affliction.

“I cannot understand Nicolari,” said a young artist to a friend, as they were leaving the sculptor’s house. “Such an enthusiast for work as he was, sparing himself neither night nor day, I should have thought this misfortune would have driven him half mad, but he seems as resigned to sit in darkness as if he had been blind from his birth. I could not have believed that he would take the thing so tamely.”

“Tamely, do you call it?” returned the other, an older and more experienced man. “To me there is something inexpressibly grand in Nicolari’s resignation. I always thought him allied in spirit to the old Greek heroes, and now I am sure that he is. Only a brave heroic spirit is capable of such resignation, such grand self-compression. I tell you, young man, it takes courage of the highest kind to endure a trial like Nicolari’s without breaking into wild rebellion against fate. It is touching to see how Nicolari withdraws his thoughts and hopes from self, and concentrates them on Ormiston’s future.”

“What do you think of Ormiston’s work?” inquired the younger man. “Will he ever do anything worth doing?”

“I dare not prophesy,” was the reply. “Ormiston is clever, some of his things are very well conceived, but I fear he’s too lazy, too unstable, to do anything great.”

“You think he lacks the capacity for taking infinite pains which is said to constitute genius?”

“Yes, and he is too well off. An easy, luxurious life rarely produces work or the best kind. Art is spiritual, and 'the flesh lusteth against the spirit.’ Plain living and high thinking may not be inseparable, but it is certain that they consort well.”

One day Ida took Mrs. Tregoning into the studio to see the Psyche. She admired it warmly. “I know little of Art, and am not in the least fitted to pronounce upon sculpture,” she said, “but I see, I feel, that this is perfect. Even a child would be conscious of its loveliness. I wish Theodore could see it. Would you be afraid for him to come?”

“Afraid?” repeated Ida, looking puzzled. “Oh, for fear of infection, you mean. I should not be in the least afraid of that, for I know he would take every precaution. Do tell him that we should be happy to see him.”

“Thank you, dear,” said Mrs. Tregoning. “But now will you run and put on your hat? For your father says that he will spare you to me for an hour. I am going to drive to Westminster, and should be glad of your company. If you have not yet seen your father’s sculpture of the Good Shepherd, we might look into St. Cuthbert’s as we pass.”

“Oh, I should be glad to do so,” said Ida, eagerly; “I have been longing to see that sculpture, but have had no opportunity of getting so far.”

In a few minutes, Ida was ready, and they drove from the house.

“I have a word to say to you, Ida, now that we are alone,” said Mrs. Tregoning. “Your father has told me of your engagement. I hope you will be very happy, dear. No friend cares more for your happiness than I do, both for your own and for your mother’s sake.”

A hot flush dyed the girl’s cheeks as she became aware to what Mrs. Tregoning was alluding, but ere that lady’s words came to an end, the colour had faded, and Ida’s face was remarkably pale.

“You are very kind,” she said tremulously.

“I know so little of Mr. Ormiston that I cannot judge whether he is worthy of you,” continued Mrs. Tregoning, “but your father tells me he is very clever, and will be a great sculptor some day, so I suppose, since your father seems pleased, that it must be a matter for congratulation. You care a great deal for him, of course, Ida?”

“Yes,” faltered Ida, “Wilfred is very kind. I have known him all my life, and I have always been fond of him.”

“Then it has been an understood thing for some time, I suppose,” said Mrs. Tregoning. “You might have given me a hint of it, Ida. As your mother’s friend, could you not have trusted me?”

“I would have told you had there been anything to tell,” replied Ida, with deepening confusion, “but I did not know—it came so suddenly.”

“Oh, well, I can forgive you,” said Mrs. Tregoning, smiling, and imagining that Ida’s confusion could have but one explanation. Yet, as she observed the girl, she felt some wonder. What a weary look Ida’s young face wore!—Not at all the look of one into whose life a new joy had come.

They alighted at the old-fashioned Church of St. Cuthbert, standing in a back street, and forsaken now by the fashionable world which in former times had gone in state to worship there. Mrs. Tregoning led Ida to a wall at the left of the chancel, from which stood out the bas-relief of the Good Shepherd.

For some minutes Ida gazed on it without saying a word, though her face showed that she was greatly moved. Mrs. Tregoning left her, and strolled away to another part of the church. When she came back, Ida was kneeling in one of the pews, with her face hidden in her hands, and her friend turned away again. Presently, as she lingered at the end of the church, reading the mural tablets or examining the quaint carvings, she saw Ida coming towards her.

“Well, Ida,” said Mrs. Tregoning as they met, “what do you think of it?”

“It is beautiful,” said the girl, with tears in her eyes. “Come and look at it. Oh, surely he believed in the Good Shepherd when he did that. It is impossible to think otherwise.”

“Yes, he must have felt differently when he worked at that,” said Mrs. Tregoning; “your mother was living then, and her influence over him was strong. Oh, it is indeed beautiful!”

It was; and it was more than beautiful. The old, old subject, the Shepherd bearing in His arms the sheep which had been lost, was imaged not only with the best skill the sculptor’s hand could command, but with all the power of mind and heart that he could bring to bear on it. The mingling of majesty and tenderness, of love and strength, in the face divinely grand yet truly human, could not fail to touch every Christian heart. It seemed to Ida, as she noted the care with which every detail was wrought, the beauty of the hands which clasped the sheep, and the love and pity expressed by form and attitude as well as by the features of the Shepherd, that her father in working at this must have been inspired by the glory of that truth, the first we teach to little children, for it has power to comfort their childish sorrows and allay their childish fears, and that to which the spirit clings at the last as it passes through the valley of the shadow of death—the love of the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep.

“Oh!” said Ida, turning suddenly to Mrs. Tregoning. “This is beyond comparison the finest thing my father has ever done.”

“I think it the best I have seen,” replied Mrs. Tregoning, “but you know I am no judge.”

Ida would fain have lingered longer in the church. She was surprised when Mrs. Tregoning told her how late it was getting.

“Indeed it is time to go,” she exclaimed; “father will wonder what has become of me.”

He had wondered why she was gone so long, but he made no complaint when she came in, though the time had been tedious as he awaited her return.

“Father, I am sorry to be so late,” said his daughter, gently, putting her arm about his neck as she bent to kiss him. “Mrs. Tregoning has taken me to St. Cuthbert’s Church, and I have seen your sculpture of the Good Shepherd. It was that kept me so long.”

“Ah, have you seen that?” he replied, surprise and some keener emotion thrilling his voice as he spoke. “What led you to go there?”

“Mrs. Tregoning wished me to see it; she remembered my mother showing it to her years ago. I wish I had known of it before—it is so lovely. Why did you never tell me it was there?”

Antonio did not reply to that question. “So you call it lovely,” he said.

“Most lovely,” said Ida, warmly. “Father, it is the grandest thing you have ever done. It is far above the Psyche.”

“No, no, it cannot be!” he cried, with pain in his voice. “Why, it is twenty years since I did that. Do you mean to tell me that I have made no progress, that I have attained to nothing higher during those years?”

“I do not mean that,” said Ida; “you may have gained in skill, in 'technique,’ but, father, you have conceived nothing nobler than the Good Shepherd. Surely you must have believed in Jesus when you wrought that sculpture?”

“I thought so, perhaps,” said Antonio, his voice betraying that he was deeply moved, “but it was your mother’s faith, not mine, which inspired that work. I caught somewhat of her enthusiasm, I suppose. She thought it my greatest work, and you think like her because you too believe in Christianity. Am I not right, Ida?”

“Yes, father,” she answered with deep emotion, “I too desire to be a Christian, a follower of Christ. Oh, it was not my mother’s faith only, you must have believed in Christ when you did that work. You who have always taught me that Goodness is the highest Beauty, and that we ought to seek it wherever it may be found, you must have felt the beauty of that sublime life, and the grandeur of that death of willing self-sacrifice.”

He was silent, and after a pause Ida went on:

“Father, the ideal beauty for which we yearn in our noblest moments is no vain dream; it lives, it breathes, it shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ. He is altogether lovely. All we have hoped or dreamed of good, of power, of beauty is found in Him, and more than all. Ah, if you could see His beauty as I see it, and I see it but imperfectly!”

Antonio did not reply immediately. He sat with his grey head resting on his hand and his eyes closed, apparently unmoved by his daughter’s fervent words, but his firm lips had quivered for a moment as she spoke, and now he was saying to himself, “It might be her mother’s voice—just such words as she used to say. Can it be that religious emotion is transmitted from mother to child?”

“Child,” he said at last, and his tone was grave and even solemn; “you speak with the joy of one who has found new truth. It may be that the vision you see is indeed the vision of God. I do not know; my eyes are sealed from that vision. But what to you seems so new and wonderful is no new thing to me. I have always said that the life of the Founder of Christianity was most noble, and His ethics pure. In my early life, I was taught all the Christian doctrines, and yet—I am not a Christian.”

“I know little of the doctrines,” said Ida, simply—“I do not want to talk of them, but—oh, father, I do want you to see the Man—the Man Christ Jesus!”

“But I am blind,” he replied, with the saddest meaning in his play upon the word.

“Jesus gives sight to the blind,” said Ida. Then with a swift impulse, she added—“Father, you say that the life is noble, I wish you would let me read you some of the records of that life. You do not know how beautiful they are.”

“You shall read me whatever you please, dear child,” said her father, tenderly. “But the Gospels are not new to me; you must not expect that they will influence me as they do you.”

Ida was satisfied that he was willing to hear them. She trusted that the simple words of truth would not be without their power over him. That very evening she began to read the Gospel of St. John to her father.

Some days later Theodore Tregoning appeared at Cheyne Walk. His visit was to the studio, but when he had seen and admired the sculptor’s last work, Wilfred brought him upstairs to the drawing-room, where were Antonio and Ida. The old man had a warm welcome for Tregoning, whom he held in high esteem. For a while they discussed the Psyche, and from that the talk turned on Art in general.

“I have been asking Mr. Ormiston what will be the subject of his next work,” said Tregoning, “but he does not seem quite to know.”

“I have almost made up my mind to try the subject you, sir, suggested to me the other day,” said Wilfred, turning to Antonio—“Œdipus and Antigone, if you and Ida would sit for me.”

Antonio shook his head and smiled sadly. “That was but a jest, Wilfred, and a sorry jest. Neither Ida nor I are stoical enough so to make profit of our misfortune. But if you wish to represent the calamity of blindness, why not make a sculpture showing Jesus in the act of anointing the eyes of the blind man with clay? However we may judge of the New Testament narratives, it is certain that they give to Art many a heart-stirring theme.”

Wilfred stared at his master, amazed to hear from him such words as these. Ida’s lips were trembling, but a glad light had come into her eyes. It was Tregoning who replied to the remark.

“That is true indeed,” he said. “It seems to me that Art must ever draw its highest inspiration from religion. I am reminded of what Charles Kingsley says in one of his books—'Art is never Art till it is more than Art; the Finite exists as a body of the Infinite, and the man of genius must first know the Infinite, unless, he wishes to become, not a poet, but a maker of idols.’”

Ida gave him a smile of ready sympathy. He had lent her several of Charles Kingsley’s works, and she knew in what high admiration he held this writer as a “practical man” and a man of science, who had exerted himself strenuously in the cause of sanitary reform, and dared to uphold “muscular Christianity.”

Antonio appeared to be disturbed by the words Tregoning had quoted. “A maker of idols,” he murmured to himself; “a maker of idols!”