The Project Gutenberg EBook of Padre Ignacio, by Owen Wister

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Title: Padre Ignacio
Or The Song of Temptation

Author: Owen Wister

Posting Date: August 21, 2008 [EBook #1388]
Release Date: July, 1998

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PADRE IGNACIO ***

Produced by Bill Brewer

PADRE IGNACIO

Or The Song of Temptation

By Owen Wister

I

At Santa Ysabel del Mar the season was at one of those moments when the
air rests quiet over land and sea. The old breezes were gone; the new
ones were not yet risen. The flowers in the mission garden opened wide;
no wind came by day or night to shake the loose petals from their stems.
Along the basking, silent, many-colored shore gathered and lingered the
crisp odors of the mountains. The dust hung golden and motionless long
after the rider was behind the hill, and the Pacific lay like a floor
of sapphire, whereon to walk beyond the setting sun into the East. One
white sail shone there. Instead of an hour, it had been from dawn till
afternoon in sight between the short headlands; and the Padre had hoped
that it might be the ship his homesick heart awaited. But it had slowly
passed. From an arch in his garden cloisters he was now watching the
last of it. Presently it was gone, and the great ocean lay empty. The
Padre put his glasses in his lap. For a short while he read in his
breviary, but soon forgot it again. He looked at the flowers and sunny
ridges, then at the huge blue triangle of sea which the opening of
the hills let into sight. "Paradise," he murmured, "need not hold more
beauty and peace. But I think I would exchange all my remaining years of
this for one sight again of Paris or Seville. May God forgive me such a
thought!"

Across the unstirred fragrance of oleanders the bell for vespers began
to ring. Its tones passed over the Padre as he watched the sea in his
garden. They reached his parishioners in their adobe dwellings near by.
The gentle circles of sound floated outward upon the smooth, immense
silence--over the vines and pear-trees; down the avenues of the olives;
into the planted fields, whence women and children be