The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER LXXXV

  The Hearth

  WRITING an earnest letter seldom leaves the mind in _statu quo_.Margaret, in hers, vented her energy and her faith in her dying father'svision, or illusion; and, when this was done, and Luke gone, shewondered at her credulity, and her conscience pricked her about Luke;and Catherine came and scolded her, and she paid the price of falsehopes, and elevation of spirits, by falling into deeper despondency. Shewas found in this state by a stanch friend she had lately made; JoanKetel. This good woman came in radiant with an idea.

  "Margaret, I know the cure for thine ill: the hermit of Gouda, awondrous holy man. Why, he can tell what is coming, when he is in themood."

  "Ay, I have heard of him," said Margaret hopelessly. Joan with somedifficulty persuaded her to walk out as far as Gouda, and consult thehermit. They took some butter, and eggs, in a basket, and went to hiscave.

  What had made the pair such fast friends? Jorian some six weeks ago fellill of a bowel disease; it began with raging pain; and when this wentoff, leaving him weak, an awkward symptom succeeded; nothing, eitherliquid or solid, would stay in his stomach a minute. The doctor said:"He must die if this goes on many hours; therefore, boil thou now achicken with a golden angel in the water, and let him sup that!" Alas!Gilt chicken broth shared the fate of the humbler viands, itspredecessors. Then the cure steeped the thumb of St. Sergius in beefbroth. Same result. Then Joan ran weeping to Margaret to borrow somelinen to make his shroud. "Let me see him," said Margaret. She came inand felt his pulse. "Ah!" said she, "I doubt they have not gone to theroot. Open the window! Art stifling him; now change all his linen."

  "Alack, woman, what for? Why foul more linen for a dying man?" objectedthe mediaeval wife.

  "Do as thou art bid," said Margaret dully, and left the room.

  Joan somehow found herself doing as she was bid. Margaret returned withher apron full of a flowering herb. She made a decoction, and took it tothe bedside; and before giving it to the patient, took a spoonfulherself, and smacked her lips hypocritically. "That is fair," said hewith a feeble attempt at humour. "Why, 'tis sweet, and now 'tis bitter."She engaged him in conversation as soon as he had taken it. Thisbitter-sweet stayed by him. Seeing which she built on it as cards arebuilt: mixed a very little schiedam in the third spoonful, and a littlebeaten yolk of egg in the seventh. And so with the patience of her sexshe coaxed his body out of Death's grasp; and finally, Nature, beingpatted on the back, instead of kicked under the bed, set Jorian Ketel onhis legs again. But the doctress made them both swear never to tell asoul her guilty deed. "They would put me in prison, away from my child."

  The simple that saved Jorian was called sweet feverfew. She gathered itin his own garden. Her eagle eye had seen it growing out of the window.

  Margaret and Joan, then, reached the hermit's cave, and placed theirpresent on the little platform. Margaret then applied her mouth to theaperture, made for that purpose, and said: "Holy hermit, we bring theebutter and eggs of the best: and I a poor deserted girl, wife, yet nowife, and mother of the sweetest babe, come to pray thee tell me whetherhe is quick or dead, true to his vows or false."

  A faint voice issued from the cave: "Trouble me not with the things ofearth, but send me a holy friar. I am dying."

  "Alas!" cried Margaret. "Is it e'en so, poor soul? Then let us in tohelp thee."

  "Saints forbid! Thine is a woman's voice. Send me a holy friar!"

  They went back as they came. Joan could not help saying, "Are women impso' darkness then, that they must not come anigh a dying bed?"

  But Margaret was too deeply dejected to say anything. Joan applied roughconsolation. But she was not listened to till she said: "And Jorian willspeak out ere long; he is just on the boil. He is very grateful to thee,believe it."

  "Seeing is believing," replied Margaret with quiet bitterness.

  "Not but what he thinks you might have saved him with something more outo' the common than yon. 'A man of my inches to be cured wi' feverfew,'says he. 'Why, if there is a sorry herb,' says he. 'Why, I was thinkingo' pulling all mine up,' says he. I up and told him remedies were nonethe better for being far-fetched; you and feverfew cured him, when thegrand medicines came up faster than they went down. So says I, 'You maygo down on your four bones to feverfew.' But indeed, he is grateful atbottom; you are all his thought and all his chat. But he sees Gerard'sfolk coming around ye, and good friends, and he said only last night--"

  "Well?"

  "He made me vow not to tell ye."

  "Prithee, tell me."

  "Well, he said: 'An' if I tell what little I know, it won't bring himback, and it will set them all by the ears. I wish I had morehead-piece,' said he, 'I am sore perplexed. But least said is soonestmended.' Yon is his favourite word; he comes back to't from a mile off."

  Margaret shook her head. "Ay, we are wading in deep waters, my poor babeand me."

  It was Saturday night: and no Luke.

  "Poor Luke!" said Margaret. "It was very good of him to go on such anerrand."

  "He is one out of a hundred," replied Catherine warmly.

  "Mother, do you think he would be kind to little Gerard?"

  "I am sure he would. So do you be kinder to _him_ when he comes back!Will ye now?"

  "Ay."

  The Cloister

  Brother Clement, directed by the nuns, avoided a bend in the river, and,striding lustily forward, reached a station some miles nearer the coastthan that where Luke lay in wait for Gerard Eliassoen. And the nextmorning he started early, and was in Rotterdam at noon. He made at oncefor the port, not to keep Jerome waiting.

  He observed several monks of his order on the quay; he went to them: butJerome was not amongst them. He asked one of them whether Jerome hadarrived? "Surely, brother," was the reply.

  "Prithee, where is he?"

  "Where? Why, there!" said the monk, pointing to a ship in full sail. AndClement now noticed that all the monks were looking seaward.

  "What, gone without me! Oh Jerome! Jerome!" cried he in a voice ofanguish. Several of the friars turned round and stared.

  "You must be brother Clement," said one of them at length; and on thisthey kissed him and greeted him with brotherly warmth, and gave him aletter Jerome had charged them with for him. It was a hasty scrawl. Thewriter told him coldly a ship was about to sail for England, and he wasloth to lose time. He (Clement) might follow if he pleased, but he woulddo much better to stay behind, and preach to his own country folk. "Givethe glory to God, brother; you have a wonderful power over Dutch hearts:but you are no match for those haughty islanders: you are too tender.

  "Know thou that on the way I met one, who asked me for thee under thename thou didst bear in the world. Be on thy guard! Let not the worldcatch thee again by any silken net. And remember, Solitude, Fasting, andPrayer are the sword, spear, and shield of the soul. Farewell."

  Clement was deeply shocked and mortified at this contemptuous desertion,and this cold-blooded missive.

  He promised the good monks to sleep at the convent, and to preachwherever the prior should appoint (for Jerome had raised him to theskies as a preacher), and then withdrew abruptly, for he was cut to thequick, and wanted to be alone. He asked himself, was there someincurable fault in him, repulsive to so true a son of Dominic? Or wasJerome himself devoid of that Christian Love which St. Paul had placedabove Faith itself? Shipwrecked with him, and saved on the same fragmentof the wreck; his pupil, his penitent, his son in the Church, and nowfor four hundred miles his fellow-traveller in Christ; and to be shakenoff like dirt, the first opportunity, with harsh and cold disdain. "Why,worldly hearts are no colder nor less trusty than this," said he. "Theonly one that ever really loved me lies in a grave hard by. Fly me, flyto England, man born without a heart; I will go and pray over a grave atSevenbergen."

  Three hours later he passed Peter's cottage. A troop of noisy childrenwere playing about the door, and the house had been repaired, and a newouthouse added. He turned his head hastily away, not to distur
b apicture his memory treasured; and went to the churchyard.

  He sought among the tombstones for Margaret's. He could not find it. Hecould not believe they had begrudged her a tombstone, so searched thechurchyard all over again.

  "Oh, poverty! stern poverty! Poor soul, thou wert like me; no one wasleft that loved thee, when Gerard was gone."

  He went into the church, and after kissing the steps, prayed long andearnestly for the soul of her whose resting-place he could not find.

  Coming out of the church he saw a very old man looking over the littlechurchyard gate. He went towards him, and asked him did he live in theplace.

  "Four score and twelve years, man and boy. And I come here every day oflate, holy father, to take a peep. This is where I look to bide erelong."

  "My son, can you tell me where Margaret lies?"

  "Margaret? There's a many Margarets here."

  "Margaret Brandt. She was daughter to a learned physician."

  "As if I didn't know that," said the old man, pettishly. "But shedoesn't lie here. Bless you, they left this a longful while ago. Gone ina moment, and the house empty. What, is she dead? Margaret a Peterdead? Now only think on't. Like enow; like enow. They great towns doterribly disagree wi' country folk."

  "What great towns, my son?"

  "Well 'twas Rotterdam they went to from here, so I heard tell; or was itAmsterdam? Nay, I trow 'twas Rotterdam. And gone there to die!"

  Clement sighed.

  "'Twas not in her face now, that I saw. And I can mostly tell. Alack,there was a blooming young flower to be cut off so soon, and an old weedlike me left standing still. Well, well, she was a May rose yon; dearheart, what a winsome smile she had, and--"

  "God bless thee, my son," said Clement; "farewell!" and he hurried away.

  He reached the convent at sunset, and watched and prayed in the chapelfor Jerome, and Margaret, till it was long past midnight, and his soulhad recovered its cold calm.