CHAPTER XCVII
THE startled hermit glared from his nursling to Margaret, and from herto him, in amazement, equalled only by his agitation at her sounexpected return. The child lay asleep on his left arm, and she was athis right knee; no longer the pale, scared, panting girl he hadoverpowered so easily an hour or two ago, but an imperial beauty, withblushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and lips sweetly parted in triumph,and her whole face radiant with a look he could not quite read; for hehad never yet seen it on her; maternal pride.
He stared and stared from the child to her, in throbbing amazement.
* * * * *
"Us?" he gasped at last. And still his wonder-stricken eyes turned toand fro.
Margaret was surprised in her turn. It was an age of impressions notfacts. "What!" she cried, "doth not a father know his own child? and aman of God, too? Fie, Gerard, to pretend! nay, thou art too wise, toogood, not to have--why I watched thee: and e'en now look at you twain!'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest to thine heart."
Clement trembled. "What words are these," he stammered, "this angelmine?"
"Whose else? since he is mine."
Clement turned on the sleeping child, with a look beyond the power ofthe pen to describe, and trembled all over, as his eyes seemed to absorbthe little love.
Margaret's eyes followed his. "He is not a bit like me," said she,proudly; "but oh at whiles he is thy very image in little; and see thisgolden hair. Thine was the very colour at his age; ask mother else. Andsee this mole on his little finger; now look at thine own; there! 'Twasthy mother let me weet thou wast marked so before him; and oh, Gerard,'twas this our child found thee for me; for by that little mark on thyfinger I knew thee for his father, when I watched above thy window andsaw thee feed the birds;" here she seized the child's hand and kissed iteagerly, and got half of it into her mouth, heaven knows how. "Ah! blessthee, thou didst find thy poor daddy for her, and now thou hast made usfriends again after our little quarrel; the first, the last. Wast verycruel to me but now, my poor Gerard, and I forgive thee; for loving ofthy child."
"Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!" sobbed Clement, choking.
And lowered by fasts, and unnerved by solitude, the once strong man washysterical, and nearly fainting.
Margaret was alarmed, but, having experience, her pity was greater thanher fear. "Nay, take not on so," she murmured soothingly, and put agentle hand upon his brow. "Be brave! So, so. Dear heart, thou art notthe first man, that hath gone abroad, and come back richer by a lovelylittle self, than he went forth. Being a man of God take courage, andsay He sends thee this to comfort thee for what thou hast lost in me;and that is not so very much, my lamb; for sure the better part of loveshall ne'er cool here to thee, though it may in thine, and ought, beinga priest, and parson of Gouda."
"I? priest of Gouda? Never!" murmured Clement, in a faint voice, "I am afriar of St. Dominic: yet speak on sweet music, tell me all that hashappened thee, before we are parted again."
Now some would on this have exclaimed against parting at all, and raisedthe true question in dispute. But such women as Margaret do not repeattheir mistakes. It is very hard to defeat them _twice_, where theirhearts are set on a thing.
She assented, and turned her back on Gouda manse as a thing not to berecurred to; and she told him her tale, dwelling above all on thekindness to her of his parents; and, while she related her troubles, hishand stole to hers, and often she felt him wince and tremble with ire,and often press her hand, sympathizing with her in every vein.
"Oh, piteous tale of a true heart battling alone against such bitterodds," said he.
"It all seems small, when I see thee here again, and nursing my boy. Wehave had a warning, Gerard. True friends like you and me are rare, andthey are mad to part, ere death divideth them."
"And that is true," said Clement, off his guard.
And then she would have him tell her what he had suffered for her, andhe begged her to excuse him, and she consented; but by questions quietlyrevoked her consent and elicited it all; and many a sigh she heaved forhim, and more than once she hid her face in her hands with terror at hisperils, though past.
And to console him for all he had gone through, she kneeled down and puther arms under the little boy, and lifted him gently up. "Kiss himsoftly," she whispered. "Again, again! kiss thy fill if thou canst; heis sound. 'Tis all I can do to comfort thee till thou art out of thisfoul den and in thy sweet manse yonder."
Clement shook his head.
"Well," said she, "let that pass. Know that I have been sore affrontedfor want of my lines."
"Who hath dared affront thee?"
"No matter, those that will do it again if thou hast lost them, whichthe saints forbid."
"I lose them? nay, there they lie, close to thy hand."
"Where, where, oh where?"
Clement hung his head. "Look in the Vulgate. Heaven forgive me: Ithought thou wert dead, and a saint in heaven."
She looked, and on the blank leaves of the poor soul's Vulgate she foundher marriage lines.
"Thank God!" she cried, "thank God! Oh, bless thee, Gerard, bless thee!Why what is here, Gerard?"
On the other leaves were pinned every scrap of paper she had ever senthim, and their two names she had once written together in sport, and thelock of her hair she had given him, and half a silver coin she hadbroken with him, and a straw she had sucked her soup with the first dayhe ever saw her.
When Margaret saw these proofs of love and signs of a gentle heartbereaved, even her exultation at getting back her marriage lines wasoverpowered by gushing tenderness. She almost staggered, and her handwent to her bosom, and she leaned her brow against the stone cell andwept so silently that he did not see she was weeping; indeed she wouldnot let him, for she felt that to befriend him now she must be thestronger; and emotion weakens.
"Gerard," said she, "I know you are wise and good. You must have areason for what you are doing, let it seem ever so unreasonable. Talk welike old friends. Why are you buried alive?"
"Margaret, to escape temptation. My impious ire against those two hadits root in the heart; that heart then I must deaden, and, Dei gratia, Ishall. Shall I, a servant of Christ and of the Church, court temptation?Shall I pray daily to be led out on't, and walk into it with open eyes?"
"That is good sense any way," said Margaret, with a consummate affectionof candour.
"'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh.
"We shall see. Tell me, have you escaped temptation here? Why I ask is,when _I_ am alone, my thoughts are far more wild and foolish than incompany. Nay, speak sooth; come!"
"I must needs own I have been worse tempted here with evil imaginationsthan in the world."
"There now."
"Ay, but so were Anthony, and Jerome, Macarius, and Hilarion, Benedict,Bernard, and all the saints. 'Twill wear off."
"How do you know?"
"I feel sure it will."
"Guessing against knowledge. Here 'tis men folk are sillier than us thatbe but women. Wise in their own conceits, they will not let themselvessee; their stomachs are too high to be taught by their eyes. A woman, ifshe went into a hole in a bank to escape temptation, and there found it,would just lift her farthingale and out on't, and not e'en know how wiseshe was, till she watched a man in like plight."
"Nay, I grant humility and a teachable spirit are the roads to wisdom;but, when all is said, here I wrestle but with imagination. At Gouda sheI love as no priest or monk must love any but the angels, she will tempta weak soul, unwilling, yet not loth, to be tempted."
"Aye that is another matter; _I_ should tempt thee then? to what, i'God's name?"
"Who knows? The flesh is weak."
"Speak for yourself, my lad. Why you are thinking of some otherMargaret, not Margaret a Peter. Was ever my mind turned to folly andfrailty? Stay, is it because you were my husband once, as these linesavouch? Think you the road to folly is beaten for you more than foranother? Oh! how shallow are
the wise, and how little able are you toread me, who can read you so well from top to toe. Come, learn thy A BC. Were a stranger to proffer me unchaste love, I should shrink a bit,no doubt, and feel sore, but I should defend myself without making acoil; for men, I know, are so, the best of them sometimes. But if you,that have been my husband, and are my child's father, were to offer tohumble me so in mine own eyes, and thine, and his, either I should spitin thy face, Gerard, or, as I am not a downright vulgar woman, I shouldsnatch the first weapon at hand and strike thee dead."
And Margaret's eyes flashed fire, and her nostrils expanded, that it wasglorious to see; and no one that did see her could doubt her sincerity.
"I had not the sense to see that," said Gerard, quietly. And hepondered.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and soon recovered her composure.
"Let not you and I dispute," said she, gently; "speak we of otherthings. Ask me of thy folk."
"My father?"
"Well, and warms to thee and me. Poor soul, a drew glaive on those twainthat day, but Jorian Ketel and I we mastered him, and he drove themforth his house for ever."
"That may not be; he must take them back."
"That he will never do for us. You know the man; he is dour as iron: yetwould he do it for one word from one that will not speak it."
"Who?"
"The vicar of Gouda. The old man will be at the manse to-morrow, Ihear."
"How you come back to that."
"Forgive me: I am but a woman. It is us for nagging; shouldst keep mefrom it wi' questioning of me."
"My sister Kate?"
"Alas!"
"What hath ill befallen e'en that sweet lily? Out and alas!"
"Be calm, sweetheart, no harm hath her befallen. Oh, nay, nay, far fro'that." Then Margaret forced herself to be composed, and in a low sweet,gentle voice she murmured to him thus: "My poor Gerard, Kate hath lefther trouble behind her. For the manner on't, 'twas like the rest. Ah;such as she saw never thirty, nor ever shall while earth shall last. Shesmiled in pain too. A well, then, thus 'twas; she was took wi' a languorand a loss of all her pains."
"A loss of her pains? I understand you not."
"Ay, you are not experienced; indeed, e'en thy mother almost blindedherself, and said, ''tis maybe a change for the better.' But Joan Ketel,which is an understanding woman, she looked at her and said, 'Down sun,down wind!' And the gossips sided and said, 'Be brave, you that are hermother, for she is half way to the saints.' And thy mother wept sore,but Kate would not let her; and one very ancient woman, she said to thymother, 'She will die as easy as she lived hard.' And she lay painlessbest part of three days, a sipping of heaven aforehand. And, my dear,when she was just parting, she asked for 'Gerard's little boy,' and Ibrought him and set him on the bed, and the little thing behaved aspeaceably as he does now. But by this time she was past speaking: butshe pointed to a drawer, and her mother knew what to look for: it wastwo gold angels thou hadst given her years ago. Poor soul! she had keptthem till thou shouldst come home. And she nodded towards the littleboy, and looked anxious: but we understood her, and put the pieces inhis two hands, and, when his little fingers closed on them, she smiledcontent. And so she gave her little earthly treasures to her favourite'schild--for you _were_ her favourite--and her immortal jewel to God, andpassed so sweetly we none of us knew justly when she left us.Well-a-day, well-a-day!"
Gerard wept.
"She hath not left her like on earth," he sobbed. "Oh how the affectionsof earth curl softly round my heart! I cannot help it: God made themafter all. Speak on, sweet Margaret; at thy voice the past rolls itstides back upon me; the loves and the hopes of youth come fair andgliding into my dark cell, and darker bosom, on waves of memory andmusic."
* * * * *
"Gerard, I am loth to grieve you, but Kate cried a little when she firsttook ill, at you not being there to close her eyes."
Gerard sighed.
"You were within a league, but hid your face from her."
He groaned.
"There, forgive me for nagging; I am but a woman: you would not havebeen so cruel to your own flesh and blood knowingly, would you?"
"Oh, no."
"Well then, know that thy brother Sybrandt lies in my charge with abroken back, fruit of thy curse."
"Mea culpa! mea culpa!"
"He is very penitent; be yourself and forgive him this night!"
"I have forgiven him long ago."
"Think you he can believe that from any mouth but yours? Come! he is butabout two butts' length hence."
"So near? Why where?"
"At Gouda manse. I took him there yestreen. For I know you, the cursewas scarce cold on your lips when you repented it" (Gerard noddedassent), "and I said to myself, Gerard will thank me for taking Sybrandtto die under his roof; he will not beat his breast and cry mea culpa,yet grudge three footsteps to quiet a withered brother on his last bed.He may have a bee in his bonnet, but he is not a hypocrite, a thing allpious words and uncharitable deeds."
Gerard literally staggered where he sat at this tremendous thrust.
"Forgive me for nagging," said she. "Thy mother too is waiting for thee.Is it well done to keep her on thorns so long? She will not sleep thisnight. Bethink thee, Gerard, she is all to thee that I am to this sweetchild. Ah, I think so much more of mothers since I had my little Gerard.She suffered for thee, and nursed thee, and tended thee from boy to man.Priest, monk, hermit, call thyself what thou wilt, to her thou art butone thing; her child."
"Where is she?" murmured Gerard, in a quavering voice.
"At Gouda manse, wearing the night in prayer and care."
* * * * *
Then Margaret saw the time was come for that appeal to his reason shehad purposely reserved till persuasion should have paved the way forconviction. So the smith first softens the iron by fire; and then bringsdown the sledge hammer.
She showed him, but in her own good straightforward Dutch, that hispresent life was only a higher kind of selfishness; spiritual egotism.Whereas a priest had no more right to care only for his own soul thanonly for his own body. That was not _his_ path to heaven. "But," saidshe, "whoever yet lost his soul by saving the souls of others? theAlmighty loves him who thinks of others, and when He shall see theecaring for the souls of the folk the duke hath put into thine hand, Hewill care ten times more for thy soul than He does now."
Gerard was struck by this remark. "Art shrewd in dispute," said he.
"Far from it," was the reply, "only my eyes are not bandaged withconceit.[L] So long as Satan walks the whole earth, tempting men, and solong as the sons of Belial do never lock themselves in caves, but runlike ants, to and fro, corrupting others, the good man that skulksapart, plays the devil's game, or at least gives him the odds: thou asoldier of Christ? ask thy comrade Denys, who is but a soldier of theduke, ask him if ever he skulked in a hole and shunned the battlebecause forsooth in battle is danger as well as glory and duty. For thysole excuse is fear; thou makest no secret on't. Go to; no duke nor kinghath such cowardly soldiers as Christ hath. What was that you said inthe church at Rotterdam about the man in the parable, that buried histalent in the earth and so offended the giver? Thy wonderful gift forpreaching, is it not a talent, and a gift from thy creator?"
"Certes; such as it is."
"And hast thou laid it out? or buried it? To whom hast thou preachedthese seven months? to bats and owls? Hast buried it in one hole withthyself and thy once good wits.
"The Dominicans are the friars Preachers. 'Tis for preaching they werefounded; so thou art false to Dominic as well as to his master.
"Do you remember, Gerard, when we were young together, which now are oldbefore our time, as we walked handed in the fields, did you but see asheep cast, ay three fields off, you would leave your sweetheart (by hergood will), and run and lift the sheep for charity? Well then, at Goudais not one sheep in evil plight, but a whole flock; some cast, somestrayed, some sick, some tai
nted, some a being devoured, and all for thewant of a shepherd. Where is their shepherd? lurking in a den like awolf; a den in his own parish, out fie! out fie!
"I scented thee out, in part, by thy kindness to the little birds. Takenote, you Gerard Eliassoen must love something, 'tis in your blood; youwere born to't. Shunning man you do but seek earthly affection a peglower than man."
Gerard interrupted her. "The birds are God's creatures, his innocentcreatures, and I do well to love them, being God's creatures."
* * * * *
"What, are they creatures of the same God that we are, that he is wholies upon thy knee?"
"You know they are."
"Then what pretence for shunning us and being kind to them? Sith man isone of the animals, why pick him out to shun? Is't because he is ofanimals the paragon? What, you court the young of birds, and abandonyour own young? Birds need but bodily food, and, having wings, deservescant pity if they cannot fly and find it. But that sweet dove upon thyknee, he needeth not carnal only, but spiritual food. He is thine aswell as mine: and I have done my share. He will soon be too much for me,and I look to Gouda's parson to teach him true piety and useful lore. Ishe not of more value than many sparrows?"
Gerard started and stammered an affirmation. For she waited for hisreply.
"You wonder," continued she, "to hear me quote holy writ so glib. I havepored over it this four years, and why? Not because God wrote it, butbecause I saw it often in thy hands ere thou didst leave me. Heavenforgive me; I am but a woman. What thinkest thou of this sentence? 'Letyour work so shine before men that they may see your good works andglorify your Father which is in heaven!' What is a saint in a sinkbetter than 'a light under a bushel'?
"Therefore, since the sheep committed to thy charge bleat for thee andcry: 'Oh desert us no longer, but come to Gouda manse;' since I, whoknow thee ten times better than thou knowest thyself, do pledge my soulit is for thy soul's weal to go to Gouda manse,--since duty to thychild, too long abandoned, call thee to Gouda Manse,--since thysovereign, whom holy writ again bids thee honour, sends thee to Goudamanse,--since the Pope, whom the Church teaches thee to revere, hathabsolved thee of thy monkish vows, and orders thee to Gouda manse--"
"Ah?"
"Since thy grey-haired mother watches for thee in dole and care, andturneth oft the hour-glass and sigheth sore that thou comest so slow toher at Gouda manse,--since thy brother, withered by thy curse, awaitsthy forgiveness and thy prayers for his soul, now lingering in his body,at Gouda manse,--take thou up in thine arms the sweet bird wi' crest ofgold that nestles to thy bosom, and give me thy hand; thy sweethearterst and wife, and now thy friend, the truest friend to thee this nightthat ere man had; and come with me to Gouda manse!"
"IT IS THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL!" cried Clement loudly.
"Then hearken it, and come forth to Gouda manse!"
The battle was won.
* * * * *
Margaret lingered behind, cast her eye rapidly round the furniture, andselected the Vulgate and the psaltery. The rest she sighed at, and letit lie. The breastplate and the cilice of bristles she took and dashedwith feeble ferocity on the floor. Then, seeing Gerard watch her withsurprise from the outside, she coloured and said: "I am but a woman:'little' will still be 'spiteful.'"
"Why encumber thyself with those? They are safe."
"Oh, she had a reason."
And with this they took the road to Gouda parsonage. The moon and starswere so bright, it seemed almost as light as day.
Suddenly Gerard stopped. "My poor little birds!"
"What of them?"
"They will miss their food. I feed them every day."
"The child hath a piece of bread in his cowl. Take that and feed themnow, against the morn."
"I will. Nay, I will not. He is as innocent, and nearer to me and tothee."
Margaret drew a long breath. "'Tis well. Hadst taken it, I might havehated thee; I am but a woman."
When they had gone about a quarter of a mile, Gerard sighed. "Margaret,"said he, "I must e'en rest; he is too heavy for me."
"Then give him me, and take thou these. Alas! alas! I mind when thouwouldst have run with the child on one shoulder, and the mother ont'other."
And Margaret carried the boy.
"I trow," said Gerard, looking down, "overmuch fasting is not good for aman."
"A many die of it each year, winter time," replied Margaret.
Gerard pondered these simple words, and eyed her askant, carrying thechild with perfect ease. When they had gone nearly a mile, he said, withconsiderable surprise: "You thought it was but two butts' length."
"Not I."
"Why, you said so."
"That is another matter." She then turned on him the face of a Madonna."I lied," said she, sweetly. "And to save your soul and body, I'd maybetell a worse lie than that, at need. I am but a woman. Ah, well, it isbut two butts' length from here at any rate."
"Without a lie?"
"Humph? Three, without a lie."
And sure enough, in a few minutes they came up to the manse.
A candle was burning in the vicar's parlour. "She is waking still,"whispered Margaret.
"Beautiful! beautiful!" said Clement, and stopped to look at it.
"What, in Heaven's name?"
"That little candle, seen through the window at night. Look an it be notlike some fair star of size prodigious: it delighteth the eyes andwarmeth the heart of those outside."
"Come, and I'll show thee something better," said Margaret, and led himon tiptoe to the window.
They looked in, and there was Catherine kneeling on the hassock, withher "hours" before her.
"Folk can pray out of a cave," whispered Margaret. "Ay and hit heavenwith their prayers. For 'tis for a sight of thee she prayeth; and thouart here. Now, Gerard, be prepared; she is not the woman you knew her;her children's troubles have greatly broken the brisk, light-heartedsoul. And I see she has been weeping e'en now; she will have given theeup, being so late."
"Let me get to her," said Clement hastily, trembling all over.
"That door! I will bide here."
When Gerard was gone to the door, Margaret, fearing the sudden surprise,gave one sharp tap at the window, and cried, "Mother!" in a loud,expressive voice that Catherine read at once. She clasped her handstogether and had half risen from her kneeling posture, when the doorburst open and Clement flung himself wildly on his knees at her knees,with his arms out to embrace her. She uttered a cry such as only amother could. "Ah! my darling, my darling!" And clung sobbing round hisneck. And true it was, she saw neither a hermit, a priest, nor a monk,but just her child, lost, and despaired of, and in her arms. And after alittle while Margaret came in, with wet eyes and cheeks, and a holy calmof affection settled by degrees on these sore troubled ones. And theysat all three together, hand in hand, murmuring sweet and lovingconverse; and he who sat in the middle, drank right and left their trueaffection and their humble but genuine wisdom, and was forced to eat agood nourishing meal, and at daybreak was packed off to a snowy bed, andby-and-by awoke, as from a hideous dream, friar and hermit no more,Clement no more, but Gerard Eliassoen, parson of Gouda.
FOOTNOTE:
[L] I think she means prejudice.
The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages Page 99
