In the valley of Grindelwald the traveller has on one side the perpendicular Alps, all rock, ice, and everlasting snow, towering above the clouds, and piercing to the sky; on his other hand little every-day slopes, but green as emeralds, and studded with cows, and pretty cots, and life; whereas those lofty neighbours stand leafless, lifeless, inhuman, sublime. Elsewhere sweet commonplaces of nature are apt to pass unnoticed; but, fronting the grim Alps, they soothe, and even gently strike, the mind by contrast with their tremendous opposites. Such, in their way, are the two halves of this story,rightfully looked at; on the Italian side rugged adventure, strong passion, blasphemy, vice, penitence, pure ice, holy snow, soaring direct at heaven. On the Dutch side, all on a humble scale and womanish, but ever green. And as a pathway parts the ice towers of Grindelwald, aspiring to the sky, from its little sunny braes, so here is but a page between "the Cloister and the Hearth."
The Cloister
THE new pope favoured the Dominican order. The convent received a message from the Vatican, requiring a capable friar to teach at the university of Basle. Now Clement was the very monk for this: well versed in languages, and in his worldly days had attended the lectures of Guarini the younger. His visit to England was therefore postponed, though not resigned; and meantime he was sent to Basle: but not being wanted there for three months, he was to preach on the road.
He passed out of the northern gate with his eyes lowered, and the whole man wrapped in pious contemplation.
Oh, if we could paint a mind and its story, what a walking fresco was this bare-footed friar!
Hopeful, happy love, bereavement, despair, impiety, vice, suicide, remorse, religious despondency, penitence, death to the world, resignation.
And all in twelve short months.
And now the traveller was on foot again. But all was changed: no perilous adventures now. The very thieves and robbers bowed to the ground before him, and, instead of robbing him, forced stolen money on him, and begged his prayers.
This journey therefore furnished few picturesque incidents. I have, however, some readers to think of, who care little for melodrama, and expect a quiet peep at what passes inside a man. To such students things undramatic are often vocal, denoting the progress of a mind.
The first Sunday of Clement's journey was marked by this. He prayed for the soul of Margaret. He had never done so before.Not that her eternal welfare was not dearer to him than anything on earth. It was his humility. The terrible impieties that burst from him on the news of her death horrified my well-disposed readers; but not as on reflection they horrified him who had uttered them. For a long time during his novitiate he was oppressed with religious despair. He thought he must have committed that sin against the Holy Spirit which dooms the soul for ever. By degrees that dark cloud cleared away, Anselmo juvante: but deep self-abasement remained. He felt his own salvation insecure, and moreover thought it would be mocking Heaven, should he, the deeply stained, pray for a soul so innocent, comparatively, as Margaret's. So he used to coax good Anselm and another kindly monk to pray for her. They did not refuse, nor do it by halves. In general the good old monks (and there were good, bad, and indifferent, in every convent) had a pure and tender affection for their younger brethren, which, in truth, was not of this world.
Clement then, having preached on Sunday morning in a small Italian town, and being mightily carried onward, was greatly encouraged; and that day a balmy sense of God's forgiveness and love descended on him. And he prayed for the welfare of Margaret's soul. And from that hour this became his daily habit, and the one purified tie, that by memory connected his heart with earth.
For his family were to him as if they had never been.
The Church would not share with earth. Nor could even the Church cure the great love without annihilating the smaller ones.
During most of this journey Clement rarely felt any spring of life within him, but when he was in the pulpit. The other exceptions were, when he happened to relieve some fellow-creature.
A young man was tarantula bitten, or perhaps, like many more, fancied it. Fancy or reality, he had been for two days without sleep, and in most extraordinary convulsions, leaping, twisting, and beating the walls. The village musicians had only excited him worse with their music. Exhaustion and death followed the disease, when it gained such a head. Clement passed by and learned what was the matter. He sent for a psaltery, and tried the patient with soothing melodies; but, if the other tunes maddened him, Clement's seem to crush him. He groaned and moaned under them, and grovelled on the floor. At last the friar observed that at intervalshis lips kept going. He applied his ear, and found the patient was whispering a tune; and a very singular one, that had no existence. He learned this tune, and played it. The patient's face brightened amazingly. He marched about the room on the light fantastic toe enjoying it; and when Clement's fingers ached nearly off with playing it, he had the satisfaction of seeing the young man sink complacently to sleep to this lullaby, the strange creation of his own mind; for it seems he was no musician, and never composed a tune before or after. This sleep saved his life. And Clement, after teaching the tune to another, in case it should be wanted again, went forward with his heart a little warmer. On another occasion he found a mob haling a decently-dressed man along, who struggled and vociferated, but in a strange language. This person had walked into their town erect and sprightly, waving a mulberry branch over his head. Thereupon the natives first gazed stupidly, not believing their eyes, then pounced on him and dragged him before the podesta.
Clement went with them: but on the way drew quietly near the prisoner and spoke to him in Italian; no answer. In French; German; Dutch; no assets. Then the man tried Clement in tolerable Latin, but with a sharpish accent. He said he was an Englishman, and, oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bough off the nearest tree, to save his head. "In my country anybody is welcome to what grows on the highway. Confound the fools; I am ready to pay for it. But here is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of leaves."
The pig-headed podesta would have sent the dogged islander to prison: but Clement mediated, and with some difficulty made the prisoner comprehend that silkworms, and by consequence mulberry leaves, were sacred, being under the wing of the Sovereign, and his source of income; and urged on the podesta that ignorance of his mulberry laws was natural in a distant country, where the very tree perhaps was unknown. The opinionative islander turned the still vibrating scale by pulling out a long purse and repeating his original theory, that the whole question was mercantile. "Quid damni?" said he. "Dic; et cito solvam." The podesta snuffed the gold: fined him a ducat for the duke; about the value of the whole tree: and pouched the coin.
The Englishman shook off his ire the moment he was liberated, and laughed heartily at the whole thing: but was very grateful to Clement.
"You are too good for this hole of a country, father," said he. "Come to England! That is the only place in the world. I was an uneasy fool to leave it, and wander among mulberries and their idiots. I am a Kentish squire, and educated at Cambridge University. My name it is Rolfe, my place Betshanger. The man and the house are both at your service. Come over and stay till domesday. We sit down forty to dinner every day at Betshanger. One more or one less at the board will not be seen. You shall end your days with me and my heirs if you will. Come now! What an Englishman says he means." And he gave him a great hearty grip of the hand to confirm it.
"I will visit thee some day, my son," said Clement: "but not to weary thy hospitality."
The Englishman then begged Clement to shrive him. "I know not what will become of my soul," said he. "I live like a heathen since I left England."
Clement consented gladly, and soon the islander was on his knees to him by the road-side, confessing the last month's sins.
Finding him so pious a son of the Church, Clement let him know he was really coming to England. He then asked him whether it was true that country was overrun with Lollards and Wickliffites.
The other coloured up a little. "There be black sheep in every land," said he. Then after some reflection he said, gravely, "Holy father, hear the truth about these heretics. None are better disposed towards holy Church than we English. But we are ourselves, and by ourselves. We love our own ways, and, above all, our own tongue. The Norman could conquer our billhooks, but not our tongues; and hard they tried it for many a long year by law and proclamation. Our good foreign priests utter God to plain English folk in Latin, or in some French or Italian lingo, like the bleating of a sheep. Then come the fox Wickliff and his crew, and read him out of his own book in plain English, that all men's hearts warm to. Who can withstand this? God forgive me, I believe the English would turn deaf ears to St. Peter himself, spoke he not to them in the tongue their mothers sowed in their ears and their hearts along with mothers' kisses." He added hastily, "I say not this for myself;I am Cambridge bred; and good words come not amiss to me in Latin; but for the people in general. Clavis ad corda Anglorum est lingua materna."
"My son," said Clement, "blessed be the hour I met thee; for thy words are sober and wise. But, alas! how shall I learn your English tongue? No book have I."
"I would give you my book of hours, father. 'Tis in English and Latin, cheek by jowl. But, then, what would become of my poor soul, wanting my 'hours' in a strange land? Stay, you are a holy man, and I am an honest one; let us make a bargain; you to pray for me every day for two months, and I to give you my book of hours. Here it is. What say you to that?" And his eyes sparkled, and he was all on fire with mercantility.
Clement smiled gently at this trait: and quietly detached a MS. from his girdle, and showed him that it was in Latin and Italian.
"See, my son," said he, "Heaven hath foreseen our several needs, and given us the means to satisfy them: let us change books; and, my dear son, I will give thee my poor prayers and welcome, not sell them thee. I love not religious bargains."
The islander was delighted. "So shall I learn the Italian tongue without risk to my eternal weal. Near is my purse, but nearer is my soul."
He forced money on Clement. In vain the friar told him it was contrary to his vow to carry more of that than was barely necessary.
"Lay it out for the good of the Church and of my soul," said the islander. "I ask you not to keep it, but take it you must and shall." And he grasped Clement's hand warmly again: and Clement kissed him on the brow, and blessed him, and they went each his way.
About a mile from where they parted, Clement found two tired wayfarers lying in the deep shade of a great chestnut-tree, one of a thick grove the road skirted. Near the men was a little cart, and in it a printing-press, rude and clumsy as a vine-press. A jaded mule was harnessed to the cart.
And so Clement stood face to face with his old enemy.
And as he eyed it, and the honest, blue-eyed faces of the wearied craftsmen, he looked back as on a dream at the bitterness he had once felt towards this machine. He looked kindly down on them, and said, softly,
"Sweynheim!"
The men started to their feet.
"Pannartz!"
They scuttled into the wood, and were seen no more.
Clement was amazed, and stood puzzling himself.
Presently a face peeped from behind a tree.
Clement addressed it. "What fear ye?"
A quavering voice replied, "Say, rather, by what magic you, a stranger, can call us by our names! I never clapt eyes on you till now."
"O superstition! I know ye, as all good workmen are known—by your works. Come hither and I will tell ye."
They advanced gingerly from different sides; each regulating his advance by the other's.
"My children," said Clement, "I saw a Lactantius in Rome, printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz, disciples of Fust."
"D'ye hear that, Pannartz? our work has gotten to Rome already."
"By your blue eyes and flaxen hair I wist ye were Germans: and the printing-press spoke for itself. Who then should ye be but Fust's disciples, Pannartz and Sweynheim?"
The honest Germans were now astonished that they had suspected magic in so simple a matter.
"The good father hath his wits about him, that is all," said Pannartz.
"Ay," said Sweynheim, "and with those wits would he could tell us how to get this tired beast to the next town."
"Yea," said Sweynheim, "and where to find money to pay for his meat and ours when we get there."
"I will try," said Clement. "Free the mule of the cart, and of all harness but the bare halter."
This was done, and the animal immediately lay down and rolled on his back in the dust like a kitten. Whilst he was thus employed, Clement assured them he would rise up a new mule. "His Creator hath taught him this art to refresh himself, which the nobler horse knoweth not. Now, with regard to money, know that a worthy Englishman hath intrusted me with a certain sum to bestow in charity. To whom can I better give a stranger's money than to strangers? Take it, then, and be kind to some Englishman or other stranger in his need; and may all nations learn to love one another one day."
The tears stood in the honest workmen's eyes. They took the money with heartfelt thanks.
"It is your nation we are bound to thank and bless, good Father, if we but knew it."
"My nation is the Church."
Clement was then for bidding them farewell, but the honest fellows implored him to wait a little; they had no silver nor gold, but they had something they could give their benefactor. They took the press out of the cart, and, while Clement fed the mule, they bustled about, now on the white hot road, now in the deep cool shade, now half in and half out, and presently printed a quarto sheet of eight pages, which was already set up. They had not type enough to print two sheets at a time. When, after the slower preliminaries, the printed sheet was pulled all in a moment, Clement was amazed in turn.
"What are all these words really fast upon the paper?" said he. "Is it verily certain they will not go as swiftly as they came? Andyoutookmefor a magician! 'Tis 'Augustine de civitate Dei.' My sons, you carry here the very wings of knowledge. Oh, never abuse this great craft! Print no ill books! They would fly abroad countless as locusts, and lay waste men's souls."
The workmen said they would sooner put their hands under the screw than so abuse their goodly craft.
And so they parted.
There is nothing but meeting and parting in this world.
At a town in Tuscany the holy friar had a sudden and strange rencontre with the past. He fell in with one of those motley assemblages of patricians and plebeians, piety and profligacy, "a company of pilgrims"; a subject too well painted by others for me to go and daub.
They were in an immense barn belonging to the inn. Clement, dusty and wearied, and no lover of idle gossip, sat in a corner studying the Englishman's hours, and making them out as much by his own Dutch as by the Latin version.
Presently a servant brought a bucket half full of water, and put it down at his feet. A female servant followed with two towels. And then a woman came forward, and, crossing herself, kneeled down without a word at the bucket-side, removed her sleeves entirely,and motioned to him to put his feet into the water. It was some lady of rank doing penance. She wore a mask scarce an inch broad, but effectual. Moreover, she handled the friar's feet more delicately than those do who are born to such offices.
These penances were not uncommon; and Clement, though he had little faith in this form of contrition, received the services of the incognita as a matter of course. But presently she sighed deeply, and, with her heartfelt sigh and her head bent low over her menial office, she seemed so bowed with penitence, that he pitied her and said, calmly but gently, "Can I aught for your soul's weal, my daughter?"
She shook her head with a faint sob. "Nought, holy father, nought: only to hear the sin of her who is most unworthy to touch thy holy feet. 'Tis part of my penance to tell sinless men how vile I am."
"Speak, my daughter."
"Father," said the lady, bending lower and lower, "these hands of mine look white, but they are stained with blood,—the blood of the man I loved. Alas! you withdraw your foot. Ah me! What shall I do? All holy things shrink from me."
"Culpa mea! culpa mea!" said Clement eagerly. "My daughter, it was an unworthy movement of earthly weakness, for whichIshall do penance. Judge not the Church by her feebler servants. Not her foot, but her bosom, is offered to thee, repenting truly. Take courage, then, and purge thy conscience of his load."
On this the lady, in a trembling whisper, and hurriedly, and cringing a little, as if she feared the Church would strike her bodily for what she had done, made this confession.
"He was a stranger, and base-born, but beautiful as Spring, and wise beyond his years. I loved him. I had not the prudence to conceal my love. Nobles courted me. I ne'er thought one of humble birth could reject me. I showed him my heart; oh, shame of my sex! He drew back; yet he admired me: but innocently. He loved another: and he was constant. I resorted to a woman's wiles. They availed not. I borrowed the wickedness of men, and threatened his life, and to tell his true lover he died false to her. Ah! you shrink; your foot trembles. Am I not a monster? Then he wept and prayed to me for mercy; then my good angel helped me; I bade him leave Rome. Gerard, Gerard, why did you not obey me?I thought he was gone. But two months after this I met him. Never shall I forget it. I was descending the Tiber in my galley, when he came up it with a gay company, and at his side a woman beautiful as an angel, but bold and bad. That woman claimed me aloud for her rival. Traitor and hypocrite, he had exposed me to her, and to all the loose tongues in Rome. In terror and revenge I hired—a bravo. When he was gone on his bloody errand, I wavered too late. The dagger I had hired struck. He never came back to his lodgings. He was dead. Alas! perhaps he was not so much to blame: none have ever cast his name in my teeth. His poor body is not found: or I should kiss its wounds; and slay myself upon it. All around his very name seems silent as the grave, to which this murderous hand has sent him." (Clement's eyes were drawn by her movement. He recognized her shapely arm, and soft white hand.) "And oh! he was so young to die. A poor thoughtless boy, that had fallen a victim to that bad woman's arts, and she had made him tell her everything. Monster of cruelty, what penance can avail me? Oh, holy father, what shall I do?"
Clement's lips moved in prayer, but he was silent. He could not see his duty clear.
Then she took his feet and began to dry them. She rested his foot upon her soft arm, and pressed it with the towel so gently she seemed incapable of hurting a fly. Yet her lips had just told another story, and a true one.
While Clement was still praying for wisdom, a tear fell upon his foot. It decided him. "My daughter," said he, "I myself have been a great sinner."
"You, father?"
"I; quite as great a sinner as thou; though not in the same way. The devil has gins and snares, as well as traps. But penitence softened my impious heart, and then gratitude remoulded it. Therefore, seeing you penitent, I hope you can be grateful to Him, who has been more merciful to you than you have to your fellow-creature. Daughter, the Church sends you comfort."
"Comfort to me? ah! never! unless it can raise my victim from the dead."
"Take this crucifix in thy hand, fix thine eyes on it, and listen to me," was all the reply.
"Yes, father; but let me thoroughly dry your feet first: 'tis illsitting in wet feet: and you are the holiest man of all whose feet I have washed. I know it by your voice."
"Woman, I am not. As for my feet, they can wait their turn. Obey thou me!"
"Yes, father," said the lady, humbly. But with a woman's evasive pertinacity she wreathed one towel swiftly round the foot she was drying, and placed his other foot on the dry napkin; then obeyed his command.
And, as she bowed over the crucifix, the low, solemn, tones of the friar fell upon her ear, and his words soon made her whole body quiver with various emotions, in quick succession.
"My daughter, he you murdered—in intent—was one Gerard, a Hollander. He loved a creature, as man should love none but their Redeemer and his Church. Heaven chastised him. A letter came to Rome. She was dead."
"Poor Gerard! Poor Margaret!" moaned the penitent.
Clement's voice faltered at this a moment. But soon, by a strong effort, he recovered all his calmness.
"His feeble nature yielded, body and soul, to the blow. He was stricken down with fever. He revived only to rebel against Heaven. He said 'There is no God.'"
"Poor, poor, Gerard!"
"Poor Gerard? thou feeble, foolish woman! Nay, wicked, impious Gerard. He plunged into vice, and soiled his eternal jewel: those you met him with were his daily companions: but know, rash creature, that the seeming woman you took to be his leman was but a boy, dressed in woman's habits to flout the others, a fair boy called Andrea. What that Andrea said to thee I know not; but be sure neither he,nor any layman, knows thy folly. This Gerard, rebel against Heaven, was no traitor to thee, unworthy."
The lady moaned like one in bodily agony, and the crucifix began to tremble in her trembling hands.
"Courage!" said Clement. "Comfort is at hand.
"From crime he fell into despair, and, bent on destroying his soul, he stood one night by Tiber, resolved on suicide. He saw one watching him. It was a bravo."
"Holy saints!"
"He begged the bravo to despatch him; he offered him all his money, to slay him body and soul. The bravo would not. Thenthis desperate sinner, not softened even by that refusal, flung himself into Tiber."
"Ah!"
"And the assassin saved his life. Thou hadst chosen for the task Lodovico, husband of Teresa, whom this Gerard had saved at sea, her and her infant child."
"He lives! he lives! he lives! I am faint."
The friar took the crucifix from her hands, fearing it might fall. A shower of tears relieved her. The friar gave her time; then continued, calmly. "Ay, he lives; thanks to thee and thy wickedness, guided to his eternal good by an almighty and all-merciful hand. Thou art his greatest earthly benefactor."
"Where is he? where? where?"
"What is that to thee?"
"Only to see him alive. To beg him on my knees forgive me. I swear to you I will never presume again to—How could I? He knows all. Oh, shame! Father,doeshe know?"
"All."
"Then never will I meet his eye; I should sink into the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch his life unseen. He shall rise in the world, whence I so nearly thrust him, poor soul; the Cæsare, my family, are all-powerful in Rome; and I am near their head."
"My daughter," said Clement, coldly, "he you call Gerard needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a miracle from double death, he has left the world, and taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the Church."
"A priest?"
"A priest, and a friar."
"A friar? Then you are not his confessor? Yet you know all. That gentle voice!"
She raised her head slowly, and peered at him through her mask.
The next moment she uttered a faint shriek, and lay with her brow upon his bare feet.
CLEMENT sighed. He began to doubt whether he had taken the wisest course with a creature so passionate.
But young as he was, he had already learned many lessons of ecclesiastical wisdom. For one thing he had been taught to pause:i. e., in certain difficulties, neither to do nor say anything, until the matter should clear itself a little.
He therefore held his peace and prayed for wisdom.
All he did was gently to withdraw his foot.
But his penitent flung her arms round it with a piteous cry, and held convulsively, and wept over it.
And now the agony of shame, as well as penitence, she was in, showed itself by the bright red that crept over her very throat, as she lay quivering at his feet.
"My daughter," said Clement gently, "take courage. Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. As for me, I am brother Clement, whom Heaven hath sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save thy soul. Thou hast made me thy confessor. I claim, then, thine obedience."
"Oh, yes," sobbed the penitent.
"Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Rome. Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish; not fly in search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves. Hard to be merely meek and charitable with those about us."
"I'll never, never, lay finger on her again."
"Nay, I speak not of servants only, but of dependents, kinsmen, friends. This be thy penance; the last thing at night, and the first thing after matins, call to mind thy sin, and God his goodness; and so be humble, and gentle to the faults of those around thee. The world it courts the rich; but seek thou the poor: not beggars; these for the most are neither honest nor truly poor. But rather find out those who blush to seek thee, yet need thee sore. Giving to them shalt lend to Heaven. Marry a good son of the Church."
"Me? I will never marry."
"Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and commandthee to marry one that feareth God. For thou art very clay. Mated ill thou shalt be nought. But wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratiâ, live a pious princess; ay, and die a saint."
"I?"
"Thou."
He then desired her to rise and go about the good work he had set her.
She rose to her knees, and, removing her mask, cast an eloquent look upon him, then lowered her eyes meekly.
"I will obey you as I would an angel. How happy I am, yet unhappy; for oh my heart tells me I shall never look on you again. I will not go till I have dried your feet."
"It needs not. I have excused thee this bootless penance."
"'Tis no penance to me. Ah! you do not forgive me, if you will not let me dry your poor feet."
"So be it then," said Clement, resignedly; and thought to himself "Levius quid fœminâ."
But these weak creatures, that gravitate towards the small, as heavenly bodies towards the great, have yet their own flashes of angelic intelligence.
When the princess had dried the friar's feet, she looked at him with tears in her beautiful eyes, and murmured with singular tenderness and goodness—
"I will have masses said for her soul. May I?" she added timidly.
This brought a faint blush into the monk's cheek, and moistened his cold blue eye. It came so suddenly from one he was just rating so low.
"It is a gracious thought," he said. "Do as thou wilt: often such acts fall back on the doer like blessed dew. I am thy confessor; not hers; thine is the soul I must now do my all to save, or woe be to my own. My daughter, my dear daughter, I see good and ill angels fighting for thy soul this day, ay, this moment; oh, fight thou on thine own side. Doth thou remember all I bade thee?"
"Remember!" said the princess. "Sweet saint, each syllable of thine is graved in my heart."
"But one word more then. Pray much to Christ, and little to his saints."
"I will."
"And that is the best word I have light to say to thee. So part we on it. Thou to the place becomes thee best, thy father's house: I to my holy mother's work."
"Adieu," faltered the princess. "Adieu thou that I have loved too well, hated too ill, known and revered too late; forgiving angel adieu—for ever."
The monk caught her words, though but faltered in a sigh.
"FOR EVER?" he cried aloud with sudden ardour. "Christians live 'FOR EVER,' and love 'FOR EVER,' but they never part 'FOR EVER.' They part, as part the earth and sun, to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I part here for life. And what is our life? One line in the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter we are; one handful in the sand of time, one drop in the ocean of 'FOR EVER.' Adieu—for the little moment called 'a life!' We part in trouble, we shall meet in peace: we part creatures of clay, we shall meet immortal spirits: we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall meet where all is purity and love divine; where no ill passions are, but Christ is, and his saints around him clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-glass, in the breaking of a bubble, in the passing of a cloud, she, and thou, and I, shall meet again; and sit at the feet of angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of God upon his throne, FOR EVER—AND EVER—AND EVER."
And so they parted. The monk erect, his eyes turned heavenwards and glowing with the sacred fire of zeal; the princess slowly retiring and turning more than once to cast a lingering glance of awe and tender regret on that inspired figure.
She went home subdued, and purified. Clement, in due course, reached Basle, and entered on his duties, teaching in the University, and preaching in the town and neighbourhood. He led a life that can be comprised in two words; deep study, and mortification. My reader has already a peep into his soul. At Basle he advanced in holy zeal and knowledge.
The brethren of his order began to see in him a descendant of the saints and martyrs.
The Hearth
WHEN little Gerard was nearly three months old, a messenger came hot from Tergou for Catherine.
"Now just you go back," said she, "and tell them I can't come and I won't: they have got Kate." So he departed, and Catherine continued her sentence; "there, child, Imustgo: they are all at sixes and sevens: this is the third time of asking; and to-morrow my man would come himself and take me home by the ear, with a flea in't." She then recapitulated her experiences of infants, and instructed Margaret what to do in each coming emergency, and pressed money upon her. Margaret declined it with thanks. Catherine insisted, and turned angry. Margaret made excuses all so reasonable that Catherine rejected them with calm contempt; to her mind they lacked femininity. "Come, out with your heart," said she; "and you and me parting; and mayhap shall never see one another's face again."
"Oh! mother, say not so."
"Alack, girl, I have seen it so often; 'twill come into my mind now at each parting. When I was your age, I never had such a thought. Nay, we were all to live for ever then: so out wi' it."
"Well then, mother—I would rather not have told you—your Cornelis must say to me, 'So you are come to share with us, eh, mistress?' those were his words. I told him I would be very sorry."
"Beshrew his ill tongue! What signifies it? He will never know."
"Most likely he would sooner or later. But, whether or no, I will take no grudge bounty from any family; unless I saw my child starving, and then Heaven only knows what I might do. Nay, mother, give me but thy love—I do prize that above silver, and they grudge me not that, by all I can find—for not a stiver of money will I take out of your house."
"You are a foolish lass. Why, were it me, I'd take it just to spite him."
"No, you would not. You and I are apples off one tree."
Catherine yielded with a good grace; and, when the actual parting came, embraces and tears burst forth on both sides.
MARGARET HAD MOMENTS OF BLISSMARGARET HAD MOMENTS OF BLISS
When she was gone the child cried a good deal; and all attempts to pacify him failing, Margaret suspected a pin, and, searching between his clothes and his skin, found a gold angel incommoding his backbone.
"There now, Gerard," said she to the babe; "Ithoughtgranny gave in rathersudden."
She took the coin and wrapped it in a piece of linen, and laid it at the bottom of her box, bidding the infant observe she could be at times as resolute as granny herself.
Catherine told Eli of Margaret's foolish pride, and how she had baffled it. Eli said Margaret was right, and she was wrong. Catherine tossed her head. Eli pondered.
Margaret was not without domestic anxieties. She had still two men to feed, and could not work so hard as she had done. She had enough to do to keep the house, and the child, and cook for them all. But she had a little money laid by, and she used to tell her child his father would be home to help them before it was spent. And with these bright hopes, and that treasury of bliss, her boy, she spent some happy months.
Time wore on: and no Gerard came; and, stranger still, no news of him.
Then her mind was disquieted, and, contrary to her nature, which was practical, she was often lost in sad reverie; and sighed in silence. And, while her heart was troubled, her money was melting. And so it was, that one day she found the cupboard empty, and looked in her dependents' faces; and, at the sight of them, her bosom was all pity; and she appealed to the baby whether she could let grandfather and poor old Martin want a meal; and went and took out Catherine's angel. As she unfolded the linen a tear of gentle mortification fell on it. She sent Martin out to change it. While he was gone a Frenchman came with one of the dealers in illuminated work, who had offered her so poor a price. He told her he was employed by his sovereign to collect masterpieces for her book of hours. Then she showed him the two best things she had; and he was charmed with one of them, viz., the flowers and raspberries and creeping things, which Margaret Van Eyck had shaded. He offeredher an unheard-of price. "Nay, flout not my need, good stranger," said she: "three mouths there be in this house, and none to fill them but me."
Curious arithmetic! Left out No. 1.
"I flout thee not, fair mistress. My princess charged me strictly, 'Seek the best craftsmen; but I will no hard bargains; make them content with me, and me with them.'"
The next minute Margaret was on her knees kissing little Gerard in the cradle, and showering four gold pieces on him again and again, and relating the whole occurrence to him in very broken Dutch.
"And oh what a good princess: wasn't she? We will pray for her, won't we, my lambkin; when we are old enough?"
Martin came in furious. "They will not change it. I trow they think I stole it."
"I am beholden to thee," said Margaret, hastily, and almost snatched it from Martin, and wrapped it up again, and restored it to its hiding-place.
Ere these unexpected funds were spent, she got to her ironing and starching again. In the midst of which Martin sickened; and died after an illness of nine days.
Nearly all of her money went to bury him decently.
He was gone; and there was an empty chair by her fireside. For he had preferred the hearth to the sun as soon as the Busybody was gone.
Margaret would not allow anybody to sit in this chair now. Yet whenever she let her eye dwell too long on it, vacant, it was sure to cost her a tear.
And now there was nobody to carry her linen home. To do it herself she must leave little Gerard in charge of a neighbour. But she dared not trust such a treasure to mortal; and besides she could not bear him out of her sight for hours and hours. So she set inquiries on foot for a boy to carry her basket on Saturday and Monday.
A plump, fresh-coloured youth, called Luke Peterson, who looked fifteen, but was eighteen, came in, and blushing, and twiddling his bonnet, asked her if a man would not serve her turn as well as a boy.
Before he spoke she was saying to herself, "This boy will just do."
But she took the cue, and said, "Nay; but a man will maybe seek more than I can well pay."
"Not I," said Luke, warmly. "Why, Mistress Margaret, I am your neighbour, and I do very well at the coopering. I can carry your basket for you before or after my day's work, and welcome. You have no need to paymeanything. 'Tisn't as if we were strangers, ye know."
"Why, Master Luke, I know your face, for that matter; but I cannot call to mind that ever a word passed between us."
"Oh yes, you did, Mistress Margaret. What have you forgotten? One day you were trying to carry your baby and eke your pitcher full o' water: and, quo' I, 'Give me the baby to carry.' 'Nay,' says you, 'I'll give you the pitcher, and keep the bairn myself:' and I carried the pitcher home, and you took it from me at this door, and you said to me, 'I am muckle obliged to you, young man,' with such a sweet voice; not like the folk in this street speak to a body."
"I do mind now, Master Luke; and methinks it was the least I could say."
"Well, Mistress Margaret, if you will say as much every time I carry your basket, I care not how often I bear it, nor how far."
"Nay, nay," said Margaret, colouring faintly. "I would not put upon good nature. You are young, Master Luke, and kindly. Say I give you your supper on Saturday night, when you bring the linen home, and your dawn-mete o' Monday; would that make us anyways even?"
"As you please; only say not I sought a couple o' diets, I, for such a trifle as yon."
With chubby-faced Luke's timely assistance, and the health and strength which Heaven gave this poor young woman, to balance her many ills, the house went pretty smoothly awhile. But the heart became more and more troubled by Gerard's long and now most mysterious silence.
And then that mental torture, Suspense, began to tear her heavy heart with his hot pinchers, till she cried often and vehemently, "Oh, that I could know the worst."
While she was in this state, one day she heard a heavy step mountthe stair. She started and trembled. "That is no step that I know. Ill tidings!"
The door opened, and an unexpected visitor, Eli, came in, looking grave and kind.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and with increasing agitation.
"Girl," said he, "the skipper is come back."
"One word," gasped Margaret, "is he alive?"
"Surely, I hope so. No one has seen him dead."
"Then they must have seen him alive."
"No girl; neither dead nor alive hath he been seen this many months in Rome. My daughter Kate thinks he is gone to some other city. She bade me tell you her thought."
"Ay, like enough," said Margaret, gloomily; "like enough. My poor babe!"
The old man in a faintest voice asked her for a morsel to eat: he had come fasting.
The poor thing pitied him with the surface of her agitated mind, and cooked a meal for him, trembling, and scarce knowing what she was about.
Ere he went he laid his hand upon her head, and said, "Be he alive, or be he dead, I look on thee as my daughter. Can I do nought for thee this day? bethink thee now."
"Ay, old man. Pray for him; and for me!"
Eli sighed, and went sadly and heavily down the stairs.
She listened half stupidly to his retiring footsteps till they ceased. Then she sank moaning down by the cradle, and drew little Gerard tight to her bosom. "Oh, my poor fatherless boy; my fatherless boy!"