Waiting an earnest letter seldom leaves the mind in statu quo.
Margaret, in hers, vented her energy and her faith in her dying father's vision, or illusion; and when this was done, and Luke gone, she wondered at her credulity, and her conscience pricked her about Luke; and Catherine came and scolded her, and she paid the price of false hopes, and elevation of spirits, by falling into deeper despondency. She was found in this state by a staunch friend she had lately made, Joan Ketel. This good woman came in radiant with an idea.
“Margaret, I know the cure for thine ill: the hermit of Gouda a wondrous holy man, Why, he can tell what is coming, when he is in the mood.”
“Ay, I have heard of him,” said Margaret hopelessly. Joan with some difficulty persuaded her to walk out as far as Gouda, and consult the hermit. They took some butter and eggs in a basket, and went to his cave.
What had made the pair such fast friends? Jorian some six weeks ago fell ill of a bowel disease; it began with raging pain; and when this went off, leaving him weak, an awkward symptom succeeded; nothing, either liquid 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 a chicken with a golden angel in the water, and let him sup that!” Alas! Gilt chicken broth shared the fate of the humbler viands, its predecessors. Then the cure steeped the thumb of St. Sergius in beef broth. Same result. Then Joan ran weeping to Margaret to borrow some linen to make his shroud. “Let me see him,” said Margaret. She came in and felt his pulse. “Ah!” said she, “I doubt they have not gone to the root. Open the window! Art stifling him; now change all his linen.
“Alack, woman, what for? Why foul more linen for a dying man?” objected the 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 with her apron full of a flowering herb. She made a decoction, and took it to the bedside; and before giving it to the patient, took a spoonful herself, and smacked her lips hypocritically. “That is fair,” said he, with a feeble attempt at humour. “Why, 'tis sweet, and now 'tis bitter.” She engaged him in conversation as soon as he had taken it. This bitter-sweet stayed by him. Seeing which she built on it as cards are built: mixed a very little schiedam in the third spoonful, and a little beaten yoke of egg in the seventh. And so with the patience of her sex she coaxed his body out of Death's grasp; and finally, Nature, being patted on the back, instead of kicked under the bed, set Jorian Ketel on his legs again. But the doctress made them both swear never to tell a soul her guilty deed. “They would put me in prison, away from my child.”
The simple that saved Jorian was called sweet feverfew. She gathered it in 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 their present on the little platform. Margaret then applied her mouth to the aperture, made for that purpose, and said: “Holy hermit, we bring thee butter and eggs of the best; and I, a poor deserted girl, wife, yet no wife, and mother of the sweetest babe, come to pray thee tell me whether he is quick or dead, true to his vows or false.”
A faint voice issued from the cave: “Trouble me not with the things of earth, but send me a holy friar, I am dying.”
“Alas!” cried Margaret. “Is it e'en so, poor soul? Then let us in to help 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 imps o' darkness then, that they must not come anigh a dying bed?”
But Margaret was too deeply dejected to say anything. Joan applied rough consolation. But she was not listened to till she said: “And Jorian will speak 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 out o' 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 thinking o' pulling all mine up, says he. I up and told him remedies were none the better for being far-fetched; you and feverfew cured him, when the grand medicines came up faster than they went down. So says I, 'You may go down on your four bones to feverfew.' But indeed, he is grateful at bottom; you are all his thought and all his chat. But he sees Gerard's folk 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 him back, and it will set them all by the ears. I wish I had more headpiece,' said he; 'I am sore perplexed. But least said is soonest mended.' 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 babe and me.”
It was Saturday night and no Luke.
“Poor Luke!” said Margaret. “It was very good of him to go on such an errand.”
“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 coast than that where Luke lay in wait for Gerard Eliassoen. And the next morning he started early, and was in Rotterdam at noon. He made at once for the port, not to keep Jerome waiting.
He observed several monks of his order on the quay; he went to them; but Jerome was not amongst them. He asked one of them whether Jerome had arrived? “Surely, brother, was the reply.
“Prithee, where is he?”
“Where? Why, there!” said the monk, pointing to a ship in full sail. And Clement now noticed that all the monks were looking seaward.
“What, gone without me! Oh, Jerome! Jerome!” cried he, in a voice of anguish. Several of the friars turned round and stared.
“You must be brother Clement,” said one of them at length; and on this they kissed him and greeted him with brotherly warmth, and gave him a letter Jerome had charged them with for him. It was a hasty scrawl. The writer told him coldly a ship was about to sail for England, and he was loth to lose time. He (Clement) might follow if he pleased, but he would do much better to stay behind, and preach to his own country folk. “Give the 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 the name thou didst bear in the world. Be on thy guard! Let not the world catch thee again by any silken net, And remember, Solitude, Fasting, and Prayer 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 preach wherever the prior should appoint for Jerome had raised him to the skies as a preacher, and then withdrew abruptly, for he was cut to the quick, and wanted to be alone. He asked himself, was there some incurable fault in him, repulsive to so true a son of Dominic? Or was Jerome himself devoid of that Christian Love which St. Paul had placed above Faith itself? Shipwrecked with him, and saved on the same fragment of the wreck: his pupil, his penitent, his son in the Church, and now for four hundred miles his fellow-traveller in Christ; and to be shaken off like dirt, the first opportunity, with harsh and cold disdain. “Why worldly hearts are no colder nor less trusty than this,” said he. “The only one that ever really loved me lies in a grave hard by. Fly me, fly to England, man born without a heart; I will go and pray over a grave at Sevenbergen.”
Three hours later he passed Peter's cottage. A troop of noisy children were playing about the door, and the house had been repaired, and a new outhouse added. He turned his head hastily away, not to disturb a picture his memory treasured; and went to the churchyard.
He sought among the tombstones for Margaret's. He could not find it. He could not believe they had grudged her a tombstone, so searched the churchyard all over again.
“Oh poverty! stern poverty! Poor soul, thou wert like me no one was left that loved thee, when Gerard was gone.”
He went into the church, and after kissing the steps, prayed long and earnestly 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 little churchyard gate. He went towards him, and asked him did he live in the place.
“Four score and twelve years, man and boy. And I come here every day of late, holy father, to take a peep. This is where I look to bide ere long.”
“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 she doesn't lie here. Bless you, they left this a longful while ago. Gone in a moment, and the house empty. What, is she dead? Margaret a Peter dead? Now only think on't. Like enow; like enow, They great towns do terribly disagree wi' country folk.”
“What great towns, my son?”
“Well, 'twas Rotterdam they went to from here, so I heard tell; or was it Amsterdam? 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 all old weed like me left standing still. Well, well, she was a May rose yon; dear heart, 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 chapel for Jerome and Margaret till it was long past midnight, and his soul had recovered its cold calm.
The next day, Sunday, after mass, was a bustling day at Catherine's house in the Hoog Straet. The shop was now quite ready, and Cornelis and Sybrandt were to open it next day; their names were above the door; also their sign, a white lamb sucking a gilt sheep. Eli had come, and brought them some more goods from his store to give them a good start. The hearts of the parents glowed at what they were doing, and the pair themselves walked in the garden together, and agreed they were sick of their old life, and it was more pleasant to make money than waste it; they vowed to stick to business like wax. Their mother's quick and ever watchful ear overheard this resolution through an open window, and she told Eli, The family supper was to include Margaret and her boy, and be a kind of inaugural feast, at which good trade advice was to flow from the elders, and good wine to be drunk to the success of the converts to Commerce from Agriculture in its unremunerative form—wild oats. So Margaret had come over to help her mother-in-law, and also to shake off her own deep languor; and both their faces were as red as the fire. Presently in came Joan with a salad from Jorian's garden.
“He cut it for you, Margaret; you are all his chat; I shall be jealous. I told him you were to feast to-day. But oh, lass, what a sermon in the new kerk! Preaching? I never heard it till this day.”
“Would I had been there then,” said Margaret; “for I am dried up for want of dew from heaven.”
“Why, he preacheth again this afternoon. But mayhap you are wanted here.”
“Not she,” said Catherine. “Come, away ye go, if y'are minded.”
“Indeed,” said Margaret, “methinks I should not be such a damper at table if I could come to 't warm from a good sermon.”
“Then you must be brisk,” observed Joan. “See the folk are wending that way, and as I live, there goes the holy friar. Oh, bless us and save us, Margaret; the hermit! We forgot.” And this active woman bounded out of the house, and ran across the road, and stopped the friar. She returned as quickly. “There, I was bent on seeing him nigh hand.”
“What said he to thee?”
“Says he, 'My daughter, I will go to him ere sunset, God willing.' The sweetest voice. But oh, my mistresses, what thin cheeks for a young man, and great eyes, not far from your colour, Margaret.”
“I have a great mind to go hear him,” said Margaret. “But my cap is not very clean, and they will all be there in their snow-white mutches.”
“There, take my handkerchief out of the basket,” said Catherine; “you cannot have the child, I want him for my poor Kate. It is one of her ill days.”
Margaret replied by taking the boy upstairs. She found Kate in bed.
“How art thou, sweetheart? Nay, I need not ask. Thou art in sore pain; thou smilest so, See,' I have brought thee one thou lovest.”
“Two, by my way of counting,” said Kate, with an angelic smile. She had a spasm at that moment would have made some of us roar like bulls.
“What, in your lap?” said Margaret, answering a gesture of the suffering girl. “Nay, he is too heavy, and thou in such pain.”
“I love him too dear to feel his weight,” was the reply.
Margaret took this opportunity, and made her toilet. “I am for the kerk,” said she, “to hear a beautiful preacher.” Kate sighed. “And a minute ago, Kate, I was all agog to go; that is the way with me this month past; up and down, up and down, like the waves of the Zuyder Zee. I'd as lieve stay aside thee; say the word!”
“Nay,” said Kate, “prithee go; and bring me back every word. Well-a-day that I cannot go myself.” And the tears stood in the patient's eyes. This decided Margaret, and she kissed Kate, looked under her lashes at the boy, and heaved a little sigh. “I trow I must not,” said she. “I never could kiss him a little; and my father was dead against waking a child by day or night When 'tis thy pleasure to wake, speak thy aunt Kate the two new words thou hast gotten.” And she went out, looking lovingly over her shoulder, and shut the door inaudibly.
“Joan, you will lend me a hand, and peel these?” said Catherine.
“That I will, dame.” And the cooking proceeded with silent vigour.
“Now, Joan, them which help me cook and serve the meat, they help me eat it; that's a rule.”
“There's worse laws in Holland than that. Your will is my pleasure, mistress; for my Luke hath got his supper i' the air. He is digging to-day by good luck.” (Margaret came down.)
“Eh, woman, yon is an ugly trade. There she has just washed her face and gi'en her hair a turn, and now who is like her? Rotterdam, that for you!” and Catherine snapped her fingers at the capital. “Give us a buss, hussy! Now mind, Eli won't wait supper for the duke. Wherefore, loiter not after your kerk is over.”
Joan and she both followed her to the door, and stood at it watching her a good way down the street. For among homely housewives going out o' doors is half an incident. Catherine commented on the launch: “There, Joan, it is almost to me as if I had just started my own daughter for kerk, and stood a looking after: the which I've done it manys and manys the times. Joan, lass, she won't hear a word against our Gerard; and he be alive, he has used her cruel; that is why my bowels yearn for the poor wench. I'm older and wiser than she; and so I'll wed her to yon simple Luke, and there an end. What's one grandchild?”
The sermon had begun when Margaret entered the great church of St. Laurens. It was a huge edifice, far from completed. Churches were not built in a year. The side aisles were roofed, but not the mid aisle nor the chancel; the pillars and arches were pretty perfect, and some of them whitewashed. But only one window in the whole church was glazed; the rest were at present great jagged openings in the outer walls.
But to-day all these uncouth imperfections made the church beautiful. It was a glorious summer afternoon, and the sunshine came broken into marvellous forms through those irregular openings, and played bewitching pranks upon so many broken surfaces.
It streamed through the gaping walls, and clove the dark cool side aisles with rivers of glory, and dazzled and glowed on the white pillars beyond.
And nearly the whole central aisle was chequered with light and shade in broken outlines; the shades seeming cooler and more soothing than ever shade was, and the lights like patches of amber diamond animated with heavenly fire. And above, from west to east the blue sky vaulted the lofty aisle, and seemed quite close.
The sunny caps of the women made a sea of white contrasting exquisitely with that vivid vault of blue.
For the mid aisle, huge as it was, was crammed, yet quite still. The words and the mellow, gentle, earnest voice of the preacher held them mute.
Margaret stood spellbound at the beauty, the devotion, “the great calm,” She got behind a pillar in the north aisle; and there, though she could hardly catch a word, a sweet devotional langour crept over her at the loveliness of the place and the preacher's musical voice; and balmy oil seemed to trickle over the waves in her heart and smooth them. So she leaned against the pillar with eyes half closed, and all seemed soft and dreamy.
She felt it good to be there.
Presently she saw a lady leave an excellent place opposite to get out of the sun, which was indeed pouring on her head from the window. Margaret went round softly but swiftly; and was fortunate enough to get the place. She was now beside a pillar of the south aisle, and not above fifty feet from the preacher. She was at his side, a little behind him, but could hear every word.
Her attention, however, was soon distracted by the shadow of a man's head and shoulders bobbing up and down so drolly she had some ado to keep from smiling.
Yet it was nothing essentially droll.
It was the sexton digging.
She found that out in a moment by looking behind her, through the window, to whence the shadow came.
Now as she was looking at Jorian Ketel digging, suddenly a tone of the preacher's voice fell upon her ear and her mind so distinctly, it seemed literally to strike her, and make her vibrate inside and out.
Her hand went to her bosom, so strange and sudden was the thrill. Then she turned round, and looked at the preacher. His back was turned, and nothing visible but his tonsure. She sighed. That tonsure, being all she saw, contradicted the tone effectually.
Yet she now leaned a little forward with downcast eyes, hoping for that accent again. It did not come. But the whole voice grew strangely upon her. It rose and fell as the preacher warmed; and it seemed to waken faint echoes of a thousand happy memories. She would not look to dispel the melancholy pleasure this voice gave her.
Presently, in the middle of an eloquent period, the preacher stopped.
She almost sighed; a soothing music had ended. Could the sermon be ended already? No; she looked round; the people did not move.
A good many faces seemed now to turn her way.' She looked behind her sharply. There was nothing there.
Startled countenances near her now eyed the preacher. She followed their looks; and there, in the pulpit, was a face as of a staring corpse. The friar's eyes, naturally large, and made larger by the thinness of his cheeks, were dilated to supernatural size, and glaring her way out of a bloodless face.
She cringed and turned fearfully round: for she thought there must be some terrible thing near her. No; there was nothing; she was the outside figure of the listening crowd.
At this moment the church fell into commotion, Figures got up all over the building, and craned forward; agitated faces by hundreds gazed from the friar to Margaret, and from Margaret to the friar. The turning to and fro of so many caps made a loud rustle. Then came shrieks of nervous women, and buzzing of men; and Margaret, seeing so many eyes levelled at her, shrank terrified behind the pillar, with one scared, hurried glance at the preacher.
Momentary as that glance was, it caught in that stricken face an expression that made her shiver.
She turned faint, and sat down on a heap of chips the workmen had left, and buried her face in her hands, The sermon went on again. She heard the sound of it; but not the sense. She tried to think, but her mind was in a whirl, Thought would fix itself in no shape but this: that on that prodigy-stricken face she had seen a look stamped. And the recollection of that look now made her quiver from head to foot.
For that look was “RECOGNITION.”
The sermon, after wavering some time, ended in a strain of exalted, nay, feverish eloquence, that went far to make the crowd forget the preacher's strange pause and ghastly glare. Margaret mingled hastily with the crowd, and went out of the church with them.
They went their ways home. But she turned at the door, and went into the churchyard; to Peter's grave. Poor as she was, she had given him a slab and a headstone. She sat down on the slab, and kissed it. Then threw her apron over her head that no one might distinguish her by her hair.
“Father,” she said, “thou hast often heard me say I am wading in deep waters; but now I begin to think God only knows the bottom of them. I'll follow that friar round the world, but I'll see him at arm's length. And he shall tell me why he looked towards me like a dead man wakened; and not a soul behind me. Oh, father; you often praised me here: speak a word for me there. For I am wading in deep waters.”
Her father's tomb commanded a side view of the church door. And on that tomb she sat, with her face covered, waylaying the holy preacher.
The cool church chequered with sunbeams and crowned with heavenly purple, soothed and charmed Father Clement, as it did Margaret; and more, it carried his mind direct to the Creator of all good and pure delights. Then his eye fell on the great aisle crammed with his country folk; a thousand snowy caps, filigreed with gold. Many a hundred leagues he had travelled; but seen nothing like them, except snow. In the morning he had thundered; but this sweet afternoon seemed out of tune with threats. His bowels yearned over that multitude; and he must tell them of God's love: poor souls, they heard almost as little of it from the pulpit then a days as the heathen used. He told them the glad tidings of salvation. The people hung upon his gentle, earnest tongue.
He was not one of those preachers who keep gyrating in the pulpit like the weathercock on the steeple. He moved the hearts of others more than his own body. But on the other hand he did not entirely neglect those who were in bad places. And presently, warm with this theme, that none of all that multitude might miss the joyful tidings of Christ's love, he turned him towards the south aisle.
And there, in a stream of sunshine from the window, was the radiant face of Margaret Brandt. He gazed at it without emotion. It just benumbed him, soul and body.
But soon the words died in his throat, and he trembled as he glared at it.
There, with her auburn hair bathed in sunbeams, and glittering like the gloriola of a saint, and her face glowing doubly, with its own beauty, and the sunshine it was set in-stood his dead love.
She was leaning very lightly against a white column. She was listening with tender, downcast lashes.
He had seen her listen so to him a hundred times.
There was no change in her. This was the blooming Margaret he had left: only a shade riper and more lovely.
He started at her with monstrous eyes and bloodless cheeks.
The people died out of his sight. He heard, as in a dream, a rustling and rising all over the church; but could not take his prodigy-stricken eyes off that face, all life, and bloom, and beauty, and that wondrous auburn hair glistening gloriously in the sun.
He gazed, thinking she must vanish.
She remained.
All in a moment she was looking at him, full.
Her own violet eyes!!
At this he was beside himself, and his lips parted to shriek out her name, when she turned her head swiftly, and soon after vanished, but not without one more glance, which, though rapid as lightning, encountered his, and left her couching and quivering with her mind in a whirl, and him panting and gripping the pulpit convulsively. For this glance of hers, though not recognition, was the startled inquiring, nameless, indescribable look that precedes recognition. He made a mighty effort, and muttered something nobody could understand: then feebly resumed his discourse; and stammered and babbled on a while, till by degrees forcing himself, now she was out of sight, to look on it as a vision from the other world, he rose into a state of unnatural excitement, and concluded in a style of eloquence that electrified the simple; for it bordered on rhapsody.
The sermon ended, he sat down on the pulpit stool, terribly shaken, But presently an idea very characteristic of the time took possession of him, He had sought her grave at Sevenbergen in vain. She had now been permitted to appear to him, and show him that she was buried here; probably hard by that very pillar, where her spirit had showed itself to him.
This idea once adopted soon settled on his mind with all the Certainty of a fact. And he felt he had only to speak to the sexton (whom to his great disgust he had seen working during the sermon), to learn the spot where she was laid.
The church was now quite empty. He came down from the pulpit and stepped through an aperture in the south wall on to the grass, and went up to the sexton. He knew him in a moment. But Jorian never suspected the poor lad, whose life he had saved, in this holy friar. The loss of his shapely beard had wonderfully altered the outline of his face. This had changed him even more than his tonsure, his short hair sprinkled with premature grey, and his cheeks thinned and paled by fasts and vigils.
“My son,” said Friar Clement softly, “if you keep any memory of those whom you lay in the earth, prithee tell me is any Christian buried inside the church, near one of the pillars?”
“Nay, father,” said Jorian, “here in the churchyard lie buried all that buried be. Why?”
“No matter, Prithee tell me then where lieth Margaret Brandt.”
“Margaret Brandt?” And Jorian stared stupidly at the speaker.
“She died about three years ago, and was buried here.”
“Oh, that is another matter,” said Jorian; “that was before my time; the vicar could tell you, likely; if so be she was a gentlewoman, or at the least rich enough to pay him his fee.”
“Alas, my son, she was poor (and paid a heavy penalty for it); but born of decent folk. Her father, Peter, was a learned physician; she came hither from Sevenbergen—to die.”
When Clement had uttered these words his head sunk upon his breast, and he seemed to have no power nor wish to question Jorian more. I doubt even if he knew where he was. He was lost in the past.
Jorian put down his spade, and standing upright in the grave, set his arms akimbo, and said sulkily, “Are you making a fool of me, holy sir, or has some wag been making a fool of you!” And having relieved his mind thus, he proceeded to dig again, with a certain vigour that showed his somewhat irritable temper was ruffled.
Clement gazed at him with a puzzled but gently reproachful eye, for the tone was rude, and the words unintelligible. Good-natured, though crusty, Jorian had not thrown up three spadefuls ere he became ashamed of it himself. “Why, what a base churl am I to speak thus to thee, holy father; and thou a standing there, looking at me like a lamb. Aha! I have it; 'tis Peter Brandt's grave you would fain see, not Margaret's. He does lie here; hard by the west door. There; I'll show you.” And he laid down his spade, and put on his doublet and jerkin to go with the friar.
He did not know there was anybody sitting on Peter's tomb. Still less that she was watching for this holy friar.
Pietro Vanucci and Andrea did not recognize him without his beard. The fact is, that the beard which has never known a razor grows in a very picturesque and characteristic form, and becomes a feature in the face; so that its removal may in some cases be an effectual disguise.
While Jorian was putting on his doublet and jerkin to go to Peter's tomb, his tongue was not idle. “They used to call him a magician out Sevenbergen way. And they do say he gave 'em a touch of his trade at parting; told 'em he saw Margaret's lad a-coming down Rhine in brave clothes and store o' money, but his face scarred by foreign glaive, and not altogether so many arms and legs as a went away wi'. But, dear heart, nought came on't. Margaret is still wearying for her lad; and Peter, he lies as quiet as his neighbours; not but what she hath put a stone slab over him, to keep him where he is: as you shall see.”
He put both hands on the edge of the grave, and was about to raise himself out of it, but the friar laid a trembling hand on his shoulder, and said in a strange whisper—
“How long since died Peter Brandt?”
“About two months, Why?”
“And his daughter buried him, say you?”
“Nay, I buried him, but she paid the fee and reared the stone.”
“Then—but he had just one daughter; Margaret?”
“No more leastways, that he owned to.”
“Then you think Margaret is—is alive?”
“Think? Why, I should be dead else. Riddle me that.”
“Alas, how can I? You love her!”
“No more than reason, being a married man, and father of four more sturdy knaves like myself. Nay, the answer is, she saved my life scarce six weeks agone. Now had she been dead she couldn't ha' kept me alive. Bless your heart, I couldn't keep a thing on my stomach; nor doctors couldn't make me. My Joan says, ''Tis time to buy thee a shroud.' 'I dare say, so 'tis,' says I; but try and borrow one first.' In comes my lady, this Margaret, which she died three years ago, by your way on't, opens the windows, makes 'em shift me where I lay, and cures me in the twinkling of a bedpost; but wi' what? there pinches the shoe; with the scurviest herb, and out of my own garden, too; with sweet feverfew. A herb, quotha, 'tis a weed; leastways it was a weed till it cured me, but now whene'er I pass my hunch I doff bonnet, and says I, 'fly service t'ye.' Why, how now, father, you look wondrous pale, and now you are red, and now you are white? Why, what is the matter? What, in Heaven's name, is the matter?”
“The surprise—the joy—the wonder—the fear,” gasped Clement.
“Why, what is it to thee? Art thou of kin to Margaret Brandt?”
“Nay; but I knew one that loved her well, so well her death nigh killed him, body and soul. And yet thou sayest she lives. And I believe thee.”
Jorian stared, and after a considerable silence said very gravely, “Father, you have asked me many questions, and I have answered them truly; now for our Lady's sake answer me but two. Did you in very sooth know one who loved this poor lass? Where?”
Clement was on the point of revealing himself, but he remembered Jerome's letter, and shrank from being called by the name he had borne in the world.
“I knew him in Italy,” said he.
“If you knew him you can tell me his name,” said Jorian cautiously.
“His name was Gerard Eliassoen.”
“Oh, but this is strange. Stay, what made thee say Margaret Brandt was dead?”
“I was with Gerard when a letter came from Margaret Van Eyck. The letter told him she he loved was dead and buried. Let me sit down, for my strength fails me, Foul play! Foul play!”
“Father,” said Jorian, “I thank Heaven for sending thee to me, Ay, sit ye down; ye do look like a ghost; ye fast overmuch to be strong. My mind misgives me; methinks I hold the clue to this riddle, and if I do, there be two knaves in this town whose heads I would fain batter to pieces as I do this mould;” and he clenched his teeth and raised his long spade above his head, and brought it furiously down upon the heap several times. “Foul play? You never said a truer word i' your life; and if you know where Gerard is now, lose no time, but show him the trap they have laid for him. Mine is but a dull head, but whiles the slow hound puzzles out the scent—go to, And I do think you and I ha' got hold of two ends o' one stick, and a main foul one.”
Jorian then, after some of those useless preliminaries men of his class always deal in, came to the point of the story. He had been employed by the burgomaster of Tergou to repair the floor of an upper room in his house, and when it was almost done, Coming suddenly to fetch away his tools, curiosity had been excited by some loud words below, and he had lain down on his stomach, and heard the burgomaster talking about a letter which Cornelis and Sybrandt were minded to convey into the place of one that a certain Hans Memling was taking to Gerard; “and it seems their will was good, but their stomach was small; so to give them courage the old man showed them a drawer full of silver, and if they did the trick they should each put a hand in, and have all the silver they could hold in't. Well, father,” continued Jorian, “I thought not much on't at the time, except for the bargain itself, that kept me awake mostly all night. Think on't! Next morning at peep of day who should I see but my masters Cornelis and Sybrandt come out of their house each with a black eye. 'Oho,' says I, 'what yon Hans hath put his mark on ye; well now I hope that is all you have got for your pains.' Didn't they make for the burgomaster's house? I to my hiding-place.”
At this part of Jorian's revelation the monk's nostril dilated, and his restless eye showed the suspense he was in.
“Well, father,” continued Jorian, “the burgomaster brought them into that same room. He had a letter in his hand; but I am no scholar; however, I have got as many eyes in my head as the Pope hath, and I saw the drawer opened, and those two knaves put in each a hand and draw it out full. And, saints in glory, how they tried to hold more, and more, and more o' yon stuff! And Sybrandt, he had daubed his hand in something sticky, I think 'twas glue, and he made shift to carry one or two pieces away a sticking to the back of his hand, he! he! he! 'Tis a sin to laugh. So you see luck was on the wrong side as usual; they had done the trick; but how they did it, that, methinks, will never be known till doomsday. Go to, they left their immortal jewels in yon drawer. Well, they got a handful of silver for them; the devil had the worst o' yon bargain. There, father, that is off my mind; often I longed to tell it some one, but I durst not to the women; or Margaret would not have had a friend left in the world; for those two black-hearted villains are the favourites, 'Tis always so. Have not the old folk just taken a brave new shop for them in this very town, in the Hoog Straet? There may you see their sign, a gilt sheep and a lambkin; a brace of wolves sucking their dam would be nigher the mark. And there the whole family feast this day; oh, 'tis a fine world. What, not a word, holy father; you sit there like stone, and have not even a curse to bestow on them, the stony-hearted miscreants. What, was it not enough the poor lad was all alone in a strange land; must his own flesh and blood go and lie away the one blessing his enemies had left him? And then think of her pining and pining all these years, and sitting at the window looking adown the street for Gerard! and so constant, so tender, and true: my wife says she is sure no woman ever loved a man truer than she loves the lad those villains have parted from her; and the day never passes but she weeps salt tears for him. And when I think, that, but for those two greedy lying knaves, yon winsome lad, whose life I saved, might be by her side this day the happiest he in Holland; and the sweet lass, that saved my life, might be sitting with her cheek upon her sweetheart's shoulder, the happiest she in Holland in place of the saddest; oh, I thirst for their blood, the nasty, sneaking, lying, cogging, cowardly, heartless, bowelless—how now?”
The monk started wildly up, livid with fury and despair, and rushed headlong from the place with both hands clenched and raised on high. So terrible was this inarticulate burst of fury, that Jorian's puny ire died out at sight of it, and he stood looking dismayed after the human tempest he had launched.
While thus absorbed he felt his arm grasped by a small, tremulous hand.
It was Margaret Brandt.
He started; her coming there just then seemed so strange. She had waited long on Peter's tombstone, but the friar did not come, So she went into the church to see if he was there still. She could not find him.
Presently, going up the south aisle, the gigantic shadow of a friar came rapidly along the floor and part of a pillar, and seemed to pass through her. She was near screaming; but in a moment remembered Jorian's shadow had come in so from the churchyard; and tried to clamber out the nearest way. She did so, but with some difficulty; and by that time Clement was just disappearing down the street; yet, so expressive at times is the body as well as the face, she could see he was greatly agitated. Jorian and she looked at one another, and at the wild figure of the distant friar.
“Well?” said she to Jorian, trembling.
“Well,” said he, “you startled me. How come you here of all people?”
“Is this a time for idle chat? What said he to you? He has been speaking to you; deny it not.”
“Girl, as I stand here, he asked me whereabout you were buried in this churchyard.”
“Ah!”
“I told him, nowhere, thank Heaven: you were alive and saving other folk from the churchyard.”
“Well?”
“Well, the long and the short is, he knew thy Gerard in Italy; and a letter came saying you were dead; and it broke thy poor lad's heart. Let me see; who was the letter written by? Oh, by the demoiselle van Eyck. That was his way of it. But I up and told him nay; 'twas neither demoiselle nor dame that penned yon lie, but Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, and those foul knaves, Cornelis and Sybrandt; these changed the true letter for one of their own; I told him as how I saw the whole villainy done through a chink; and now, if I have not been and told you!”
“Oh, cruel! cruel! But he lives. The fear of fears is gone. Thank God!”
“Ay, lass; and as for thine enemies, I have given them a dig. For yon friar is friendly to Gerard, and he is gone to Eli's house, methinks. For I told him where to find Gerard's enemies and thine, and wow but he will give them their lesson. If ever a man was mad with rage, its yon. He turned black and white, and parted like a stone from a sling. Girl, there was thunder in his eye and silence on his lips. Made me cold a did.”
“Oh, Jorian, what have you done?” cried Margaret. “Quick! quick! help me thither, for the power is gone all out of my body. You know him not as I do. Oh, if you had seen the blow he gave Ghysbrecht; and heard the frightful crash! Come, save him from worse mischief. The water is deep enow; but not bloody yet, come!”
Her accents were so full of agony that Jorian sprang out of the grave and came with her, huddling on his jerkin as he went.
But as they hurried along, he asked her what on earth she meant? “I talk of this friar, and you answer me of Gerard.”
“Man, see you not, this is Gerard!”
“This, Gerard? what mean ye?”
“I mean, yon friar is my boy's father. I have waited for him long, Jorian. Well, he is come to me at last. And thank God for it. Oh, my poor child! Quicker, Jorian, quicker!”
“Why, thou art mad as he. Stay! By St. Bavon, yon was Gerard's face; 'twas nought like it; yet somehow—'twas it. Come on! come on! let me see the end of this.”
“The end? How many of us will live to see that?”
They hurried along in breathless silence, till they reached Hoog Straet.
Then Jorian tried to reassure her. “You are making your own trouble,” said he; “who says he has gone thither? more likely to the convent to weep and pray, poor soul. Oh, cursed, cursed villains!”
“Did not you tell him where those villains bide?”
“Ay, that I did.”
“Then quicker, oh, Jorian, quicker. I see the house. Thank God and all the saints, I shall be in time to calm him. I know what I'll say to him; Heaven forgive me! Poor Catherine; 'tis of her I think: she has been a mother to me.”
The shop was a corner house, with two doors; one in the main street, for customers, and a house-door round the corner.
Margaret and Jorian were now within twenty yards of the shop, when they heard a roar inside, like as of some wild animal, and the friar burst out, white and raging, and went tearing down the street.
Margaret screamed, and sank fainting on Jorian's arm.
Jorian shouted after him, “Stay, madman, know thy friends.” But he was deaf, and went headlong, shaking his clenched fists high, high in the air.
“Help me in, good Jorian,” moaned Margaret, turning suddenly calm. “Let me know the worst; and die.”
He supported her trembling limbs into the house.
It seemed unnaturally still; not a sound.
Jorian's own heart beat fast.
A door was before him, unlatched. He pushed it softly with his left hand, and Margaret and he stood on the threshold.
What they saw there you shall soon know.