THE worthy physician went home and told his housekeeper he was in agony from “a bad burn.” Those were the words. For in phlogistic as in other things, we cauterize our neighbour's digits, but burn our own fingers. His housekeeper applied some old women's remedy mild as milk. He submitted like a lamb to her experience: his sole object in the case of this patient being cure: meantime he made out his bill for broken phials, and took measures to have the travellers imprisoned at once. He made oath before a magistrate that they, being strangers and indebted to him, meditated instant flight from the township.
Alas! it was his unlucky day. His sincere desire and honest endeavour to perjure himself were baffled by a circumstance he had never foreseen nor indeed thought possible.
He had spoken the truth.
And IN AN AFFIDAVIT!
The officers, on reaching “The Silver Lion”, found the birds were flown.
They went down to the river, and from intelligence they received there, started up the bank in hot pursuit.
This temporary escape the friends owed to Denys's good sense and observation. After a peal of laughter, that it was a cordial to hear, and after venting his watchword three times, he turned short grave, and told Gerard Dusseldorf was no place for them. “That old fellow,” said he, “went off unnaturally silent for such a babbler: we are strangers here; the bailiff is his friend: in five minutes we shall lie in a dungeon for assaulting a Dusseldorf dignity, are you strong enough to hobble to the water's edge? it is hard by. Once there you have but to lie down in a boat instead of a bed; and what is the odds?”
“The odds, Denys? untold, and all in favour of the boat. I pine for Rome; for Rome is my road to Sevenbergen; and then we shall lie in the boat, but ON the Rhine, the famous Rhine; the cool, refreshing Rhine. I feel its breezes coming: the very sight will cure a little hop-'o-my-thumb fever like mine; away! away!”
Finding his excitable friend in this mood, Denys settled hastily with the landlord, and they hurried to the river. On inquiry they found to their dismay that the public boat was gone this half hour, and no other would start that day, being afternoon. By dint, however, of asking a great many questions, and collecting a crowd, they obtained an offer of a private boat from an old man and his two sons.
This was duly ridiculed by a bystander. “The current is too strong for three oars.”
“Then my comrade and I will help row,” said the invalid.
“No need,” said the old man. “Bless your silly heart, he owns t'other boat.”
There was a powerful breeze right astern; the boatmen set a broad sail, and rowing also, went off at a spanking rate.
“Are ye better, lad, for the river breeze?”
“Much better. But indeed the doctor did me good.”
“The doctor? Why, you would none of his cures.”
“No, but I mean—you will say I am nought—but knocking the old fool down—somehow—it soothed me.”
“Amiable dove! how thy little character opens more and more every day, like a rosebud. I read thee all wrong at first.”
“Nay, Denys, mistake me not, neither. I trust I had borne with his idle threats, though in sooth his voice went through my poor ears; but he was an infidel, or next door to one, and such I have been taught to abhor. Did he not as good as say, we owed our inward parts to men with long Greek names, and not to Him, whose name is but a syllable, but whose hand is over all the earth? Pagan!”
“So you knocked him down forthwith—like a good Christian.”
“Now, Denys, you will still be jesting. Take not an ill man's part. Had it been a thunderbolt from Heaven, he had met but his due; yet he took but a sorry bolster from this weak arm.”
“What weak arm?” inquired Denys, with twinkling eyes. “I have lived among arms, and by Samson's hairy pow never saw I one more like a catapult. The bolster wrapped round his nose and the two ends kissed behind his head, and his forehead resounded, and had he been Goliath, or Julius Caesar, instead of an old quacksalver, down he had gone. St. Denys guard me from such feeble opposites as thou! and above all from their weak arms—thou diabolical young hypocrite.”
The river took many turns, and this sometimes brought the wind on their side instead of right astern. Then they all moved to the weather side to prevent the boat heeling over too much all but a child of about five years old, the grandson of the boatman, and his darling; this urchin had slipped on board at the moment of starting, and being too light to affect the boat's trim, was above, or rather below, the laws of navigation.
They sailed merrily on, little conscious that they were pursued by a whole posse of constables armed with the bailiff's writ, and that their pursuers were coming up with them; for if the wind was strong, so was the current.
And now Gerard suddenly remembered that this was a very good way to Rome, but not to Burgundy. “Oh, Denys,” said he, with an almost alarmed look, “this is not your road.”
“I know it,” said Denys quietly; “but what can I do? I cannot leave thee till the fever leaves thee; and it is on thee still, for thou art both red and white by turns; I have watched thee. I must e'en go on to Cologne, I doubt, and then strike across.”
“Thank Heaven,” said Gerard joyfully. He added eagerly, with a little touch of self-deception, “'Twere a sin to be so near Cologne and not see it. Oh, man, it is a vast and ancient city such as I have often dreamed of, but ne'er had the good luck to see. Me miserable, by what hard fortune do I come to it now? Well then, Denys,” continued the young man less warmly, “it is old enough to have been founded by a Roman lady in the first century of grace, and sacked by Attila the barbarous, and afterwards sore defaced by the Norman Lothaire. And it has a church for every week in the year forbye chapels and churches innumerable of convents and nunneries, and above all, the stupendous minster yet unfinished, and therein, but in their own chapel, lie the three kings that brought gifts to our Lord, Melchior gold, and Gaspar frankincense, and Balthazar the black king, he brought myrrh; and over their bones stands the shrine the wonder of the world; it is of ever-shining brass brighter than gold, studded with images fairly wrought, and inlaid with exquisite devices, and brave with colours; and two broad stripes run to and fro, of jewels so great, so rare, each might adorn a crown or ransom its wearer at need; and upon it stand the three kings curiously counterfeited, two in solid silver, richly gilt; these be bareheaded; but he of Aethiop ebony, and beareth a golden crown; and in the midst our blessed Lady, in virgin silver, with Christ in her arms; and at the corners, in golden branches, four goodly waxen tapers do burn night and day. Holy eyes have watched and renewed that light unceasingly for ages, and holy eyes shall watch them in saecula. I tell thee, Denys, the oldest song, the oldest Flemish or German legend, found them burning, and they shall light the earth to its grave. And there is St. Ursel's church, a British saint's, where lie her bones and all the other virgins her fellows; eleven thousand were they who died for the faith, being put to the sword by barbarous Moors, on the twenty-third day of October, two hundred and thirty-eight. Their bones are piled in the vaults, and many of their skulls are in the church. St. Ursel's is in a thin golden case, and stands on the high altar, but shown to humble Christians only on solemn days.”
“Eleven thousand virgins!” cried Denys. “What babies German men must have been in days of yore. Well, would all their bones might turn flesh again, and their skulls sweet faces, as we pass through the gates. 'Tis odds but some of them are wearied of their estate by this time.”
“Tush, Denys!” said Gerard; “why wilt thou, being good, still make thyself seem evil? If thy wishing-cap be on, pray that we may meet the meanest she of all those wise virgins in the next world, and to that end let us reverence their holy dust in this one. And then there is the church of the Maccabees, and the cauldron in which they and their mother Solomona were boiled by a wicked king for refusing to eat swine's flesh.”
“Oh, peremptory king! and pig-headed Maccabees! I had eaten bacon with my pork liever than change places at the fire with my meat.”
“What scurvy words are these? it was their faith.”
“Nay, bridle thy choler, and tell me, are there nought but churches in this thy so vaunted city? for I affect rather Sir Knight than Sir Priest.”
“Ay, marry, there is an university near a hundred years old; and there is a market-place, no fairer in the world, and at the four sides of it houses great as palaces; and there is a stupendous senate-house all covered with images, and at the head of them stands one of stout Herman Gryn, a soldier like thyself, lad.”
“Ay. Tell me of him! what feat of arms earned him his niche?”
“A rare one. He slew a lion in fair combat, with nought but his cloak and a short sword. He thrust the cloak in the brute's mouth, and cut his spine in twain, and there is the man's effigy and eke the lion's to prove it. The like was never done but by three more, I ween; Samson was one, and Lysimachus of Macedon another, and Benaiah, a captain of David's host.”
“Marry! three tall fellows. I would like well to sup with them all to-night.”
“So would not I,” said Gerard drily.
“But tell me,” said Denys, with some surprise, “when wast thou in Cologne?”
“Never but in the spirit. I prattle with the good monks by the way, and they tell me all the notable things both old and new.
“Ay, ay, have not I seen your nose under their very cowls? But when I speak of matters that are out of sight, my words they are small, and the thing it was big; now thy words be as big or bigger than the things; art a good limner with thy tongue; I have said it; and for a saint, as ready with hand, or steel, or bolster—as any poor sinner living; and so, shall I tell thee which of all these things thou hast described draws me to Cologne?”
“Ay, Denys.”
“Thou, and thou only; no dead saint, but my living friend and comrade true; 'tis thou alone draws Denys of Burgundy to Cologne?”
Gerard hung his head.
At this juncture one of the younger boatmen suddenly inquired what was amiss with “little turnip-face?”
His young nephew thus described had just come aft grave as a judge, and burst out crying in the midst without more ado. On this phenomenon, so sharply defined, he was subjected to many interrogatories, some coaxingly uttered, some not. Had he hurt himself? had he over-ate himself? was he frightened? was he cold? was he sick? was he an idiot?
To all and each he uttered the same reply, which English writers render thus, oh! oh! oh! and French writers thus, hi! hi! hi! So fixed are Fiction's phonetics.
“Who can tell what ails the peevish brat?” snarled the young boatman impatiently. “Rather look this way and tell me whom be these after!” The old man and his other son looked, and saw four men walking along the east bank of the river; at the sight they left rowing awhile, and gathered mysteriously in the stern, whispering and casting glances alternately at their passengers and the pedestrians.
The sequel may show they would have employed speculation better in trying to fathom the turnip-face mystery; I beg pardon of my age: I mean the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
“If 'tis as I doubt,” whispered one of the young men, “why not give them a squeak for their lives; let us make for the west bank.”
The old man objected stoutly. “What,” said he, “run our heads into trouble for strangers! are ye mad? Nay, let us rather cross to the east side; still side with the strong arm! that is my rede. What say you, Werter?”
“I say, please yourselves.”
What age and youth could not decide upon, a puff of wind settled most impartially. Came a squall, and the little vessel heeled over; the men jumped to windward to trim her; but to their horror they saw in the very boat from stem to stern a ditch of water rushing to leeward, and the next moment they saw nothing, but felt the Rhine, the cold and rushing Rhine.
“Turnip-face” had drawn the plug.
The officers unwound the cords from their waists.
Gerard could swim like a duck; but the best swimmer, canted out of a boat capsized, must sink ere he can swim. The dark water bubbled loudly over his head, and then he came up almost blind and deaf for a moment; the next, he saw the black boat bottom uppermost, and figures clinging to it; he shook his head like a water-dog, and made for it by a sort of unthinking imitation; but ere he reached it he heard a voice behind him cry not loud but with deep manly distress, “Adieu, comrade, adieu!”
He looked, and there was poor Denys sinking, sinking, weighed down by his wretched arbalest. His face was pale, and his eyes staring wide, and turned despairingly on his dear friend. Gerard uttered a wild cry of love and terror, and made for him, cleaving the water madly; but the next moment Denys was under water.
The next, Gerard was after him.
The officers knotted a rope and threw the end in.
Things good and evil balance themselves in a remarkable manner and almost universally. The steel bow attached to the arbalestrier's back, and carried above his head, had sunk him. That very steel bow, owing to that very position, could not escape Gerard's hands, one of which grasped it, and the other went between the bow and the cord, which was as good. The next moment, Denys, by means of his crossbow, was hoisted with so eager a jerk that half his body bobbed up out of water.
“Now, grip me not! grip me not!” cried Gerard, in mortal terror of that fatal mistake.
“Pas si bete,” gurgled Denys.
Seeing the sort of stuff he had to deal with, Gerard was hopeful and calm directly. “On thy back,” said he sharply, and seizing the arbalest, and taking a stroke forward, he aided the desired movement. “Hand on my shoulder! slap the water with the other hand! No—with a downward motion; so. Do nothing more than I bid thee.” Gerard had got hold of Denys's long hair, and twisting it hard, caught the end between his side teeth, and with the strong muscles of his youthful neck easily kept up the soldier's head, and struck out lustily across the current. A moment he had hesitated which side to make for, little knowing the awful importance of that simple decision; then seeing the west bank a trifle nearest, he made towards it, instead of swimming to jail like a good boy, and so furnishing one a novel incident. Owing to the force of the current they slanted considerably, and when they had covered near a hundred yards, Denys murmured uneasily, “How much more of it?”
“Courage,” mumbled Gerard. “Whatever a duck knows, a Dutchman knows; art safe as in bed.”
The next moment, to their surprise, they found themselves in shallow water, and so waded ashore. Once on terra firma, they looked at one another from head to foot as if eyes could devour, then by one impulse flung each an arm round the other's neck, and panted there with hearts too full to speak. And at this sacred moment life was sweet as heaven to both; sweetest perhaps to the poor exiled lover, who had just saved his friend. Oh, joy to whose height what poet has yet soared, or ever tried to soar? To save a human life; and that life a loved one. Such moments are worth living for, ay, three score years and ten. And then, calmer, they took hands, and so walked along the bank hand in hand like a pair of sweethearts, scarce knowing or caring whither they went.
The boat people were all safe on the late concave, now convex craft, Herr Turnip-face, the “Inverter of things,” being in the middle. All this fracas seemed not to have essentially deranged his habits. At least he was greeting when he shot our friends into the Rhine, and greeting when they got out again.
“Shall we wait till they right the boat?”
“No, Denys, our fare is paid; we owe them nought. Let us on, and briskly.”
Denys assented, observing that they could walk all the way to Cologne on this bank.
“I fare not to Cologne,” was the calm reply.
“Why, whither then?”
“To Burgundy.”
“To Burgundy? Ah, no! that is too good to be sooth.”
“Sooth 'tis, and sense into the bargain. What matters it to me how I go to Rome?”
“Nay, nay; you but say so to pleasure me. The change is too sudden; and think me not so ill-hearted as take you at your word. Also did I not see your eyes sparkle at the wonders of Cologne? the churches, the images, the relics
“How dull art thou, Denys; that was when we were to enjoy them together. Churches! I shall see plenty, go Rome-ward how I will. The bones of saints and martyrs; alas! the world is full of them; but a friend like thee, where on earth's face shall I find another? No, I will not turn thee farther from the road that leads to thy dear home, and her that pines for thee. Neither will I rob myself of thee by leaving thee. Since I drew thee out of Rhine I love thee better than I did. Thou art my pearl: I fished thee; and must keep thee. So gainsay me not, or thou wilt bring back my fever; but cry courage, and lead on; and hey for Burgundy!”
Denys gave a joyful caper. “Courage! va pour la Bourgogne. Oh! soyes tranquille! cette fois il est bien decidement mort, ce coquin-la.” And they turned their backs on the Rhine.
On this decision making itself clear, across the Rhine there was a commotion in the little party that had been watching the discussion, and the friends had not taken many steps ere a voice came to them over the water. “HALT!”
Gerard turned, and saw one of those four holding out a badge of office and a parchment slip. His heart sank; for he was a good citizen, and used to obey the voice that now bade him turn again to Dusseldorf—the Law's.
Denys did not share his scruples. He was a Frenchman, and despised every other nation, laws, inmates, and customs included. He was a soldier, and took a military view of the situation. Superior force opposed; river between; rear open; why, 'twas retreat made easy. He saw at a glance that the boat still drifted in mid-stream, and there was no ferry nearer than Dusseldorf. “I shall beat a quick retreat to that hill,” said he, “and then, being out of sight, quick step.”
They sauntered off.
“Halt! in the bailiff's name,” cried a voice from the shore.
Denys turned round and ostentatiously snapped his fingers at the bailiff, and proceeded.
“Halt! in the archbishop's name.”
Denys snapped his fingers at his grace, and proceeded.
“Halt! in the emperor's name.”
Denys snapped his fingers at his majesty, and proceeded.
Gerard saw this needless pantomime with regret, and as soon as they had passed the brow of the hill, said, “There is now but one course, we must run to Burgundy instead of walking;” and he set off, and ran the best part of a league without stopping.
Denys was fairly blown, and inquired what on earth had become of Gerard's fever. “I begin to miss it sadly,” said he drily.
“I dropped it in Rhine, I trow,” was the reply.
Presently they came to a little village, and here Denys purchased a loaf and a huge bottle of Rhenish wine. “For,” he said, “we must sleep in some hole or corner. If we lie at an inn, we shall be taken in our beds.” This was no more than common prudence on the old soldier's part.
The official network for catching law-breakers, especially plebeian ones, was very close in that age; though the co-operation of the public was almost null, at all events upon the Continent. The innkeepers were everywhere under close surveillance as to their travellers, for whose acts they were even in some degree responsible, more so it would seem than for their sufferings.
The friends were both glad when the sun set; and delighted, when, after a long trudge under the stars (for the moon, if I remember right, did not rise till about three in the morning) they came to a large barn belonging to a house at some distance. A quantity of barley had been lately thrashed; for the heap of straw on one side the thrashing-floor was almost as high as the unthrashed corn on the other.
“Here be two royal beds,” said Denys; “which shall we lie on, the mow, or the straw?”
“The straw for me,” said Gerard.
They sat on the heap, and ate their brown bread, and drank their wine, and then Denys covered his friend up in straw, and heaped it high above him, leaving him only a breathing hole: “Water, they say, is death to fevered men; I'll make warm water on't, anyhow.”
Gerard bade him make his mind easy. “These few drops from Rhine cannot chill me. I feel heat enough in my body now to parch a kennel, or boil a cloud if I was in one.” And with this epigram his consciousness went so rapidly, he might really be said to “fall asleep.”
Denys, who lay awake awhile, heard that which made him nestle closer. Horses' hoofs came ringing up from Dusseldorf, and the wooden barn vibrated as they rattled past howling in a manner too well known and understood in the 15th century, but as unfamiliar in Europe now as a red Indian's war-whoop.
Denys shook where he lay.
Gerard slept like a top.
It all swept by, and troop and howls died away.
The stout soldier drew a long breath, whistled in a whisper, closed his eyes, and slept like a top, too.
In the morning he sat up and put out his hand to wake Gerard. It lighted on the young man's forehead, and found it quite wet. Denys then in his quality of nurse forbore to wake him. “It is ill to check sleep or sweat in a sick man,” said he. “I know that far, though I ne'er minced ape nor gallows-bird.”
After waiting a good hour he felt desperately hungry; so he turned, and in self-defence went to sleep again.
Poor fellow, in his hard life he had been often driven to this manoeuvre. At high noon he was waked by Gerard moving, and found him sitting up with the straw smoking round him like a dung-hill. Animal heat versus moisture. Gerard called him “a lazy loon.” He quietly grinned.
They set out, and the first thing Denys did was to give Gerard his arbalest, etc., and mount a high tree on the road. “Coast clear to the next village,” said he, and on they went.
On drawing near the village, Denys halted and suddenly inquired of Gerard how he felt.
“What! can you not see? I feel as if Rome was no further than yon hamlet.”
“But thy body, lad; thy skin?”
“Neither hot nor cold; and yesterday 'twas hot one while and cold another. But what I cannot get rid of is this tiresome leg.”
“Le grand malheur! Many of my comrades have found no such difficulty.”
“Ah! there it goes again; itches consumedly.”
“Unhappy youth,” said Denys solemnly, “the sum of thy troubles is this: thy fever is gone, and thy wound is—healing. Sith so it is,” added he indulgently, “I shall tell thee a little piece of news I had otherwise withheld.”
“What is't?” asked Gerard, sparkling with curiosity.
“THE HUE AND CRY IS OUT AFTER US: AND ON FLEET HORSES.”
“Oh!”
Gerard was staggered by this sudden communication, and his colour came and went. Then he clenched his teeth with ire. For men of any spirit at all are like the wild boar; he will run from a superior force, owing perhaps to his not being an ass; but if you stick to his heels too long and too close, and, in short, bore him, he will whirl, and come tearing at a multitude of hunters, and perhaps bore you. Gerard then set his teeth and looked battle, But the next moment his countenance fell, and he said plaintively, “And my axe is in Rhine.”
They consulted together. Prudence bade them avoid that village; hunger said “buy food.”
Hunger spoke loudest. Prudence most convincingly. They settled to strike across the fields.
They halted at a haystack and borrowed two bundles of hay, and lay on them in a dry ditch out of sight, but in nettles.
They sallied out in turn and came back with turnips. These they munched at intervals in their retreat until sunset.
Presently they crept out shivering into the rain and darkness, and got into the road on the other side of the village.
It was a dismal night, dark as pitch, and blowing hard. They could neither see, nor hear, nor be seen, nor heard; and for aught I know, passed like ghosts close to their foes. These they almost forgot in the natural horrors of the black tempestuous night, in which they seemed to grope and hew their way as in black marble. When the moon rose they were many a league from Dusseldorf. But they still trudged on. Presently they came to a huge building.
“Courage!” cried Denys, “I think I know this convent. Aye it is. We are in the see of Juliers. Cologne has no power here.”
The next moment they were safe within the walls.
Here Gerard made acquaintance with a monk, who had constructed the great dial in the prior's garden, and a wheel for drawing water, and a winnowing machine for the grain, etc., and had ever some ingenious mechanism on hand. He had made several psalteries and two dulcimers, and was now attempting a set of regalles, or little organ for the choir.
Now Gerard played the humble psaltery a little; but the monk touched that instrument divinely, and showed him most agreeably what a novice he was in music. He also illuminated finely, but could not write so beautifully as Gerard. Comparing their acquirements with the earnestness and simplicity of an age in which accomplishments implied a true natural bent, Youth and Age soon became like brothers, and Gerard was pressed hard to stay that night. He consulted Denys, who assented with a rueful shrug.
Gerard told his old new friend whither he was going, and described their late adventures, softening down the bolster.
“Alack!” said the good old man, “I have been a great traveller in my day, but none molested me.” He then told him to avoid inns; they were always haunted by rogues and roysterers, whence his soul might take harm even did his body escape, and to manage each day's journey so as to lie at some peaceful monastery; then suddenly breaking off and looking as sharp as a needle at Gerard, he asked him how long since he had been shriven? Gerard coloured up and replied feebly—
“Better than a fortnight.”
“And thou an exorcist! No wonder perils have overtaken thee. Come, thou must be assoiled out of hand.”
“Yes, father,” said Gerard, “and with all mine heart;” and was sinking down to his knees, with his hands joined, but the monk stopped him half fretfully—
“Not to me! not to me! not to me! I am as full of the world as thou or any be that lives in't. My whole soul it is in these wooden pipes, and sorry leathern stops, which shall perish—with them whose minds are fixed on such like vanities.”
“Dear father,” said Gerard, “they are for the use of the Church, and surely that sanctifies the pains and labour spent on them?”
“That is just what the devil has been whispering in mine ear this while,” said the monk, putting one hand behind his back and shaking his finger half threateningly, half playfully, at Gerard. “He was even so kind and thoughtful as to mind me that Solomon built the Lord a house with rare hangings, and that this in him was counted gracious and no sin. Oh! he can quote Scripture rarely. But I am not so simple a monk as you think, my lad,” cried the good father, with sudden defiance, addressing not Gerard but—Vacancy. “This one toy finished, vigils, fasts, and prayers for me; prayers standing, prayers lying on the chapel floor, and prayers in a right good tub of cold water.” He nudged Gerard and winked his eye knowingly. “Nothing he hates and dreads like seeing us monks at our orisons up to our chins in cold water. For corpus domat aqua. So now go confess thy little trumpery sins, pardonable in youth and secularity, and leave me to mine, sweet to me as honey, and to be expiated in proportion.”
Gerard bowed his head, but could not help saying, “Where shall I find a confessor more holy and clement?”
“In each of these cells,” replied the monk simply (they were now in the corridor) “there, go to Brother Anselm, yonder.”
Gerard followed the monk's direction, and made for a cell; but the doors were pretty close to one another, and it seems he mistook; for just as he was about to tap, he heard his old friend crying to him in an agitated whisper, “Nay! nay! nay!” He turned, and there was the monk at his cell-door, in a strange state of anxiety, going up and down and beating the air double-handed, like a bottom sawyer. Gerard really thought the cell he was at must be inhabited by some dangerous wild beast, if not by that personage whose presence in the convent had been so distinctly proclaimed. He looked back inquiringly and went on to the next door. Then his old friend nodded his head rapidly, bursting in a moment into a comparatively blissful expression of face, and shot back into his den. He took his hour-glass, turned it, and went to work on his regalles; and often he looked up, and said to himself, “Well-a-day, the sands how swift they run when the man is bent over earthly toys.”
Father Anselm was a venerable monk, with an ample head, and a face all dignity and love. Therefore Gerard in confessing to him, and replying to his gentle though searching questions, could not help thinking, “Here is a head!—Oh dear! oh dear! I wonder whether you will let me draw it when I have done confessing.” And so his own head got confused, and he forgot a crime or two. However, he did not lower the bolstering this time, nor was he so uncandid as to detract from the pagan character of the bolstered.
The penance inflicted was this: he was to enter the convent church, and prostrating himself, kiss the lowest step of the altar three times; then kneeling on the floor, to say three paternosters and a credo: “this done, come back to me on the instant.”
Accordingly, his short mortification performed, Gerard returned, and found Father Anselm spreading plaster.
“After the soul the body,” said he; “know that I am the chirurgeon here, for want of a better. This is going on thy leg; to cool it, not to burn it; the saints forbid.”
During the operation the monastic leech, who had naturally been interested by the Dusseldorf branch of Gerard's confession, rather sided with Denys upon “bleeding.” “We Dominicans seldom let blood nowadays; the lay leeches say 'tis from timidity and want of skill; but, in sooth, we have long found that simples will cure most of the ills that can be cured at all. Besides, they never kill in capable hands; and other remedies slay like thunderbolts. As for the blood, the Vulgate saith expressly it is the life of a man.' And in medicine or law, as in divinity, to be wiser than the All-wise is to be a fool. Moreover, simples are mighty. The little four-footed creature that kills the poisonous snake, if bitten herself, finds an herb powerful enough to quell that poison, though stronger and of swifter operation than any mortal malady; and we, taught by her wisdom, and our own traditions, still search and try the virtues of those plants the good God hath strewed this earth with, some to feed men's bodies, some to heal them. Only in desperate ills we mix heavenly with earthly virtue. We steep the hair or the bones of some dead saint in the medicine, and thus work marvellous cures.”
“Think you, father, it is along of the reliques? for Peter a Floris, a learned leech and no pagan, denies it stoutly.”
“What knows Peter a Floris? And what know I? I take not on me to say we can command the saints, and will they nill they, can draw corporal virtue from their blest remains. But I see that the patient drinking thus in faith is often bettered as by a charm. Doubtless faith in the recipient is for much in all these cures. But so 'twas ever. A sick woman, that all the Jewish leeches failed to cure, did but touch Christ's garment and was healed in a moment. Had she not touched that sacred piece of cloth she had never been healed. Had she without faith not touched it only, but worn it to her grave, I trow she had been none the better for't. But we do ill to search these things too curiously. All we see around us calls for faith. Have then a little patience. We shall soon know all. Meantime, I, thy confessor for the nonce, do strictly forbid thee, on thy soul's health, to hearken learned lay folk on things religious. Arrogance is their bane; with it they shut heaven's open door in their own faces. Mind, I say, learned laics. Unlearned ones have often been my masters in humility, and may be thine. Thy wound is cared for; in three days 'twill be but a scar. And now God speed thee, and the saints make thee as good and as happy as thou art thoughtful and gracious.” Gerard hoped there was no need to part yet, for he was to dine in the refectory. But Father Anselm told him, with a shade of regret just perceptible and no more, that he did not leave his cell this week, being himself in penitence; and with this he took Gerard's head delicately in both hands, and kissed him on the brow, and almost before the cell door had closed on him, was back to his pious offices. Gerard went away chilled to the heart by the isolation of the monastic life, and saddened too. “Alas!” he thought, “here is a kind face I must never look to see again on earth; a kind voice gone from mine ear and my heart for ever. There is nothing but meeting and parting in this sorrowful world. Well-a-day! well-a-day!” This pensive mood was interrupted by a young monk who came for him and took him to the refectory; there he found several monks seated at a table, and Denys standing like a poker, being examined as to the towns he should pass through: the friars then clubbed their knowledge, and marked out the route, noting all the religious houses on or near that road; and this they gave Gerard. Then supper, and after it the old monk carried Gerard to his cell, and they had an eager chat, and the friar incidentally revealed the cause of his pantomime in the corridor. “Ye had well-nigh fallen into Brother Jerome's clutches. Yon was his cell.”
“Is Father Jerome an ill man, then?”
“An ill man!” and the friar crossed himself; “a saint, an anchorite, the very pillar of this house! He had sent ye barefoot to Loretto. Nay, I forgot, y'are bound for Italy; the spiteful old saint upon earth, had sent ye to Canterbury or Compostella. But Jerome was born old and with a cowl; Anselm and I were boys once, and wicked beyond anything you can imagine” (Gerard wore a somewhat incredulous look): “this keeps us humble more or less, and makes us reasonably lenient to youth and hot blood.”
Then, at Gerard's earnest request, one more heavenly strain upon the psalterion, and so to bed, the troubled spirit calmed, and the sore heart soothed.
I have described in full this day, marked only by contrast, a day that came like oil on waves after so many passions and perils—because it must stand in this narrative as the representative of many such days which now succeeded to it. For our travellers on their weary way experienced that which most of my readers will find in the longer journey of life, viz., that stirring events are not evenly distributed over the whole road, but come by fits and starts, and as it were, in clusters. To some extent this may be because they draw one another by links more or less subtle. But there is more in it than that. It happens so. Life is an intermittent fever. Now all narrators, whether of history or fiction, are compelled to slur these barren portions of time or else line trunks. The practice, however, tends to give the unguarded reader a wrong arithmetical impression, which there is a particular reason for avoiding in these pages as far as possible. I invite therefore your intelligence to my aid, and ask you to try and realize that, although there were no more vivid adventures for a long while, one day's march succeeded another; one monastery after another fed and lodged them gratis with a welcome always charitable, sometimes genial; and though they met no enemy but winter and rough weather, antagonists not always contemptible, yet they trudged over a much larger tract of territory than that, their passage through which I have described so minutely. And so the pair, Gerard bronzed in the face and travel-stained from head to foot, and Denys with his shoes in tatters, stiff and footsore both of them, drew near the Burgundian frontier.
Gerard was almost as eager for this promised land as Denys; for the latter constantly chanted its praises, and at every little annoyance showed him “they did things better in Burgundy;” and above all played on his foible by guaranteeing clean bedclothes at the inns of that polished nation. “I ask no more,” the Hollander would say; “to think that I have not lain once in a naked bed since I left home! When I look at their linen, instead of doffing habit and hose, it is mine eyes and nose I would fain be shut of.”
Denys carried his love of country so far as to walk twenty leagues in shoes that had exploded, rather than buy of a German churl, who would throw all manner of obstacles in a customer's way, his incivility, his dinner, his body.
Towards sunset they found themselves at equal distances from a little town and a monastery, only the latter was off the road. Denys was for the inn, Gerard for the convent. Denys gave way, but on condition that once in Burgundy they should always stop at an inn. Gerard consented to this the more readily that his chart with its list of convents ended here. So they turned off the road. And now Gerard asked with surprise whence this sudden aversion to places that had fed and lodged them gratis so often. The soldier hemmed and hawed at first, but at last his wrongs burst forth. It came out that this was no sudden aversion, but an ancient and abiding horror, which he had suppressed till now, but with infinite difficulty, and out of politeness: “I saw they had put powder in your drink,” said he, “so I forbore them. However, being the last, why not ease my mind? Know then I have been like a fish out of water in all those great dungeons. You straightway levant with some old shaveling: so you see not my purgatory.”
“Forgive me! I have been selfish.”
“Ay, ay, I forgive thee, little one; 'tis not thy fault: art not the first fool that has been priest-rid, and monk-hit. But I'll not forgive them my misery.” Then, about a century before Henry VIII.'s commissioners, he delivered his indictment. These gloomy piles were all built alike. Inns differed, but here all was monotony. Great gate, little gate, so many steps and then a gloomy cloister. Here the dortour, there the great cold refectory, where you must sit mumchance, or at least inaudible, he who liked to speak his mind out; “and then,” said he, “nobody is a man here, but all are slaves, and of what? of a peevish, tinkling bell, that never sleeps. An 'twere a trumpet now, aye sounding alarums, 'twouldn't freeze a man's heart so. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, and you must sit to meat with may be no stomach for food. Ere your meat settles in your stomach, tinkle, tinkle! and ye must to church with may be no stomach for devotion: I am not a hog at prayers, for one. Tinkle, tinkle, and now you must to bed with your eyes open. Well, by then you have contrived to shut them, some uneasy imp of darkness has got to the bell-rope, and tinkle, tinkle, it behoves you say a prayer in the dark, whether you know one or not. If they heard the sort of prayers I mutter when they break my rest with their tinkle! Well, you drop off again and get about an eyeful of sleep: lo, it is tinkle, tinkle, for matins.”
“And the only clapper you love is a woman's,” put in Gerard half contemptuously.
“Because there is some music in that even when it scolds,” was the stout reply. “And then to be always checked. If I do but put my finger in the salt-cellar, straightway I hear, 'Have you no knife that you finger the salt?' And if I but wipe my knife on the cloth to save time, then 'tis, 'Wipe thy knife dirty on the bread, and clean upon the cloth!' Oh small of soul! these little peevish pedantries fall chill upon good fellowship like wee icicles a-melting down from strawen eaves.”
“I hold cleanliness no pedantry,” said Gerard. “Shouldst learn better manners once for all.”
“Nay; 'tis they who lack manners. They stop a fellow's mouth at every word.”
“At every other word, you mean; every obscene or blasphemous one.”
“Exaggerator, go to! Why, at the very last of these dungeons I found the poor travellers sitting all chilled and mute round one shaveling, like rogues awaiting their turn to be hanged; so to cheer them up, I did but cry out, 'Courage, tout le monde, le dia—
“Connu! what befell?”
“Marry, this. 'Blaspheme not!' quo' the bourreau. 'Plait-il,' say I. Doesn't he wheel and wyte on me in a sort of Alsatian French, turning all the P's into B's. I had much ado not to laugh in his face.”
“Being thyself unable to speak ten words of his language without a fault.”
“Well, all the world ought to speak French. What avail so many jargons except to put a frontier atwixt men's hearts?”
“But what said he?”
“What signifies it what a fool says?”
“Oh, not all the words of a fool are folly, or I should not listen to you.”
“Well, then, he said, 'Such as begin by making free with the devil's name, aye end by doing it with all the names in heaven.' 'Father,' said I, 'I am a soldier, and this is but my “consigne” or watchword.” 'Oh, then, it is just a custom?' said he. I not divining the old fox, and thinking to clear myself, said, 'Ay, it was.' 'Then that is ten times worse,' said he. ''Twill bring him about your ears one of these days. He still comes where he hears his name often called.' Observe! no gratitude for the tidings which neither his missals nor his breviary had ever let him know. Then he was so good as to tell me, soldiers do commonly the crimes for which all other men are broke on the wheel; a savoir murder, rape, and pillage.”
“And is't not true?”
“True or not, it was ill manners,” replied Denys guardedly. “And so says this courteous host of mine, 'Being the foes of mankind, why make enemies of good spirits into the bargain, by still shouting the names of evil ones?' and a lot more stuff.”
“Well, but, Denys, whether you hearken his rede, or slight it, wherefore blame a man for raising his voice to save your soul?”
“How can his voice save my soul, when he keeps turning of his P's into B's.”
Gerard was staggered: ere he could recover at this thunderbolt of Gallicism, Denys went triumphant off at a tangent, and stigmatized all monks as hypocrites. “Do but look at them, how they creep about and cannot eye you like honest men.”
“Nay,” said Gerard eagerly, “that modest downcast gaze is part of their discipline, 'tis 'custodia oculorum'.”
“Cussed toads eating hoc hac horum? No such thing; just so looks a cut-purse. Can't meet a true man's eye. Doff cowl, monk; and behold, a thief; don cowl thief, and lo, a monk. Tell me not they will ever be able to look God Almighty in the face, when they can't even look a true man in the face down here. Ah, here it is, black as ink! into the well we go, comrade. Misericorde, there goes the tinkle already. 'Tis the best of tinkles though; 'tis for dinner: stay, listen! I thought so: the wolf in my stomach cried 'Amen!'” This last statement he confirmed with two oaths, and marched like a victorious gamecock into the convent, thinking by Gerard's silence he had convinced him, and not dreaming how profoundly he had disgusted him.