THE startled hermit glared from his nursling to Margaret, and from her
to him, in amazement, equalled only by his agitation at her so
unexpected return. The child lay asleep on his left arm, and she was at
his right knee; no longer the pale, scared, panting girl he had
overpowered so easily an hour or two ago, but an imperial beauty, with
blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and lips sweetly parted in triumph,
and her whole face radiant with a look he could not quite read; for he
had never yet seen it on her; maternal pride.
He stared and stared from the child to her, in throbbing amazement.
* * * * *
"Us?" he gasped at last. And still his wonder-stricken eyes turned to
and fro.
Margaret was surprised in her turn. It was an age of impressions not
facts. "What!" she cried, "doth not a father know his own child? and a
man of God, too? Fie, Gerard, to pretend! nay, thou art too wise, too
good, not to have--why I watched thee: and e'en now look at you twain!
'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest to thine heart."
Clement trembled. "What words are these," he stammered, "this angel
mine?"
"Whose else? since he is mine."
Clement turned on the sleeping child, with a look beyond the power of
the pen to describe, and trembled all over, as his eyes seemed to absorb
the little love.
Margaret's eyes followed his. "He is not a bit like me," said she,
proudly; "but oh at whiles he is thy very image in little; and see this
golden hair. Thine was the very colour at his age; ask mother else. And
see this mole on his little finger; now look at thine own; there! 'Twas
thy mother let me weet thou wast marked so before him; and oh, Gerard,
'twas this our child found thee for me; for by that little mark on thy
finger I knew thee for his father, when I watched above thy window and
saw thee feed the birds;" here she seized the child's hand and kissed it
eagerly, and got half of it into her mouth, heaven knows how. "Ah! bless
thee, thou didst find thy poor daddy for her, and now thou hast made us
friends again after our little quarrel; the first, the last. Wast very
cruel to me but now, my poor Gerard, and I forgive thee; for loving of
thy child."
"Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!" sobbed Clement, choking.
And lowered by fasts, and unnerved by solitude, the once strong man was
hysterical, and nearly fainting.
Margaret was alarmed, but, having experience, her pity was greater than
her fear. "Nay, take not on so," she murmured soothingly, and put a
gentle hand upon his brow. "Be brave! So, so. Dear heart, thou art not
the first man, that hath gone abroad, and come back richer by a lovely
little self, than he went forth. Being a man of God take courage, and
say He sends thee this to comfort thee for what thou hast lost in me;
and that is not so very much, my lamb; for sure the better part of love
shall ne'er cool here to thee, though it may in thine, and ought, being
a priest, and parson of Gouda."
"I? priest of Gouda? Never!" murmured Clement, in a faint voice, "I am a
friar of St. Dominic: yet speak on sweet music, tell me all that has
happened thee, before we are parted again."
Now some would on this have exclaimed against parting at all, and raised
the true question in dispute. But such women as Margaret do not repeat
their mistakes. It is very hard to defeat them _twice_, where their
hearts are set on a thing.
She assented, and turned her back on Gouda manse as a thing not to be
recurred to; and she told him her tale, dwelling above all on the
kindness to her of his parents; and, while she related her troubles, his
hand stole to hers, and often she felt him wince and tremble with ire,
and often press her hand, sympathizing with her in every vein.
"Oh, piteous tale of a true heart battling alone against such bitter
odds," said he.
"It all seems small, when I see thee here again, and nursing my boy. We
have had a warning, Gerard. True friends like you and me are rare, and
they are mad to part, ere death divideth them."
"And that is true," said Clement, off his guard.
And then she would have him tell her what he had suffered for her, and
he begged her to excuse him, and she consented; but by questions quietly
revoked her consent and elicited it all; and many a sigh she heaved for
him, and more than once she hid her face in her hands with terror at his
perils, though past.
And to console him for all he had gone through, she kneeled down and put
her arms under the little boy, and lifted him gently up. "Kiss him
softly," she whispered. "Again, again! kiss thy fill if thou canst; he
is sound. 'Tis all I can do to comfort thee till thou art out of this
foul den and in thy sweet manse yonder."
Clement shook his head.
"Well," said she, "let that pass. Know that I have been sore affronted
for want of my lines."
"Who hath dared affront thee?"
"No matter, those that will do it again if thou hast lost them, which
the saints forbid."
"I lose them? nay, there they lie, close to thy hand."
"Where, where, oh where?"
Clement hung his head. "Look in the Vulgate. Heaven forgive me: I
thought thou wert dead, and a saint in heaven."
She looked, and on the blank leaves of the poor soul's Vulgate she found
her marriage lines.
"Thank God!" she cried, "thank God! Oh, bless thee, Gerard, bless thee!
Why what is here, Gerard?"
On the other leaves were pinned every scrap of paper she had ever sent
him, and their two names she had once written together in sport, and the
lock of her hair she had given him, and half a silver coin she had
broken with him, and a straw she had sucked her soup with the first day
he ever saw her.
When Margaret saw these proofs of love and signs of a gentle heart
bereaved, even her exultation at getting back her marriage lines was
overpowered by gushing tenderness. She almost staggered, and her hand
went to her bosom, and she leaned her brow against the stone cell and
wept so silently that he did not see she was weeping; indeed she would
not let him, for she felt that to befriend him now she must be the
stronger; and emotion weakens.
"Gerard," said she, "I know you are wise and good. You must have a
reason for what you are doing, let it seem ever so unreasonable. Talk we
like old friends. Why are you buried alive?"
"Margaret, to escape temptation. My impious ire against those two had
its root in the heart; that heart then I must deaden, and, Dei gratiâ, I
shall. Shall I, a servant of Christ and of the Church, court temptation?
Shall I pray daily to be led out on't, and walk into it with open eyes?"
"That is good sense any way," said Margaret, with a consummate affection
of candour.
"'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh.
"We shall see. Tell me, have you escaped temptation here? Why I ask is,
when _I_ am alone, my thoughts are far more wild and foolish than in
company. Nay, speak sooth; come!"
"I must needs own I have been worse tempted here with evil imaginations
than in the world."
"There now."
"Ay, but so were Anthony, and Jerome, Macarius, and Hilarion, Benedict,
Bernard, and all the saints. 'Twill wear off."
"How do you know?"
"I feel sure it will."
"Guessing against knowledge. Here 'tis men folk are sillier than us that
be but women. Wise in their own conceits, they will not let themselves
see; their stomachs are too high to be taught by their eyes. A woman, if
she went into a hole in a bank to escape temptation, and there found it,
would just lift her farthingale and out on't, and not e'en know how wise
she was, till she watched a man in like plight."
"Nay, I grant humility and a teachable spirit are the roads to wisdom;
but, when all is said, here I wrestle but with imagination. At Gouda she
I love as no priest or monk must love any but the angels, she will tempt
a weak soul, unwilling, yet not loth, to be tempted."
"Aye that is another matter; _I_ should tempt thee then? to what, i'
God's name?"
"Who knows? The flesh is weak."
"Speak for yourself, my lad. Why you are thinking of some other
Margaret, not Margaret à Peter. Was ever my mind turned to folly and
frailty? Stay, is it because you were my husband once, as these lines
avouch? Think you the road to folly is beaten for you more than for
another? Oh! how shallow are the wise, and how little able are you to
read me, who can read you so well from top to toe. Come, learn thy A B
C. Were a stranger to proffer me unchaste love, I should shrink a bit,
no doubt, and feel sore, but I should defend myself without making a
coil; for men, I know, are so, the best of them sometimes. But if you,
that have been my husband, and are my child's father, were to offer to
humble me so in mine own eyes, and thine, and his, either I should spit
in thy face, Gerard, or, as I am not a downright vulgar woman, I should
snatch the first weapon at hand and strike thee dead."
And Margaret's eyes flashed fire, and her nostrils expanded, that it was
glorious to see; and no one that did see her could doubt her sincerity.
"I had not the sense to see that," said Gerard, quietly. And he
pondered.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and soon recovered her composure.
"Let not you and I dispute," said she, gently; "speak we of other
things. Ask me of thy folk."
"My father?"
"Well, and warms to thee and me. Poor soul, a drew glaive on those twain
that day, but Jorian Ketel and I we mastered him, and he drove them
forth his house for ever."
"That may not be; he must take them back."
"That he will never do for us. You know the man; he is dour as iron: yet
would he do it for one word from one that will not speak it."
"Who?"
"The vicar of Gouda. The old man will be at the manse to-morrow, I
hear."
"How you come back to that."
"Forgive me: I am but a woman. It is us for nagging; shouldst keep me
from it wi' questioning of me."
"My sister Kate?"
"Alas!"
"What hath ill befallen e'en that sweet lily? Out and alas!"
"Be calm, sweetheart, no harm hath her befallen. Oh, nay, nay, far fro'
that." Then Margaret forced herself to be composed, and in a low sweet,
gentle voice she murmured to him thus: "My poor Gerard, Kate hath left
her trouble behind her. For the manner on't, 'twas like the rest. Ah;
such as she saw never thirty, nor ever shall while earth shall last. She
smiled in pain too. A well, then, thus 'twas; she was took wi' a languor
and a loss of all her pains."
"A loss of her pains? I understand you not."
"Ay, you are not experienced; indeed, e'en thy mother almost blinded
herself, and said, ''tis maybe a change for the better.' But Joan Ketel,
which is an understanding woman, she looked at her and said, 'Down sun,
down wind!' And the gossips sided and said, 'Be brave, you that are her
mother, for she is half way to the saints.' And thy mother wept sore,
but Kate would not let her; and one very ancient woman, she said to thy
mother, 'She will die as easy as she lived hard.' And she lay painless
best part of three days, a sipping of heaven aforehand. And, my dear,
when she was just parting, she asked for 'Gerard's little boy,' and I
brought him and set him on the bed, and the little thing behaved as
peaceably as he does now. But by this time she was past speaking: but
she pointed to a drawer, and her mother knew what to look for: it was
two gold angels thou hadst given her years ago. Poor soul! she had kept
them till thou shouldst come home. And she nodded towards the little
boy, and looked anxious: but we understood her, and put the pieces in
his two hands, and, when his little fingers closed on them, she smiled
content. And so she gave her little earthly treasures to her favourite's
child--for you _were_ her favourite--and her immortal jewel to God, and
passed so sweetly we none of us knew justly when she left us.
Well-a-day, well-a-day!"
Gerard wept.
"She hath not left her like on earth," he sobbed. "Oh how the affections
of earth curl softly round my heart! I cannot help it: God made them
after all. Speak on, sweet Margaret; at thy voice the past rolls its
tides back upon me; the loves and the hopes of youth come fair and
gliding into my dark cell, and darker bosom, on waves of memory and
music."
* * * * *
"Gerard, I am loth to grieve you, but Kate cried a little when she first
took ill, at you not being there to close her eyes."
Gerard sighed.
"You were within a league, but hid your face from her."
He groaned.
"There, forgive me for nagging; I am but a woman: you would not have
been so cruel to your own flesh and blood knowingly, would you?"
"Oh, no."
"Well then, know that thy brother Sybrandt lies in my charge with a
broken back, fruit of thy curse."
"Mea culpa! mea culpa!"
"He is very penitent; be yourself and forgive him this night!"
"I have forgiven him long ago."
"Think you he can believe that from any mouth but yours? Come! he is but
about two butts' length hence."
"So near? Why where?"
"At Gouda manse. I took him there yestreen. For I know you, the curse
was scarce cold on your lips when you repented it" (Gerard nodded
assent), "and I said to myself, Gerard will thank me for taking Sybrandt
to die under his roof; he will not beat his breast and cry mea culpa,
yet grudge three footsteps to quiet a withered brother on his last bed.
He may have a bee in his bonnet, but he is not a hypocrite, a thing all
pious words and uncharitable deeds."
Gerard literally staggered where he sat at this tremendous thrust.
"Forgive me for nagging," said she. "Thy mother too is waiting for thee.
Is it well done to keep her on thorns so long? She will not sleep this
night. Bethink thee, Gerard, she is all to thee that I am to this sweet
child. Ah, I think so much more of mothers since I had my little Gerard.
She suffered for thee, and nursed thee, and tended thee from boy to man.
Priest, monk, hermit, call thyself what thou wilt, to her thou art but
one thing; her child."
"Where is she?" murmured Gerard, in a quavering voice.
"At Gouda manse, wearing the night in prayer and care."
* * * * *
Then Margaret saw the time was come for that appeal to his reason she
had purposely reserved till persuasion should have paved the way for
conviction. So the smith first softens the iron by fire; and then brings
down the sledge hammer.
She showed him, but in her own good straightforward Dutch, that his
present life was only a higher kind of selfishness; spiritual egotism.
Whereas a priest had no more right to care only for his own soul than
only for his own body. That was not _his_ path to heaven. "But," said
she, "whoever yet lost his soul by saving the souls of others? the
Almighty loves him who thinks of others, and when He shall see thee
caring for the souls of the folk the duke hath put into thine hand, He
will care ten times more for thy soul than He does now."
Gerard was struck by this remark. "Art shrewd in dispute," said he.
"Far from it," was the reply, "only my eyes are not bandaged with
conceit.[L] So long as Satan walks the whole earth, tempting men, and so
long as the sons of Belial do never lock themselves in caves, but run
like ants, to and fro, corrupting others, the good man that skulks
apart, plays the devil's game, or at least gives him the odds: thou a
soldier of Christ? ask thy comrade Denys, who is but a soldier of the
duke, ask him if ever he skulked in a hole and shunned the battle
because forsooth in battle is danger as well as glory and duty. For thy
sole excuse is fear; thou makest no secret on't. Go to; no duke nor king
hath such cowardly soldiers as Christ hath. What was that you said in
the church at Rotterdam about the man in the parable, that buried his
talent in the earth and so offended the giver? Thy wonderful gift for
preaching, is it not a talent, and a gift from thy creator?"
"Certes; such as it is."
"And hast thou laid it out? or buried it? To whom hast thou preached
these seven months? to bats and owls? Hast buried it in one hole with
thyself and thy once good wits.
"The Dominicans are the friars Preachers. 'Tis for preaching they were
founded; so thou art false to Dominic as well as to his master.
"Do you remember, Gerard, when we were young together, which now are old
before our time, as we walked handed in the fields, did you but see a
sheep cast, ay three fields off, you would leave your sweetheart (by her
good will), and run and lift the sheep for charity? Well then, at Gouda
is not one sheep in evil plight, but a whole flock; some cast, some
strayed, some sick, some tainted, some a being devoured, and all for the
want of a shepherd. Where is their shepherd? lurking in a den like a
wolf; a den in his own parish, out fie! out fie!
"I scented thee out, in part, by thy kindness to the little birds. Take
note, you Gerard Eliassoen must love something, 'tis in your blood; you
were born to't. Shunning man you do but seek earthly affection a peg
lower than man."
Gerard interrupted her. "The birds are God's creatures, his innocent
creatures, and I do well to love them, being God's creatures."
* * * * *
"What, are they creatures of the same God that we are, that he is who
lies upon thy knee?"
"You know they are."
"Then what pretence for shunning us and being kind to them? Sith man is
one of the animals, why pick him out to shun? Is't because he is of
animals the paragon? What, you court the young of birds, and abandon
your own young? Birds need but bodily food, and, having wings, deserve
scant pity if they cannot fly and find it. But that sweet dove upon thy
knee, he needeth not carnal only, but spiritual food. He is thine as
well as mine: and I have done my share. He will soon be too much for me,
and I look to Gouda's parson to teach him true piety and useful lore. Is
he not of more value than many sparrows?"
Gerard started and stammered an affirmation. For she waited for his
reply.
"You wonder," continued she, "to hear me quote holy writ so glib. I have
pored over it this four years, and why? Not because God wrote it, but
because I saw it often in thy hands ere thou didst leave me. Heaven
forgive me; I am but a woman. What thinkest thou of this sentence? 'Let
your work so shine before men that they may see your good works and
glorify your Father which is in heaven!' What is a saint in a sink
better than 'a light under a bushel'?
"Therefore, since the sheep committed to thy charge bleat for thee and
cry: 'Oh desert us no longer, but come to Gouda manse;' since I, who
know thee ten times better than thou knowest thyself, do pledge my soul
it is for thy soul's weal to go to Gouda manse,--since duty to thy
child, too long abandoned, call thee to Gouda Manse,--since thy
sovereign, whom holy writ again bids thee honour, sends thee to Gouda
manse,--since the Pope, whom the Church teaches thee to revere, hath
absolved thee of thy monkish vows, and orders thee to Gouda manse--"
"Ah?"
"Since thy grey-haired mother watches for thee in dole and care, and
turneth oft the hour-glass and sigheth sore that thou comest so slow to
her at Gouda manse,--since thy brother, withered by thy curse, awaits
thy forgiveness and thy prayers for his soul, now lingering in his body,
at Gouda manse,--take thou up in thine arms the sweet bird wi' crest of
gold that nestles to thy bosom, and give me thy hand; thy sweetheart
erst and wife, and now thy friend, the truest friend to thee this night
that ere man had; and come with me to Gouda manse!"
"IT IS THE VOICE OF AN ANGEL!" cried Clement loudly.
"Then hearken it, and come forth to Gouda manse!"
The battle was won.
* * * * *
Margaret lingered behind, cast her eye rapidly round the furniture, and
selected the Vulgate and the psaltery. The rest she sighed at, and let
it lie. The breastplate and the cilice of bristles she took and dashed
with feeble ferocity on the floor. Then, seeing Gerard watch her with
surprise from the outside, she coloured and said: "I am but a woman:
'little' will still be 'spiteful.'"
"Why encumber thyself with those? They are safe."
"Oh, she had a reason."
And with this they took the road to Gouda parsonage. The moon and stars
were so bright, it seemed almost as light as day.
Suddenly Gerard stopped. "My poor little birds!"
"What of them?"
"They will miss their food. I feed them every day."
"The child hath a piece of bread in his cowl. Take that and feed them
now, against the morn."
"I will. Nay, I will not. He is as innocent, and nearer to me and to
thee."
Margaret drew a long breath. "'Tis well. Hadst taken it, I might have
hated thee; I am but a woman."
When they had gone about a quarter of a mile, Gerard sighed. "Margaret,"
said he, "I must e'en rest; he is too heavy for me."
"Then give him me, and take thou these. Alas! alas! I mind when thou
wouldst have run with the child on one shoulder, and the mother on
t'other."
And Margaret carried the boy.
"I trow," said Gerard, looking down, "overmuch fasting is not good for a
man."
"A many die of it each year, winter time," replied Margaret.
Gerard pondered these simple words, and eyed her askant, carrying the
child with perfect ease. When they had gone nearly a mile, he said, with
considerable surprise: "You thought it was but two butts' length."
"Not I."
"Why, you said so."
"That is another matter." She then turned on him the face of a Madonna.
"I lied," said she, sweetly. "And to save your soul and body, I'd maybe
tell a worse lie than that, at need. I am but a woman. Ah, well, it is
but two butts' length from here at any rate."
"Without a lie?"
"Humph? Three, without a lie."
And sure enough, in a few minutes they came up to the manse.
A candle was burning in the vicar's parlour. "She is waking still,"
whispered Margaret.
"Beautiful! beautiful!" said Clement, and stopped to look at it.
"What, in Heaven's name?"
"That little candle, seen through the window at night. Look an it be not
like some fair star of size prodigious: it delighteth the eyes and
warmeth the heart of those outside."
"Come, and I'll show thee something better," said Margaret, and led him
on tiptoe to the window.
They looked in, and there was Catherine kneeling on the hassock, with
her "hours" before her.
"Folk can pray out of a cave," whispered Margaret. "Ay and hit heaven
with their prayers. For 'tis for a sight of thee she prayeth; and thou
art here. Now, Gerard, be prepared; she is not the woman you knew her;
her children's troubles have greatly broken the brisk, light-hearted
soul. And I see she has been weeping e'en now; she will have given thee
up, being so late."
"Let me get to her," said Clement hastily, trembling all over.
"That door! I will bide here."
When Gerard was gone to the door, Margaret, fearing the sudden surprise,
gave one sharp tap at the window, and cried, "Mother!" in a loud,
expressive voice that Catherine read at once. She clasped her hands
together and had half risen from her kneeling posture, when the door
burst open and Clement flung himself wildly on his knees at her knees,
with his arms out to embrace her. She uttered a cry such as only a
mother could. "Ah! my darling, my darling!" And clung sobbing round his
neck. And true it was, she saw neither a hermit, a priest, nor a monk,
but just her child, lost, and despaired of, and in her arms. And after a
little while Margaret came in, with wet eyes and cheeks, and a holy calm
of affection settled by degrees on these sore troubled ones. And they
sat all three together, hand in hand, murmuring sweet and loving
converse; and he who sat in the middle, drank right and left their true
affection and their humble but genuine wisdom, and was forced to eat a
good nourishing meal, and at daybreak was packed off to a snowy bed, and
by-and-by awoke, as from a hideous dream, friar and hermit no more,
Clement no more, but Gerard Eliassoen, parson of Gouda.
FOOTNOTE:
[L] I think she means prejudice.