ST. NICOLAS embraced the three children and gently questioned them about
the miserable death which they had suffered. They related that Garum,
having approached them while they were gleaning in the fields, had lured
them into his inn, had made them drink wine, and had cut their throats
while they slept.
They still wore the rags in which they had been clothed on the day of
their death, and they retained, after their resurrection, a wild
and timid air. The sturdiest of the three, Maxime, was the son of a
half-witted woman, who followed the soldiers to war, mounted on an ass.
One night he fell from the pannier in which she carried him, and was
left abandoned by the roadside. From that time forward he had lived
solely by theft. The feeblest, Robin, could hardly recall his parents,
peasants in the highlands, who being too poor or too avaricious to
support him had deserted him in the forest. The third, Sulpice, knew
nothing of his birth, but a priest had taught him his alphabet. The
storm had ceased; in the buoyant, limpid air the birds were calling
loudly to one another. The smiling earth was green. Modernus having
fetched the mules, Bishop Nicolas mounted his, and carried Maxime
wrapped in his cloak: the deacon took Sulpice and Robin upon his
crupper, and they set off toward the city of Trinqueballe.
The road unfolded itself between fields of corn, vineyards, and meadows.
As they went along the great Saint Nicolas who already loved the
children with all his heart, examined them on subjects suitable to their
age, and asked them easy questions such as: “How much is five times
five?” or “What is God?” He obtained no satisfactory answers. But, far
from shaming them for their ignorance, he thought only of gradually
dissipating it by the application of the best pedagogic methods.
“Modernus,” he said, “we will teach them firstly the truths necessary
for salvation, and secondly the liberal arts, especially music, so that
they may sing the praises of the Lord. It will also be expedient to
teach them rhetoric, philosophy, and the history of men, plants, and
animals. I desire that they shall study, in their habits and their
structure, the animals, all of whose organs, in their wonderful
perfection, attest the glory of the Creator.”
Scarcely had the venerable Pontiff concluded this speech when a peasant
woman passed along the road, dragging by the halter an old mare so
heavily laden with branches cut with their leaves on that her knees were
trembling, and she stumbled at every step.
“Alas,” sighed the great St. Nicolas, “here is a poor horse carrying
more than its burden. He has unfortunately fallen into the hands of
unjust and hard-hearted masters. One should not overload any creature,
not even beasts of burden.”
At these words the three boys burst out laughing. The Bishop having
asked why they laughed so loudly:
“Because----” said Robin.
“That is----” said Sulpice.
“We laughed,” said Maxime, “because you mistook a mare for a horse.
Can’t you see the difference? It is very plain to me. Don’t you know
anything about animals?”
“I think,” said Modernus, “the first thing is to teach these children
manners.”
At every town, borough, village, hamlet or castle by which he passed,
St. Nicolas showed the people the children rescued from the salting-tub,
and related the great miracle performed by God, on his intercession;
whereupon they were all very joyful, and blessed him. Informed by
messengers and travellers of so prodigious an occurrence, the entire
population of Trinqueballe came out to meet their pastor, unrolling
precious carpets and scattering flowers in his path. The citizens, their
eyes wet with tears, gazed at the three victims who had escaped from the
salting-tub, and cried: “The Lord be praised!” But the poor children
knew no better than to laugh and stick out their tongues; this caused
further wonder and compassion, as being a palpable proof of their
innocence and misfortune.
The saintly Bishop Nicolas had an orphan niece, Mirande by name, who had
just reached her seventh year, and was dearer to him than the light of
his eyes. A worthy widow by name Basine was rearing her in piety, good
manners, and ignorance of evil. The three miraculously saved children
were confided to the care of this lady. She was not lacking in judgment.
She quickly saw that Maxime had courage, Robin prudence, and Sulpice
the power of reflection. She devoted herself to confirming these good
qualities, which, by the corruption common to the whole human race,
tended unceasingly to become perverted and distorted; for Robin’s
cautiousness turned easily into hypocrisy, and mostly hid a greedy
covetousness; Maxime was subject to fits of rage, and Sulpice frequently
and obstinately expressed false ideas in very important matters.
However, they were but mere children who went bird’s-nesting, stole the
garden fruit, tied cooking-pots to dogs’ tails, put ink the holy water
font, and cow-itch in Modernus’ bed.
At night, wrapped in white sheets and walking on stilts, they would go
into the gardens, and frighten into a swoon the serving-maids belated
in their lovers’ arms. They would cover the seat which Madame Basine
was wont to use with bristling spikes, and when she sat down they would
delight in her sufferings, observing the confusion with which she openly
applied a heedful and comforting hand to the damaged spot, for she would
not for all the world have been lacking in modesty.
In spite of her age and virtues, this lady inspired them with neither
love nor fear. Robin called her an old goat, Maxime an old she-ass, and
Sulpice, the ass of Balaam. They teased little Mirande in all sorts
of ways; they would dirty her pretty clothes by making her fall face
downward on the stones. Once they pushed her head right up to the neck
into a barrel of treacle. They taught her to sit astride railings, and
to climb trees, contrary to the decorum of her sex; they taught her
words and manners that smacked of the inn and the salting-tub. Following
their example, she called Madame Bassne “an old goat,” and even, taking
the part for the whole, “old goat’s rump.” But she remained completely
innocent. The purity of her soul was unchangeable.
“I am fortunate,” said the holy Bishop Nicolas, “in that I rescued these
children from the salting-tub, to make them good Christians. They will
become faithful servants of God, and their merits will be accounted to
me.”
Now, by the third year after their resurrection, when they were already
tall and well-made, on a day of spring, as they were all playing in the
field beside the river, Maxime in a moment of facetiousness and natural
high spirits, threw the Deacon Modernus into the water. Hanging on to
the branch of a willow-tree, Modernus called for help. Robin ran up,
made as though to draw him out by the hand, took off his ring, and fled.
Meanwhile, Sulpice, sitting motionless on the bank with his arms
crossed, said:
“Modernus is making a bad end. I can see six devils, in the form of
flittermice, ready to seize his soul as it comes out of his mouth.”
When this serious affair was reported to him by Madame Basine and
Modernus, the holy Bishop was much afflicted and fell a-sighing.
“These children,” he said, “were reared in suffering, by unworthy
parents. The excess of their misfortunes has caused the deformity of
their characters. We must redress their wrongs by enduring patience, and
persevering kindness.”
“Monseigneur,” answered Modernus, who was chattering with fever in his
dressing-gown, and sneezing under his nightcap, for his bath had given
him a cold, “it is possible that their wickedness is derived from the
wickedness of their parents. But how do you explain, father, the fact
that neglect has produced in each of them different and, so to speak,
contrary vices, and that the desertion and destitution into which
they were thrown before they were put in the salting-tub has made one
avaricious, a second violent, and the third a visionary? And in your
place, my Lord, I should feel most uneasy about the last.”
“Each of these children,” answered the Bishop, “has yielded in his weak
spot. Ill-treatment has deformed their souls in those portions that
offered the least resistance. Let us straighten them out with a thousand
precautions, for fear of increasing the evil instead of diminishing it.
Mildness, clemency, and forbearance are the only means which should ever
be employed for the improvement of men, heretics of course excepted.”
“No doubt, Monseigneur, no doubt,” said Modernus, sneezing three
times. “But you cannot have a good education without chastisement, nor
discipline without discipline. I know what I am about. If you do not
punish these three little ragamuffins, they will grow up worse than
Herod. I assure you I am right.”
“Modernus could not be mistaken,” said Madame Basine.
The Bishop did not answer. With the widow and the Deacon, he paced the
length of a hawthorn hedge, which breathed forth an agreeable fragrance
of honey and bitter almonds. In a slight hollow, where the soil received
the water from a neighbouring spring, he stopped before a bush, whose
twisted, close-packed branches were covered with gleaming, clean-cut
leaves and white clusters of flowers.
“Look,” he said, “at this leafy, fragrant shrub, this lovely may, this
noble thorn-bush, so strong and vigorous. Observe that it is in more
abundant leaf, and more glorious with bloom, than all the other thorns
in the hedge. But notice also that the pale bark of its branches bears
only a few thorns, which are weak and soft and blunt. What is the reason
of this? It is because, growing in a rich, moist soil, quiet and secure
in the wealth which sustains its life, it has utilized all the juices
of the earth to augment its power and its glory, and being too strong
to dream of arming against its feeble enemies, it has devoted itself
entirely to the joys of its magnificent and delicious fertility. Now
come a few steps up this rising path, and look at this other hawthorn,
which having with difficulty issued from a dry, stony soil, languishes,
deficient in both wood and leaves, and has had no other thought during
its hard life than to defend itself against the innumerable enemies that
threaten the weal. It is nothing but a bundle of thorns. It has employed
the little sap which it received in fashioning innumerable spears, broad
at the base, hard and sharp, which but ill restore confidence to
its apprehensive weakness. It has nothing left over for fruitful and
fragrant blossom. My friends, we are like the hawthorns. The care given
to our childhood makes us better. Too harsh an up bringing hardens us.”