"The Cloister and the Hearth" a Tale of the Middle Ages, is by
common consent the greatest of all Charles Reade's stories. A
portion of it originally appeared in 1859 in "Once a Week,"
under the title of "A Good Fight," and such was its success in
this guise that it increased the circulation of that
periodical by twenty thousand. During the next two years
Reade, recognising its romantic possibilities, expanded it to
its present length. As a picture of the manners and customs of
the times it is almost unsurpassable; yet pervading the whole
is the strong, clear atmosphere of romantic drama never
allowing the somewhat ample descriptions to predominate the
thrilling interest with which the story is charged. Sir Walter
Besant regarded it as the "greatest historical novel in the
language." Swinburne remarked of it that "a story better
conceived, better constructed, or better related, it would be
difficult to find anywhere."
_I.--Gerard Falls in Love_
It was past the middle of the fifteenth century when our tale begins.
Elias, and Catherine his wife, lived in the little town of Tergon in
Holland. He traded, wholesale and retail, in cloth and curried leather,
and the couple were well to do. Nine children were born to them; four of
these were set up in trade, one, Giles, was a dwarf, another, little
Catherine, was a cripple. Cornelis, the eldest, and Sybrandt, the
youngest, lived at home, too lazy to work, waiting for dead men's shoes.
There remained young Gerard, a son apart and distinct, destined for the
Church. The monks taught him penmanship, and continued to teach him,
until one day, in the middle of a lesson, they discovered he was
teaching them. Then Gerard took to illuminating on vellum, and in this
he was helped by an old lady, Margaret Van Eyck, sister of the famous
brothers Van Eyck, who had come to end her days near Tergon. When Philip
the Good, Count of Flanders, for the encouragement of the arts, offered
prizes for the best specimens of painting on glass and illumination on
vellum, Gerard decided to compete. He sent in his specimens, and his
mother furnished him with a crown to go to Rotterdam and see the work of
his competitors and the prize distribution. Gerard would soon be a
priest, she argued; it seemed hard if he might not enjoy the world a
little before separating himself from it for life.
It was on the road to Rotterdam, within a league of the city, that
Gerard found an old man sitting by the roadside quite worn out, and a
comely young woman holding his hand. The old man wore a gown, and a fur
tippet, and a velvet cap--sure signs of dignity; but the gown was rusty,
and the fur old--sure signs of poverty. The young woman was dressed in
plain russet cloth, yet snow-white lawn covered her neck.
"Father, I fear you are tired," said Gerard bashfully.
"Indeed, my son, I am," replied the old man; "and faint for lack of
food."
The girl whispered, "Father, a stranger--a young man!" But Gerard, with
simplicity, and as a matter of course, was already gathering sticks for
a fire. This done, he took down his wallet, and brought his tinder-box
and an iron flask his careful mother had put in.
Ghysbrecht Van Swikten, the burgomaster of Tergon, an old man redolent
of wealth, came riding by while Gerard was preparing a meal of soup and
bread by the roadside. He reined in his steed and spoke uneasily: "Why,
Peter--Margaret--what mummery is this?" Then, seeing Gerard, he cast a
look of suspicion on Margaret, and rode on. The wayfarers did not know
that more than half the wealth of the burgomaster belonged to old Peter
Brandt, now dependent on Gerard for his soup; but Ghysbrecht knew it,
and carried it in his heart, a scorpion of remorse that was not
penitence.
From that hour Gerard was in love with Margaret, and now began a pretty
trouble. For at Rotterdam, thanks to a letter from Margaret Van Eyck,
Gerard won the favour of the Princess Marie, who, hearing that he was to
be a priest, promised him a benefice. And yet no sooner was Gerard
returned home to Tergon than he must needs go seeking Margaret, who
lived alone with her father, old Peter Brandt, at Sevenbergen.
Ghysbrecht's one fear was that if Gerard married Margaret the youth
would sooner or later get to hear about certain documents in the
burgomaster's possession, documents which established Brandt's right to
lands held by the burgomaster, and which old Peter had long forgotten.
So Ghysbrecht went to Eli and Catherine and showed them a picture Gerard
had made of Margaret Brandt, and said that if Eli ordered it his son
should be locked up until he came to his senses. Henceforth there was no
longer any peace in the little house at Tergon, and at last Eli declared
before the whole family that he had ordered the burgomaster to imprison
his son Gerard in the Stadthouse rather than let him marry Margaret.
Gerard turned pale at this, and his father went on to say, "and a priest
you shall be before this year is out, willy-nilly."
"Is it so?" cried Gerard. "Then hear me all. By God and St. Bavon, I
swear I will never be a priest while Margaret lives. Since force is to
decide it, and not love and duty, try force, father. And the day I see
the burgomaster come for me I leave Tergon for ever, and Holland too,
and my father's house, where it seems I am valued only for what is to be
got out of me."
And he flung out of the room white with anger and desperation.
"There!" cried Catherine. "That comes of driving young folk too hard.
Now, heaven forbid he should ever leave us, married or single."
Gerard went to his good friend Margaret Van Eyck, who advised him to go
to Italy, where painters were honoured like princes, and to take the
girl he loved with him. Ten golden angels she gave him besides to take
him to Rome.
Gerard decided to marry Margaret Brandt at once, and a day or two later
they stood before the altar of Sevenbergen Church. But the ceremony was
never concluded, although Gerard got a certificate from the priest, for
Ghysbrecht getting wind of what was afoot, sent his servants, who
stopped the marriage, and carried Gerard off to the burgomaster's
prison. In the room where he was confined were very various documents,
which the prisoner got hold of.
Gerard escaped from the prison, and vowing he had done with Tergon, bade
farewell to Margaret, and set off for Italy. Once across the frontier in
Germany he was safe from Ghysbrecht's malice. He also had in his keeping
the piece of parchment which gave certain lands to Peter Brandt, and
which Ghysbrecht had hitherto held.
_II.--To Rome_
It is likely Gerard would never have reached Rome but for his faithful
comrade Denys, a soldier making his way home to Burgundy, whom he met
early on the road. Gerard, at first, was for going on alone, but his
companion would not be refused.
"You will find me a dull companion, for my heart is very heavy," said
Gerard, yielding.
"I'll cheer you, mon gars."
"I think you would," said Gerard sweetly; "and sore need have I of a
kindly voice in mine ear this day."
"Oh, no soul is sad alongside me. I lift up their poor little hearts
with my consigne; 'Courage, tout le monde, le diable est mort.' Ha! Ha!"
"So be it, then," said Gerard. "We will go together as far as Rhine, and
God go with us both!"
"Amen!" said Denys, and lifted up his cap.
The pair trudged manfully on, and Denys enlivened the weary way. He
chattered about battles and sieges, and things which were new to Gerard;
and he was one of those who _make_ little incidents wherever they go. He
passed nobody without addressing him. "They don't understand it, but it
wakes them up," said he. But, whenever they fell in with a monk or
priest, he pulled a long face and sought the reverend father's blessing,
and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as
not to produce a single German sentence. He doffed his cap to every
woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his
native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or
magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to
circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable
neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in
and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is
Beelzebub a hatching of my eggs.'"
But the time came for parting and Denys, with a letter from Gerard to
Margaret Brandt, reached Tergon, and found Eli and Catherine and gave
them news of their son. "Many a weary league we trode together," said
Denys. "Never were truer comrades; never will be while earth shall last.
First I left my route a bit to be with him, then he his to be with me.
We talked of Sevenbergen and Tergon a thousand times, and of all in this
house. We had our troubles on the road, but battling them together made
them light. I saved his life from a bear, he mine in the Rhine; for he
swims like a duck, and I like a hod o' bricks; and we saved one
another's lives at an inn in Burgundy, where we two held a room for a
good hour against seven cut-throats, and crippled one and slew two; and
your son met the stoutest champion I ever countered, and spitted him
like a sucking-pig, else I had not been here. And at our sad parting,
soldier though I be, these eyes did rain salt, scalding tears, and so
did his, poor soul. His last word to me was: 'Go, comfort Margaret!' So
here I be. Mine to him was: 'Think no more of Rome. Make for Rhine, and
down stream home.'"
Margaret Brandt had removed to Rotterdam, and there was no love lost
between her and Catherine; but Gerard's letter drew them to a
reconciliation, and from that day Catherine treated Margaret as her own
daughter, and made much of Gerard's child when it was born. Eli and his
son Richart, now a wealthy merchant, decided that Gerard must be bidden
return home on the instant, for they longed to see him, and since he was
married to Margaret, it was useless for any further strife on the
matter.
But Ghysbrecht, the burgomaster, knew by this time that Gerard had
obtained the parchment relating to Peter Brandt's lands, and was anxious
that Gerard should not return. Cornelis and Sybrandt were also against
their brother, and willing to aid the burgomaster in any diabolical
adventure. So a letter was concocted and Margaret Van Eyck's signature
forged to it, and in this letter it was said that Margaret Brandt was
dead.
In the meantime, Gerard had reached Rome. The ship he sailed in was
wrecked off the coast between Naples and Rome, and here Gerard was
nearly drowned. He and a Dominican friar clung to a mast when the ship
had struck.
It was a terrible situation; one moment they saw nothing, and seemed
down in a mere basin of watery hills; the next they caught glimpses of
the shore speckled bright with people, who kept throwing up their arms
to encourage them.
When they had tumbled along thus a long time, suddenly the friar said
quietly: "I touched the ground."
"Impossible, father," said Gerard. "We are more than a hundred yards
from shore. Prythee, leave not our faithful mast."
"My son," said the friar, "you speak prudently. But know that I have
business of Holy Church on hand, and may not waste time floating, when I
can walk in her service. There, I felt it with my toes again! Thy
stature is less than mine; keep to the mast; I walk." He left the mast
accordingly, and extending his powerful arms, rushed through the water.
Gerard soon followed him. At each overpowering wave the monk stood like
a tower, and, closing his mouth, threw his head back to encounter it,
then emerged and ploughed lustily on. At last they came close to the
shore, and then the natives sent stout fishermen into the sea, holding
by long spears, and so dragged them ashore.
The friar shook himself, bestowed a short paternal benediction on the
natives, and went on to Rome, without pausing.
Gerard grasped every hand upon the beach. They brought him to an
enormous fire, left him to dry himself, and fetched clothes for him to
wear.
Next day, towards afternoon, Gerard--twice as old as last year, thrice
as learned in human ways, a boy no more, but a man who had shed blood in
self-defence, and grazed the grave by land and sea--reached the Eternal
City.
_III.--The Cloister_
Gerard stayed in Rome, worked hard, and got money for his illuminations.
He put by money of all he earned, and Margaret seemed nearer and nearer.
Then came the day when the forged letter reached him. "Know that
Margaret Brandt died in these arms on Thursday night last. The last
words on her lips was 'Gerard!' She said: 'Tell him I prayed for him at
my last hour, and bid him pray for me.'" The letter was signed with
Margaret Van Eyck's signature, sure enough.
Gerard staggered against the window sill and groaned when he read this.
His senses failed him; he ran furiously about the streets for hours.
Despair followed.
On the second day he was raving with fever on the brain, and on his
recovery from the fever a dark cloud fell on Gerard's noble mind.
His friend Fra Jerome, the same Dominican friar who had escaped from the
wreck with him, exhorted him to turn and consecrate his gifts to the
Church.
"Malediction on the Church!" cried Gerard. "But for the Church I should
not lie broken here, and she lie cold in Holland." Fra Jerome left him
at this.
Gerard's pure and unrivalled love for Margaret had been his polar star.
It was quenched, and he drifted on the gloomy sea of no hope. He rushed
fiercely into pleasure, and in those days, more than now, pleasure was
vice. The large sums he had put by for Margaret gave him ample means for
debauchery, and he sought for a moment's oblivion in the excitements of
the hour. "Ghysbrecht lives; Margaret dies!" he would try out. "Curse
life, curse death, and whosoever made them what they are!"
His heart deteriorated along with his morals, and he no longer had
patience for his art, as the habits of pleasure grew on him.
Then life itself became intolerable to Gerard, and one night, in
resolute despair, he flung himself into the river. But he was not
allowed to drown, and was carried, all unconscious, to the Dominican
convent. Gerard awoke to find Father Jerome by his bedside.
"Good Father Jerome, how came I hither?" he inquired.
"By the hand of Heaven! You flung away God's gift. He bestowed it on you
again. Think of it! Hast tried the world and found its gall. Now try the
Church! The Church is peace. Pax vobiscum!"
Gerard learnt that the man who had saved him from drowning was a
professional assassin.
Saved from death by an assassin!
Was not this the finger of Heaven--of that Heaven he had insulted,
cursed, and defied?
He shuddered at his blasphemies. He tried to pray, but found he could
only utter prayers, and could not pray.
"I am doomed eternally!" he cried. "Doomed, doomed!" Then rose the
voices of the choir chanting a full service. Among them was one that
seemed to hover above the others--a sweet boy's voice, full, pure,
angelic.
He closed his eyes and listened. The days of his own boyhood flowed back
upon him.
"Ay," he sighed, "the Church is peace of mind. Till I left her bosom I
ne'er knew sorrow, nor sin."
And the poor torn, worn creature wept; and soon was at the knees of a
kind old friar, confessing his every sin with sighs and groans of
penitence.
And, lo! Gerard could pray now, and he prayed with all his heart.
He turned with terror and aversion from the world, and begged
passionately to remain in the convent. To him, convent nurtured, it was
like a bird returning wounded, wearied, to its gentle nest.
He passed his novitiate in prayer and mortification and pious reading
and meditation.
And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, now
passed for a young saint within its walls.
Upon a shorter probation than usual, he was admitted to priests' orders,
and soon after took the monastic vows, and became a friar of St.
Dominic.
Dying to the world, the monk parted with the very name by which he had
lived in it, and so broke the last link of association with earthly
feelings. Here Gerard ended, and Brother Clement began.
The zeal and accomplishments of Clement, especially his rare mastery of
language, soon transpired, and he was destined to travel and preach in
England, corresponding with the Roman centre.
It was rather more than twelve months later when Clement and Jerome set
out for England. They reached Rotterdam, and here Jerome, impatient
because his companion lingered on the way, took ship alone, and advised
Clement to stop awhile and preach to his own countrymen.
Clement was shocked and mortified at this contemptuous desertion. He
promised to sleep at the convent and preach whenever the prior should
appoint, and then withdrew abruptly. Shipwrecked with Jerome, and saved
on the same fragment of the wreck; his pupil, and for four hundred miles
his fellow traveller in Christ; and to be shaken off like dirt, the
first opportunity. "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 at Sevenbergen, and I will go and pray over it."
_IV.--Cloister and Hearth_
Friar Clement, preaching in Rotterdam, saw Margaret in the church and
recognised her. Within a day or two he learnt from the sexton, who had
been in the burgomaster's service, the story of the trick that had been
played upon him by his brothers, in league with Ghysbrecht.
That same night a Dominican friar, livid with rage, burst into the room
when Eli and Catherine were collected with their family round the table
at supper.
Standing in front of Cornelius and Sybrandt he cursed them by name, soul
and body, in this world and the next. Then he tore a letter out of his
bosom, and flung it down before his father.
"Read that, thou hard old man, that didst imprison thy son, read, and
see what monsters thou has brought into the world! The memory of my
wrongs, and hers dwell with you all for ever! I will meet you again at
the judgement day; on earth ye will never see me more!"
And in a moment, as he had come, so he was gone, leaving them stiff and
cold, and white as statues, round the smoking board.
Eli drove Cornelis and Sybrandt out of doors at the point of a sword
when he understood their infamy, and heavy silence reigned in his house
that night.
And where was Clement?
Lying at full length upon the floor of the convent church, with his lips
upon the lowest step of the altar, in an indescribable state of terror,
misery, penitence, and self-abasement; through all of which struggled
gleams of joy that Margaret was alive.
Then he suddenly remembered that he had committed another sin besides
intemperate rage. He had neglected a dying man. He rose instantly, and
set out to repair the omission.
The house he was called to was none other than the Stadthouse, and the
dying man was his old enemy Ghysbrecht, the burgomaster.
Clement trembled a little as he entered, and said in a low voice "Pax
vobiscum." Ghysbrecht did not recognise Gerard in the Dominican friar,
and promised in his sickness to make full restitution to Margaret Brandt
for the withholding of her property from her.
As soon as he was quite sure Margaret had her own, and was a rich woman,
Friar Clement disappeared.
The hermit of Gouda had recently died, and Clement found his cell amidst
the rocks, and appropriated it. The news that he had been made vicar of
Gouda never reached his ears to disturb him.
It was Margaret who discovered Clement's hiding-place and sought him
out, and begged him to leave the dismal hole he inhabited, and come to
the vacant vicarage.
"My beloved," said he, with a strange mixture of tenderness and dogged
resolution, "I bless thee for giving me one more sight of thy sweet
face, and may God forgive thee, and bless thee, for destroying in a
minute the holy place it hath taken six months of solitude to build. I
am a priest, a monk, and though my heart break I must be firm. My poor
Margaret, I seem cruel; yet I am kind; 'tis best we part; ay, this
moment."
But Margaret went away, and, determined to drive Clement from his
hermitage, returned again with their child, which she left in the cell
in its owner's absence. Now, Clement was fond of children, and, thinking
the infant had been deserted by some unfortunate mother, he at once set
to work to comfort it.
"Now bless thee, bless thee sweet innocent! I would not change thee for
e'en a cherub in heaven," said Clement. Soon the child was nestling in
the hermit's arms.
"I ikes oo," said the little boy. "Ot is oo? Is oo a man?"
"Ay, little heart, and a great sinner to boot"
"I ikes great tingers. Ting one a tory."
Clement chanted a child's story in a sort of recitative. The boy
listened with rapture, and presently succumbed to sleep.
Clement began to rock his new treasure in his arms, and to crone over
him a little lullaby well known in Tergon, with which his own mother had
often set him off.
He sighed deeply, and could not help thinking what might have been but
for a piece of paper with a lie in it.
The next moment the moonlight burst into his cell, and with it, and in
it, Margaret Brandt was down at his knee with a timorous hand upon his
shoulder.
"Gerald, you do not reject us. You cannot."
The hermit stared from the child to her in throbbing amazement.
"Us?" he gasped at last.
Margaret was surprised in her turn.
"What!" she cried. "Doth not a father know his own child? Fie, Gerard,
to pretend! 'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest to thine heart."
Long they sat and talked that night, and the end of it was Clement
promised to leave his cave for the manse at Gouda. But once the new
vicar was installed Margaret kept away from the parsonage. She left
little Gerard there to complete the conquest her maternal heart ascribed
to him, and contented herself with stolen meetings with her child.
Then the new vicar of Gouda, his beard close shaved, and in a grey frock
and large felt hat, came to bring her to the vicarage.
"My sweet Margaret!" he cried. "Why is this? Why hold you aloof from
your own good deed? We have been waiting and waiting for you every day,
and no Margaret."
And Margaret went to the manse, and found Catherine, Clement's mother,
there; and next day being Sunday the two women heard the Vicar of Gouda
preach in his own church. It was crammed with persons, who came curious,
but remained. Never was Clement's gift as a preacher displayed more
powerfully. In a single sermon, which lasted two hours, and seemed to
last but twenty minutes, he declared the whole scripture.
The two women in a corner sat entranced, with streaming eyes.
As soon as they were by themselves, Margaret threw her arms round
Catherine's neck and kissed her.
"Mother, mother, I am not quite a happy woman, but oh! I am a proud
one."
And she vowed on her knees never by word or deed to let her love come
between this young saint and heaven.
The child, who lived to become the great Erasmus, was already winning a
famous name at school, when Margaret was stricken with the plague and
died. A fortnight later and Clement left his vicarage and entered the
Dominican convent to end life as he began it. A few days later and he,
too, was dead, and the convent counted him a saint.
* * * * *