Scoff not at Koine, or if thou scoff beware
Her vengeance waiting in the heaven and air;
Her love is blessing, and her hate, despair.
Yet see! how low the hoary mother lies,
Prone on her face beneath the lonely skies--
On her head ashes, dust upon her eyes.
Men smile and pass, but many pitying stand,
And some stoop down to kiss her withered hand,
Whose sceptre is a reed, whose crown is sand.
Think’st thou no pulse beats in that bounteous breast
Which once sent throbs of rapture east and west?
Nay, but she liveth, mighty tho’ opprest.
Her arm could reach as low as hell, as high
As the white mountains and the starry sky;
She filled the empty heavens with her cry.
Wait but a space, and watch--her trance of pain
Shall dry away--her tears shall cease as rain--
Queen of the nations, she shall smile again!
The Ladder of St. Augustine.
Bradley’s letter was fowarded from Lucerne after some little delay,
and reached Miss Craik at Brieg, just as she was preparing to proceed by
private conveyance to Domo d’Ossola. She had taken the carriage and
pair for herself and her maid, a young Frenchwoman; and as the vehicle
rounded its zigzag course towards the Klenenhorn she perused the
epistle line by line, until she had learned almost every word by heart.
Then, with the letter lying in her lap, she gazed sadly, almost
vacantly, around her on the gloomy forests and distant hills, the
precipices spanned by aerial bridges, the quaint villages clinging like
birds’-nests here and there, the dark vistas of mountain side gashed by
torrents frozen by distance to dazzling white.
Dreary beyond measure, though the skies were blue and the air full of
golden sunlight, seemed the wonderful scene:
We make the world we look on, and create
The summer or the winter with our seeing!
And cold and wintry indeed was all that Alma beheld that summer day.
Not even the glorious panorama unfolded beneath her gaze on passing the
Second Refuge had any charms to please her saddened sight. Leaving the
lovely valley of the Rhone, sparkling in sunlight, encircled by the
snow-crowned Alps, with the Jungfrau towering paramount, crowned
with glittering icy splendour and resting against a heaven of deep
insufferable blue, she passed through avenues of larch and fir, over
dizzy bridges, past the lovely glacier of the Kallwasser, till she
reached the high ascent of the Fifth Refuge.
Here the coarse spirit of the age arose before her, in the shape of
a party of English and American tourists crowding the diligence and
descending noisily for refreshment.
A little later she passed the barrier toll, and came in sight of the
Cross of ’Vantage. She arrested the carriage, and descended for a
few minutes, standing as it were suspended in mid air, in full view of
glacier upon glacier, closed in by the mighty chain of the Bernese Alps.
Never had she felt so utterly solitary. The beautiful world, the empty
sky, swam before her in all the loveliness of desolation, and turning
her face towards Aletsch, she wept bitterly.
As she stood thus, she was suddenly conscious of another figure standing
near to her, as if in rapt contemplation of the solemn scene. It was
that of a middle-aged man, rather above the middle stature, who carried
a small knapsack on his shoulders and leant upon an Alpine staff. She
saw only his side face, and his eyes were turned away; yet, curiously
enough, his form had an air of listening watchfulness, and the moment
she was conscious of his presence he turned and smiled, and raised his
hat. She noticed then that his sunburnt face was clean shaven, like
that of a priest, and that his eyes were black and piercing, though
remarkably good-humoured.
‘Pardon, Madame,’ he said in French, ‘but I think we have met before.’
She had turned away her head to hide her tears from the stranger’s gaze.
Without waiting for her answer, he proceeded.
‘In the hotel at Brieg. I was staying there when Madame arrived, and I
left at daybreak this morning to cross the Pass on foot.’
By this time she had mastered her agitation, and could regard the
stranger with a certain self-possession. His face, though not handsome,
was mobile and expressive; the eyebrows were black and prominent, the
forehead was high, the mouth large and well cut, with glittering
white teeth. It was difficult to tell the man’s age; for though his
countenance was so fresh that it looked quite young, his forehead and
cheeks, in repose, showed strongly-marked lines; and though his form
seemed strong and agile, he stooped greatly at the shoulders. To
complete the contradiction, his hair was as white as snow.
What mark is it that Rome puts upon her servants, that we seem to know
them under almost any habit or disguise? One glance convinced Alma that
the stranger either belonged to some of the holy orders, or was a lay
priest of the Romish Church.
‘I do not remember to have seen you before, Monsieur,’ she replied, also
in French, with a certain hauteur.
The stranger smiled again, and bowed apologetically.
‘Perhaps I was wrong to address Madame without a more formal
introduction. I know that in England it is not the custom. But here on
the mountain, far away from the conventions of the world, it would be
strange, would it not, to meet in silence? We are like two souls that
encounter on pilgrimage, both looking wearily towards the Celestial
Gate.’
‘Are you a priest, Monsieur?’ asked Alma abruptly.
The stranger bowed again.
‘A poor member of the Church, the Abbé Brest. I am journeying on
foot through the Simplon to the Lago Maggiore, and thence, with God’s
blessing, to Milan. But I shall rest yonder, at the New Hospice,
to-night.’
And he pointed across the mountain towards the refuge of the monks of
St. Bernard, close to the region of perpetual snow. The tall figure of
an Augustine monk, shading his eyes and looking up the road was visible;
and from the refectory within came the faint tolling of a bell mingled
from time to time with the deep barking of a dog.
‘The monks receive travellers still?’ asked Alma. ‘I suppose the Hospice
is rapidly becoming, like its compeers, nothing more or less than a big
hotel?’
‘Madame----’
‘Please do not call me Madame. I am unmarried.’
She spoke almost without reflection, and it was not until she had
uttered the words that their significance dawned upon her. Her face
became crimson with sudden shame.
It was characteristic of the stranger that he noticed the change in a
moment, but that, immediately on doing so, he turned away his eyes and
seemed deeply interested in the distant prospect, while he replied:--
‘I have again to ask your pardon for my stupidity. Mademoiselle, of
course, is English?’
‘Yes.’
‘And is therefore, perhaps, a little prejudiced against those who,
like the good monks of the Hospice, shut themselves from all human
companionship, save that of the wayfarers whom they live to save and
shelter? Yet, believe me, it is a life of sacred service! Even here,
among the lonely snows, reaches the arm of the Holy Mother, to plant
this cross by the wayside, as a symbol of her heavenly inspiration, and
to build that holy resting-place as a haven for those who are weary and
would rest.’
He spoke with the same soft insinuating smile as before, but his eye
kindled, and his pale face flushed with enthusiasm. Alma, who had turned
towards the carriage which stood awaiting her, looked at him with new
interest. Something in his words chimed in with a secret longing of her
heart.
‘I have been taught to believe, Monsieur, that your faith is practically
dead. Everywhere we see, instead of its living temples, only the ruins
of its old power. If its spirit exists still, it is only in places such
as this, in company with loneliness and death.’
‘Ah, but Mademoiselle is mistaken!’ returned the other, following by
her side as she walked slowly towards the carriage. ‘Had you seen what I
have seen, if you knew what I know, of the great Catholic reaction, you
would think differently. Other creeds, gloomier and more ambitious,
have displaced ours for a time in your England; but let me ask you--you,
Mademoiselle, who have a truly religious spirit--you who have yourself
suffered--what have those other creeds done for humanity? Believe me,
little or nothing. In times of despair and doubt, the world will again
turn to its first Comforter, the ever-patient and ever-loving Church of
Christ.’
They had by this time reached the carriage door. The stranger bowed
again and assisted Alma to her seat. Then he raised his hat with
profound respect in sign of farewell. The coachman was about to drive on
when Alma signed for him to delay.
‘I am on my way to Domo d’Ossola,’ she said. ‘A seat in my carriage is
at your service if you would prefer going on to remaining at the Hospice
for the night.’
‘Mademoiselle, it is too much! I could not think of obtruding myself
upon you! I, a stranger!’
Yet he seemed to look longingly at the comfortable seat in the vehicle,
and to require little more pressing to accept the offer.
‘Pray do not hesitate,’ said Alma, smiling, ‘unless you prefer the
company of the monks of the mountain.’
‘After that, I can hesitate no longer,’ returned the Abbé, looking
radiant with delight; and he forthwith entered the vehicle and placed
himself by Alma’s side.
Thus it came to pass that my heroine descended the Pass of the Simplon
in company with her new acquaintance, an avowed member of a Church
for which she had felt very little sympathy until that hour. To do him
justice, I must record the fact that she found him a most interesting
companion. His knowledge of the world was extensive, his learning little
short of profound, his manners were charming. He knew every inch of the
way, and pointed out the objects of interest, digressing lightly into
the topics they awakened. At every turn the prospect brightened. Leaving
the wild and barren slopes behind them, the travellers passed through
emerald pasturages, and through reaches of foliage broken by sounding
torrents, and at last emerging from the great valley, and crossing the
bridge of Crevola, they found themselves surrounded on every side by
vineyards, orchards, and green meadows. When the carriage drew up before
the door of the hotel at Domo d’Ossola, Alma felt that the time had
passed as if under enchantment. Although she had spoken very little, she
had quite unconsciously informed her new friend of three facts--that she
was a wealthy young Englishwoman travelling through Europe at her own
free will; that she had undergone an unhappy experience, involving,
doubtless, some person of the opposite sex; and that, in despair of
comfort from creeds colder and less forgiving, she was just in a fit
state of mind to seek refuge in the bosom of the Church of Rome.
The acquaintance, begun so curiously in the Simplon Pass, was destined
to continue. At Domo d’Ossola, Alma parted from the Abbé Brest, whose
destination was some obscure village on the banks of Lago Maggiore; but
a few weeks later, when staying at Milan, she encountered him again. She
had ascended the tower of the Duomo, and was gazing down on the streets
and marts of the beautiful city, when she heard a voice behind her
murmuring her name, and turning somewhat nervously, she encountered the
bright black eyes of the wandering Abbé.
He accosted her with his characteristic _bonhomie_.
‘Ah, Mademoiselle, it _is_ you!’ he cried smiling. ‘We are destined to
meet in the high places--here on the tower of the cathedral, there on
the heights of the Simplon!’
There was something so unexpected, so mysterious in the man’s
reappearance, that Alma was startled in spite of herself, but she
greeted him courteously, and they descended the tower steps together.
The Abbé kept a solemn silence as they walked through the sacred
building, with its mighty walls of white marble, its gorgeous
decorations, its antique tombs, its works in bronze and in mosaic; but
when they passed from the porch into the open sunlight, he became as
garrulous as ever.
They walked along together in the direction of the Grand Hotel, where
Alma was staying.
‘Have you driven out to the cathedral at Monza?’ inquired the Abbé in
the course of their conversation.
‘No; is it worth seeing?’
‘Certainly. Besides, it contains the sacred crown of Lombardy, the iron
band of which is made out of nails from the true cross.’
‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Alma with a smile that was incredulous, even
contemptuous. She glanced at her companion, and saw that he was smiling
too.
*****
It was not until she had been some weeks away from England that Alma
Craik quite realised her position in the world. In the first wild
excitement of her flight her only feeling was one of bewildered
agitation, mingled with a mad impulse to return upon her own footsteps,
and, reckless of the world’s opinion, take her place by Bradley’s side.
A word of encouragement from him at that period would have decided her
fate. But after the first pang of grief was over, after she was capable
of regretful retrospection, her spirit became numbed with utter despair.
She found herself solitary, friendless, hopeless, afflicted with an
incurable moral disease to which she was unable to give a name, but
which made her long, like the old anchorites and penitents, to seek some
desert place and yield her life to God.
In this mood of mind she turned for solace to religion, and found how
useless for all practical purposes was her creed of beautiful ideas.
Her faith in Christian facts had been shaken if not destroyed; the
Christian myth had the vagueness and strangeness of a dream; yet, true
to her old instincts, she haunted the temples of the Church, and felt
like one wandering through a great graveyard of the dead.
Travelling quite alone, for her maid was in no sense of the words a
confidante or a companion, she could not fail to awaken curious interest
in many with whom she was thrown into passing contact. Her extraordinary
personal beauty was heightened rather than obscured by her singularity
of dress; for though she wore no wedding-ring, she dressed in black
like a widow, and had the manners as well as the attire of a person
profoundly mourning. At the hotels she invariably engaged private
apartments, seldom or never descending to the public rooms, or joining
in the tables-d’hote. The general impression concerning her was that she
was an eccentric young Englishwoman of great wealth, recently bereaved
of some person very near and dear to her, possibly her husband.
Thus she lived in seclusion, resisting all friendly advances, whether
on the part of foreigners or of her own countrymen; and her acquaintance
with the Abbé Brest would never have passed beyond a few casual
courtesies had it not begun under circumstances so peculiar and in a
place so solitary, or had the man himself been anything but a member of
the mysterious Mother Church. But the woman’s spirit was pining for some
kind of guidance, and the magnetic name of Rome had already awakened in
it a melancholy fascination. The strange priest attracted her, firstly,
by his eloquent personality, secondly, by the authority he seemed to
derive from a power still pretending to achieve miracles: and though
in her heart she despised the pretensions and loathed the dogmas of his
Church, she felt in his presence the sympathy of a prescient mind. For
the rest, any companionship, if intellectual, was better than utter
social isolation.
So the meeting on the tower of the Duomo led to other meetings. The
Abbé became her constant companion, and her guide through all the many
temples of the queenly city.