_Exacuerunt ut gladium linguas suas: interderunt arcum rem amaram: ut
sagittent in occultis immaculatum._
They have whetted their tongues like a sword: they have bent their bow a
bitter thing, to shoot in secret the undefiled.--_Ps. lxiii, 4, 5._
X
As Master Richard had striven to serve God in the trinity of his nature,
so was he to be tried in the trinity of his nature. It was first in his
body that he was tempted, by pain and the fear of it; and his second
trial came later in the same day--which was in his mind.
He lay abed that morning till his dinner was brought to him, knowing
sometimes what passed--how a rat came out and looked on him awhile,
moving its whiskers; how the patch of sunlight upon the wall darkened
and passed; and how a bee came in and hummed a great while in the room;
and sometimes conscious of nothing but his own soul. He could make no
effort, he told me, and he did not attempt it. He only lay still,
committing himself to God Almighty.
He could not eat the meat, even had he wished it, but he drank a little
broth and ate some bread, and then slept again.
* * * * *
He did not know what time it was when he awoke and found one by his bed,
looking down on him, he thought, compassionately. It was growing towards
evening, for it way darker, or else his eyes were heavy and confused
with sickness, but he could not see very clearly the face of the man who
stood by him.
The man presently kneeled down by the bed, murmuring with pity as it
seemed, and Master Richard felt himself raised a little, and then laid
down again, and there was something soft at the nape of his neck over
the wooden pillow and against his torn shoulders. There was something,
too, laid across his body and legs, as if to keep him from chill.
He said nothing for a while; he did not know what to say, but he looked
steadily at the face that looked on him, and saw that it was that of a
young man, not five years older than himself, shaven clean like a clerk,
and the eyes of him seemed pitiful and loving.
"_Laudetur Jesus Christus!_" said Master Richard presently, as his
custom was when he awoke.
"_Amen_," said the man beside the bed.
That comforted Master Richard a little--that the man should say _Amen_
to his praise of Jesu Christ, so he asked him who he was and what he did
there.
The young man said nothing to that, but asked him instead how he did,
and his voice was so smooth and tender that Master Richard was further
encouraged.
"I do far better than our Lord did," he answered. "He had none to
minister to Him."
It seemed that the young man was moved at that, for he hid his face in
his hands a moment.
Then he began to pity Master Richard, saying that it was a shame that he
had been so evilly treated, and that Master-Lieutenant should smart for
it if it ever came to his grace's ears. But he said this so strangely
that Master Richard was astonished.
"And how does the King do?" he asked.
"The King is at the point of death," said the young man solemnly.
"It is no more than the point then," said Master Richard confidently,
"and a point that will not pierce him, else what of the passion that he
must suffer?"
The young man seemed to look on him very steadily and earnestly at that.
"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked him. "I have done nothing to
his grace save give my tidings."
"Master Hermit," said the young man very gravely, "I entreat you not to
speak like that."
"How should I speak then?" he asked.
The young man did not answer immediately, but he moved on his knees a
little closer to the bed, and took Master Richard's hand softly between
his own, and so held it, caressing it. Master Richard told me that this
action moved him more than all else; he felt the tears rise to his eyes,
and he gave a sob or two. It is always so with noble natures after great
pain. [Sir John relates here the curious history of a girl who was
nearly burned as a witch, and that when she was reprieved she yielded at
once to the solicitations of marriage from a man whom she had always
hated, but who was the first to congratulate her on her escape. But the
story sadly interrupts the drama of the main narrative, and therefore I
omit it.]....
Then the young man spoke very sweetly and kindly.
"Master Hermit," he said, "you must bear with me for bringing sad
tidings to you. But will you hear them now or to-morrow?"
"I will hear them now," said Master Richard.
So the young man proceeded.
"One came back to-day from your home in the country. He was sent there
yesterday night by my lord cardinal. He spoke with your parson, Sir
John, and what he heard from him he has told to my lord, and I heard
it."
(This was a lie, my children. No man from London had spoken with me. But
you shall see what follows.)
"And what did Sir John tell him," asked Master Richard quietly. "Did he
say he knew nothing of me?"
Now he asked this, thinking that perhaps this was a method of tempting
him. And so it was, but worse than he thought it.
"No, poor lad," said the young man very pitifully, "Sir John knew you
well enough. The messenger saw your little house, too, and the hazels
about it; and the stream, and the path that you have made; and there
were beasts there, he said, a stag and pig that looked lamentably out
from the thicket."
Now observe the Satanic guile of this! For at the mention of all his
little things, and his creatures that loved him, Master Richard could
not hold back his tears, for he had thought so often upon them, and
desired to see them again. So the young man stayed in his talk, and
caressed his hand again, and murmured compassionately.
Presently Master Richard was quiet, and asked the young man to tell him
what the parson had said.
"To-morrow," said the young man, making as if to rise.
"To-day," said Master Richard.
So the young man went on.
"He went to the parsonage with Sir John, and talked with him there a
long while--"
"Did he see my books?" said Master Richard in his simplicity.
"Yes, poor lad; he saw your books. And then Sir John told him what he
thought."
"And what was that?" said Master Richard, faint with the thought of the
answer.
The young man caressed his hand again, and then pressed it as if to give
him courage.
"Sir John told him that you were a good fellow; that you injured neither
man nor beast; and that all spoke well of you."
Then the young man stayed again.
"Ah! tell me," cried Master Richard.
"Well, poor lad; as God sees us now, Sir John told the messenger that he
thought you to be deluded; that you deemed yourself holy when you were
not, and that you talked with the saints and our Lord, but that these
appearances were no more than the creations of your own sick brain. He
said that he humoured you; for that he feared you would be troublesome
if he did not, and that all the folk of the village said the same thing
to you, to please you and keep you quiet.--Ah! poor child!"
The young man cried out as if in sorrow, and lifted Master Richard's
hand and kissed it.
Master Richard told me that when he heard that it was as a blow in the
face to him. He could not answer, nor even think clearly. It was as if a
gross darkness, full of wings and eyes and mocking faces pressed upon
him, and he believed that he cried out, and that he must have swooned,
for when he came to himself again his face was all wet with water that
the young man had thrown upon it.
It was a minute or two more before he could speak, and during that time
it appeared to him that he did not think himself, but that ideas moved
before his eyes, manifesting themselves. At first there was a doubt as
to whether the young man had spoken the truth, and whether any messenger
had been to the village at all, but the mention of the hazels, the stag
and the pig, and his books, dispelled that thought.
Again it did not seem possible that the young man should have lied as
to what it was that I was said to have answered; if they had wished to
lie, surely they would have lied more entirely, and related that I had
denied all knowledge of him. But the falsehood was so subtle an one; it
was so well interwoven with truth that I count it to have been
impossible for Master Richard in his sickness and confusion to have
disentangled the one from the other. I have heard a physician say, too,
that the surest manner to perplex a man is to suggest to him that his
brain is clouded; at such words he often loses all knowledge of self; he
doubts his own thoughts, and even his senses.
This, then, was Master Richard's temptation--that he should doubt
himself, his friends, and even our Lord who had manifested Himself so
often and so kindly to the eyes of his soul.
Yet he did not yield to it, although he could not repel it. He cried
upon Jesu in his heart, and then set the puzzle by.
He looked at the young man once more.
"And why do you tell me this?" he asked.
The clerk (if he were a clerk) answered him first by another
Judas-caress or two, and then by Judas-words.
"Master Hermit," he said, "I am but a poor priest, but my words have
some weight with two or three persons of the court; and these again have
some weight with my lord cardinal. I asked leave to come and tell you
this as kindly as I could, and to see what you would say. I observed you
in the hall the other day, and I have a good report of your
reasonableness from the monastery. I conceived, too, a great love for
you when I saw you, and wish you well; and I think I can do you a great
service, and get you forth from this place that you may go whither you
will,--to your house by the stream or to some other place where none
know you. Would it not be pleasant to you to be in the country again,
and to serve God with all your might in some sweet and secret place
where men are not?"
"I can serve God here as there," answered Master Richard.
"Well--let that be. But what if God Almighty wishes you to be at peace?
We must not rush foolishly upon death. That is forbidden to us."
"I do not seek death," said Master Richard.
The clerk leaned over him a little, and Master Richard saw his eyes bent
upon him with great tenderness.
"Master Hermit," he said, "I entreat you not to be your own enemy. You
see that those that know you best love you, but they do not think you to
be what you think you are---"
"I am nothing but God's man, and a sinner," said the lad.
"Well, they think your visions and the rest to be but delusions. And if
they be delusions, why should not other matters be delusions too?"
"What matters?" asked Master Richard.
"Such matters as the tidings that you brought to the King."
"And what is it you would have me to do?" asked Master Richard again
after a silence.
"It is only a little thing, poor lad--such a little thing! and then you
will be able to go whither you will."
"And what is that little thing?"
"It is to tell me that you think them delusions too."
"But I do not think them so," said Master Richard.
"Think as you will then, Master Hermit; but, you know, when folks are
sick we may tell them anything without sin. And the King is sick to
death. I do not believe that you have bewitched him: you have too good a
face and air for that--and for the matter of the _paternoster_ I do not
value it at a straw. The King is sick with agony at what he thinks will
come upon him after your words. He will not listen to my lord cardinal:
he sits silent and terrified, and has taken no food to-day. But if you
will but tell him, Master Hermit, that you were mistaken in your
tidings--that it was but a fancy, and that you know better now--all will
be well with him and with you, and with us all who love you both."
So the clerk spoke, tempting him, and leaned back again on his heels;
and Master Richard lay a great while silent.
* * * * *
Now, I do not know who was this young man, whether he were a clerk or
whether he were not a devil in form of a man. I could hear nothing of
him at Court when I went there. It may be that he was one of those idle
fellows that had come to Master Richard from time to time to ask him to
make them hermits with him, else how did he know the matters of the stag
and the pig and the stream and the rest? But it does not greatly matter
whether his soul were a devil's or a man's, for in any case his words
were Satan's. If I had not heard what came after I should have believed
this temptation to be the most subtle ever devised in hell and permitted
from heaven. He spoke so tenderly and so sweetly; he commanded his
features so perfectly; he seemed to speak with such love and
reasonableness.
Yet I would have you know that Master Richard did not yield by a hair's
breadth in thought. He examined the temptation carefully, setting aside
altogether the question as to whether I had spoken as this young man had
said that I had. Whether I had spoken so or not made no difference. It
was this that he was bidden to do, to say that he had erred in his
tidings, to confess that they were not from God; to be a faithless
messenger to our Lord.
He examined this, then, looking carefully at all parts of the
temptation. [Sir John appends at this point two or three paragraphs,
distinguishing between the observing of a temptation of thought and
the yielding to it. He instances Christ's temptation in the Garden of
Gethsemane.]....
At the end Master Richard opened his eyes and looked steadily upon the
young man's face.
"Take this answer," he said, "to those that sent you. I will neither
hear nor consider such words any more. If I yield in this matter, and
say one word to the King or to any other, by which any may understand
that my message was a delusion, or that I spoke of myself and not from
our Lord, then I pray that our Lord may blot my name out of the Book of
Life."
* * * * *
So Master Richard answered and closed his eyes to commune with God. And
the young man went away sighing but speaking no word.