More about the Penitent.
"Ay, thus thy mother looked,
With such a sad, yet half-triumphant smile.
All radiant with deep meaning."--Hemans
A slight incident, that occurred the following morning, partially broke
down the barrier of reserve between the two prisoners. After his early
devotions, the penitent laid aside his mantle, took up a besom made of
long slips of cane, and proceeded, with great deliberation and gravity,
to sweep out the room. The contrast that his stately figure, his noble
air, and the dignity of all his movements, offered to the menial
occupation in which he was engaged, was far too pathetic to be
ludicrous. Carlos could not but think that he wielded the lowly
implement as if it were a chamberlain's staff of office, or a grand
marshal's baton. He himself was well accustomed to such tasks; for every
prisoner of the Santa Casa, no matter what his rank might be, was his
own servant. And it spoke much for the revolution that had taken place
in his ideas and feelings, that though taught to look on all servile
occupations as ineffably degrading, he had never associated a thought of
degradation with anything laid upon him to do or to suffer as the
prisoner of Christ.
And yet he could not endure to see his aged and stately fellow-prisoner
thus occupied. He rose immediately, and earnestly entreated to be
allowed to relieve him of the task, pleading that all such duties ought
to devolve on him as the younger. At first the penitent resisted,
saying that it was part of his penance. But when Carlos continued to
urge the point, he yielded; perhaps the more readily because his will,
like his other faculties, was weakened for want of exercise. Then, with
more apparent interest than he had shown in any of his previous
proceedings, he watched the rather slow and difficult movements of his
young companion.
"You are lame, senor," he said, a little abruptly, when Carlos, having
finished his work, sat down to rest.
"From the pulley," Carlos answered quietly; and then his face beamed
with a sudden smile, for the secret of the Lord was with him, and he
tasted the sweet, strange joy that springs out of suffering borne for
Him.
That look was the wire that drew an electric flash of memory from the
clouds that veiled the old man's soul. What that sudden flash revealed
was a castle gate, at which stood a stately yet slender form robed in
silk. In the fair young face tears and smiles were contending; but a
smile won the victory, as a little child was held up, and made to kiss a
baby-hand in farewell to its father.
In a moment all was gone; only a vague trouble and uneasiness remained,
accompanied by that strange sense of having seen or felt just the same
thing before, with which we are most of us familiar. Accustomed to
solitude, the penitent spoke aloud, perchance unconsciously.
"Why did they bring you here?" he said, in a half fretful tone. "You
hurt me. I have done very well alone all these years."
"I am sorry to incommode you, senor," returned Carlos. "But I did not
come here of my own will; neither, unhappily, can I go. I am a
prisoner, like yourself; but, unlike you, I am a prisoner under sentence
of death."
For several minutes the penitent did not answer. Then he rose, and
taking a step or two towards the place where Carlos sat, gravely
extended his hand. "I fear I have spoken uncourteously," he said. "So
many years have passed since I have conversed with my fellows, that I
have well-nigh forgotten how I ought to address them. Do me the favour,
senor and my brother, to grant me your pardon."
Carlos warmly assured him no offence had been given; and taking the
offered hand, he pressed it reverently to his lips. From that moment he
loved his fellow-prisoner in his heart.
There was an interval of silence, then the penitent of his own accord
resumed the conversation. "Did I hear you say you are under sentence of
death?" he asked.
"I am so actually, though not formally," Carlos replied. "In the
language of the Holy Office, I am a professed impenitent heretic."
"And you so young!"
"To be a heretic?"
"No; I meant so young to die.'
"Do I look young--even yet? I should not have thought it. To me the
last two years seem like a long life-time."
"Have you been two years, then, in prison? Poor boy! Yet I have been
here ten, fifteen, twenty years--I cannot tell how many. I have lost
the account of them."
Carlos sighed. And such a life was before him, should he be weak enough
to surrender his hope. He said, "Do you really think, senor, that these
long years of lonely suffering are less hard to bear than a speedy
though violent death?"
"I do not think it matters, as to that," was the penitent's not very
apposite reply. In fact, his mind was not capable, at the time, of
dealing with such a question; so he turned from it instinctively. But
in the meantime he was remembering, every moment more and more clearly,
that a duty had been laid upon him by the authority to which his soul
held itself in absolute subjection. And that duty had reference to his
fellow-prisoner.
"I am commanded," he said at last, "to counsel you to seek the salvation
of your soul, by returning to the bosom of the one true Catholic and
Apostolic Church, out of which there is no peace and no salvation."
Carlos saw that he spoke by rote; that his words echoed the thought of
another, not his own. It seemed to him, under the circumstances,
scarcely generous to argue. He spared to put forth his mental powers
against the aged and broken man, as Juan in like case would have spared
to use his strong right arm.