The Cloister and the Hearth Part 130

"But," objected the penitent, "it would be a sin to leave them here.

They can be sold to feed the poor."

"Mary, fix thine eye on this crucifix, and trample those devilish baubles beneath thy feet."

She hesitated; but soon threw them down and trampled on them.

"Now open the window and fling them out on that dung-hill. 'Tis well done. So pa.s.s the wages of sin from thy hands, its glittering yoke from thy neck, its pollution from thy soul. Away, daughter of St. Francis, we tarry in this vile place too long." She followed him.

But they were not clear yet.

At first the landlord was so astounded at seeing a black friar and a grey nun pa.s.s through his kitchen from the inside, that he gaped, and muttered "Why, what mummery is this?" But he soon comprehended the matter, and whipped in between the fugitives and the door. "What ho!

Reuben! Carl! Gavin! here is a false friar spiriting away our Janet."

The men came running in with threatening looks. The friar rushed at them crucifix in hand. "Forbear," he cried, in a stentorian voice. "She is a holy nun returning to her vows. The hand that touches her cowl, or her robe, to stay her, it shall wither, his body shall lie unburied, cursed by Rome, and his soul shall roast in eternal fire." They shrank back as if a flame had met them. "And thou--miserable panderer!--"

He did not end the sentence in words, but seized the man by the neck, and, strong as a lion in his moments of hot excitement, whirled him furiously from the door and sent him all across the room, pitching headforemost on to the stone floor; then tore the door open and carried the screaming nun out into the road. "Hus.h.!.+ poor trembler," he gasped; "they dare not molest thee on the high road. Away!"

The landlord lay terrified, half stunned, and bleeding: and Mary, though she often looked back apprehensively, saw no more of him.

On the road he bade her observe his impetuosity.

"Hitherto," said he, "we have spoken of thy faults: now for mine. My choler is ungovernable; furious. It is by the grace of G.o.d I am not a murderer. I repent the next moment; but a moment too late is all too late. Mary, had the churls laid finger on thee, I should have scattered their brains with my crucifix. Oh, I know myself, go to; and tremble at myself. There lurketh a wild beast beneath this black gown of mine."

"Alas, father," said Mary, "were you other than you are I had been lost.

To take me from that place needed a man wary as a fox; yet bold as a lion."

Clement reflected. "Thus much is certain: G.o.d chooseth well his fleshly instruments: and with imperfect hearts doeth his perfect work. Glory be to G.o.d!"

When they were near the convent Mary suddenly stopped, and seized the friar's arm, and began to cry. He looked at her kindly, and told her she had nothing to fear. It would be the happiest day she had ever spent. He then made her sit down and compose herself till he should return. He entered the convent, and desired to see the abbess.

"My sister, give the glory to G.o.d: Mary is at the gate."

The astonishment and delight of the abbess were unbounded. She yielded at once to Clement's earnest request that the road of penitence might be smoothed at first to this unstable wanderer, and, after some opposition, she entered heartily into his views as to her actual reception. To give time for their little preparations Clement went slowly back, and seating himself by Mary soothed her: and heard her confession.

"The abbess has granted me that you shall propose your own penance."

"It shall be none the lighter," said she.

"I trow not," said he: "but that is future: to-day is given to joy alone."

He then led her round the building to the abbess's postern. As they went they heard musical instruments and singing.

"'Tis a feast-day," said Mary: "and I come to mar it."

"Hardly," said Clement, smiling; "seeing that you are the queen of the fete."

"I, father? what mean you?"

"What, Mary, have you never heard that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety-nine just persons which need no repentance? Now this convent is not heaven; nor the nuns angels; yet are there among them some angelic spirits; and these sing and exult at thy return. And here methinks comes one of them; for I see her hand trembles at the keyhole."

The postern was flung open, and in a moment sister Ursula clung sobbing and kissing round her friend's neck. The abbess followed more sedately, but little less moved.

Clement bade them farewell. They entreated him to stay: but he told them with much regret he could not. He had already tried his good brother Jerome's patience, and must hasten to the river: and perhaps sail for England to-morrow.

So Mary returned to the fold, and Clement strode briskly on towards the Rhine, and England.

This was the man for whom Margaret's boy lay in wait with her letter.

The Hearth

And that letter was one of those simple, touching appeals only her s.e.x can write to those who have used them cruelly, and they love them. She began by telling him of the birth of the little boy, and the comfort he had been to her in all the distress of mind his long and strange silence had caused her. She described the little Gerard minutely, not forgetting the mole on his little finger. "Know you any one that hath the like on his? If you only saw him you could not choose but be proud of him; all the mothers in the street do envy me: but I the wives; for thou comest not to us. My own Gerard, some say thou art dead. But if thou wert dead how could I be alive? Others say that thou, whom I love so truly, art false. But this will I believe from no lips but thine. My father loved thee well; and as he lay a-dying he thought he saw thee on a great river, with thy face turned towards thy Margaret, but sore disfigured.

Is't so, perchance? Have cruel men scarred thy sweet face? or hast thou lost one of thy precious limbs? Why then thou hast the more need of me, and I shall love thee not worse, alas! thinkest thou a woman's love is light as a man's? but better, than I did when I shed those few drops from my arm, not worth the tears thou didst shed for them; mindest thou?

'tis not so very long agone, dear Gerard."

The letter continued in this strain, and concluded without a word of reproach or doubt as to his faith and affection. Not that she was free from most distressing doubts: but they were not certainties; and to show them might turn the scale, and frighten him away from her with fear of being scolded. And of this letter she made soft Luke the bearer.

So she was not an angel after all.

Luke mingled with the pa.s.sengers of two boats, and could hear nothing of Gerard Elia.s.soen. Nor did this surprise him. He was more surprised when, at the third attempt, a black friar said to him, somewhat severely, "And what would you with him you call Gerard Elia.s.soen?"

"Why, father, if he is alive I have got a letter for him."

"Humph!" said Jerome. "I am sorry for it. However, the flesh is weak.

Well, my son, he you seek will be here by the next boat, or the next boat after. And if he chooses to answer to that name--After all, I am not the keeper of his conscience."

"Good father, one plain word, for Heaven's sake. This Gerard Elia.s.soen of Tergou--is he alive?"

"Humph! Why, certes, he that went by that name is alive."

"Well, then, that is settled," said Luke, drily. But the next moment he found it necessary to run out of sight and blubber.

"Oh, why did the Lord make any women?" said he to himself. "I was content with the world till I fell in love. Here his little finger is more to her than my whole body, and he is not dead. And here I have got to give him this." He looked at the letter and dashed it on the ground.

But he picked it up again with a spiteful s.n.a.t.c.h, and went to the landlord, with tears in his eyes, and begged for work. The landlord declined, said he had his own people.

"Oh, I seek not your money," said Luke. "I only want some work to keep me from breaking my heart about another man's la.s.s."

"Good lad! good lad!" exploded the landlord; and found him lots of barrels to mend--on these terms. And he coopered with fury in the interval of the boats coming down the Rhine.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xV