The Cloister and the Hearth Part 144

[E] It requires now-a-days a strong effort of the imagination to realize the effect on poor people who had never seen them before, of such sentences as this: "Blessed are the poor," &c.

[F] The primitive writer was so interpreted by others besides Clement; and, in particular by Peter of Blois, a divine of the twelfth century, whose comment is noteworthy, as he himself was a forty-year hermit.

CHAPTER XCV

ONE day as he lay there sighing, and groaning, prayerless, tuneless, hopeless, a thought flashed into his mind. What he had done for the poor and the wayfarer, he would do for himself. He would fill his den of despair with the name of G.o.d and the magic words of holy writ, and the pious, prayerful, consolations of the Church.

Then, like Christian at Apollyon's feet, he reached his hand suddenly out and caught, not his sword, for he had none, but peaceful labour's humbler weapon, his chisel, and worked with it as if his soul depended on his arm.

They say that Michael Angelo in the next generation used to carve statues, not like our timid sculptors, by modelling the work in clay, and then setting a mechanic to chisel it; but would seize the block, conceive the image, and, at once, with mallet and steel make the marble chips fly like mad about him, and the ma.s.s sprout into form. Even so Clement drew no lines to guide his hand. He went to his memory for the gracious words, and then dashed at his work and eagerly graved them in the soft stone, between working and fighting.

He begged his visitors for candle ends, and rancid oil.

"Anything is good enough for _me_," he said, "if 'twill but burn." So at night the cave glowed afar off like a blacksmith's forge, through the window and the gaping c.h.i.n.ks of the rude stone door, and the rustics beholding crossed themselves and suspected deviltries, and, within, the holy talismans one after another came upon the walls, and the sparks and the chips flew day and night, night and day, as the soldier of Solitude and of the Church plied, with sighs and groans, his bloodless weapon, between working and fighting.

_Kyrie Eleeison_ _Christe Eleeison_

??? Sata?a? s??t????? ?p? t??? p?da? ???.[1]

_Sursum corda_[2]

_Deus refugium nostrum et virtus_[3]

_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere mihi._[4]

_Sancta Trinitas unus Deus, miserere n.o.bis._[5]

_Ab infestationibus Daemonum, a ventura ira, a d.a.m.natione perpetua._[6]

_Libera nos Domine Deus, qui miro ordine Angelorum ministeria, etc._ (the whole collect).[7]

_Quem quaerimus adjutorem nisi te Domine, qui pro peccatis nostris juste irascaris?_[8]

_Sancte Deus, Sancte fortis, Sancte et misericors Salvator, amarae morti ne tradas nos._

And underneath the great crucifix, which was fastened to the wall, he graved this from Augustine:--

_O anima Christiana, respice vulnera patientis, sanguinem morientis, pretium redemptionis.--Haec quanta sint cogitate, et in statera mentis vestrae appendite, ut totus vobis figatur in corde, qui pro vobis totus firus est in cruce. Nam, si pa.s.sio Christi ad memoriam revocetur, nihil est tam durum quod non aequo animo toleretur._

Which may be thus rendered:--

_O Christian soul, look on the wounds of the suffering One, the blood of the dying One, the price paid for our redemption! These things, oh think how great they be, and weigh them in the balance of thy mind: that He may be wholly nailed to thy heart, who for thee was all nailed unto the cross. For do but call to mind the sufferings of Christ, and there is nought on earth too hard to endure with composure._

Soothed a little, a very little, by the sweet and pious words he was raising all round him, and weighed down with watching and working night and day, Clement one morning sank prostrate with fatigue; and a deep sleep overpowered him for many hours.

Awaking quietly, he heard a little cheep; he opened his eyes, and, lo!

upon his breviary which was on a lone stool near his feet, ruffling all his feathers with a single pull, and smoothing them as suddenly, and c.o.c.king his bill this way and that with a vast display of cunning purely imaginary, perched a robin redbreast.

Clement held his breath.

He half closed his eyes lest they should frighten the airy guest.

Down came robin on the floor.

When there he went through his pantomime of astuteness; and then, pim, pim, pim, with three stiff little hops, like a ball of worsted on vertical wires, he was on the hermit's bare foot. On this eminence he swelled, and contracted again, with ebb and flow of feathers; but Clement lost this, for he quite closed his eyes and scarce drew his breath in fear of frightening and losing his visitor. He was content to feel the minute claw on his foot. He could but just feel it, and that by help of knowing it was there.

Presently a little flirt with two little wings, and the feathered busy-body was on the breviary again.

Then Clement determined to try and feed this pretty little fidget without frightening it away. But it was very difficult. He had a piece of bread within reach, but how get at it? I think he was five minutes creeping his hand up to that bread, and when there he must not move his arm.

He slily got a crumb between a finger and thumb and shot it as boys do marbles, keeping the hand quite still.

c.o.c.krobin saw it fall near him, and did sagacity, but moved not.

When another followed, and then another: he popped down and caught up one of the crumbs, but not quite understanding this mystery fled with it, for more security, to an eminence; to wit the hermit's knee.

And so the game proceeded till a much larger fragment than usual rolled along.

Here was a prize. c.o.c.krobin pounced on it, bore it aloft and fled so swiftly into the world with it, the cave resounded with the buffeted air.

"Now, bless thee, sweet bird," sighed the stricken solitary; "thy wings are music, and thou a feathered ray camedst to light my darkened soul."

And from that to his orisons; and then to his tools with a little bit of courage; and this was his day's work:--

_Veni Creator Spiritus Mentes tuorum visita Imple superna gratia Quae tu creasti pectora_

_Accende lumen sensibus Mentes tuorum visita Infirma nostri corporis Virtute firmans perpetim._

And so the days rolled on; and the weather got colder and Clement's heart got warmer; and despondency was rolling away; and by-and-by, somehow or another, it was gone. He had outlived it.

It had come like a cloud, and it went like one.

And presently all was reversed; his cell seemed illuminated with joy.

His work pleased him; his prayers were full of unction; his psalms of praise. Hosts of little birds followed their crimson leader, and flying from snow, and a parish full of Cains, made friends one after another with Abel; fast friends. And one keen frosty night as he sang the praises of G.o.d to his tuneful psaltery, and his hollow cave rang forth the holy psalmody upon the night, as if that cave itself was Tubal's sounding sh.e.l.l, or David's harp, he heard a clear whine, not unmelodious; it became louder and less in tune. He peeped through the c.h.i.n.ks of his rude door, and there sat a great red wolf moaning melodiously with his nose high in the air.

Clement was rejoiced. "My sins are going," he cried, "and the creatures of G.o.d are owning me, one after another." And in a burst of enthusiasm he struck up the laud:

"Praise Him all ye creatures of His! Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord."

And all the time he sang the wolf bayed at intervals.

But above all he seemed now to be drawing nearer to that celestial intercourse, which was the sign, and the bliss of the true hermit; for he had dreams about the saints and angels, so vivid, they were more like visions. He saw bright figures clad in woven snow. They bent on him eyes lovelier than those of the antelopes he had seen at Rome, and fanned him with broad wings hued like the rainbow, and their gentle voices bade him speed upon his course.