The Cloister and the Hearth Part 41

"Being thyself unable to speak ten words of _his_ language without a fault."

"Well, all the world ought to speak French. What avail so many jargons except to put a frontier atwixt men's hearts?"

"But what said he."

"What signifies it what a fool says?"

"Oh, not all the words of a fool are folly: or I should not listen to you."

"Well, then, he said, 'such as begin by making free with the devil's name, aye end by doing it with all the names in heaven.' 'Father,' said I, 'I am a soldier, and this is but my "consigne" or watchword.' 'Oh, then, it is just a custom?' said he. I not divining the old fox, and thinking to clear myself, said, 'Ay, it was.' 'Then that is ten times worse,' said he. "Twill bring him about your ears one of these days. He still comes where he hears his name often called.' Observe! no grat.i.tude for the tidings which neither his missals nor his breviary had ever let him know. Then he was so good as to tell me, soldiers do commonly the crimes for which all other men are broke on the wheel; 'a savoir'

murder, rape, and pillage."

"And is't not true?"

"True or not, it was ill manners," replied Denys, guardedly. "And so says this courteous host of mine, 'being the foes of mankind, why make enemies of good spirits into the bargain, by still shouting the names of evil ones?' and a lot more stuff."

"Well, but Denys, whether you hearken his rede, or slight it, wherefore blame a man for raising his voice to save your soul?"

"How can his voice save my soul, when a keeps turning of his 'P's' into 'B's'?"

Gerard was staggered: ere he could recover at this thunderbolt of Gallicism, Denys went triumphant off at a tangent, and stigmatized all monks as hypocrites. "Do but look at them, how they creep about and cannot eye you like honest men."

"Nay," said Gerard, eagerly, "that modest downcast gaze is part of their discipline, 'tis 'custodia oculorum.'"

"Cussed toads eating hoc hac horum? No such thing; just so looks a cut-purse. Can't meet a true man's eye. Doff cowl, monk; and behold, a thief: don cowl thief, and lo, a monk. Tell me not they will ever be able to look G.o.d Almighty in the face, when they can't even look a true man in the face down here. Ah, here it is, black as ink! into the well we go, comrade. Misericorde, there goes the tinkle already. 'Tis the best of tinkles though; 'tis for dinner: stay, listen! I thought so; the wolf in my stomach cried 'Amen!'" This last statement he confirmed with two oaths, and marched like a victorious gamec.o.c.k into the convent, thinking by Gerard's silence he had convinced him, and not dreaming how profoundly he had disgusted him.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

IN the refectory allusion was made, at the table where Gerard sat, to the sudden death of the monk, who had undertaken to write out fresh copies of the charter of the monastery, and the rule, etc.

Gerard caught this, and timidly offered his services. There was a hesitation which he mistook. "Nay, not for hire, my lords, but for love, and as a trifling return for many a good night's lodging the brethren of your order have bestowed on me a poor wayfarer."

A monk smiled approvingly; but hinted that the late brother was an excellent penman, and his work could not be continued but by a master.

Gerard, on this, drew from his wallet with some trepidation a vellum deed, the back of which he had cleaned and written upon by way of specimen. The monk gave quite a start at sight of it, and very hastily went up the hall to the high table, and bending his knee so as just to touch in pa.s.sing the fifth step and the tenth, or last, presented it to the prior with comments. Instantly a dozen knowing eyes were fixed on it: and a buzz of voices was heard; and soon Gerard saw the prior point more than once, and the monk came back, looking as proud as Punch, with a savory crustade ryal, or game pie gravied and spiced, for Gerard, and a silver grace cup full of rich pimentum. This latter Gerard took, and bowing low, first to the distant prior, then to his own company, quaffed, and circulated the cup.

Instantly, to his surprise, the whole table hailed him as a brother: "Art convent bred, deny it not?" He acknowledged it, and gave Heaven thanks for it, for otherwise he had been as rude and ignorant as his brothers, Sybrandt and Cornelis. "But, 'tis pa.s.sing strange how you could know," said he.

"You drank with the cup in both hands," said two monks, speaking together.

The voices had for some time been loudish round a table at the bottom of the hall: but presently came a burst of mirth so obstreperous and prolonged, that the prior sent the very sub-prior all down the hall to check it, and inflict penance on every monk at the table. And Gerard's cheek burned with shame: for in the heart of the unruly merriment his ear had caught the word "courage!" and the trumpet tones of Denys of Burgundy.

Soon Gerard was installed in feu Werter's cell, with wax lights, and a little frame that could be set at any angle, and all the materials of caligraphy. The work however was too much for one evening. Then came the question, how could he ask Denys, the monk-hater, to stay longer?

However he told him, and offered to abide by his decision. He was agreeably surprised when Denys said, graciously, "A day's rest will do neither of us harm. Write thou, and I'll pa.s.s the time as I may."

Gerard's work was vastly admired; they agreed that the records of the monastery had gained by poor Werter's death. The sub-prior forced a rix-dollar on Gerard, and several brushes and colours out of the convent stock, which was very large. He resumed his march warm at heart: for this was of good omen; since it was on the pen he relied to make his fortune and recover his well-beloved. "Come, Denys," said he, good humouredly, "see what the good monks have given me: now, do try to be fairer to them; for to be round with you, it chilled my friends.h.i.+p for a moment to hear even you call my benefactors 'hypocrites.'"

"I recant," said Denys.

"Thank you! thank you! Good Denys."

"I was a scurrilous vagabond."

"Nay, nay, say not so, neither!"

"But we soldiers are rude and hasty. I give myself the lie, and I offer those I misunderstood all my esteem. 'Tis unjust that thousands should be defamed for the hypocrisy of a few."

"Now are you reasonable. You have pondered what I said?"

"Nay, it is their own doing."

Gerard crowed a little, we all like to be proved in the right; and was all attention when Denys offered to relate how his conversion was effected.

"Well then, at dinner the first day, a young monk beside me did open his jaws and laughed right out most musically. 'Good,' said I, 'at last I have fallen on a man and not a shorn ape.' So, to sound him further, I slapped his broad back and administered my consigne. 'Heaven forbid!'

says he. I stared. For the dog looked as sad as Solomon: a better mime saw you never, even at a Mystery. 'I see war is no sharpener of the wits,' said he. 'What are the clergy for but to fight the foul fiend?

and what else are monks for?

"The fiend being dead, The friars are sped."

You may plough up the convents and we poor monks shall have nought to do--but turn soldiers, and so bring him to life again.' Then there was a great laugh at my expense. 'Well, you are the monk for me,' said I. 'And you are the cross-bow-man for me,' quo' he. 'And I'll be bound you could tell us tales of the war should make our hair stand on end.' 'Excusez the barber has put that out of question,' quoth I, and then I had the laugh."

"What wretched ribaldry!" observed Gerard pensively.

The candid Denys at once admitted he had seen merrier jests hatched with less cackle. "'Twas a great matter to have got rid of hypocrisy. 'So,'

said I, 'I can give you the chare de poule, if that may content ye.'

'That we will see,' was the cry, and a signal went round."

Denys then related, bursting with glee, how at bedtime he had been taken to a cell instead of the great dortour, and strictly forbidden to sleep; and, to aid his vigil, a book had been lent him of pictures representing a hundred merry adventures of monks in pursuit of the female laity: and how in due course he had been taken out barefooted and down to the parlour, where was a supper fit for the duke, and at it twelve jolly friars, the roaringest boys he had ever met in peace or war. How the story, the toast, the jest, the wine cup had gone round, and some had played cards with a gorgeous pack, where Saint Theresa, and Saint Catharine, etc., bedizened with gold, stood for the four queens; and black, white, grey, and crutched friars for the four knaves; and had staked their very rosaries, swearing like troopers when they lost. And how about midnight a sly monk had stolen out, but had by him and others been as cannily followed into the garden, and seen to thrust his hand into the ivy and out with a ropeladder. With this he had run up on the wall, which was ten feet broad, yet not so nimbly but what a russet kirtle had popped up from the outer world as quick as he: and so to billing and cooing: that this situation had struck him as rather feline than ecclesiastical, and drawn from him the appropriate comment of a "mew!" The monks had joined the mewsical chorus, and the lay visitor shrieked and been sore discomforted; but Abelard only cried "What, are ye there, ye jealous miauling knaves? ye shall caterwaul to some tune to-morrow night. I'll fit every manjack of ye with a fardingale." That this brutal threat had reconciled him to stay another day--at Gerard's request.

Gerard groaned.

Meantime, unable to disconcert so brazen a monk, and the demoiselle beginning to whimper, they had danced caterwauling in a circle, then bestowed a solemn benediction on the two wallflowers, and off to the parlour, where they found a pair lying dead drunk, and the other two affectionate to tears. That they had straightway carried off the inanimate, and dragged off the loving and lachrymose, kicked them all merrily each into his cell,

"And so shut up in measureless content."

Gerard was disgusted: and said so.

Denys chuckled, and proceeded to tell him how the next day he and the young monks had drawn the fish-ponds and secreted much pike, carp, tench, and eel for their own use: and how in the dead of night he had been taken shoeless by crooked ways into the chapel, a ghostlike place, being dark, and then down some steps into a crypt below the chapel floor, where suddenly paradise had burst on him.

"'Tis there the holy fathers retire to pray," put in Gerard.

"Not always," said Denys: "wax candles by the dozen were lighted, and princely cheer; fifteen soups maigre, with marvellous tw.a.n.gs of venison, grouse, and hare in them, and twenty different fishes (being Friday), cooked with wondrous art, and each he between two buxom la.s.ses, and each la.s.s between two lads with a cowl; all but me: and to think I had to woo by interpreter. I doubt the knave put in three words for himself and one for me: if he didn't, hang him for a fool. And some of the weaker vessels were novices, and not wont to hold good wine: had to be coaxed ere they would put it to their white teeth: mais elles s'y faisaient; and the story, and the jest, and the cup went round (by-the-by they had flagons made to simulate breviaries): and a monk touched the cittern, and sang ditties with a voice tuneable as a lark in spring. The posies did turn the faces of the women-folk bright red at first: but elles s'y faisaient." Here Gerard exploded.

"Miserable wretches! Corrupters of youth! Perverters of innocence! but for you being there, Denys, who have been taught no better, oh, would G.o.d the church had fallen on the whole gang. Impious, abominable, hypocrites!"

"Hypocrites?" cried Denys with unfeigned surprise. "Why that is what I clept them ere I knew them: and you withstood me. Nay, they are sinners; all good fellows are that: but, by St. Denys his helmeted skull, no hypocrites, but right jolly roaring blades."