The Ravens and the Angels Part 8

"My darling, I know not. No one knows. But the great question for us all is not, what will the _Day_ be like? but what is the Judge like?"

"And, oh! mother, how are we to know that?"

"Think of the dear Babe in the manger," she said; "think of the patient Sufferer on the cross; think of the gracious One in the picture taking the little child in His arms; think of the story of His watching the poor widow giving her half farthings, and being pleased with her."

"Will the Judge be the same as that, mother?"

"The very same. Not what _it_ will be like, not what the Day will be like--what He is like matters to us, and what pleases Him."

III.

On the next morning Baron Ivo woke from a heavy sleep, and shook his night thoughts of his wronged kinsman angrily from him.

The stir of life was in the castle; his labourers going out to his fields, his woodmen to his forests, his men-at-arms jesting as they brightened their weapons, whilst one in a full ba.s.s voice carolled out half unconsciously a phrase of the very hymn which had appalled them all the night before, "_Apparebit repentina_;" but it sounded dream-like, as the voice of an owl by day. Baron Ivo stood once more on the solid ground of possession. If the Great Day were to come this very year, it was only a little sooner than they had feared; and to-day was _here_, and had to be _lived_. Let the morrow take care of the things of itself!

One thing, indeed, he did. To give up the castle and atone to his kinsman was indeed a wild fancy; but he would accept the ransom of that latest captive and set him free. And, although the ransom was in itself a robbery, it might have been larger; and so he congratulated himself on having done a good deed.

And in the forest-hut blind Bruno awoke the next morning, and as he went towards the city with his baskets, an armed band dashed past him with the clatter of arms and spurs: and he heard his kinsman's voice in harsh tones of command, and the old bitterness was deep in his heart, as he said to himself, "'_Apparebit repentina._' All wrongs shall be avenged at last. Better to suffer and be avenged, than to be in Paradise and see that villain smile there too, his sins forgotten and unpunished."

The next morning, when the miser awoke and found all in the familiar room as usual--the great iron chests solid as ever, his housekeeper Griselda's voice as sharp as ever when she called him--he wondered a little at his own panic the night before.

"My master's daughter made a foolish marriage, poor thing!" he said to himself, "and I am not bound to repair other people's mistakes; and if I had yielded her a little more from what her father left, she would probably only have wasted it. It is after all safer in my keeping than in hers. And if the monk was right, and she does not come in for the reversion I have secured in my will, that is not my fault; we are not to know the times and the seasons. However, there is certainly a good deal about feeding the hungry. I will tell Griselda to boil down those mutton bones that were left yesterday into broth for the poor woman; she had a cough."

But when he came down to breakfast, Griselda laughed scornfully at the suggestion, and said she had given the bones to the dog; and Griselda being the one being in the world who represented public opinion to him, and of whom he was afraid, because her scornful honesty was essential to him, the master's widowed daughter went without the broth. But Gaffer Gregory trusted the intention would go to his credit. He, indeed, went himself to market, intending to get a larger joint, so as to have some to spare; but mutton was dear that week, so he waited till the next market day. It was not likely the End would come before that.

Habit was stronger than terror. The market day close at hand still preponderated over any day even a year off.

Gammer Trudchen had hardly been seated an hour at her stall, the next morning, when one of her cronies came with a whisper that the Burgomaster's young wife had been seen, quite late one night that week, in one of the lowest lanes of the city, shrouded close in her hood, and evidently not at all wis.h.i.+ng to be recognized.

Trudchen had a twinge about evil-speaking, and the monk's warning; but after all, as she said to her crony, if somebody did not look after the morals of the place, what would become of them? The Burgomaster's young wife was fair as a lily, and had the reputation of a saint, although "she had always had her doubts, for those were just the dangerous people, who must be watched, and must not be suffered to impose on others. And besides, it might be well to teach men like the Burgomaster to choose their brides in their own town, and not go roaming to strange cities to bring home young women of whose family no one knew anything."

And so an evil rumour was hatched no one knew how, and a buzz of malignant murmurs began to gather around the sweet unconscious young stranger; and when, a month afterwards, the same old crony who had brought the whisper, came to tell Gammer Trudchen that the Burgomaster's wife had been visiting a poor sick fellow-townswoman of her own that evening, and did not wish her husband to know because of his fear of infection for her, the one evil whisper had hatched a swarm which no contradiction of Gammer Trudchen's could silence.

And the next morning the student who had thrown away his books gathered them together again, and was intent on his work; for next week there was to be a great compet.i.tion for prizes, and the prizes and praises were precious, and nearer than the Judgment. Where the heart is, the treasure will be also.

But the student Gottfried, who had rejoiced in science as a revealing of G.o.d, had arisen first, and was below in the infirmary helping the lay brothers to nurse the sick. For there had been a pestilence in the city, and the beds were full, and he thought, "_After_ that Day, O Master, there will be time to learn of Thy works; but there is little time left to minister to Thee and Thy sick. The time of service is short; I will _wait_ to _know_!"

And even as he served, he learned many things. Love deepened the capacity for knowledge. The hours in the intervals of work were more fruitful than the whole day had been before.

IV.

So the months pa.s.sed on, and old habits regained their force. The miser collected the treasure he loved; Gammer Trudchen's stall still gathered to it the evil reports she welcomed; the student won the honours he toiled for, and toiled for more; the baron delayed his reparation; blind Bruno nursed the bitter sense of his wrongs.

Terror could not break the chains of habit. The dread of a Day could not change the heart.

But all the time mother Margarethe's prayers went up from the hut in the forest, and the maiden Beatrix's from the turret in the castle.

And little Hilda sought in her heart on all sides for the answer to the question, not what will the Day be like? but what is the Judge like, and what pleases Him now?

So it went on until the Holy Week; and then on Good Friday old Christopher the hermit came from his solitude in the pine forest to preach to the people.

It seemed to little Hilda he had come on purpose to answer the question of her heart.

To him, in his solitude among the rocks and the pines, all days were alike filled with the majesty and the joy of the presence of G.o.d, and with the great pity for the sins and needs of men.

People came to him from cities and villages all around for counsel and comfort; for to him all human troubles and wants were sacred.

Sometimes the poor mothers left their little children with him while they went to toil in the fields, and he taught the little ones the alphabet, and the story of Bethlehem.

Sometimes veteran warriors sought him, and worn-out statesmen, and perplexed students, and broken-hearted women, or successful men of the world who had won its prizes and found them dust. And he taught these also _their_ alphabet, the Our Father, and the Cross.

And now he came to speak in the great Minster, as much alone with each hearer as when each sought him in the forest-cell; as much alone with G.o.d as when they all left him in the silence of the forest.

His words were simple and quiet.

"_Ecce h.o.m.o_," he began. "Behold the Man!"

Then after a pause he continued, "_Apparebit repentina_," and the words rang on the hearts of many like a knell of broken resolves made when they had heard them last.

"_What_ will appear suddenly? And _Who_?

"Is it the Day you are dreading, or the Judge?

"Is it the sentence, or Him who will award it?

"Is it the Day, men and women of the world, which is to turn all your glory into dust? Is it the Day, beloved, which is to turn all your sorrow into joy?

"Of the Day I can tell you little.

"Of the Man I know a little, and will tell you what I know."

Then for a few minutes he took up another strain, and pictured the rending rocks, the trembling earth, the terror-stricken mult.i.tude, the shaking of all that seems most solid, the vanis.h.i.+ng of all that seems most permanent.

His words recalled the terrors of the wandering monk, and when he paused for a minute the hush of awe-stricken expectation lay once more on all the throng.

But, as they gazed, hushed in terror, the tones which had been echoing through the aisles like the wail of wild winds, like the hollow vibrations of thunder among the hills or of the waves in a sea-cave, changed to tender human appeal.

He spoke of the Babe on the mother's knee; of the Child listening and learning in the Temple; of the hands that touched the leper; of the lips that spoke peace to the penitent sinner; of the pity, the justice, and the patience. And then, turning to the Crucifix, he said, "Beloved, if we wish, we may know Him better than we know those who dwell by our own hearths.