Cloister and the Hearth — Chapter 96, Part 1

CHAPTER XCVI

Margaret went back to Rotterdam long ere Gerard awoke, and actually left her boy behind her.

She sent the faithful, sturdy Reicht off to Gouda directly with a vicar's grey frock and large felt hat, and with minute instructions how to govern her new master.

Then she went to Jorian Ketel; for she said to herself, “he is the closest I ever met, so he is the man for me,” and in concert with him she did two mortal sly things; yet not, in my opinion, virulent, though she thought they were; but if I am asked what were these deeds without a name, the answer is, that as she, who was, 'but a woman,' kept them secret till her dying day, I, who am a man--“Verbum non amplius addam.

” She kept away from Gouda parsonage.

Things that pass little noticed in the heat of argument sometimes rankle afterwards; and when she came to go over all that had passed, she was offended at Gerard thinking she could ever forget the priest in the some time lover, “For what did he take me?

” said she.

And this raised a great shyness which really she would not otherwise have felt, being downright innocent, And pride sided with modesty, and whispered, “Go no more to Gouda parsonage.

” She left little Gerard there to complete the conquest her maternal heart ascribed to him, not to her own eloquence and sagacity, and to anchor his father for ever to humanity.

But this generous stroke of policy cost her heart dear.

She had never yet been parted from her boy an hour, and she felt sadly strange as well as desolate without him.

After the first day it became intolerable; and what does the poor soul do, but creep at dark up to Gouda parsonage, and lurk about the premises like a thief till she saw Reicht Heynes in the kitchen alone, Then she tapped softly at the window and said, “Reicht, for pity's sake bring him out to me unbeknown.

” With Margaret the person who occupied her thoughts at the time ceased to have a name, and sank to a pronoun.

Reicht soon found an excuse for taking little Gerard out, and there was a scene of mutual rapture, followed by mutual tears when mother and boy parted again.

And it was arranged that Reicht should take him half way to Rotterdam every day, at a set hour, and Margaret meet them.

And at these meetings, after the raptures, and after mother and child had gambolled together like a young cat and her first kitten, the boy would sometimes amuse himself alone at their feet, and the two women generally seized this opportunity to talk very seriously about Luke Peterson, This began thus: “Reicht,” said Margaret, “I as good as promised him to marry Luke Peterson.

'Say you the word,' quoth I, 'and I'll wed him.'

” “Poor Luke!

” “Prithee, why poor Luke?

” “To be bandied about so, atwixt yea and nay.

” “Why, Reicht, you have not ever been so simple as to cast an eye of affection on the boy, that you take his part?

” “Me?

” said Reicht, with a toss of the head.

“Oh, I ask your pardon.

Well, then, you can do me a good turn.

” “Whisht!

whisper!

that little darling is listening to every word, and eyes like saucers.

” On this both their heads would have gone under one cap.

Two women plotting against one boy?

Oh, you great cowardly serpents!

But when these stolen meetings had gone on for about five days Margaret began to feel the injustice of it, and to be irritated as well as unhappy.

And she was crying about it when a cart came to her door, and in it, clean as a new penny, his beard close shaved, his hands white as snow, and a little colour in his pale face, sat the Vicar of Gouda in the grey frock and large felt hat she had sent him.

She ran upstairs directly, and washed away all traces of her tears, and put on a cap, which being just taken out of the drawer was cleaner, theoretically, than the one she had on, and came down to him.

He seized both her hands and kissed them, and a tear fell upon them.

She turned her head away at that to hide her own which started.

“My sweet Margaret,” he cried, “why is this?

Why hold you aloof from your own good deed?

we have been waiting for you every day, and no Margaret.

” “You said things.

” “What!

when I was a hermit, and a donkey.

” “Ay!

no matter, you said things.

And you had no reason.

” “Forget all I said there.

Who hearkens the ravings of a maniac?

for I see now that in a few months more I should have been a gibbering idiot;

yet no mortal could have persuaded me away but you.

Oh what an outlay of wit and goodness was yours!

But it is not here I can thank and bless you as I ought.

No, it is in the home you have given me, among the sheep whose shepherd you have made me; already I love them dearly; there it is I must thank 'the truest friend ever man had.'

So now I say to you as erst you said to me, come to Gouda manse.

” “Humph!

we will see about that.

” “Why, Margaret, think you I had ever kept the dear child so long, but that I made sure you would be back to him from day to day?

Oh he curls round my very heartstrings, but what is my title to him compared to thine?

Confess now, thou hast had hard thoughts of me for this.

” “Nay, nay, not I. Ah!

thou art thyself again; wast ever thoughtful of others.

I have half a mind to go to Gouda manse, for your saying that.

” “Come then, with half thy mind, 'tis worth the whole of other folk's. ” “Well, I dare say I will; but there is no such mighty hurry,” said she coolly (she was literally burning to go).

“Tell me first how you agree with your folk.

” “Why, already my poor have taken root in my heart.

” “I thought as much.

” “And there are such good creatures among them; simple and rough, and superstitious, but wonderfully good.

” “Oh I leave you alone for seeing a grain of good among a bushel of ill.

” “Whisht!

whisht!

And Margaret, two of them have been ill friends for four years, and came to the manse each to get on my blind side.

But give the glory to God I got on their bright side, and made them friends, and laugh at themselves for their folly.

” “But are you in very deed their vicar?

answer me that.

” “Certes; have I not been to the bishop and taken the oath, and rung the church bell, and touched the altar, the missal, and the holy cup before the church-wardens?

And they have handed me the parish seal; see, here it is.

Nay, 'tis a real vicar inviting a true friend to Gouda manse.

” “Then my mind is at ease.

Tell me oceans more.

” “Well, sweet one, nearest to me of all my parish is a poor cripple that my guardian angel and his (her name thou knowest even by this turning of thy head away) hath placed beneath my roof.

Sybrandt and I are that we never were till now, brothers.

'Twould gladden thee, yet sadden thee to hear how we kissed and forgave one another.

He is full of thy praises, and wholly in a pious mind; he says he is happier since his trouble than e'er he was in the days of his strength.

Oh!

out of my house he ne'er shall go to any place but heaven.

” “Tell me somewhat that happened thyself, poor soul!

All this is good, but yet no tidings to me.

Do I not know thee of old?

” “Well, let me see.

At first I was much dazzled by the sun-light, and could not go abroad (owl!

), but that is passed; and good Reicht Heynes--humph!

” “What of her?

” “This to thine ear only, for she is a diamond.

Her voice goes through me like a knife, and all voices seem loud but thine, which is so mellow sweet.

Stay, now I'll fit ye with tidings; I spake yesterday with an old man that conceits he is ill-tempered, and sweats to pass for such with others, but oh!

so threadbare, and the best good heart beneath.

” “Why, 'tis a parish of angels,” said Margaret ironically.

“Then why dost thou keep out on't?

” retorted Gerard.

“Well, he was telling me there was no parish in Holland where the devil hath such power as at Gouda; and among his instances, says he, 'We had a hermit, the holiest in Holland; but being Gouda, the devil came for him this week, and took him, bag and baggage; not a ha'porth of him left but a goodish piece of his skin, just for all the world like a hedgehog's, and a piece o' old iron furbished up.'

” Margaret smiled.

“Ay, but,” continued Gerard, “the strange thing is, the cave has verily fallen in; and had I been so perverse as resist thee, it had assuredly buried me dead there where I had buried myself alive.

Therefore in this I see the finger of Providence, condemning my late, approving my present, way of life.

What sayest thou?

” “Nay, can I pierce the like mysteries?

I am but a woman.

” “Somewhat more, methinks.

This very tale proves thee my guardian angel, and all else avouches it, so come to Gouda manse.

” “Well, go you on, I'll follow.

” “Nay, in the cart with me.

” “Not so.

” “Why?

” “Can I tell why and wherefore, being a woman?

All I know is I seem--to feel--to wish--to come alone.

” “So be it then.

I leave thee the cart, being, as thou sayest, a woman, and I'll go a-foot, being a man again, with the joyful tidings of thy coming.

” When Margaret reached the manse the first thing she saw was the two Gerards together, the son performing his capriccios on the plot, and the father slouching on a chair, in his great hat, with pencil and paper, trying very patiently to sketch him.

After a warm welcome he showed her his attempts.

“But in vain I strive to fix him,” said he, “for he is incarnate quick silver, Yet do but note his changes, infinite, but none ungracious; all is supple and easy; and how he melteth from one posture to another,” He added presently, “Woe to illuminators I looking on thee, sir baby, I see what awkward, lopsided, ungainly toads I and my fellows painted missals with, and called them cherubs and seraphs,” Finally he threw the paper away in despair, and Margaret conveyed it secretly into her bosom.

At night when they sat round the peat fire he bade them observe how beautiful the brass candlesticks and other glittering metals were in the glow from the hearth.

Catherine's eyes sparkled at this observation, “And oh the sheets I lie in here,” said he, “often my conscience pricketh me, and saith, 'Who art thou to lie in lint like web of snow?'

Dives was ne'er so flaxed as I. And to think that there are folk in the world that have all the beautiful things which I have here yet not content.

Let them pass six months in a hermit's cell, seeing no face of man, then will they find how lovely and pleasant this wicked world is, and eke that men and women are God's fairest creatures.

Margaret was always fair, but never to my eye so bright as now.

” Margaret shook her head incredulously, Gerard continued, “My mother was ever good and kind, but I noted not her exceeding comeliness till now.

” “Nor I neither,” said Catherine; “a score years ago I might pass in a crowd, but not now.

” Gerard declared to her that each age had its beauty.

“See this mild grey eye,” said he, “that hath looked motherly love upon so many of us, all that love hath left its shadow, and that shadow is a beauty which defieth Time.

See this delicate lip, these pure white teeth.

See this well-shaped brow, where comliness Just passeth into reverence.

Art beautiful in my eyes, mother dear.

” “And that is enough for me, my darling, 'Tis time you were in bed, child.

Ye have to preach the morn.

” And Reicht Heynes and Catherine interchanged a look which said, “We two have an amiable maniac to superintend; calls everything beautiful.

” The next day was Sunday, and they heard him preach in his own church.

It was crammed with persons, who came curious, but remained devout.

Never was his wonderful gift displayed more powerfully; he was himself deeply moved by the first sight of all his people, and his bowels yearned over this flock he had so long neglected.

In a single sermon, which lasted two hours and seemed to last but twenty minutes, he declared the whole scripture: he terrified the impenitent and thoughtless, confirmed the wavering, consoled the bereaved and the afflicted, uplifted the heart of the poor, and when he ended, left the multitude standing rapt, and unwilling to believe the divine music of his voice and soul had ceased.

Need I say that two poor women in a corner sat entranced, with streaming eyes.

“Wherever gat he it all?

” whispered Catherine, with her apron to her eyes.

“By our Lady not from me.

” As soon as they were by themselves Margaret threw her arms round Catherine's neck and kissed her.

“Mother, mother, I am not quite a happy woman, but oh I am a proud one.

” And she vowed on her knees never by word or deed to let her love come between this young saint and Heaven.

Reader, did you ever stand by the seashore after a storm, when the wind happens to have gone down suddenly?

The waves cannot cease with their cause; indeed, they seem at first to the ear to lash the sounding shore more fiercely than while the wind blew.

Still we are conscious that inevitable calm has begun, and is now but rocking them to sleep.

So it was with those true and tempest-tossed lovers from that eventful night when they went hand in hand beneath the stars from Gouda hermitage to Gouda manse.

At times a loud wave would every now and then come roaring, but it was only memory's echo of the tempest that had swept their lives; the storm itself was over, and the boiling waters began from that moment to go down, down, down, gently, but inevitably.

This image is to supply the place of interminable details that would be tedious and tame.

What best merits attention at present is the general situation, and the strange complication of feeling that arose from it.

History itself, though a far more daring story-teller than romance, presents few things so strange(1) as the footing on which Gerard and Margaret now lived for many years.

United by present affection, past familiarity, and a marriage irregular but legal; separated by Holy Church and by their own consciences, which sided unreservedly with Holy Church; separated by the Church, but united by a living pledge of affection, lawful in every sense at its date.

And living but a few miles from one another, and she calling his mother “mother,” For some years she always took her boy to Gouda on Sunday, returning home at dark, Go when she would, it was always fete at Gouda manse, and she was received like a little queen.

Catherine in these days was nearly always with her, and Eli very often, Tergou had so little to tempt them compared with Rotterdam; and at last they left it altogether, and set up in the capital.

And thus the years glided; so barren now of striking incidents, so void of great hopes, and free from great fears, and so like one another, that without the help of dates I could scarcely indicate the progress of time.

However, early next year, 1471, the Duchess of Burgundy, with the open dissent, but secret connivance of the Duke, raised forces to enable her dethroned brother, Edward the Fourth of England, to invade that kingdom;

our old friend Denys thus enlisted, and passing through Rotterdam to the ships, heard on his way that Gerard was a priest, and Margaret alone.

On this he told Margaret that marriage was not a habit of his, but that as his comrade had put it out of his own power to keep troth, he felt bound to offer to keep it for him; “for a comrade's honour is dear to us as our own,” said he.

She stared, then smiled, “I choose rather to be still thy she-comrade,” said she; “closer acquainted, we might not agree so well,” And in her character of she-comrade she equipped him with a new sword of Antwerp make, and a double handful of silver.

“I give thee no gold,” said she, “for 'tis thrown away as quick as silver, and harder to win back.

Heaven send thee safe out of all thy perils; there be famous fair women yonder to beguile thee, with their faces, as well as men to hash thee with their axes.

” He was hurried on board at La Vere, and never saw Gerard at that time.

In 1473 Sybrandt began to fail.

His pitiable existence had been sweetened by his brother's inventive tenderness and his own contented spirit, which, his antecedents considered, was truly remarkable, As for Gerard, the day never passed that he did not devote two hours to him;

reading or singing to him, praying with him, and drawing him about in a soft carriage Margaret and he had made between them.

When the poor soul found his end near, he begged Margaret might be sent for.

She came at once, and almost with his last breath he sought once more that forgiveness she had long ago accorded.

She remained by him till the last; and he died, blessing and blessed, in the arms of the two true lovers he had parted for life.

Tantum religio scit suadere boni.

1474 there was a wedding in Margaret's house, Luke Peterson and Reicht Heynes.

This may seem less strange if I give the purport of the dialogue interrupted some time back.

Margaret went on to say, “Then in that case you can easily make him fancy you, and for my sake you must, for my conscience it pricketh me, and I must needs fit him with a wife, the best I know.

” Margaret then instructed Reicht to be always kind and good-humoured to Luke; and she would be a model of peevishness to him, “But be not thou so simple as run me down,” said she, “Leave that to me.

Make thou excuses for me; I will make myself black enow.

” Reicht received these instructions like an order to sweep a room, and obeyed them punctually.

When they had subjected poor Luke to this double artillery for a couple of years, he got to look upon Margaret as his fog and wind, and Reicht as his sunshine; and his affections transferred themselves, he scarce knew how or when.

On the wedding day Reicht embraced Margaret, and thanked her almost with tears.

“He was always my fancy,” said she, “from the first hour I clapped eyes on him.

” “Heyday, you never told me that.

What, Reicht, are you as sly as the rest?

” “Nay, nay,” said Reicht eagerly; “but I never thought you would really part with him to me.

In my country the mistress looks to be served before the maid.

” Margaret settled them in her shop, and gave them half the profits.

1476 and 7 were years of great trouble to Gerard, whose conscience compelled him to oppose the Pope.

His Holiness, siding with the Grey Friars in their determination to swamp every palpable distinction between the Virgin Mary and her Son, bribed the Christian world into his crotchet by proffering pardon of all sins to such as would add to the Ave Mary this clause: “and blessed be thy Mother Anna, from whom, without blot of sin, proceeded thy virgin flesh.

” Gerard, in common with many of the northern clergy, held this sentence to be flat heresy.

He not only refused to utter it in his church, but warned his parishioners against using it in private; and he refused to celebrate the new feast the Pope invented at the same time, viz.

, “the feast of the miraculous conception of the Virgin.

” But this drew upon him the bitter enmity of the Franciscans, and they were strong enough to put him into more than one serious difficulty, and inflict many a little mortification on him.

In emergencies he consulted Margaret, and she always did one of two things, either she said, “I do not see my way,” and refused to guess; or else she gave him advice that proved wonderfully sagacious.

He had genius, but she had marvellous tact.

And where affection came in and annihilated the woman's judgment, he stepped in his turn to her aid.

Thus though she knew she was spoiling little Gerard, and Catherine was ruining him for life, she would not part with him, but kept him at home, and his abilities uncultivated.

And there was a shrewd boy of nine years, instead of learning to work and obey, playing about and learning selfishness from their infinite unselfishness, and tyrannizing with a rod of iron over two women, both of them sagacious and spirited, but reduced by their fondness for him to the exact level of idiots.

Gerard saw this with pain, and interfered with mild but firm remonstrance; and after a considerable struggle prevailed, and got little Gerard sent to the best school in Europe, kept by one Haaghe at Deventer: this was in 1477. Many tears were shed, but the great progress the boy made at that famous school reconciled Margaret in some degree, and the fidelity of Reicht Heynes, now her partner in business, enabled her to spend weeks at a time hovering over her boy at Deventer.

And so the years glided; and these two persons, subjected to as strong and constant a temptation as can well be conceived, were each other's guardian angels, and not each other's tempters.

To be sure the well-greased morality of the next century, which taught that solemn vows to God are sacred in proportion as they are reasonable, had at that time entered no single mind; and the alternative to these two minds was self-denial or sacrilege.

It was a strange thing to hear them talk with unrestrained tenderness to one another of their boy, and an icy barrier between themselves all the time.

Eight years had now passed thus, and Gerard, fairly compared with men in general, was happy.

But Margaret was not.

The habitual expression of her face was a sweet pensiveness, but sometimes she was irritable and a little petulant.

She even snapped Gerard now and then.

And when she went to see him, if a monk was with him she would turn her back and go home.

She hated the monks for having parted Gerard and her, and she inoculated her boy with a contempt for them which lasted him till his dying day.

Gerard bore with her like an angel.

He knew her heart of gold, and hoped this ill gust would blow over.

He himself being now the right man in the right place this many years, loving his parishioners, and beloved by them, and occupied from morn till night in good works, recovered the natural cheerfulness of his disposition.

To tell the truth, a part of his jocoseness was a blind; he was the greatest peace-maker, except Mr. Harmony in the play, that ever was born.

He reconciled more enemies in ten years than his predecessors had done in three hundred; and one of his manoeuvres in the peacemaking art was to make the quarrellers laugh at the cause of quarrel.

So did he undermine the demon of discord.

But independently of that, he really loved a harmless joke.

He was a wonderful tamer of animals, squirrels, bares, fawns, etc. So half in jest a parishioner who had a mule supposed to be possessed with a devil gave it him and said, “Tame this vagabone, parson, if ye can.

” Well, in about six months, Heaven knows how, he not only tamed Jack, but won his affections to such a degree, that Jack would come running to his whistle like a dog.

One day, having taken shelter from a shower on the stone settle outside a certain public-house, he heard a toper inside, a stranger, boasting he could take more at a draught than any man in Gouda.

He instantly marched in and said, “What, lads, do none of ye take him up for the honour of Gouda?

Shall it be said that there came hither one from another parish a greater sot than any of us?

Nay, then, I your parson do take him up.

Go to, I'll find thee a parishioner shall drink more at a draught than thou.

” A bet was made; Gerard whistled; in clattered Jack--for he was taught to come into a room with the utmost composure--and put his nose into his backer's hand.

“A pair of buckets!

” shouted Gerard, “and let us see which of these two sons of asses can drink most at a draught.

” On another occasion two farmers had a dispute whose hay was the best.

Failing to convince each other, they said, “We'll ask parson;” for by this time he was their referee in every mortal thing.

“How lucky you thought of me!

” said Gerard, “Why, I have got one staying with me who is the best judge of hay in Holland.

Bring me a double handful apiece.

” So when they came, he had them into the parlour, and put each bundle on a chair.

Then he whistled, and in walked Jack.

“Lord a mercy!

” said one of the farmers.

“Jack,” said the parson, in the tone of conversation, “just tell us which is the best hay of these two.

” Jack sniffed them both, and made his choice directly, proving his sincerity by eating every morsel.

The farmers slapped their thighs, and scratched their heads.

“To think of we not thinking o' that,” And they each sent Jack a truss.

So Gerard got to be called the merry parson of Gouda.

But Margaret, who like most loving women had no more sense of humour than a turtle-dove, took this very ill.

“What!

” said she to herself, “is there nothing sore at the bottom of his heart that he can go about playing the zany?

” She could understand pious resignation and content, but not mirth, in true lovers parted.

And whilst her woman's nature was perturbed by this gust (and women seem more subject to gusts than men) came that terrible animal, a busybody, to work upon her.

Catherine saw she was not happy, and said to her, “Your boy is gone from you.

I would not live alone all my days if I were you.

” “He is more alone than I,” sighed Margaret.

“Oh, a man is a man, but a woman is a woman.

You must not think all of him and none of yourself.

Near is your kirtle, but nearer is your smock.

Besides, he is a priest, and can do no better.

But you are not a priest.

He has got his parish, and his heart is in that.

Bethink thee!

Time flies; overstay not thy market.

Wouldst not like to have three or four more little darlings about thy knee now they have robbed thee of poor little Gerard, and sent him to yon nasty school?

” And so she worked upon a mind already irritated.

Margaret had many suitors ready to marry her at a word or even a look, and among them two merchants of the better class, Van Schelt and Oostwagen.

“Take one of those two,” said Catherine.

“Well, I will ask Gerard if I may,” said Margaret one day, with a flood of tears; “for I cannot go on the way I am.

” “Why, you would never be so simple as ask him?

” “Think you I would be so wicked as marry without his leave?

” Accordingly she actually went to Gouda, and after hanging her head, and blushing, and crying, and saying she was miserable, told him his mother wished her to marry one of those two; and if he approved of her marrying at all, would he use his wisdom, and tell her which he thought would be the kindest to the little Gerard of those two; for herself, she did not care what became of her.

Gerard felt as if she had put a soft hand into his body and torn his heart out with it.

But the priest with a mighty effort mastered the man.

In a voice scarcely audible he declined this responsibility.

“I am not a saint or a prophet,” said he; “I might advise thee ill.

I shall read the marriage service for thee,” faltered he; “it is my right.

No other would pray for thee as I should.

But thou must choose for thyself; and oh!

let me see thee happy.

This four months past thou hast not been happy.

” “A discontented mind is never happy,” said Margaret.

She left him, and he fell on his knees, and prayed for help from above.

Margaret went home pale and agitated.

“Mother,” said she, “never mention it to me again, or we shall quarrel.

” “He forbade you?

Well, more shame for him, that is all.

” “He forbid me?

He did not condescend so far.

He was as noble as I was paltry.

He would not choose for me for fear of choosing me an ill husband.

But he would read the service for my groom and me; that was his right.

Oh, mother, what a heartless creature I was!

” “Well, I thought not he had that much sense.

” “Ah, you go by the poor soul's words, but I rate words as air when the face speaketh to mine eye.

I saw the priest and the true lover a-fighting in his dear face, and his cheek pale with the strife, and oh!

his poor lip trembled as he said the stout-hearted words--Oh!

oh!

oh!

oh!

oh!

oh!

oh!

” And Margaret burst into a violent passion of tears.

Catherine groaned.

“There, give it up without more ado,” said she.

“You two are chained together for life; and if God is merciful, that won't be for long; for what are you neither maid, wife, nor widow.

” “Give it up?

” said Margaret; “that was done long ago.

All I think of now is comforting him; for now I have been and made him unhappy too, wretch and monster that I am.

” So the next day they both went to Gouda.

And Gerard, who had been praying for resignation all this time, received her with peculiar tenderness as a treasure he was to lose; but she was agitated and eager to let him see without words that she would never marry, and she fawned on him like a little dog to be forgiven.