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They pursued their journey hand in hand 
 Original Etching 
 
Illustrated Library Edition 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND 
 THE HEARTH 
 
 A TALE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 VOLUME II 
 
 THE 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
 OF A THIEF 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES READE, D. C. L. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 COLONIAL PRESS COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE 
 HEARTH 
 
 % 
 
 711896 
 
 Y ^ 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH 
 Vol. II. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 They pursued their journey hand in hand . Frontispiece 
 Church of St. Mark 97 
 
 A STRANGE CONTRAST, AND WORTH A PAINTER'S WHILE . 104 
 
 Held his crucifix towering over her .... 313 
 "Madam," said Giles, " see you yon blind Samson? " 368 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF 
 Revealed himself to me as my father . . . • 6 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES 
 On we marched, the best of friends .... 95 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Among strangers Margaret Brandt was comparatively 
 happy. And soon a new and unexpected cause of content 
 arose. A civic dignitary being ill, and fanciful in pro- 
 portion, went from doctor to doctor ; and, having arrived 
 at death's door, sent for Peter. Peter found him bled 
 and purged to nothing. He flung a battalion of bottles 
 out of window, and left it open ; beat up yolks of eggs 
 in neat Schiedam, and administered it in small doses : 
 followed this up by meat stewed in red wine and water, 
 ♦shredding into both mild febrifugal herbs, that did no 
 harm. Finally, his patient got about again, looking 
 something between a man and a pillow-case, and, being 
 a voluble dignitary, spread Peter's fame in every street ; 
 and that artist, who had long merited a reputation in 
 vain, made one rapidly by luck. Things looked bright. 
 The old man's pride was cheered at last, and his purse 
 began to fill. He spent much of his gain, however, in 
 sovereign herbs and choice drugs, and would have so 
 invested them all, but Margaret white-mailed a part. 
 The victory came too late. Its happy excitement was 
 fatal. 
 
 One evening in bidding her good-night his voice seemed 
 rather inarticulate. 
 
4 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The next morning he was found speechless, and only 
 just sensible. 
 
 Margaret, who had been for years her father's attentive 
 pupil; saw at once that he had had a paralytic stroke. 
 But not trusting to herself, she ran for a doctor. One 
 of those, who, obstructed by Peter, had not killed the 
 civic dignitary, came and cheerfully confirmed her views. 
 He was for bleeding the patient. She declined. "He 
 was always against blooding," said she, " especially the 
 old." Peter lived, but was never the same man again. 
 His memory became much affected, and of course he was 
 not to be trusted to prescribe ; and several patients had 
 come, and one or two, that were bent on being cured by 
 the new doctor, and no other, awaited his convalescence. 
 Misery stared her in the face. She resolved to go for 
 advice and comfort to her cousin William Johnson, from 
 whom she had hitherto kept aloof out of pride and pov- 
 erty. She found him and his servant sitting in the same 
 room, and neither of them the better for liquor. Master- 
 ing all signs of surprise, she gave her greetings, and 
 presently told him she had come to talk on a family 
 matter, and with this glanced quietly at the servant by 
 way of hint. The woman took it, but not as expected. 
 
 " Oh, you can speak before me, can she not, my old 
 man ? " 
 
 At this familiarity Margaret turned very red, and 
 said, — 
 
 " I cry you mercy, mistress. I knew not my cousin 
 had fallen into the custom of this town. "Well, I must 
 take a fitter opportunity ; " and she rose to go. 
 
 " I wot not what ye mean by custom o' the town," said 
 the woman, bouncing up. " But this I know : 'tis the 
 part of a faithful servant to keep her master from being 
 preyed on by his beggarly kin." 
 
 Margaret retorted : " Ye are too modest, mistress. Ye 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 5 
 
 are no servant. Your speech betrays you. 'Tis not till 
 the ape hath mounted the tree that she shows her tail so 
 plain. Nay, there sits the servant ; God help him ! And 
 while so it is, fear not thou his kin will ever be so poor 
 in spirit as come where the likes of you can flout their 
 dole." And casting one look of mute reproach at her 
 cousin for being so little of a man as to sit passive and 
 silent all this time, she turned and went haughtily out ; 
 nor would she shed a single tear till she got home and 
 thought of it. And now here were two men to be lodged 
 and fed by one pregnant girl ; and another mouth coming 
 into the world. 
 
 But this last, though the most helpless of all, was their 
 best friend. 
 
 Nature was strong in Margaret Brandt; that same 
 nature which makes the brutes, the birds, and the in- 
 sects so cunning at providing food and shelter for their 
 progeny yet to come. 
 
 Stimulated by nature she sat and brooded, and brooded, 
 and thought, and thought, how to be beforehand with 
 destitution. Ay, though she had still five gold pieces 
 left, she saw starvation coming with inevitable foot. 
 
 Her sex, when, deviating from custom, it thinks with 
 male intensity, thinks just as much to the purpose as we 
 do. She rose, bade Martin move Peter to another room, 
 made her own very neat and clean, polished the glass 
 globe, and suspended it from the ceiling, dusted the 
 crocodile and nailed him to the outside wall : and, after 
 duly instructing Martin, set him to play the lounging 
 sentinel about the street door, and tell the crocodile- 
 bitten that a great, and aged, and learned alchymist 
 abode there, who in his moments of recreation would 
 sometimes amuse himself by curing mortal diseases. 
 
 Patients soon came, and were received by Margaret, 
 and demanded to see the leech. "That might not be. 
 
6 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 He was deep in his studies, searching for the grand 
 elixir, and not princes could have speech of him. They 
 must tell her their symptoms, and return in two hours." 
 And, oh ! mysterious powers ! when they did return, the 
 drug or draught was always ready for them. Sometimes, 
 when it was a worshipful patient, she would carefully 
 scan his face, and feeling both pulse and skin, as well as 
 hearing his story, would go softly with it to Peter's 
 room ; and there think and ask herself how her father, 
 whose system she had long quietly observed, would have 
 treated the case. Then she would write an illegible 
 scrawl with a cabalistic letter, and bring it down rever- 
 entially, and show it the patient, and " Could he read 
 that ? " Then it would be either, " I am no reader," or, 
 with admiration, " Nay, mistress, naught can I make on't." 
 
 " Ay, but I can. 'Tis sovereign. Look on thyself as 
 cured ! " If she had the materials by her, and she was 
 too good an economist not to favor somewhat those med- 
 icines she had in her own stock, she would sometimes let 
 the patient see her compound it, often and anxiously 
 consulting the sacred prescription lest great science 
 should suffer in her hands. And so she would send 
 them away relieved of cash, but with their pockets full 
 of medicine, and minds full of faith, and humbugged to 
 their heart's content. Populus vult decipi. And when 
 they were gone, she would take down two little boxes 
 Gerard had made her ; r and on one of these she had 
 written To-day, and on the other To-morrow, and put the 
 smaller coins into "To-day," and the larger into "To- 
 morrow," along with such of her gold pieces as had sur- 
 vived the journey from Sevenbergen, and the expenses 
 of housekeeping in a strange place. And so she met 
 current expenses, and laid by for the rainy day she saw 
 coming, and mixed drugs with simples, and vice with 
 virtue. On this last score her conscience pricked her 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 7 
 
 sore, and after each day's comedy, she knelt down and 
 prayed God to forgive her "for the sake of her child." 
 But lo, and behold, cure after cure was reported to her ; 
 so then her conscience began to harden. Martin Witten- 
 haagen had of late been a dead weight on her hands. 
 Like most men who have endured great hardships, he 
 had stiffened rather suddenly. But, though less supple, 
 he was as strong as ever, and at his own pace could have 
 carried the doctor herself round Kotterdam city. He 
 carried her slops instead. 
 
 In this new business he showed the qualities of a 
 soldier : unreasoning obedience, punctuality, accuracy, 
 despatch, and drunkenness. 
 
 He fell among " good fellows " ; the blackguards plied 
 him with Schiedam ; he babbled, he bragged. 
 
 Doctor Margaret had risen very high in his estimation. 
 All this brandishing of a crocodile for a standard, and 
 setting a dotard in ambush, and getting rid of slops, and 
 taking good money in exchange, struck him not as science, 
 but something far superior, strategy. And he boasted in 
 his cups, and before a mixed company, how " me and my 
 general we are a-biting of the burghers." 
 
 When this revelation had had time to leaven the city, 
 his general, Doctor Margaret, received a call from the 
 constables : they took her, trembling, and begging subor- 
 dinate machines to forgive her, before the burgomaster ; 
 and by his side stood real physicians, a terrible row, in 
 long robes and square caps, accusing her of practising 
 unlawfully on the bodies of the duke's lieges. At first 
 she was too frightened to say a word. Novice like, the 
 very name of " law " paralyzed her. But being ques- 
 tioned closely, but not so harshly as if she had been 
 ugly, she told the truth ; she had long been her father's 
 pupil, and had but followed his system, and she had 
 cured many ; " and it is not for myself in very deed, sirs, 
 
8 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 but I have two poor helpless honest men at home upon 
 my hands, and how else can I keep them ? Ah, good 
 sirs, let a poor girl make her bread honestly ; ye hinder 
 them not to make it idly and shamefully ; and oh, sirs, 
 ye are husbands, ye are fathers ; ye cannot but see I have 
 reason to work and provide as best I may ; " and ere this 
 woman's appeal had left her lips, she would have given 
 the world to recall it, and stood with one hand upon her 
 heart, and one before her face, hiding it, but not the 
 tears that trickled underneath it. All which went to 
 the wrong address. Perhaps a female bailiff might 
 have yielded to such arguments, and bade her practise 
 medicine, and break law, till such time as her child 
 should be weaned, and no longer. 
 
 " What have we to do with that," said the burgomaster, 
 "save and except that if thou wilt pledge thyself to 
 break the law no more, I will remit the imprisonment, 
 and exact but the fine ? 99 
 
 On this Doctor Margaret clasped her hands together, 
 and vowed most penitently never, never, never, to cure 
 body or beast again ; and being dismissed with the con- 
 stables to pay the fine, she turned at the door, and court- 
 esied, poor soul, and thanked the gentlemen for their 
 forbearance. 
 
 And to pay the fine the "to-morrow box" must be 
 opened on the instant ; and with excess of caution she 
 had gone and nailed it up, that no slight temptation 
 might prevail to open it. And now she could not draw 
 the nails, and the constables grew impatient, and doubted 
 its contents, and said, " Let us break it for you." But 
 she would not let them. "Ye will break it worse than 
 I shall." And she took a hammer, and struck too faintly, 
 and lost all strength for a minute, and wept hysterically ; 
 and at last she broke it, and a little cry broke from her 
 when it broke : and she paid the fine, and it took all her 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 9 
 
 unlawful gains and two gold pieces to boot ; and, when 
 the men were gone, she drew the broken pieces of the 
 box, and what little money they had left her, all together 
 on the table, and her arms went round them, and her 
 rich hair escaped, and fell down all loose, and she bowed 
 her forehead on the wreck, and sobbed, " My love's box 
 it is broken, and my heart withal ; " and so remained. 
 And Martin Wittenhaagen came in, and she could not 
 lift her head, but sighed out to him what had befallen 
 her, ending, " My love his box is broken, and so mine 
 heart is broken." 
 
 And Martin was not so sad as wroth. Some traitor 
 had betrayed him. What stony heart had told, and 
 brought her to this pass ? Whoever it was should feel 
 his arrow's point. The curious attitude in which he 
 must deliver the shaft never occurred to him. 
 
 " Idle chat ! idle chat ! " moaned Margaret, without 
 lifting her brow from the table. " When you have slain 
 all the gossips in this town, can we eat them ? Tell me 
 how to keep you all, or prithee hold thy peace, and let 
 the saints get leave to whisper me." Martin held his 
 tongue, and cast uneasy glances at his defeated general. 
 
 Towards evening she rose, and washed her face and 
 did up her hair, and doggedly bade Martin take down 
 the crocodile, and put out a basket instead. 
 
 " I can get up linen better than they seem to do it in 
 this street," said she, "and you must carry it in the 
 basket." 
 
 " That will I for thy sake," said the soldier. 
 " Good Martin ! forgive me that I spake shrewishly to 
 thee." 
 
 Even while they were talking came a male for advice. 
 Margaret told it the mayor had interfered and forbidden 
 her to sell drugs. " But," said she, " I will gladly iron 
 and starch your linen for you, and — I will come and 
 fetch it from your house." 
 
10 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Are ye mad, young woman ? " said the male. " I 
 come for a leech, and ye proffer me a washerwoman ; " 
 and it went out in dudgeon. 
 
 " There is a stupid creature," said Margaret, sadly. 
 
 Presently came a female to tell the symptoms of her 
 sick child. Margaret stopped it. 
 
 " We are forbidden by the bailiff to sell drugs. But I 
 will gladly wash, iron, and starch your linen for you — 
 and — I will come and fetch it from your house." 
 
 " Oh, ay," said the female. " Well, I have some smocks 
 and ruffs foul. Come for them ; and when you are there, 
 you can look at the boy ; " and it told her where it lived, 
 and when its husband would be out ; yet it was rather 
 fond of its husband than not. 
 
 An introduction is an introduction. And two or three 
 patients out of all those who came and were denied 
 medicine, made Doctor Margaret their washerwoman. 
 
 "Now, Martin, you must help. I'll no more cats than 
 can slay mice." 
 
 " Mistress, the stomach is not a-wanting for't, but the 
 head-piece, worse luck." 
 
 " Oh ! I mean not the starching and ironing ; that takes 
 a woman and a handy one. But the bare washing; a 
 man can surely contrive that. Why, a mule has wit 
 enough in's head to do't with his hoofs, an ye could 
 drive him into the tub. Come, off doublet, and try." 
 
 " I am your man," said the brave old soldier, stripping 
 for the unwonted toil. " I'll risk my arm in soapsuds, 
 an you will risk your glory." 
 
 " My what ? " 
 
 "Your glory and honor as a — washerwoman." 
 
 " Gramercy ! if you are man enough to bring me half- 
 washed linen t' iron, I am woman enough to fling't back 
 i' the suds." 
 
 And so the brave girl and the brave soldier worked 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 11 
 
 with a will, and kept the wolf from the door. More 
 they could not do. Margaret had repaired the "to- 
 morrow box," and as she leaned over the glue, her tears 
 mixed with it, and she cemented her exiled lover's box 
 with them, at which a smile is allowable, but an intelli- 
 gent smile tipped with pity, please, and not the empty 
 guffaw of the nineteenth-century jackass, burlesquing 
 Bibles, and making fun of all things except fun. But 
 when mended it stood unreplenished. They kept the 
 weekly rent paid, and the pot boiling, but no more. 
 
 And now came a concatenation. Recommended from 
 one to another, Margaret washed for the mayor. And 
 bringing home the clean linen one day, she heard in the 
 kitchen that his worship's only daughter was stricken 
 with disease and not like to live. Poor Margaret could 
 not help cross-questioning, and a female servant gave 
 her such of the symptoms as she had observed. But 
 they were too general. However, one gossip would add 
 one fact, and another another. And Margaret pondered 
 them all. 
 
 At last one day she met the mayor himself. He 
 recognized her directly. " Why, you are the unlicensed 
 doctor." 
 
 " I was," said she, " but now I'm your worship's 
 washerwoman." The dignitary colored, and said that 
 was rather a come-down. 
 
 " Nay, I bear no malice, for your worship might have 
 been harder. Bather would I do you a good turn. Sir, 
 you have a sick daughter. Let me see her." 
 
 The mayor shook his head. " That cannot be. The 
 law I do enforce on others I may not break myself." 
 
 Margaret opened her eyes. "Alack, sir, I seek no 
 guerdon now for curing folk ; why, I am a washerwoman. 
 I trow one may heal all the world, an if one will but let 
 the world starve one in return." 
 
12 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 '•That is no more than just," said the mayor; he 
 added, "an ye make no trade on't; there is no of- 
 fence." 
 
 " Then let me see her." 
 
 " What avails it ? The learnedest leeches in Eotter- 
 dam have all seen her, and bettered her nought. Her ill 
 is inscrutable. One skilled wight saith spleen ; another, 
 liver; another, blood; another, stomach; and another, 
 that she is possessed; and in very truth, she seems to 
 have a demon ; shunneth all company ; pineth alone ; 
 eateth no more victuals than might diet a sparrow. 
 Speaketh seldom, nor hearkens them that speak, and 
 weareth thinner and paler and nearer and nearer the 
 grave, well-a-day." 
 
 " Sir," said Margaret, " an if you take your velvet 
 doublet to half a dozen of shops in Rotterdam, and speer 
 is this fine or sorry velvet, and worth how much the ell, 
 those six traders will eye it and feel it, and all be in one 
 story to a letter. And why ? Because they know their 
 trade. And your leeches are all in different stories. 
 Why ? Because they know not their trade. I have 
 heard my father say each is enamoured of some one evil, 
 and seeth it with his bat's eyn in every patient. Had 
 they stayed at home, and ne'er seen your daughter, they 
 had answered all the same, spleen, blood, stomach, lungs, 
 liver, lunacy, or, as they call it, possession. Let me see 
 her. We are of a sex, and that is much." And when 
 he still hesitated, " Saints of heaven ! " cried she, giving 
 way to the irritability of a breeding woman, "is this 
 how men love their own flesh and blood ? Her mother 
 had ta'en me in her arms ere this, and carried me to the 
 sick-room." And two violet eyes flashed fire. 
 
 " Come with me," said the mayor, hastily. 
 
 " Mistress, I have brought thee a new doctor." 
 
 The person addressed, a pale young girl of eighteen, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 13 
 
 gave a contemptuous wrench of her shoulder, and turned 
 more decidedly to the fire she was sitting over. 
 
 Margaret came softly and sat beside her. "But 'tis 
 one that will not torment you." 
 
 " A woman ! " exclaimed the young lady, with surprise 
 and some contempt. 
 
 " Tell her your symptoms." 
 
 " What for ? you will be no wiser." 
 
 " You will be none the worse." 
 
 " Well, I have no stomach for food, and no heart for 
 anything. Now cure me, and go." 
 
 " Patience awhile ! Your food, is it tasteless like in 
 your mouth ? " 
 
 " Ay. How knew you that ? " 
 
 " Nay, I knew it not till you did tell me. I trow you 
 would be better for a little good company." 
 
 " I trow not. What is their silly chat to me ? " 
 
 Here Margaret requested the father to leave them 
 alone, and in his absence put some practical questions. 
 Then she reflected. 
 
 "When you wake i' the morning you find yourself 
 quiver, as one may say ? " 
 
 " Nay. Ay. How knew you that ? " 
 
 " Shall I dose you, or shall I but tease you a bit with 
 my ' silly chat ' ? " 
 
 "Which you will." 
 
 "Then I will tell you a story. 'Tis about two true 
 lovers." 
 
 " I hate to hear of lovers," said the girl ; " neverthe- 
 less canst tell me, 'twill be less nauseous than your 
 physic — maybe." 
 
 Margaret then told her a love story. The maiden was 
 a girl called Ursel, and the youth one Conrad ; she an old 
 physician's daughter, he the son of a hosier at Tergou. 
 She told their adventures, their troubles, their sad condi« 
 
14 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEAETH. 
 
 tion. She told it from the female point of view, and in 
 a sweet and winning and earnest voice, that by degrees 
 soon laid hold of this sullen heart, and held it breath- 
 less ; and when she broke it off her patient was much 
 disappointed. 
 
 " Nay, nay, I must hear the end. I will hear it." 
 
 " Ye cannot, for I know it not ; none knoweth that but 
 God." 
 
 " Ah; your Ursel was a jewel of worth/' said the girl, 
 earnestly. " Would she were here ! " 
 " Instead of her that is here ? " 
 " I say not that," and she blushed a little. 
 "You do but think it." 
 
 " Thought is free. Whether or no, an she were here, 
 I'd give her a buss, poor thing." 
 
 " Then give it me, for I am she." 
 
 " Nay, nay, that I'll be sworn y'are not." 
 
 " Say not so ; in very truth I am she. And prithee, 
 sweet mistress, go. not from your word, but give me the 
 buss ye promised me, and with a good heart, for oh, my 
 own heart lies heavy; heavy as thine, sweet mistress." 
 
 The young gentlewoman rose and put her arms round 
 Margaret's neck and kissed her. " I am woe for you," 
 she sighed. " You are a good soul ; you have done me 
 good — a little." (A gulp came in her throat.) a Come 
 again ! come often ! " 
 
 Margaret did come again, and talked with her, and 
 gently but keenly watched what topics interested her, 
 and found there was but one. Then she said to the 
 mayor, "I know your daughter's trouble, and 'tis 
 curable." 
 
 "Whatis't? the blood?" 
 
 "Nay." 
 
 "The stomach?" 
 "Nay." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 15 
 
 "The liver?" 
 "Nay." 
 
 "The foul fiend ?» 
 "Nay." 
 
 "What then?" 
 "Love." 
 
 " Love ? stuff, impossible ! She is but a child ; she 
 never stirs abroad unguarded. She never hath from a 
 child." 
 
 " All the better ; then we shall not have far to look 
 for him." 
 
 " I trow not. I shall but command her to tell me the 
 caitiff's name, that hath by magic arts ensnared her 
 young affections." 
 
 " Oh, how foolish be the wise ! " said Margaret ; " what, 
 would ye go and put her on her guard? Nay, let us 
 work by art first ; and if that fails, then 'twill still be 
 time for violence and folly." 
 
 Margaret then with some difficulty prevailed on the 
 mayor to take advantage of its being Saturday, and pay 
 all his people their salaries in his daughter's presence 
 and hers. 
 
 It was done : some fifteen people entered the room, 
 and received their pay with a kind word from their 
 employer. Then Margaret, who had sat close to the 
 patient all the time, rose and went out. The mayor 
 followed her. 
 
 " Sir, how call you yon black-haired lad ? " 
 
 " That is Ulrich, my clerk." 
 
 "Well then, 'tis he." 
 
 " Now Heaven forbid ! a lad I took out of the streets. 
 
 "Well, but your worship is an understanding man. 
 Yon took him not up without some merit of his ? " 
 
 "Merit ? not a jot ! I liked the looks of the brat, that 
 was all." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Was that no merit? He pleased the father's eye. 
 And now he hath pleased the daughter's. That has oft 
 been seen since Adam." 
 
 " How know ye 'ti he ? " 
 
 "I held her hand, and with my finger did lightly 
 touch her wrist ; and, when the others came and went, 
 'twas as if dogs and cats had fared in and out. But at 
 this Ulrich's coming her pulse did leap, and her eye 
 shine ; and, when he went, she did sink back and sigh ; 
 and 'twas to be seen the sun had gone out of the room 
 for her. Nay, burgomaster, look not on me so scared; 
 no witch or magician I, but a poor girl that hath been 
 docile, and so bettered herself by a great neglected 
 leech's art and learning. I tell ye all this hath been 
 done before, thousands of years ere we were born. Now 
 bide thou there till I come to thee, and prithee, prithee, 
 spoil not good work wi' meddling." She then went back 
 and asked her patient for a lock of her hair. 
 
 " Take it," said she, more listlessly than ever. 
 
 " Why, 'tis a lass of marble. How long do you count 
 to be like that, mistress ? " 
 
 " Till I am in my grave, sweet Peggy." 
 
 " Who knows ? may be in ten minutes you will be 
 altogether as hot." 
 
 She ran into the shop, but speedily returned to the 
 mayor and said, " Good news ! He fancies her, and more 
 than a little. Now how is't to be ? Will you marry 
 your child, or bury her ? for there is no third way, for 
 shame and love they do rend her virgin heart to death." 
 
 The dignitary decided for the more cheerful rite, but 
 not without a struggle ; and, with its marks on his face, 
 he accompanied Margaret to his daughter. But as men 
 are seldom in a hurry to drink their wormwood, he stood 
 silent. So Doctor Margaret said, cheerfully, " Mistress, 
 ^our lock is gone, I have sold it." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 17 
 
 " And who was so mad as to buy such a thing ? " in- 
 quired the young lady scornfully. 
 
 " Oh, a black-haired laddie wi' white teeth. They call 
 him Ulrich." 
 
 The pale face reddened directly — brow and all. 
 
 "Says he, 'Oh, sweet mistress, give it me/ I had 
 told them all whose 'twas. < Nay,' said I, ' selling is my 
 livelihood, not giving/ So he offered me this, he offered 
 me that, but nought less would I take than his next 
 quarter's wages." 
 
 " Cruel," murmured the girl scarce audibly. 
 
 " Why, you are in one tale with your father. Says he 
 to me when I told him, ' Oh, an he loves her hair so well, 
 'tis odd but he loves the rest of her. Well,' quoth he, 
 ' 'tis an honest lad, and a' shall have her, gien she will 
 but leave her sulks and consent.' So, what say ye, mis- 
 tress ? will you be married to Ulrich, or buried i' the 
 kirkyard ? " 
 
 " Father ! father ! " 
 
 " 'Tis so, girl, speak thy mind." 
 
 "I — will — obey — my father — in all things," stam- 
 mered the poor girl, trying hard to maintain the advanta- 
 geous position in which Margaret had placed her. But 
 nature, and the joy and surprise, were too strong even 
 for a virgin's bashful cunning. She cast an eloquent 
 look on them both, and sank at her father's knees, and 
 begged his pardon, with many sobs for having doubted 
 his tenderness. 
 
 He raised her in his arms, and took her, radiant 
 through her tears with joy, and returning life, and filial 
 love, to his breast ; and the pair passed a truly sacred 
 moment, and the dignitary was as happy as he thought 
 to be miserable, so hard is it for mortals to foresee. And 
 they looked round for Margaret, but she had stolen away 
 softly. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 THE CLOISTER AXD THE HEARTH. 
 
 The young girl searched the house for her. 
 
 " Where is she hid ? Where on earth is she ? " 
 
 Where was she ? why, in her own house, dressing meat 
 for her two old children, and crying bitterly the while 
 at the living picture of happiness she had just created. 
 
 " Well-a-day : the odds between her lot and mine ; well- 
 a-day ! " 
 
 Next time she met the dignitary, he hemm'd and 
 hawed, and remarked what a pity it was the law forbade 
 him to pay her who had cured his daughter. " How- 
 ever, when all is done, 'twas not art, 'twas but woman's 
 wit." 
 
 "Nought but that, burgomaster," said Margaret bit- 
 terly. " Pay the men of art for not curing her : all the 
 guerdon I seek, that cured her, is this ; go not and give 
 your foul linen away from me by way of thanks." 
 
 "Why should I ? " inquired he. 
 
 " Marry, because there be fools about ye will tell ye 
 she that hath wit to cure dark diseases, cannot have wit 
 to take dirt out of rags ; so pledge me your faith." 
 
 The dignitary promised pompously, and felt all the 
 patron. 
 
 Something must be done to fill "to-morrow's box." 
 She hawked her initial letters and her illuminated vel- 
 lums all about the town. Printing had by this time 
 dealt calligraphy in black and white a terrible blow in 
 Holland and Germany. But some copies of the printed 
 books were usually illuminated and lettered. The print- 
 ers offered Margaret prices for work in these two kinds. 
 
 " I'll think on't," said she. 
 
 She took down her diurnal book, and calculated that 
 the price of an hour's work on those arts would be about 
 one-fifth what she got for an hour at the tub and mangle. 
 " I'll starve first," said she ; " what ! pay a craft and a 
 mystery five times less than a handicraft ! " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 19 
 
 Martin, carrying the dry clothes-basket, got treated, 
 and drunk. This time he babbled her whole story. The 
 girls got hold of it and gibed her at the fountain. 
 
 All she had gone through was light to her, compared 
 with the pins and bodkins her own sex drove into her 
 heart, whenever she came near the merry crew with her 
 pitcher, and that was every day. Each sex has its form 
 of cruelty ; man's is more brutal and terrible ; but shallow 
 women, that have neither read nor suffered, have an 
 unmuscular barbarity of their own (where no feeling of 
 sex steps in to overpower it). This defect, intellectual 
 perhaps rather than moral, has been mitigated in our day 
 by books, especially by able works of fiction ; for there 
 are two roads to that highest effort of intelligence, pity ; 
 experience of sorrows, and imagination, by which alone 
 we realize the grief we never felt. In the fifteenth cent- 
 ury girls with pitchers had but one : experience ; and at 
 sixteen years of age or so, that road had scarce been 
 trodden. These girls persisted that Margaret was deserted 
 by her lover. And to be deserted was a crime. (They 
 had not been deserted yet.) Not a word against the 
 Gerard they had created out of their own heads. For 
 his imaginary crime they fell foul of the supposed vic- 
 tim. Sometimes they affronted her to her face. Oftener 
 they talked at her backwards and forwards with a subtle 
 skill, and a perseverance which, " Oh, that they had 
 bestowed on the arts," as poor Aguecheek says. 
 
 Now Margaret was brave, and a coward ; brave to battle 
 difficulties and ill fortune ; brave to shed her own blood 
 for those she loved. Fortitude she had. But she had 
 no true fighting courage. She was a powerful young 
 woman, rather tall, full, and symmetrical ; yet, had one 
 of those slips of girls slapped her face, the poor fool's 
 hands would have dropped powerless, or gone to her own 
 eyes instead of her adversary's. Nor was she even a 
 
20 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 match for so many tongues ; and, besides, what could she 
 say ? She knew nothing of these girls, except that 
 somehow they had found out her sorrows, and hated her ; 
 only she thought to herself they must be very happy, or 
 they would not be so hard on her. 
 
 So she took their taunts in silence j and all her struggle 
 was not to let them see their power to make her writhe 
 within. 
 
 Here came in her fortitude ; and she received their 
 blows with well-feigned, icy hauteur. They slapped a 
 statue. 
 
 But one day, when her spirits were weak, as happens 
 at times to females in her condition, a dozen assailants 
 followed suit so admirably, that her whole sex seemed to 
 the dispirited one to be against her, and she lost heart, 
 and the tears began to run silently at each fresh stab. 
 
 On this their triumph knew no bounds, and they fol- 
 lowed her half way home, casting barbed speeches. 
 
 After that exposure of weakness the statue could be 
 assumed no more. So then she would stand timidly 
 aloof out of tongue-shot, till her young tyrants' pitchers 
 were all filled, and they gone ; and then creep up with 
 hers. And one day she waited so long that the fount 
 had ceased to flow. So the next day she was obliged to 
 face the phalanx, or her house go dry. She drew near 
 slowly, but with the less tremor, that she saw a man at 
 the well talking to them. He would distract their atten- 
 tion, and, besides, they would keep their foul tongues 
 quiet if only to blind the male to their real character. 
 This conjecture, though shrewd, was erroneous. They 
 could not all flirt with that one man : so the outsiders 
 indemnified themselves by talking at her the very 
 moment she came up. 
 
 "Any news from foreign parts, Jacqueline ? " 
 
 " None for me, Martha. My lad goes no farther from 
 me than the town wall." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 21 
 
 " I can't say as much/' says a third. 
 
 " But if he goes t' Italy I have got another ready to 
 take the fool's place." 
 
 " He'll not go thither, lass. They go not far till they 
 are sick of us that bide in Holland." 
 
 Surprise and indignation, and the presence of a man, 
 gave Margaret a moment's fighting courage. " Oh, flout 
 me not, and show your ill nature before the very soldier. 
 In Heaven's name, what ill did I ever to ye, what harsh 
 word cast back, for all you have flung on me, a desolate 
 stranger in your cruel town, that ye flout me for my be- 
 reavement and my poor lad's most unwilling banishment ? 
 Hearts of flesh would surely pity us both, for that ye 
 cast in my teeth these many days, ye brows of brass, ye 
 bosoms of stone." 
 
 They stared at this novelty, resistance ; and ere they 
 could recover and make mincemeat of her, she put her 
 pitcher quietly down, and threw her coarse apron over 
 her head, and stood there grieving, her short-lived spirit 
 oozing fast. " Hallo ! " cried the soldier, " why, what is 
 your ill ? " She made no reply. But a little girl, who 
 had long secretly hated the big ones, squeaked out, 
 " They did flout her, they are aye flouting her ; she may 
 not come nigh the fountain for fear o' them, and 'tis a 
 black shame." 
 
 " Who spoke to her ? Not I, for one." 
 
 " Nor I. I would not bemean myself so far." 
 
 The man laughed heartily at this display of dignity. 
 " Come, wife," said he, " never lower thy flag to such light 
 skirmishers as these. Hast a tongue i' thy head as well 
 as they." 
 
 "Alack, good soldier, I was not bred to bandy foul 
 terms." 
 
 " Well, but hast a better arm than these. Why not 
 take 'em by twos across thy knee, and skelp 'em till they 
 cry Meculpee ? " 
 
22 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Nay, I would not hurt their bodies for all their cruel 
 hearts." 
 
 " Then ye must e'en laugh at them, wife. What ! a 
 woman grown, and not see why mesdames give tongue ? 
 You are a buxom wife ; they are a bundle of thread- 
 papers. You are fair and fresh : they have all the Dutch 
 rim under their bright eyes, that comes of dwelling in 
 eternal swamps. There lies your crime. Come, gie me 
 thy pitcher, and, if they flout me, shalt see me scrub 'em 
 all wi' my beard till they squeak holy mother." The 
 pitcher was soon filled, and the soldier put it in Marga- 
 ret's hand. She murmured, " Thank you kindly, brave 
 soldier." 
 
 He patted her on the shoulder. " Come, courage, 
 brave wife ; the divell is dead ! " She let the heavy 
 pitcher fall on his foot directly. He cursed horribly, 
 and hopped in a circle, saying, " No, the thief's alive and 
 has broken my great toe." 
 
 The apron came down, and there was a lovely face all 
 flushed with emotion, and two beaming eyes in front of 
 him, and two hands held out clasped. 
 
 "Nay, nay, tis nought," said he, good-humoredly, mis- 
 taking. 
 
 " Denys ? " 
 
 " Well ? But — hallo ! How do you know my name 
 is " — 
 
 a Denys of Burgundy ! " 
 
 " Why, odsbodikins ! I know you not, and you know 
 me." 
 
 " By Gerard's letter. Cross-bow ! beard ! handsome ! 
 The divell is dead." 
 
 " Sword of Goliah ! this must be she. Bed hair, violet 
 eyes, lovely face. But I took ye for a married wife, 
 seeing ye " — 
 
 " Tell me my name," said she quickly. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 23 
 
 " Margaret Brandt." 
 
 " Gerard ? Where is he ? Is he in life ? Is he well ? 
 Is he coming ? Is he come ? Why is he not here ? 
 Where have ye left him ? Oh, tell me ! prithee, prithee, 
 prithee tell me ! " 
 
 "Ay, ay, but not here. Oh, ye are all curiosity now, 
 mesdames, eh ? Lass, I have been three months a-foot 
 travelling all Holland to find ye, and here you are. Oh, 
 be joyful ! " and he flung his cap in the air, and seizing 
 both her hands kissed them ardently. " Ah, my pretty 
 she-comrade, I have found thee at last. I knew I should. 
 Shalt be flouted no more. I'll twist your necks at the 
 first word, ye little trollops. And I have got fifteen 
 gold angels left for thee, and our Gerard will soon be 
 here. Shalt wet thy purple eyes no more." 
 
 But the fair eyes were wet even now, looking kindly 
 and gratefully at the friend that had dropped among her. 
 foes as if from heaven : Gerard's comrade. " Prithee 
 come home with me, good, kind Denys. I cannot speak 
 of him before these." They went off together, followed 
 by a chorus. " She has gotten a man. She has gotten a 
 man at last. Hoo, hoo, hoo ! " 
 
 Margaret quickened her steps ; but Denys took down 
 his cross-bow and pretended to shoot them all dead ; they 
 fled quadrivious, shrieking. 
 
24 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The reader already knows how much these two had to 
 tell one another. It was a sweet yet bitter day for 
 Margaret, since it brought her a true friend, and ill 
 news : for now first she learned that Gerard was all 
 alone in that strange land. She could not think with 
 Denys that he would come home ; indeed he would have 
 arrived before this. 
 
 Denys was a balm. He called her his she-comrade, 
 and was always cheering her up with his formula and 
 hilarities, and she petted him and made much of him, and 
 feebly hectored it over him as well as over Martin, 
 and would not let him eat a single meal out of her house, 
 and forbade him to use naughty words. " It spoils you, 
 Denys. Good lack, to hear such ugly words come forth 
 so comely a head: forbear, or I shall be angry: so be 
 civil." Whereupon Denys was upon his good behavior, 
 and ludicrous the struggle between his native politeness 
 and his acquired ruffianism. And as it never rains but it 
 pours, other persons now solicited Margaret's friendship. 
 She had written to Margaret Van Eyck a humble letter 
 telling her she knew she was no longer the favorite she 
 had been, and would keep her distance ; but could not 
 forget her benefactress's past kindness. She then told 
 her briefly how many ways she had battled for a living, 
 and, in conclusion, begged earnestly that her residence 
 might not be betrayed, " least of all to his people. I do 
 hate them, they drove him from me. And, even when 
 he was gone, their hearts turned not to me as they would 
 an if they had repented their cruelty to him." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 25 
 
 The Van Eyck was perplexed. At last she made a 
 confidante of Keicht. The secret ran through Beicht, as 
 through a cylinder, to Catherine. 
 
 " Ay, and she is turned that bitter against us ? " said 
 that good woman. " She stole our son from us, and now 
 she hates us for not running into her arms. Natheless 
 it is a blessing she is alive and no farther away than 
 Botterdam." 
 
 The English princess, now Countess Charolois, made 
 a stately progress through the northern states of the 
 duchy, accompanied by her step-daughter the young 
 heiress of Burgundy, Marie de Bourgogne. Then the 
 old duke, the most magnificent prince in Europe, put out 
 his splendor. Troops of dazzling knights, and bevies 
 of fair ladies gorgeously attired, attended the two prin- 
 cesses ; and minstrels, jongleurs, or story-tellers, bards, 
 musicians, actors, tumblers, followed in the train, and 
 there was fencing, dancing, and joy in every town they 
 shone on. Giles, a court favorite, sent a timely message 
 to Tergou, inviting all his people to meet the pageant at 
 Botterdam. 
 
 They agreed to take a holiday for once in a way, and, 
 setting their married daughter to keep the shop, came to 
 Botterdam. But to two of them, not the great folk, but 
 little Giles, was the main attraction. They had been in 
 Botterdam some days, when Denys met Catherine acci- 
 dentally in the street, and after a warm greeting on both 
 sides, bade her rejoice, for he had found the she-com- 
 rade, and crowed ; but Catherine cooled him by showing 
 him how much earlier he would have found her by stay- 
 ing quietly at Tergou, than by vagabondizing it all over 
 Holland. " And being found, what the better are we ? 
 her heart is set dead against us now." 
 
 " Oh, let that flea stick, come you with me to her 
 house," 
 
26 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 JSg, she would not go where she was sure of an ill 
 welcome. " Them that come unbidden sit unseated." 
 No, let Denys be mediator, and bring the parties to a 
 good understanding. He undertook the office at once, 
 and with great pomp and confidence. He trotted off to 
 Margaret and said, "She-comrade, I met this day a friend 
 of thine." 
 
 " Thou didst look into the Eotter, then, and see thy- 
 self." 
 
 " Nay, 'twas a female, and one that seeks thy regard ; 
 '.twas Catherine, Gerard's mother." 
 
 " Oh, was it ? " said Margaret : " then you may tell 
 her she comes too late. There was a time I longed and 
 longed for her ; but she held aloof in my hour of most 
 need, so now we will be as we ha' been." 
 
 Denys tried to shake this resolution. He coaxed her, 
 but she was bitter and sullen, and not to be coaxed. 
 Then he scolded her well ; then at that she went into 
 hysterics. 
 
 He was frightened at this result of his eloquence, 
 and, being off his guard, allowed himself to be entrapped 
 into a solemn promise never to recur to the subject. He 
 went back to Catherine crestfallen, and told her. She 
 fired up and told the family how his overtures had been 
 received. Then they fired up; it became a feud and 
 burned fiercer every day. Little Kate alone made some 
 excuses for Margaret. 
 
 The very next day another visitor came to Margaret, 
 and found the military enslaved and degraded, Martin 
 up to his elbows in soapsuds, and Denys ironing very 
 clumsily, and Margaret plaiting ruffs, but with a mis- 
 tress's eye on her raw levies. To these there entered an 
 old man, venerable at first sight, but on nearer view keen 
 and wizened. 
 
 " Ah," cried Margaret, then swiftly turned her back 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 27 
 
 on him and hid her face with invincible repugnance. 
 " Oh, that man ! that man ! " 
 
 "Nay, fear me not," said Ghysbrecht; "I come on a 
 friend's errand. I bring ye a letter from foreign parts." 
 
 " Mock me not, old man ; " and she turned slowly 
 round. 
 
 "Nay, see," and he held out an enormous letter. 
 Margaret darted on it, and held it with trembling hands 
 and glistening eyes. It was Gerard's handwriting. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, sir, bless you for this. I forgive you 
 all the ill you ever wrought me." And she pressed the 
 letter to her bosom with one hand, and glided swiftly 
 from the room with it. 
 
 As she did not come back, Ghysbrecht went away, but 
 not without a scowl at Martin. Margaret was hours 
 alone with her letter. 
 
28 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When she came down again she was a changed woman. 
 Her eyes were wet, but calm, and all her bitterness and 
 excitement charmed away. 
 
 " Denys," said she softly, " I have got my orders. I 
 am to read my lover's letter to his folk." 
 
 " Ye will never do that." 
 
 "Ay will I." 
 
 " I see there is something in the letter has softened 
 ye towards them." 
 
 "Not a jot, Denys, not a jot. But an I hated them 
 like poison I would not disobey my love. Denys, 'tis 
 so sweet toVbey, and sweetest of all to obey one who is 
 far, far away, and cannot enforce my duty, but must 
 trust my love for my obedience. Ah, Gerard, my darling, 
 at hand I might have slighted thy commands, misliking 
 thy folk as I have cause to do ; but now, didst bid me go 
 into the raging sea and read thy sweet letter to the 
 sharks, there I'd go. Therefore, Denys, tell his mother 
 I have got a letter, and if she and hers would hear it, I 
 am their servant ; let them say their hour, and I'll seat 
 them as best I can, and welcome them as best I may." 
 
 Denys went off to Catherine with this good news. He 
 found the family at dinner, and told them there was a 
 long letter from Gerard. Then in the midst of the joy 
 this caused, he said, " And her heart is softened, and she 
 will read it to you herself ; you are to choose your own 
 time." 
 
 " What, does she think there are none can read but 
 her ? " asked Catherine. " Let her send the letter, and 
 we will read it." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 29 
 
 "Nay, but, mother," objected little Kate, "mayhap she 
 cannot bear to part it from her hand : she loves him 
 dearly." 
 
 " What, thinks she we shall steal it ? " 
 
 Cornells suggested that she would fain wedge herself 
 into the family by means of this letter. 
 
 Denys cast a look of scorn on the speaker. " There 
 spoke a bad heart," said he. " La Camarade hates you 
 all like poison. Oh, mistake me not, dame. I defend 
 her not, but so 'tis ; yet maugre her spleen, at a word 
 from Gerard she proffers to read you his letter with her 
 own pretty mouth, and hath a voice like honey — sure 
 'tis a fair proffer." 
 
 " 'Tis so, mine honest soldier," said the father of the 
 family, " and merits a civil reply ; therefore hold your 
 whisht, ye that be women, and I shall answer her. Tell 
 her I, his father, setting aside all past grudges, do for 
 this grace thank her, and, would she have double thanks, 
 let her send my son's letter by thy faithful hand, the 
 which will I read to his flesh and blood, and will then 
 to her so surely and faithfully return, as I am Eli a 
 Dierich a William a Luke, free burgher of Tergou, like 
 my forbears, and, like them, a man of my word." 
 
 " Ay, and a man who is better than his word," cried 
 Catherine ; " the only one I ever did foregather." 
 
 " Hold thy peace, wife." 
 
 " Art a man of sense, Eli, a dirk, a chose, a chose," 1 
 shouted Denys. "The she-comrade will be right glad 
 to obey Gerard and yet not face you all, whom she hates 
 as wormwood, saving your presence. Bless ye ! the 
 world hath changed, she is all submission to-day : 1 Obe- 
 dience is honey,' quoth she ; and in sooth 'tis a sweet- 
 meat she cannot but savor, eating so little on't, for what 
 with her fair face, and her mellow tongue ; and what 
 
 1 Anglic^, a Thing-em-bob. 
 
30 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 wi' ffying in fits and terrifying us that be soldiers to 
 death, an we thwart her ; and what wi' chiding us one 
 while, and petting us like lambs t'other, she hath made 
 two of the crawlingest slaves ever you saw out of two 
 honest swashbucklers. I be the ironing ruffian, t'other 
 washes." 
 
 " What next ? " 
 
 " What next ? why, whenever the brat is in the world 
 I shall rock cradle, and t'other knave will wash tucker 
 and bib. So then, I'll go fetch the letter on the instant. 
 Ye will let me bide and hear it read, will ye not ? " 
 
 " Else our hearts were black as coal," said Catherine. 
 
 So Denys went for the letter. He came back crest- 
 fallen. " She will not let it out of her hand neither to 
 me nor you, nor any he or she that lives." 
 
 " I knew she would not," said Cornells. 
 
 " Whisht ! whisht ! " said Eli, " and let Denys tell his 
 story." 
 
 "'Nay,' said I, 'but be ruled by me.' 'Not I,' quoth 
 she. 'Well, but,' quoth I, 'that same honey Obedience 
 ye spake of.' — ' You are a fool,' says she ; ' obedience to 
 Gerard is sweet, but obedience to any other body, — who 
 ever said that was sweet ? ' 
 
 " At last she seemed to soften a bit, and did give me 
 a written paper for you, mademoiselle. Here 'tis." 
 
 " For me ? " said little Kate coloring. 
 
 " Give that here ! " said Eli ; and he scanned the writ- 
 ing, and said almost in a whisper, " These be words from 
 the letter. Hearken ! 
 
 " ' And, sweetheart, an if these lines should travel 
 safe to thee, make thou trial of my people's hearts 
 withal. Maybe they are somewhat turned towards me, 
 being far away. If 'tis so, they will show it to thee, 
 since now to me they may not. Read, then, this letter ! 
 But I do strictly forbid thee to let it from thy hand; 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 31 
 
 and if they still hold aloof from thee, why, then say 
 nought, but let them think me dead. Obey me in this ; 
 for if thou dost disrespect my judgment and my will in 
 this, thou lovest me not.' " 
 
 There was a silence, and Gerard's words copied by 
 Margaret were handed round and inspected. 
 
 " Well," said Catherine, " that is another matter. But 
 methinks 'tis for her to come to us, not we to her." 
 
 " Alas, mother ! what odds does that make ? " 
 
 " Much," said Eli. " Tell her we are over many to 
 come to her, and bid her hither, the sooner the better." 
 
 When Denys was gone, Eli owned it was a bitter pill 
 to him. " When that lass shall cross my threshold, all 
 the mischief and misery she hath made here will seem 
 to come in a-doors in one heap. But what could I do, 
 wife ? We must hear the news of Gerard. I saw that 
 in thine eyes, and felt it in my own heart. And she is 
 backed by our undutiful but still beloved son, and so is 
 she stronger than we, and brings our noses down to the 
 grindstone, the sly, cruel jade ! But never heed. We 
 will hear the letter, and then let her go unblessed, as she 
 came unwelcome." 
 
 " Make your mind easy," said Catherine. " She will 
 not come at all." And a tone of regret was visible. 
 
 Shortly after, Richart, who had been hourly expected, 
 arrived from Amsterdam grave and dignified in his 
 burgher's robe and gold chain, ruff*, and furred cap, and 
 was received not with affection only, but respect, for he 
 had risen a step higher than his parents ; and such steps 
 were marked in mediaeval society almost as visibly as 
 those in their staircases. 
 
 Admitted in due course to the family council, he 
 showed plainly, though not discourteously, that his pride 
 was deeply wounded by their having deigned to treat 
 with Margaret Brandt. " I see the temptation," said he. 
 
32 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " But which of us hath not at times to wish one way 
 and do another ? " 
 
 This threw a considerable chill over the old people. 
 So little Kate put in a word. " Vex not thyself, dear 
 Richart. Mother says she will not come." 
 
 "All the better, sweetheart. I fear me, if she do, I 
 shall hie me back to Amsterdam." 
 
 Here Denys popped his head in at the door, and said, 
 " She will be here at three on the great dial." 
 
 They all looked at one another in silence. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " Nay, Richart," said Catherine at last, " for Heaven's 
 sake let not this one sorry wench set us all by the ears : 
 hath she not made ill blood enough already ? " 
 
 " In very deed she hath. Fear me not, good mother. 
 Let her come and read the letter of the poor boy she 
 hath by devilish arts bewitched, and then let her go. 
 Give me your words to show her no countenance beyond 
 decent and constrained civility ; less we may not, being 
 in our own house ; and I will say no more." On this 
 understanding they awaited the foe. She, for her part, 
 prepared for the interview in a spirit little less hostile. 
 
 When Denys brought word they would not come to 
 her, but would receive her, her lip curled, and she bade 
 him observe how in them every feeling, however small, 
 was larger than the love for Gerard. " Well," said she, 
 "I have not that excuse; so why mimic the petty 
 burgher's pride, the pride of all unlettered folk ? I will 
 go to them for Gerard's sake. Oh, how I loathe them ! " 
 
 Thus poor good-natured Denys was bringing into one 
 house the materials of an explosion. 
 
 Margaret made her toilet in the same spirit that a 
 knight of her day dressed for battle — he to parry blows, 
 and she to parry glances — glances of contempt at her 
 poverty, or of irony at her extravagance. Her kirtle 
 was of English cloth, dark blue, and her farthingale and 
 hose of the same material, but a glossy roan, or claret 
 color. Not an inch of pretentious fur about her, but 
 plain snowy linen wristbands, and curiously-plaited linen 
 from the bosom of the kirtle up to the commence- 
 
34 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ment of the throat; it did not encircle her throat, but 
 framed it, being square, not round. Her front hair still 
 peeped in two waves much after the fashion which Mary 
 Queen of Scots revived a century later ; but instead of 
 the silver net, which would have ill become her present 
 condition, the rest of her head was covered with a very 
 small tight-fitting hood of dark blue cloth, hemmed with 
 silver. Her shoes were red ; but the roan petticoat and 
 hose prepared the spectator's mind for the shock, and 
 they set off the arched instep and shapely foot. 
 
 Beauty knew its business then as now. 
 
 And with all this she kept her enemies waiting, 
 though it was three by the dial. 
 
 At last she started, attended by her he-comrade. And 
 when they were half way, she stopped, and said thought- 
 fully, " Denys ! " 
 
 " Well, she-general ? " 
 
 " I must go home " (piteously). 
 
 " What ! have ye left somewhat behind ? " 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " My courage. Oh ! oh ! oh ! " 
 
 "Nay, nay, be brave, she-general. I shall be with 
 you." 
 
 " Ay, but wilt keep close to me when I be there ? " 
 Denys promised, and she resumed her march, but 
 gingerly. 
 
 Meantime they were all assembled, and waiting for 
 her with a strange mixture of feelings. 
 
 Mortification, curiosity, panting affection, aversion to 
 her who came to gratify those feelings, yet another 
 curiosity to see what she was like, and what there was 
 in her to bewitch Gerard, and make so much mischief. 
 
 At last Denys came alone, and whispered, " The she- 
 comrade is without." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 35 
 
 "Fetch her in," said Eli. "Now whisht, all of ye. 
 None speak to her but I." 
 
 They all turned their eyes to the door in dead silence. 
 
 A little muttering was heard outside ; Denys's rough 
 organ, and a woman's soft and mellow voice. 
 
 Presently that stopped ; and then the door opened 
 slowly, and Margaret Brandt, dressed as I have de- 
 scribed, and somewhat pale, but calm and lovely, stood 
 on the threshold, looking straight before her. 
 
 They all rose but Kate, and remained mute and staring. 
 
 " Be seated, mistress," said Eli, gravely, and motioned 
 to a seat that had been set apart for her. 
 
 She inclined her head, and crossed the apartment; 
 and in so doing her condition was very visible, not only 
 in her shape, but in her languor. 
 
 Cornells and Sybrandt hated her for it. Richart 
 thought it spoiled her beauty. 
 
 It softened the women somewhat. 
 
 She took her letter out of her bosom, and kissed it 
 as if she had been alone ; then disposed herself to read 
 it with the air of one who knew she was there for that 
 single purpose. 
 
 But, as she began, she noticed they had seated her all 
 by herself like a leper. She looked at Denys, and put- 
 ting her hand down by her side, made him a swift fur- 
 tive motion to come by her. 
 
 He went with an obedient start as if she had cried 
 " March ! " and stood at her shoulder like a sentinel ; 
 but this zealous manner of doing it revealed to the com- 
 pany that he had been ordered thither ; and at that she 
 colored. And now she began to read her Gerard, their 
 Gerard, to their eager ears, in a mellow but clear voice, 
 so soft, so earnest, so thrilling, her very soul seemed to 
 cling about each precious sound. It was a voice as of a 
 woman's bosom set speaking by Heaven itself. 
 
36 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " I do nothing doubt, my Margaret, that, long ere this 
 shall meet thy beloved eyes, Denys, my most dear friend, 
 will have sought thee out, and told thee the manner of 
 our unlooked-for and most tearful parting. Therefore I 
 will e'en begin at that most doleful day. What befell 
 him after, poor faithful soul, fain, fain would I hear, but 
 may not. But I pray for him day and night, next after 
 thee, dearest. Friend more stanch and loving had not 
 David in Jonathan than I in him. Be good to him for 
 poor Gerard's sake." 
 
 At these words, which came quite unexpectedly to 
 him, Denys leaned his head on Margaret's high chair, 
 and groaned aloud. 
 
 She turned quickly as she sat, and found his hand, and 
 pressed it. 
 
 And so the sweetheart and the friend held hands while 
 the sweetheart read. 
 
 " I went forward all dizzied, like one in an ill dream ; 
 and presently a gentleman came up with his servants, all 
 on horseback, and had like to have rid o'er me. And he 
 drew rein at the brow of the hill, and sent his armed 
 men back to rob me. They robbed me civilly enough ; 
 and took my purse and the last copper, and rid gayly 
 away. I wandered stupid on, a friendless pauper." 
 
 There was a general sigh, followed by an oath from 
 Denys. 
 
 " Presently a strange dimness came o'er me, I lay 
 down to sleep on the snow. 'Twas ill done, and with 
 store of wolves hard by. Had I loved thee as thou dost 
 deserve, I had shown more manhood. But oh, sweet 
 love, the drowsiness that did crawl o'er me desolate, and 
 benumb me, was more than nature. And so I slept ; and 
 but that God was better to us than I to thee or to my- 
 self, from that sleep I ne'er had waked ; so all do say. I 
 had slept an hour or two, as I suppose, but no more, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 37 
 
 when a hand did shake me rudely. I awoke to my 
 troubles. And there stood a servant girl in her holiday 
 suit. ' Are ye mad/ quoth she, in seeming choler, 'to 
 sleep in snow, and under wolves' nosen ? Art weary o' 
 life, and not long weaned ? Come, now,' said she, more 
 kindly, ' get up like a good lad ; ' so I did rise up. < Are 
 ye rich, or are ye poor ? ' But I stared at her as one 
 amazed. ' Why, 'tis easy of reply,' quoth she. ' Are ye 
 rich, or are ye poor ? ' Then I gave a great loud cry ; 
 that she did start back. ' Am I rich, or am I poor ? 
 Had ye asked me an hour agone, I had said I am rich. 
 But now I am so poor as sure earth beareth on her 
 bosom none poorer. An hour agone I was rich in a 
 friend, rich in money, rich in hope and spirits of youth; 
 but now the Bastard of Burgundy hath taken my friend, 
 and another gentleman my purse ; and I can neither go 
 forward to Rome nor back to her I left in Holland. I 
 am poorest of the poor.' ' Alack ! ' said the wench. 
 ' Natheless, an ye had been rich ye might ha' lain down 
 again in the snow for any use I had for ye ; and then I 
 trow ye had soon fared out o' this world as bare as ye 
 came into 't. But, being poor, you are our man ; so come 
 wi' me. Then I went because she bade me, and because 
 I recked not now whither I went. And she took me to 
 a fine house hard by, and into a noble dining-hall hung 
 with black ; and there was set a table with many dishes, 
 and but one plate and one chair. c Fall to ! ' said she, in 
 a whisper. ' What, alone ? ' said I. * Alone ? And 
 which of us, think ye, would eat out of the same dish 
 with ye ? Are we robbers o' the dead ? ' Then she 
 speered where I was born. ' At Tergou,' said I. Says 
 she, ' and when a gentleman dies in that country, serve 
 they not the dead man's dinner up as usual, till he be in 
 the ground, and set some poor man down to it ? ' I told 
 her, nay. She blushed for us then. 1 Here they were 
 
38 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 better Christians.' So I behooved to sit down. But 
 small was my heart for meat. Then this kind lass sat 
 by me and poured me out wine ; and, tasting it, it cut 
 me to the heart Denys was not there to drink with me. 
 He doth so love good wine, and women good, bad, or 
 indifferent. The rich, strong wine curled round my sick 
 heart ; and that day first I did seem to glimpse why folk 
 in trouble run to drink so. She made me eat of every 
 dish. ' 'Twas unlucky to pass one. Nought was here 
 but her master's daily dinner.' 'He had a good stomach, 
 then,' said I. ' Ay, lad, and a good heart. Leastways, 
 so we all say now he is dead ; but, being alive, no word 
 on't e'er heard I.' So I did eat as a bird, nibbling of 
 every dish. And she hearing me sigh, and seeing me 
 like to choke at the food, took pity and bade me be of 
 good cheer. I should sup and lie there that night. And 
 she went to the hind, and he gave me a right good bed ; 
 and I told him all, and asked him would the law give 
 me back my purse. ' Law ! ' quoth he ; ' law there was 
 none for the poor in Burgundy. Why, 'twas the cousin 
 of the lady of the manor, he that had robbed me. He 
 knew the wild spark. The matter must be judged before 
 the lady; and she was quite young, and far more like 
 to hang me for slandering her cousin, and a gentleman, 
 and a handsome man, than to make him give me back my 
 own. Inside the liberties of a town a poor man might 
 now and then see the face of justice ; but out among the 
 grand seigneurs and dames — never. So I said, 'I'll sit 
 down robbed rather than seek justice and find gallows.' 
 They were all most kind to me next day : and the girl 
 proffered me money from her small wage to help me 
 towards Bhine." 
 
 " Oh, then, he is coming home ! he is coming home ! " 
 shouted Denys, interrupting the reader. She shook her 
 head gently at him, by way of reproof. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 39 
 
 " I beg pardon, all the company," said he stiffly. 
 
 "'Twas a sore temptation; but, being a servant, my 
 stomach rose against it. ' Nay, nay/ said I. She told 
 me I was wrong. 'Twas pride out o' place ; poor folk 
 should help one another ; or who on earth would ? I 
 said if I could do aught in return 'twere well ; but for 
 a free gift, nay ; I was overmuch beholden already. 
 Should I write a letter for her ? < Nay, he is in the 
 house at present/ said she. £ Should I draw her picture, 
 and so earn my money ? ' ' What, can ye ? ' said she. 
 I told her I could try ; and her habit would well become 
 a picture. So she was agog to be limned, and give it her 
 lad. And I set her to stand in a good light, and soon 
 made sketches two, whereof I send thee one, colored at 
 odd hours. The other I did most hastily and with little 
 conscience daub, for which may Heaven forgive me ; but 
 time was short. They, poor things, knew no better, and 
 were most proud and joyous ; and, both kissing me after 
 their country fashion, 'twas the hind that was her sweet- 
 heart, they did bid me God-speed ; and I towards Rhine." 
 
 Margaret paused here, and gave Denys the colored 
 drawing to hand round. It was eagerly examined by the 
 females on account of the costume, which differed in 
 some respects from that of a Dutch domestic ; the hair 
 was in a tight linen bag, a yellow half kerchief crossed 
 her head from ear to ear, but threw out a rectangular 
 point that descended to the centre of her forehead, and it 
 met in two more points over her bosom. She wore a red 
 kirtle with long sleeves, kilted very high in front, and 
 showing a green farthingale and a great red leather 
 purse hanging down over it; red stockings, yellow 
 leathern shoes, ahead of her age ; for they were low- 
 quartered and square-toed, secured by a strap buckling 
 over the instep, which was not uncommon, and was per* 
 haps the rude germ of the diamond buckle to come. 
 
40 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Margaret continued : — 
 
 "But, oh! how I missed my Denys at every step! 
 often I sat down on the road and groaned. And in the 
 afternoon it chanced that I did so set me down where 
 two roads met, and with heavy head in hand, and heavy 
 heart, did think of thee, my poor sweetheart, and of my 
 lost friend, and of the little house at Tergou, where they 
 all loved me once ; though now it is turned to hate." 
 
 Catherine. Alas ! that he will think so. 
 
 Ell Whisht, wife ! 
 
 "And I did sigh loud, and often. And me sighing so, 
 one came carolling like a bird adown t'other road. 6 Ay, 
 chirp and chirp,' cried I bitterly. ' Thou hast not lost 
 sweetheart, and friend, thy father's hearth, thy mother's 
 smile, and every penny in the world.' And at last he 
 did so carol, and carol, I jumped up in ire to get away 
 from his most jarring mirth. But, ere I fled from it, I 
 looked down the path to see what could make a man so 
 light-hearted in this weary world ; and lo ! the songster 
 was a humpbacked cripple, with a bloody bandage o'er 
 his eye, and both legs gone at the knee." 
 
 " He, he, he, he, he ! " went Sybrandt, laughing and 
 cackling. 
 
 Margaret's eyes flashed ; she began to fold the letter 
 up. 
 
 " Kay, lass," said Eli, " heed him not ! Thou unman- 
 nerly cur, offer't but again, and I put thee to the door." 
 
 " Why, what was there to gibe at, Sybrandt ? " remon- 
 strated Catherine, more mildly. " Is not our Kate 
 afflicted ? and is she not the most content of us all, and 
 singeth like a merle a;t times between her pains ? But 
 I am as bad as thou ; prithee read on, lass, and stop our 
 gabble wi' somewhat worth the hearkening." 
 
 " ' Then,' said I, ' may this thing be ? ' And I took 
 myself to task. ' Gerard, son of Eli, dost thou well to 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 41 
 
 bemoan thy lot, that hast youth and health ; and here 
 comes the wreck of nature on crutches, praising God's 
 goodness with singing like a mavis ? ' " 
 
 Catherine. There, you see. 
 
 Eli. Whisht, dame, whisht ! 
 
 " And whenever he saw me, he left carolling and pres- 
 ently hobbled up and chanted, ' Charity, for love of 
 Heaven, sweet master, charity/ with a whine as piteous 
 as wind at keyhole. ' Alack, poor soul/ said I, ' charity 
 is in my heart, but not my purse ; I am poor as thou.' 
 Then he believed me none, and to melt me undid his 
 sleeve, and showed a sore wound on his arm, and said he, 
 ' Poor cripple though I be, I am like to lose this eye to 
 boot, look else.' I saw and groaned for him, and to 
 excuse myself let him wot how I had been robbed of 
 my last copper. Thereat he left whining all in a 
 moment, and said, in a big manly voice, 1 Then I'll e'en 
 take a rest. Here, youngster, pull thou this strap ; nay, 
 fear not ! ' I pulled, and down came a stout pair of legs 
 out of his back ; and half his hump had melted away, 
 and the wound in his eye no deeper than the bandage." 
 
 "Oh ! " ejaculated Margaret's hearers, in a body. 
 
 " Whereat, seeing me astounded, he laughed in my 
 face, and told me I was not worth gulling, and offered 
 me his protection. 'My face was prophetic/ he said. 
 ' Of what ? ' said I. ' Marry/ said he, ' that its owner 
 will starve in this thievish land.' Travel teaches e'en 
 the young wisdom. Time was, I had turned and fled this 
 impostor as a pestilence ; but now I listened patiently to 
 pick up crumbs of counsel. And well I did ; for nature 
 and his adventurous life had crammed the poor knave 
 with shrewdness and knowledge of the homelier sort — 
 a child was I beside him. When he had turned me 
 inside out, said he, 1 Didst well to leave France and make 
 for Germany ; but think not of Holland again. Nay, on 
 
42 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 to Augsburg and Nurnberg, the paradise of craftsmen : 
 thence to Venice, an thou wilt. But thou wilt never bide 
 in Italy nor any other land, having once tasted the great 
 German cities. Why, there is but one honest country 
 in Europe, and that is Germany; and since thou art 
 honest, and since I am a vagabone, Germany was made 
 for us twain.' I bade him make that good : how might 
 one country fit true men and knaves ! ' Why, thou nov- 
 ice/ said he, 'because in an honest land are fewer knaves 
 to bite the honest man, and many honest men for the 
 knave to bite. I was in luck, being honest, to have 
 fallen in with a friendly sharp. Be my pal,' said he ; 
 ' I go to Nurnberg : we will reach it with full pouches. 
 I'll learn ye the cut de bois, and the cul dejatte, and how 
 to maund, and chaunt, and patter, and to raise swellings, 
 and paint sores and ulcers on thy body would take in the 
 divell.' I told him, shivering, I'd liever die than shame 
 myself and my folk so." 
 Mi. Good lad ! good lad ! 
 
 " Why, what shame was it for such as I to turn beg- 
 gar ? Beggary was an ancient and most honorable mys- 
 tery. What did holy monks, and bishops, and kings, 
 when they would win Heaven's smile ? why, wash the 
 feet of beggars, those favorites of the saints. 'The 
 saints were no fools,' he told me. Then he did put out 
 his foot. ' Look at that ! that was washed by the great- 
 est king alive, Louis of France, the last Holy Thursday 
 that was. And the next day, Friday, clapped in the 
 stocks by the warden of a petty hamlet.' So I told him 
 my foot should walk between such high honor and such 
 low disgrace, on the safe path of honesty, please God. 
 Well, then, since I had not spirit to beg, he would in- 
 dulge my perversity. I should work under him ; he be 
 the head, I the fingers. And with that he set himself 
 up like a judge, on a heap of dust by the road's side, and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 43 
 
 questioned me strictly what I could do. I began to say 
 I was strong and willing. ' Bah ! ' said he, ' so is an 
 ox. Say, what canst do that Sir Ox cannot ? ' I could 
 write ; I had won a prize for it. 1 Canst write as fast 
 as the printers?' quo' he jeering. ' What else?' I 
 could paint. ' That was better.' I was like to tear my 
 hair to hear him say so, and me going to Rome to write. 
 I could twang the psaltery a bit. 'That was well. 
 Could I tell stories ? ' Ay, by the score. 1 Then,' said 
 he, ' I hire you from this moment.' ' What to do ? ' said 
 I. ' Nought crooked, Sir Candor,' says he. ' 1 will feed 
 thee all the way and find thee work ; and take half thine 
 earnings no more.' ' Agreed,' said I, and gave my hand 
 on it. ' Now, servant,' said he, ' we will dine. But ye 
 need not stand behind my chair, for two reasons : first, I 
 ha' got no chair, and next, good fellowship likes me 
 better than state.' And out of his wallet he brought 
 flesh, fowl, and pastry, a good dozen of spices lapped in 
 flax paper, and wine fit for a king. Ne'er feasted I 
 better than out of this beggar's wallet, now my master. 
 When we had well eaten, I was for going on. ' But, 
 said he, 1 servants should not drive their masters too 
 hard, especially after feeding, for then the body is for 
 repose, and the mind turns to contemplation;' and he 
 lay on his back gazing calmly at the sky, and presently 
 wondered whether there were any beggars up there. I 
 told him I knew but of one ; called Lazarus. < Could 
 he do the cut dejatte better than I ? ' said he, and looked 
 quite jealous like. I told him nay; Lazarus was honest, 
 though a beggar, and fed daily of the crumbs fal'n from 
 a rich man's table, and the dogs licked his sores. ' Serv- 
 ant,' quo' he, 'I spy a foul fault in thee. Thou liest 
 without discretion : now the end of lying being to gull, 
 this is no better than fumbling with the divell's tail. I 
 pray Heaven thou mayest prove to paint better than 
 
44 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 thou cuttest whids, or I am done out of a dinner. No 
 beggar eats crumbs, but only the fat of the land ; and 
 dogs lick not a beggar's sores, being made with spear- 
 wort, or ratsbane, or biting acids, from all which dogs, 
 and even pigs, abhor. My sores are made after my 
 proper receipt ; but no dog would lick e'en them twice. 
 I have made a scurvy bargain ; art a cozening knave, I 
 doubt, as well as a nincompoop.' I deigned no reply to 
 this bundle of lies, which did accuse heavenly truth of 
 falsehood for not being in a tale with him. He rose, 
 and we took the road ; and presently we came to a place 
 where were two little wayside inns, scarce a furlong 
 apart. ' Halt,' said my master. ' Their armories are 
 sore faded — all the better. Go thou in ; shun the mas- 
 ter ; board the wife ; arid flatter her inn sky high, all 
 but the armories, and offer to color them dirt cheap.' 
 So I went in and told the wife I was a painter, and 
 would revive her armories cheap ; but she sent me away 
 with a rebuff. I to my master. He groaned. ' Ye are 
 all fingers and no tongue,' said he ; ' I have made a 
 scurvy bargain. Come and hear me patter and flatter.' 
 Between the two inns was a high hedge. He goes be- 
 hind it a minute, and comes out a decent tradesman. 
 We went on to the other inn, and then I heard him 
 praise it so fulsome as the very wife did blush. ' But,' 
 says he, ' there is one little, little fault ; your armories 
 are dull and faded. Say but the word, and for a silver 
 franc my apprentice here, the cunningest e'er I had, shall 
 make them bright as ever.' Whilst she hesitated, the 
 rogue told her he had done it to a little inn hard by, and 
 now the inn's face was like the starry firmament. ' D'ye 
 hear that, my man ? 9 cries she, ' " The Three Frogs " 
 have been and painted up their armories ! shall " The 
 Four Hedgehogs " be outshone by them ? ' So I painted, 
 and my master stood by like a lord, advising me how to 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 45 
 
 do, and winking to me to heed him none, and I got a 
 silver franc. And he took me back to 'The Three 
 Frogs,' and on the way put me on a beard and disguised 
 me, and flattered ' The Three Frogs,' and told them how 
 he had adorned ' The Four Hedgehogs,' and into the net 
 jumped the three poor simple frogs, and I earned another 
 silver franc. Then we went on, and he found his 
 crutches, and sent me forward, and showed his ' cicatrices 
 d'emprwntf as he called them, and all his infirmities, at 
 ' The Four Hedgehogs,' and got both food and money. 
 ' Come, share and share,' quoth he : so I gave him one 
 franc. ' I have made a good bargain,' said he. ' Art a 
 master limner, but takest too much time.' So I let him 
 know that in matters of honest craft things could not 
 be done quick and well. ' Then do them quick,' quoth 
 he. And he told me my name was Bon Bee; and I 
 might call him Cul de Jatte, because that was his lay at 
 our first meeting. And at the next town, my master, 
 Cul de Jatte, bought me a psaltery, and sat himself up 
 again by the roadside in state like him that erst judged 
 Marsyas and Apollo, piping for vain glory. So I played 
 a strain. ' Indifferent well, harmonious Bon Bee,' said 
 he haughtily. ' Now, tune thy pipes.' So I did sing a 
 sweet strain the good monks taught me ; and singing it 
 reminded poor Bon Bee, Gerard erst, of his young days 
 and home, and brought the water to my een. But, look- 
 ing up, my master's visage was as the face of a little boy 
 whipt soundly, or sipping foulest medicine. ' Zounds ! 
 stop that belly-ache blether,' quoth he ; ' that will ne'er 
 wile a stiver out o' peasants' purses ; 'twill but sour the 
 nurses' milk, and gar the kine jump into rivers to be out 
 of earshot on't. What, false knave, did I buy thee a 
 fine new psaltery to be minded o' my latter end withal ? 
 Hearken ! these be the songs that glad the heart, and 
 fill the minstrel's purse.' And he sung so blasphemous 
 
46 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 a stave, and eke so obscene, as I drew away from him a 
 space that the lightning might not spoil the new psal- 
 tery. However, none came, being winter, and then I 
 said, ' Master, the Lord is debonair. Held I the thun- 
 der, yon ribaldry had been thy last, thou foul-mouthed 
 wretch.' 
 
 " ' Why, Bon Bee, what is to do ? ' quoth he. ' I have 
 made an ill bargain. Oh, perverse heart, that turneth 
 from doctrine/ So I bade him keep his breath to cool 
 his broth, ne'er would I shame my folk with singing 
 ribald songs. ' Then,' says he sulkily, ' the first fire we 
 light by the wayside, clap thou on the music-box ! so 
 'twill make our pot boil for the nonce ; but with your 
 
 Good people let us peak and pine, 
 
 Cut tristful mugs, and miaul and whine, 
 
 Thorough our nosen chaunts divine, 
 
 never, never, never. Ye might as well go through 
 Lorraine crying " Mulleygrubs, mulleygrubs, who'll buy 
 my mulleygrubs ! " ' So we fared on, bad friends. But 
 I took a thought, and prayed him hum me one of his 
 naughty ditties again. Then he brightened, and broke 
 forth into ribaldry like a nightingale. Finger in ears 
 stuffed I. No words; nought but the bare melody. 
 For oh, Margaret, note the sly malice of the Evil One'! 
 Still to the scurviest matter he weddeth the tunablest 
 ditties." 
 
 Catherine. That is true as Holy Writ. 
 Sybrandt. How know you that, mother ? 
 Cornells. He, he, he ! 
 
 Eli. Whisht, ye uneasy wights, and let me hear the 
 boy. He is wiser than ye ; wiser than his years. 
 
 " ' What tomfoolery is this ? ' said he ; yet he yielded 
 to me, and soon I garnered three of his melodies ; but 
 I would not let Cul de Jatte wot the thing I meditated. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 47 
 
 'Show not fools nor bairns unfinished work/ saith the 
 byword. And by this time 'twas night, and a little town 
 at hand, where we went each to his inn ; for my master 
 would not yield to put off his rags and other sores till 
 morning ; nor I to enter an inn with a tatterdemalion. 
 So we were to meet on the road at peep of day. And, 
 indeed, we still lodged apart, meeting at morn and part- 
 ing at eve, outside each town we lay at. And waking 
 at midnight and cogitating, good thoughts came down to 
 me, and sudden my heart was enlightened. I called 
 to mind that my Margaret had withstood the taking of 
 the burgomaster's purse. 'Tis theft/ said you; 6 dis- 
 guise it how ye will.' But I must be wiser than my 
 betters : and now that which I had as good as stolen, 
 others had stolen from me. As it came, so it was gone. 
 Then I said, 1 Heaven is not cruel, but just ; ' and I 
 vowed a vow, to repay our burgomaster every shilling 
 an I could. And I went forth in the morning sad, but 
 hopeful. I felt lighter for the purse being gone. My 
 master was at the gate becrutched. I told him I'd liever 
 have seen him in another disguise. ' Beggars must not 
 be choosers/ said he. However, soon he bade me untruss 
 him, for he felt sadly. His head swam. I told him, 
 forcefully to deform nature thus could scarce be whole- 
 some. He answered none ; but looked scared, and hand 
 on head. By and by he gave a groan, and rolled on the 
 ground like a ball, and writhed sore. I was scared, and 
 wist not what to do, but went to lift him ; but his trouble 
 rose higher and higher, he gnashed his teeth fearfully, 
 and the foam did fly from his lips ; and presently his 
 body bended itself like a bow, and jerked and bounded 
 many times into the air. I exorcised him ; it but made 
 him worse. There was water in a ditch hard by, not 
 very clear; but, the poor creature struggling betweeix 
 life and death, I filled my hat withal, and came flying to 
 
48 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 souse him. Then my lord laughed in my face. ' Come, 
 Bon Bee, by thy white gills, I had not forgotten my 
 trade.' I stood with watery hat in hand, glaring. 
 ' Could this be feigning ? ' ' What else ? ' said he. 
 ' Why, a real fit is the sorriest thing ; but a stroke with 
 a feather compared with mine. Art still betters nature.' 
 'But look, e'en now blood trickleth from your nose,' 
 said I. 'Ay, ay, pricked my nostrils with a straw.' 
 i But ye foamed at the lips.' ' Oh, a little soap makes a 
 mickle foam.' And he drew out a morsel like a bean 
 from his mouth. 'Thank thy stars, Bon Bee,' says he, 
 ' for leading thee to a worthy master. Each day his 
 lesson. To-morrow we will study the cut de bois and 
 other branches. To-day, own me prince of demoniacs, 
 and indeed of all good fellows.' Then, being puffed up, 
 he forgot yesterday's grudge, and discoursed me freely 
 of beggars ; and gave me, who eftsoons thought a beg- 
 gar was a beggar, and there an end, the names and 
 qualities of full thirty sorts of masterful and crafty 
 mendicants in France and Germany, and England ; his 
 three provinces; for so the poor, proud knave yclept 
 those kingdoms three ; wherein his throne it was the 
 stocks I ween. And outside the next village one had 
 gone to dinner, and left his wheelbarrow. So says he, 
 ' I'll tie myself in a knot, and shalt wheel me through ; 
 and what with my crippledom and thy piety, a-wheeling 
 of thy poor old dad, we'll bleed the bumpkins of a 
 dacha-saltee.' I did refuse. I would work for him ; but 
 no hand would have in begging. 'And wheeling an 
 " asker " in a barrow, is not that work ? ' said he ; ' then 
 fling yon muckle stone in to boot ; stay, I'll soil it a bit, 
 and swear it is a chip of the holy sepulchre, and you 
 wheeled us both from Jerusalem.' Said I, ' Wheeling a 
 pair o' lies, one stony, one fleshy, may be work, and hard 
 work, but honest work 'tis not. 'Tis fumbling with his 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 49 
 
 tail you wot of. And/ said I, ' master, next time you go 
 to tempt me to knavery, speak not to me of my poor old - 
 dad/ Said I, ' You have minded me of my real father's 
 face, the truest man in Holland. He and I are ill friends 
 now, worse luck. But though I offend him, shame him 
 I never will.' Dear Margaret, with this knave saying, 
 ' your poor old dad/ it had gone to my heart like a knife. 
 '• 'Tis well/ said my master gloomily ; ' I have made a 
 bad bargain.' Presently he halts, and eyes a tree by the 
 wayside. ' Go spell me what is writ on yon tree.' So 
 I went, and there was nought but a long square drawn 
 in outline. I told him so. ' So much for thy monkish 
 lore/ quoth he. A little farther, and he sent me to read 
 a wall. There was nought but a circle scratched on the 
 stone with a point of nail or knife, and in the circle two 
 dots. I said so. Then said he, 'Bon Bee, that square 
 was a warning. Some good Truand left it, that came 
 through this village faring west : that means " dangerous." 
 The circle with the two dots was writ by another of 
 our brotherhood ; and it signifies as how the writer, soit 
 Eollin Trapu, soit Triboulet, soit Catin Cul de Bois, or 
 what not, was becked for asking here, and lay two months 
 in Starabin.' Then he broke forth, < Talk of your little 
 snivelling books that go in pouch. Three books have I, 
 France, England, and Germany ; and they are writ all 
 over in one tongue, that my brethren of all countries 
 understand ; and that is what I call learning. So sith 
 here they whip sores, and imprison infirmities, I to my 
 tiring room.' And he popped behind the hedge, and 
 came back worshipful. We passed through the vil- 
 lage, and I sat me down on the stocks, and even as 
 the barber's apprentice whets his razor on a block, 
 so did I flesh my psaltery on this village, fearing great 
 cities. I tuned it, and coursed up and down the wires 
 nimbly with my two wooden strikers ; and then chanted 
 4 
 
50 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 loud and clear, as I had heard the minstrels in the 
 country, 
 
 ' Qui veut ouir qui veut Savoir,' 
 
 some trash, I mind not what. And soon the villagers, 
 male and female, thronged about me; thereat I left sing- 
 ing, and recited them to the psaltery a short but right 
 merry tale out of ' The Lives of the Saints,' which it is 
 my handbook of pleasant figments : and this ended, 
 instantly struck up and whistled one of Cul de Jatte's 
 devil's ditties, and played it on the psaltery to boot. 
 Thou knowest Heaven hath bestowed on me a rare 
 whistle, both for compass and tune. And with me 
 whistling bright and full this sprightly air, and making 
 the wires slow when the tune did gallop, and tripping 
 when the tune did amble, or I did stop and shake on one 
 note like a lark i' the air, they were like to eat me ; but 
 looking round, lo ! my master had given way to his itch, 
 and there was his hat on the ground, and copper pouring 
 in. I deemed it cruel to whistle the bread out of pov- 
 erty's pouch ; so broke off and away ; yet could not get 
 clear so swift, but both men and women did slobber me 
 sore, and smelled all of garlic. ' There, master,' said I, 
 ' I call that cleaving the divell in twain and keeping his 
 white half.' Said he, 'Bon Bee, I have made a good 
 bargain.' Then he bade me stay where I was while he 
 went to the Holy Land. I stayed, and he leaped the 
 churchyard dike, and the sexton was digging a grave, 
 and my master chaffered with him, and came back with 
 a knuckle bone. But, why he clept a churchyard Holy 
 Land, that I learned not then, but after dinner. I was 
 colouring the armories of a little inn ; and he sat by me 
 most peaceable, a cutting, and filing, and polishing bones, 
 sedately ; so I speered was not honest work sweet ? ' As 
 rain water/ said he, mocking. 'What was he a mak 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 51 
 
 ing- V i A pair of bones to play on with thee ; and with 
 the refuse a St. Anthony's thumb and a St. Martin's little 
 finger, for the devout.' The vagabone ! And now, sweet 
 Margaret, thou seest our manner of life faring Rhine- 
 ward. I with the two arts I had least prized or counted 
 on for bread was welcome everywhere ; too poor now to 
 fear robbers, yet able to keep both master and man on 
 the road. For at night I often made a portraiture of the 
 innkeeper or his dame, and so went richer from an inn ; 
 the which it is the lot of few. But my master despised 
 this even way of life. ' I love ups and downs,' said he. 
 And certes he lacked them not. One day he would 
 gather more than I in three ; another, to hear his tale, it 
 had rained kicks all day in lieu of ' saltees,' and that is 
 pennies. Yet even then at heart he despised me for a 
 poor mechanical soul, and scorned my arts, extolling his 
 own, the art of feigning. 
 
 " Natheless, at odd times was he ill at his ease. Going 
 through the town of Aix, we came upon a beggar walk- 
 ing, fast by one hand to a cart-tail, and the hangman a 
 lashing his bare bloody back. He, stout knave, so whipt, 
 did not a jot relent ; but I did wince at every stroke ; 
 and my master hung his head. 
 
 " ' Soon or late, Bon Bee,' quoth he. ' Soon or late.' 
 I, seeing his haggard face, knew what he meaned. And 
 at a town whose name hath slipped me, but 'twas on a 
 fair river, as we came to the foot of the bridge he halted, 
 and shuddered. ' Why, what is the coil ? ' said I. ' Oh, 
 blind,' said he, 'they are justifying there.' So nought 
 would serve him but take a boat, and cross the river by 
 water. But 'twas out of the frying-pan, as the word 
 goeth. For the boatmen had scarce told us the matter, 
 and that it was a man and a woman for stealing glazed 
 windows out of housen, and that the man was hanged at 
 daybreak, and the quean to be drowned, when, lo ! they 
 
52 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 did fling her off the bridge, and fell in the water not far 
 from us. And, oh ! Margaret, the deadly splash ! It 
 ringeth in mine ears even now. But worse was coming ; 
 for, though tied, she came up, and cried, ' Help ! help ! ' 
 and I, forgetting all, and hearing a woman's voice cry 
 ' Help ! ' was for leaping in to save her ; and had surely 
 done it, but the boatmen and Cul de Jatte clung round 
 me, and in a moment the bourreau's man, that waited 
 in a boat, came and entangled his hooked pole in her 
 long hair, and so thrust her down and ended her. Oh ! 
 if the saints answered so our cries for help ! And poor 
 Cul de Jatte groaned; and I sat sobbing, and beat my 
 breast, and cried, 'Of what hath God made men's 
 hearts ? ' " 
 
 The reader stopped, and the tears trickled down her 
 cheeks. Gerard crying in Lorraine, made her cry at 
 Rotterdam. The leagues were no more to her heart than 
 the breadth of a room. 
 
 Eli, softened by many touches in the letter, and by 
 the reader's womanly graces, said kindly enough, "Take 
 thy time, lass. And methinks some of ye might find 
 her a creepie to rest her foot, and she so near her own 
 trouble." 
 
 " I'd do more for her than that an I durst," said Cath- 
 erine. "Here, Cornells," and she held out her little 
 wooden stool, and that worthy, who hated Margaret 
 worse than ever, had to take the creepie and put it care- 
 fully under her foot. 
 
 " You are very kind, dame," she faltered. " I will read 
 on ; 'tis all I can do for you in turn. 
 
 "Thus seeing my master ashy and sore shaken, I 
 deemed this horrible tragic act came timeously to warn 
 him, so I strove sore to turn him from his ill ways, dis- 
 coursing of sinners and their lethal end. ' Too late ! ' 
 said he, ' too late ! ' and gnashed his teeth. Then I told 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 53 
 
 him 'too late was the di veil's favorite whisper in re- 
 pentant ears. Said I — 
 
 4 The Lord is debonair, 
 Let sinners nought despair.' 
 
 < Too late ! ' said he, and gnashed his teeth, and writhed 
 his face, as though vipers were biting his inward parts. 
 But, dear heart, his was a mind like running water. Ere 
 we cleared the town he was carolling ; and outside the 
 gate hung the other culprit, from the bough of a little 
 tree, and scarce a yard above the ground. And that 
 stayed my vagabone's music. But, ere we had gone 
 another furlong, he feigned to have dropped his rosary, 
 and ran back, with no good intent as you shall hear. I 
 strolled on very slowly, and often halting, and presently 
 he came stumping up on one leg, and that bandaged. I 
 asked him how he could contrive that, for 'twas masterly 
 done. ' Oh, that was his mystery. Would I know that, 
 I must join the brotherhood.' And presently we did 
 pass a narrow lane, and at the mouth on't espied a written 
 stone, telling beggars by . word like a wee pitchfork to 
 go that way. ' 'Tis yon farm-house,' said he : < bide thou 
 at hand.' And he went to the house, and came back 
 with money, food, and wine. 'This lad did the busi- 
 ness,' said he, slapping his one leg proudly. Then he 
 undid the bandage, and with prideful face showed me a 
 hole in his calf you could have put your neef in. Had I 
 been strange to his tricks, here was a leg had drawn 
 my last penny. Presently another farm-house by the 
 road. He made for it. I stood, and asked myself, should 
 I run away and leave him, not to be ashamed in my own 
 despite by him ? But, while I doubted, there was a 
 great noise, and my master well cudgelled by the farmer 
 and his men, came towards me hobbling and halloaing, 
 for the peasants had layed on heartily. But more trouble 
 
54 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 was at his heels. Some mischievous wight loosed a dog 
 as big as a jackass colt, and came roaring after him, and 
 downed him momently. I, deeming the poor rogue's 
 death certain, and him least fit to die, drew my sword and 
 ran shouting. But, ere I could come near, the muckle dog 
 had torn away his bad leg, and ran growling to his lair 
 with it ; and Cul de Jatte slipped his knot, and came 
 running like a lapwing, with his hair on end, and so 
 striking with both crutches before and behind at unreal 
 dogs as 'twas like a wind-mill crazed. He fled adown 
 the road. I followed leisurely, and found him at dinner. 
 1 Curse the quiens,' said he. And not a word all dinner 
 time but ' Curse the quiens ! ' 
 
 " I said, I must know who they were, before I would 
 curse them. 
 
 " ' Quiens ? why, that was dogs, And I knew not even 
 that much ? He had made a bad bargain. Well, well,' 
 said he, ' to-morrow we shall be in Germany. There the 
 folk are music-bitten, and they molest not beggars, 
 unless they fake to boot, and then they drown us out of 
 hand that moment, curse 'em ! ' We came to Strasburgh. 
 And I looked down Rhine with longing heart. The 
 stream how swift ! It seemed running to clip Seven- 
 bergen to its soft bosom. With but a piece of timber and 
 an oar I might drift at my ease to thee, sleeping yet 
 gliding still. 'Twas a sore temptation. But the fear of 
 ill welcome from my folk, and of the neighbors' sneers, 
 and the hope of coming back to thee victorious, not, as 
 now I must, defeated and shamed, and thee with me, it 
 did withhold me ; and so, with many sighs, and often 
 turning of the head to look on beloved Rhine, I turned 
 sorrowful face and heavy heart towards Augsburg." 
 
 " Alas, dame, alas ! Good master Eli, forgive me ! 
 But I ne'er can win over this part all at one time. It 
 taketh my breath away. Well-a-day ! Why did he not 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 55 
 
 listen to his heart? Had he not gone through peril 
 enow, sorrow enow ? Well-a-day ! well-a-day ! " 
 
 The letter dropped from her hand, and she drooped 
 like a wounded lily. 
 
 Then there was a clatter on the floor, and it was little 
 Kate going on her crutches, with flushed face, and eyes 
 full of pity, to console her. " Water, mother," she cried. 
 " I am afeard she shall swoon." 
 
 " Nay, nay, fear me not," said Margaret, feebly. " I 
 will not be so troublesome. Thy good-will it maketh me 
 stouter hearted, sweet mistress Kate. For, if thou carest 
 how I fare, sure Heaven is not against me." 
 
 Catherine. D'ye hear that, my man ? 
 
 Mi. Ay, wife, I hear ; and mark to boot. 
 
 Little Kate went back to her place, and Margaret read 
 on. "The Germans are fonder of armorials than the 
 French. So I found work every day. And, whiles I 
 wrought, my master would leave me, and doff his rai- 
 ment and don his rags, and other infirmities, and cozen 
 the world, which he did clepe it ' plucking of the goose : ' 
 this done, would meet me and demand half my earnings ; 
 and with restless, piercing eye ask me would I be so base 
 as cheat my poor master by making three parts in lieu 
 of two, till I threatened to lend him a cuff to boot in 
 requital of his suspicion ; and thenceforth took his due, 
 with feigned confidence in my good faith, the which his 
 dancing eye belied. Early in Germany we had a quarrel. 
 I had seen him buy a skull of a jailer's wife, and mighty 
 zealous a-polishing it. Thought I, 'How can he carry 
 yon memento, and not repent, seeing where ends his 
 way ? ' Presently I did catch him selling it to a woman 
 for the head of St. Barnabas, with a tale had cozened an 
 Ebrew. So I snatched it out of their hands, and trundled 
 it into the ditch. 'How, thou impious knave/ said I, 
 *wouldst sell for a saint the skull of some dead thief, thy 
 
56 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 brother ? ' He slunk away. But shallow she did crawl 
 after the skull, and with apron dust it reverently foi 
 Barnabas, and it Barabbas ; and so home with it. Said 
 I, ' non vult anser velli, sedpopulus vult decipi.' " 
 
 Catherine. Oh, the goodly Latin ! 
 
 Eli. What meaneth it ? 
 
 Catherine. Xay, I know not : but 'tis Latin : is not 
 that enow ? He was the flower of the flock. 
 
 " Then I to him, ' Take now thy psaltery, and part we 
 here, for art a walking prison, a walking hell.' But lo ! 
 my master fell on his knees, and begged me for pity's 
 sake not to turn him off. ' What would become of him ? 
 He did so love honesty.' i Thou love honesty ? ' said L 
 ' Ay,' said he, ' not to enact it ; the saints forbid. But to 
 look on. 'Tis so fair a thing to look on. Alas, good Bon 
 Bee,' said he ; ' hadst starved peradventure but for me. 
 Kick not down thy ladder ! Call ye that just ? Kay, 
 calm thy choler ! Have pity on me ! I must have a 
 pal : and how could I bear one like myself after one so 
 simple as thou ? He might cut my throat for the money 
 that is hid in my belt. 'Tis not much; 'tis not much. 
 With thee I walk at mine ease ; with a sharp I dare not 
 go before in a narrow way. Alas ! forgive me. Xow I 
 know where in thy bonnet lurks the bee, I will ware his 
 sting ; I will but pluck the secular goose.' ' So be it,' 
 said I. { And example was contagious : he should be a 
 true man by then we reached Xurnberg. 'Twas a long 
 way to Xurnberg.' Seeing him so humble, I said, ; Well, 
 doff rags, and make thyself decent ; 'twill help me forget 
 what thou art.' And he did so ; and we sat down to our 
 nonemete. Presently came by a reverend palmer with 
 hat stuck round with cockle shells from Holy Land, and 
 great rosary of beads like eggs of teal, and sandals for 
 shoes. And he leaned aweary on his long staff, and 
 offered us a shell apiece. My master would none ; but 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 57 
 
 I, to set him a better example, took one, and for it gave 
 the poor pilgrim two batzen, and had his blessing. And 
 he was scarce gone, when we heard savage cries, and 
 came a sorry sight, one leading a wild woman in a chain, 
 all rags, and howling like a wolf. And when they came 
 nigh usy she fell to tearing her rags to threads. The man 
 sought an alms of us, and told us his hard case. 'Twas 
 his wife, stark, raving mad ; and he could not work in 
 the fields, and leave her in his house to fire it, nor cure 
 her could he without the Saintys help ; and had vowed 
 six pounds of wax to St. Anthony to heal her, and so was 
 fain beg of charitable folk for the money. And now she 
 espied us, and flew at me with her long nails, and I was 
 cold with fear, so devilish showed her face and rolling 
 eyes and nails like birdys talons. But he with the chain 
 checked her sudden, and with his whip did cruelly lash 
 her for it, that I cried, ' Forbear ! forbear ! She knoweth 
 not what she doth ; ' and gave him a batz. And being 
 gone, said I, ' Master, of those twain I know not which is 
 the more pitiable.' And he laughed in my face. ' Be- 
 hold thy justice, Bon Bee/ said he. 'Thou railest on 
 thy poor, good, within-an-ace-of-honest master, and be- 
 stowest alms on a " vopper." ' ' Vopper,' said I, ' what is 
 a vopper ? ' ' Why, a trull that feigns madness. That 
 was one of us, that sham maniac, and wow but she did it 
 clumsily. I blushed for her and thee. Also gavest two 
 batzen for a shell from Holy Land, that came no farther 
 than Normandy. I have culled them myself on that 
 coast by scores, and sold them to pilgrims true and pil- 
 grims false, to gull flats like thee withal.' 'What !' said 
 I ; ' that reverend man ? ' ' One of us ! ' cried Cul de 
 Jatte ; ' one of us ! In France we call them " Coquil- 
 larts," but here "Calmierers." Railest on me for selling 
 a false relic now and then, and wastest thy earnings on 
 such as sell nought else. I tell thee, Bon Bee,' said he, 
 
58 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ' there is not one true relic on earth's face. The saints 
 died a thousand years agone, and their bones mixed with 
 the dust ; but the trade in relics, it is of yesterday ; and 
 there are forty thousand tramps in Europe live by it ; 
 selling relics of forty or fifty bodies ; oh, threadbare lie ! 
 And of the true Cross enow to build Cologne Minster. 
 Why, then, may not poor Cul de Jatte turn his penny 
 with the crowd ? Art but a scurvy, tyrannical servant 
 to let thy poor master from his share of the swag with 
 your whoreson pilgrims, palmers, and friars, black, gray, 
 and crutched ; for all these are of our brotherhood, and 
 of our art. only masters they, and we but poor appren- 
 tices, in guild.' For his tongue was an ell and a half. 
 
 " 1 A truce to thy irreverend sophistries,' said I, 1 and 
 say what company is this a-coming.' ' Bohemians,' cried 
 he. ' Ay, ay ; this shall be the rest of the band.' With 
 that came along so motley a crew as never your eyes 
 beheld, dear Margaret. Marched at their head one with 
 a banner on a steel-pointed lance, and girded with a great 
 long sword, and in velvet doublet and leathern jerkin, 
 the which stuffs ne'er saw I wedded afore on mortal flesh, 
 and a gay feather in his lordly cap, and a couple of dead 
 fowls at his back, the which, an the spark had come by 
 honestly, I am much mistook. Him followed wives and 
 babes on two lean horses, whose flanks still rattled like 
 parchment drum, being beaten by kettles and caldrons. 
 Xext an armed man a-riding of a horse, which drew a 
 cart full of females and children : and in it, sitting back- 
 wards, a lusty, lazy knave, lance in hand, with his luxu- 
 rious feet raised on a holy-water pail, that lay along, and 
 therein a cat. new kittened, sat glowing o'er her brood, 
 and sparks for eyes. And the cart-horse cavalier had on 
 his shoulders a round bundle, and thereon did perch a 
 cock and crowed with zeal, poor rufner, proud of his 
 brave feathers as the rest, and haply with more reason, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 59 
 
 being his own. And on an ass another wife and new- 
 born child ; and one poor quean a-foot scarce dragged 
 herself along, so near her time was she, yet held two 
 little ones by the hand, and helplessly helped them on 
 the road. And the little folk were just a farce ; some 
 rode sticks, with horses' heads, between their legs, which 
 pranced and caracoled, and soon wearied the riders so 
 sore, they stood stock still and wept, which cavaliers 
 were presently taken into cart and cuffed. And one, 
 more grave, lost in a man's hat and feather, walked in 
 Egyptian darkness, handed by a girl ; another had the 
 great saucepan on his back, and a tremendous three- 
 footed clay pot sat on his head and shoulders, swallow- 
 ing him so as he too went darkling, led by his sweet- 
 heart three foot high. When they were gone by, and 
 we had both laughed lustily, said I, ' Natheless, master, 
 my bowels they yearn for one of that tawdry band, even 
 for the poor wife so near the down-lying, scarce able to 
 drag herself, yet still, poor soul, helping the weaker on 
 the way.' 
 
 Catherine. Nay, nay, Margaret. Why, wench, pluck 
 up heart. Certes thou art no Bohemian. 
 
 Kate. Nay, mother, 'tis not that, I trow, but her 
 father. And, dear heart, why take notice to put her to 
 the blush ? 
 
 Richart. So I say. 
 
 " And he derided me. ' Why, that is a " biltreger," ? 
 said he, ' and you waste your bowels on a pillow, or so 
 forth.' I told him he lied. 1 Time would show,' said he, 
 ' wait till they camp.' And rising after meat and medi- 
 tation, and travelling forward, we found them camped 
 between two great trees on a common by the wayside, 
 and they had lighted a great fire, and on it was their 
 caldron ; and, one of the trees slanting o'er the fire, a kid 
 hung down by a chain from the tree-fork to the fire, and 
 
60 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 in the fork was wedged an urchin turning still the chain 
 to keep the meat from burning, and a gay spark with a 
 feather in his cap cut up a sheep ; and another had spitted 
 a leg of it on a wooden stake ; and a woman ended chanti- 
 cleer's pride with wringing of his neck. And under the 
 other tree four rufflers played at cards and quarrelled, 
 and no word sans oath ; and of these lewd gamblers one 
 had cockles in his hat, and was my reverend pilgrim. 
 And a female, young and comely, and dressed like a 
 butterfly, sat and mended a heap of dirty rags. And 
 Cul de Jatte said, ' Yon is the " vopper," ' and I looked 
 incredulous and looked again, and it was so, and at her 
 feet sat he that had so late lashed her ; but I ween he 
 had wist where to strike, or woe betide him ; and she 
 did now oppress him sore, and made him thread her very 
 needle, the which he did with all humility ; so was their 
 comedy turned seamy side without: and Cul de Jatte 
 told me 'twas still so with ' voppers ' and their men in 
 camp ; they would don their bravery though but for an 
 hour, and with their tinsel, empire, and the man durst 
 not the least gainsay the 1 vopper,' or she would turn 
 him off at these times, as I my master, and take another 
 tyrant more submissive. And my master chuckled over 
 me. Natheless we soon espied a wife set with her back 
 against the tree, and her hair down, and her face white, 
 and by her side a wench held up to her eye a new-born 
 babe, with words of cheer, and the rough fellow, her 
 husband, did bring her hot wine in a cup, and bade her 
 take courage. And, just o'er the place she sat, they had 
 pinned from bough to bough of those neighboring trees 
 two shawls, and blankets two, together, to keep the 
 drizzle off her. And so had another poor little rogue 
 come into the world: and by her own particular folk 
 tended gypsywise, but of the roasters, and boilers, and 
 coppers, and gamblers, no more noticed, no, not for a 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 61 
 
 single moment, than sheep which droppeth her lamb in 
 a field, by travellers upon the way. Then said I, ' What 
 of thy foul suspicions, master ? over-knavery blinds the 
 eye as well as over-simplicity.' And he laughed and 
 said, 1 Triumph, Bon Bee, triumph. The chances were 
 nine in ten against thee.' Then I did pity her, to be in 
 a crowd at such a time ; but he rebuked me. ' I should 
 pity rather your queens and royal duchesses, which by 
 law are condemned to groan in a crowd of nobles and 
 courtiers, and do writhe with shame as well as sorrow, 
 being come of decent mothers, whereas these gypsy 
 women have no more shame under their skins than a 
 wolf ruth, or a hare valor. And, Bon Bee/ quoth he, 
 ' I espy in thee a lamentable fault. Wastest thy bowels. 
 Wilt have none left for thy poor good master which 
 doeth thy will by night and day.' Then we came for- 
 ward; and he talked with the men in some strange 
 Hebrew cant whereof no word knew I; and the poor 
 knaves bade us welcome and denied us nought. With 
 them, and all they had, 'twas lightly come and lightly 
 go ; and when we left them my master said to me, ' This 
 is thy first lesson, but to-night we shall lie at Hansburgh. 
 Come with me to the " rotboss " there, and I'll show thee 
 all our folk and their lays, and especially " the lossners," 
 "the dutzers," "the schleppers," "the gickisses," "the 
 schwanfelders," whom in England we call "shivering 
 Jemmies," "the suntvegers," "the schwiegers," "the 
 joners," "the sessel-degers," "the gennscherers," in 
 France "marcandiers or rifodes," "the veranerins," "the 
 stabulers," with a few foreigners like ourselves, such 
 as "pietres," " f rancmitoux," "polissons," "malingreux," 
 "traters," "rumers," " whipjalks," "dommerars," "glym- 
 merars," "jarkmen," "patricos," "swadders," "autem 
 morts " " walking morts," ' — < Enow,' cried I, stopping 
 him, ' art as gleesome as the evil one a-counting of his 
 
62 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 imps. I'll jot down in my tablet all these caitiffs and their 
 accursed names : for knowledge is knowledge. But go 
 among them, alive or dead, that will I not with my good 
 will. Moreover,' said I, ' what need ? since I have a com- 
 panion in thee who is all the knaves on earth in one ? ' 
 and thought to abash him ; but his face shone with pride, 
 and hand on breast he did bow low to me. < If thy wit 
 be scant, good Bon Bee, thy manners are a charm. I 
 have made a good bargain.' So he to the 1 rotboss,' and 
 I to a decent inn, and sketched the landlord's daughter 
 by candle-light, and started at morn batzen three the 
 richer, but could not find my master, so loitered slowly 
 on, and presently met him coming west for me, and 
 cursing the quiens. Why so ? Because he could blind 
 the culls but not the quiens. At last I prevailed on him 
 to leave cursing and canting, and tell me his adventure. 
 Said he, ' I sat outside the gate of yon monastery, full of 
 sores, which I showed the passers-by. Oh, Bon Bee, 
 beautifuller sores you never saw : and it rained coppers 
 in my hat. Presently the monks came home from some 
 procession, and the convent dogs ran out to meet them, 
 curse the quiens ! ' 1 What, did they fall on thee and bite 
 thee, poor soul ? ' £ Worse, worse, dear Bon Bee. Had 
 they bitten me I had earned silver. But the great idiots, 
 being, as I think, puppies, or little better, fell on me 
 where I sat, downed me, and fell a-licking my sores 
 among them. As thou, false knave, didst swear the 
 whelps in heaven licked the sores of Lazybones, a beggar 
 of old.' 'Nay, nay/ said I, f I said no such thing. But 
 tell me, since they bit me not, but sportfully licked thee, 
 what harm ? " 6 What harm, noodle ? why, the sores 
 came off. ' How could that be ? * ' How could aught 
 else be ? and them just fresh put on. Did I think he 
 was so weak as bite holes in his flesh with ratsbane? 
 Nay, he was an artist, a painter like his servant, and had 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 63 
 
 pat on sores made of pig's blood, rye meal, and glue. 
 So when the folk saw my sores go on tongues of puppies, 
 they laughed, and I saw cord or sack before me. So up 
 I jumped, and shouted " A miracle ! a miracle ! The very 
 dogs of this holy convent be holy, and have cured me. 
 Good fathers," cried I, " whose day is this ? " " St. 
 Isidore's," said one. "St. Isidore," cried I, in a sort of 
 rapture. " Why, St. Isidore is my patron saint : so that 
 accounts." And the simple folk swallowed my miracle 
 as those accursed quiens my wounds. But the monks 
 took me inside and shut the gate, and put their heads 
 together ; but I have a quick ear, and one did say " caret 
 miraculo monasterium" which is Greek patter I trow, 
 leastways it is no beggar's cant. Finally they bade the 
 lay brethren give me a hiding, and take me out a back 
 way and put me on the road, and threatened me did I 
 come back to the town to hand me to the magistrate and 
 have me drowned for a plain impostor. " Profit now by 
 the Church's grace," said they, "and mend thy ways." 
 So forward, Bon Bee, for my life is not sure nigh hand 
 this town.' As we went he worked his shoulders, < Wow 
 but the brethren laid on. And what means yon piece of 
 monk's cant, I wonder ? " So I told him the words 
 meant ' the monastery is in want of a miracle,' but the 
 application thereof was dark to me. 'Dark,' cried he, 
 ' dark as noon. Why, it means they are going to work 
 the miracle, my miracle, and gather all the grain I 
 sowed. Therefore these blows on their benefactor's 
 shoulders; therefore is he that wrought their scurvy 
 miracle driven forth with stripes and threats. Oh, coz- 
 ening knaves ! ' Said I, ' Becomes you to complain of 
 guile.' 'Alas, Bon Bee,' said he, 'I but outwit the 
 simple; but these monks would pluck Lucifer of his 
 wing feathers.' And went a league bemoaning himself 
 that he was not convent-bred like his servant. 'He 
 
64 
 
 THE CLOISTER A2SD THE HEARTH. 
 
 would put it to more profit ; ' and railing on quiets. 
 i And as for those monks, there was one Above/ ' Certes,' 
 said I, ' there is one Above. "What then ? ' ' TTho will 
 call those shavelings to compt, one day/ quoth he. 
 1 And all deceitful men/" said L At one that afternoon 
 I got armories to paint : so niy master took the yellow 
 jaundice and went begging through the town, and with 
 his oily tongue, and saffron-water face, did fill his hat. 
 Xow in all the towns are certain licensed beggars, and 
 one of these was an old favorite with the townsfolk: 
 had his station at St. Martin's porch, the greatest church : 
 a blind man: they called him blind Hans. He saw my 
 master drawing coppers on the other side the street, and 
 knew him by his tricks for an impostor, so sent and 
 warned the constables, and I met my master in the con- 
 stables 3 hands, and going to his trial in the town hall. 
 I followed and many more : and he was none abashed, 
 neither by the pomp of justice, nor memory of his mis- 
 deeds, but demanded his accuser like a trumpet. And 
 blind Hans's boy came forward, but was sifted narrowly 
 by my master, and stammered and faltered, and owned 
 he had seen nothing, but only carried blind Hans's tale 
 to the chief constable. ' This is but hearsay,' said my 
 master. 1 Lo ye now, here standeth Misfortune backbit 
 by Envy. But stand thou forth, blind Envy, and vent 
 thine own lie.' And blind Hans behooved to stand forth, 
 sore against his will. Him did my master so press with 
 questions, and so pinch and torture, asking him again and 
 again how, being blind, he could see all that befell, and 
 some that befell not, across a way ; and why, an he could 
 not see, he came there holding up his perjured hand, and 
 maligning the misfortunate, that at last he groaned aloud 
 and would utter no word more. And an alderman said, 
 1 In sooth, Hans, ye are to blame ; hast cast more dirt of 
 suspicion on thyself than on him.' But the burgomaster, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 65 
 
 a wondrous fat man, and methinks of his fat some had 
 gotten into his head, checked him, and said, ' Nay, Hans 
 we know this- many years, and, be he blind or not, he 
 hath passed for blind so long, 'tis all one. Back to thy 
 porch, good Hans, and let the strange varlet leave the 
 town incontinent on pain of whipping.' Then my master 
 winked to me ; but there rose a civic officer in his gown 
 of state and golden chain, a dignity with us lightly 
 prized, and even shunned of some, but in Germany and 
 Trance much courted, save by condemned malefactors ; 
 to wit the hangman ; and says he, ' An't please you, first 
 let us see why he weareth his hair so thick and low.' 
 And his man went and lifted Cul de Jatte's hair, and lo 
 the upper gristle of both ears was gone. c How is this, 
 knave ? ' quoth the burgomaster. My master said, care- 
 lessly, he minded not precisely : his had been a life of 
 misfortunes and losses. ' When a poor soul has lost the 
 use of his leg, noble sirs, these more trivial woes rest 
 lightly in his memory.' When he found this would not 
 serve his turn, he named two famous battles, in each of 
 which he had lost half an ear, a-fighting like a true man 
 against traitors and rebels. But the hangman showed 
 them the two cuts were made at one time, and by meas- 
 urement. "Tis no bungling soldier's work, my masters,' 
 said he, £ 'tis ourn.' Then the burgomaster gave judg- 
 ment: 'The present charge is not proven against thee ; 
 but, an thou beest not guilty now, thou hast been at 
 other times, witness thine ears. Wherefore I send thee 
 to prison for one month, and to give a florin towards the 
 new hall of the guilds now a-building, and to be whipt 
 out of the town, and pay the hangman's fee for the same. 7 
 And all the aldermen approved, and my master was 
 haled to prison with one look of anguish. It did strike 
 my bosom. I tried to get speech of him, but the jailer 
 denied me. But lingering near the jail I heard a whistle, 
 
66 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 and there was Cul de J atte at a narrow window twenty 
 feet from earth. I went under, and he asked me what 
 made I there ? I told him I was loath to go forward and 
 not bid him farewell. He seemed quite amazed; but 
 soon his suspicious soul got the better. That was not 
 all mine errand. I told him not all : the psaltery : i Well, 
 what of that ? ' 'Twas not mine, but his ; I would pay 
 him the price of it. i Then throw me a rix-dollar,' said 
 he. I counted out my coins, and they came to a rix- 
 dollar and two batzen. I threw up his money in three 
 throws, and when he had got it all he said, softly, ' Bon 
 Bee' ' Master/ said I. Then the poor rogue was greatly 
 moved. 1 1 thought ye had been mocking me/ said he ; 
 ' oh, Bon Bee, Bon Bee, if I had found the world like 
 thee at starting I had put my wit to better use, and I had 
 not lain here.' Then he whimpered out, 'I gave not quite 
 a rix-dollar for the jingler ; ' and threw me back that he 
 had gone to cheat me of ; honest for once, and over late ; 
 and so, with many sighs, bade me Godspeed. Thus did 
 my master, after often baffling men's justice, fall by their 
 injustice ; for his lost ears proved not his guilt only, but 
 of that guilt the bitter punishment : so the account was 
 even; yet they for his chastisement did chastise him. 
 Natheless he was a parlous rogue, i t he holp to make a 
 man of me. Thanks to his good wit I went forward 
 richer far with my psaltery and brush, than with yon as 
 good as stolen purse ; for that must have run dry in 
 time, like a big trough, but these a little fountain." 
 
 Richart. How pregnant his reflections be; and but 
 a curly pated lad when last I saw him. Asking your 
 pardon, mistress. Prithee read on. 
 
 "One day I walked alone, and, sooth to say, light- 
 hearted, for mine honest Denys sweetened the air on the 
 way ; but poor Cul de Jatte poisoned it. The next day, 
 passing a grand house, out came on prancing steeds a 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 67 
 
 gentleman in brave attire and two servants ; they over- 
 took me. The gentleman bade me halt. I laughed in 
 my sleeve ; for a few batzen were all my store. He bade 
 me doff my doublet and jerkin. Then I chuckled no 
 more. ' Bethink you, my lord/ said I, ' 'tis winter. How 
 may a poor fellow go bare and live ? ' So he told me I 
 shot mine arrow wide of his thought ; and off with his 
 own gay jerkin, richly furred, and doublet to match, and 
 held them forth to me. Then a servant let me know it 
 was a penance. * His lordship had had the ill luck to 
 slay his cousin in their cups.' Down to my shoes he 
 changed with me ; and sat me on his horse like a popin- 
 jay, and fared by my side in my worn weeds, with my 
 psaltery on his back. And said he, ( Now, good youth, 
 thou art Count Detstein ; and I, late count, thy servant. 
 Play thy part well, and help me save my blood-stained 
 soul ! Be haughty and choleric as any noble ; and I will 
 be as humble as I may.' I said I would do my best to 
 play the noble. But what should I call him ? He bade 
 me call him nought but servant. That would mortify 
 him most, he wist. We rode on a long way in silence : 
 for I was meditating this strange chance, that from a 
 beggar's servant had made me master to a count, and 
 also cudgelling my brains how best I might play the 
 master, without being run through the body all at one 
 time like his cousin. For I mistrusted sore my spark's 
 humility ; your German nobles being, to my knowledge, 
 proud as Lucifer, and choleric as fire. As for the serv- 
 ants, they did slyly grin to one another to see their 
 master so humbled " — 
 " Ah / what is that ? " 
 
 A lump, as of lead, had just bounced against the door, 
 and the latch was fumbled with unsuccessfully. Another 
 bounce, and the door swung inwards with Giles arrayed 
 in cloth-of-gold sticking to it like a wasp. He landed on 
 
68 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 the floor and was embraced ; but, on learning what was 
 going on, trumpeted that he would much liever hear of 
 Gerard than gossip. 
 
 Sybrandt pointed to a diminutive chair. 
 
 Giles showed his sense of this civility by tearing the 
 said Sybrandt out of a very big one, and there ensconced 
 himself gorgeous and glowing. Sybrandt had to wedge 
 himself into the one which was too small for the mag- 
 nificent dwarf's soul, and Margaret resumed. But as 
 this part of the letter was occupied with notices of 
 places, all which my reader probably knows, and, if not, 
 can find handled at large in a dozen well-known books, 
 from Munster to Murray, I skip the topography, and 
 hasten to that part where it occurred to him to throw 
 his letter into a journal. The personal narrative that 
 intervened may be thus condensed. 
 
 He spoke but little at first to his new companions, but 
 listened to pick up their characters. Neither his noble 
 servant nor his servants could read or write : and as he 
 often made entries in his tablets, he impressed them 
 with some awe. One of his entries was " Le peu que sont 
 les hommes." For he found the surly innkeepers licked 
 the very ground before him now ; nor did a soul suspect 
 the hosier's son in the count's feathers, nor the count in 
 the minstrel's weeds. This seems to have surprised him ; 
 for he enlarged on it with the naivete and pomposity of 
 youth. At one place, being humbly requested to present 
 the inn with his armorial bearings, he consented loftily ; 
 but painted them himself, to mine host's wonder, who 
 thought he lowered himself by handling brush. The 
 true count stood grinning by, and held the paint-pot, 
 while the sham count painted a shield with three red 
 herrings rampant under a sort of Maltese cross made 
 with two ell-measures. At first his plebeian servants 
 were insolent. But this coming to the notice of his 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 69 
 
 noble one, he forgot what he was doing penance for, and 
 drew his sword to cut off their ears, heads included. 
 But Gerard interposed and saved them, and rebuked the 
 count severely. And finally they all understood one an- 
 other, and the superior mind obtained its natural influ- 
 ence. He played the barbarous noble of that day vilely. 
 For his heart would not let him be either tyrannical or 
 cold. Here were three human beings. He tried to make 
 them all happier than he was ; held them ravished with 
 stories and songs, and set Herr Penitent and Co. dancing 
 with his whistle and psaltery. For his own convenience 
 he made them ride and tie, and thus pushed rapidly 
 through the country, travelling generally fifteen leagues 
 a day. 
 
 DIARY. 
 
 " This first of January I observed a young man of the 
 country to meet a strange maiden, and kissed his hand, 
 and then held it out to her. She took it with a smile, 
 and lo ! acquaintance made ; and babbled like old friends. 
 Greeting so pretty and delicate I ne'er did see. Yet were 
 they both of the baser sort. So the next lass I saw 
 a-coming, I said to my servant lord, Tor further pen- 
 ance bow thy pride : go meet yon base-born girl ; kiss 
 thy homicidal hand, and give it her, and hold her in dis- 
 course as best ye may.' And my noble servant said 
 humbly, i I shall obey my lord.' And we drew rein and 
 watched while he went forward, kissed his hand, and 
 held it out to her. Forthwith she took it smiling, 
 and was most affable with him, and he with her. Pres- 
 ently came up a band of her companions. So this time 
 I bade him doff his bonnet to them, as though they 
 were empresses ; and he did so. And lo ! the lasses drew 
 up as stiff as hedge-stakes, and moved not nor spake." 
 
 Denys. Aie ! aie ! aie ! Pardon, the company. 
 
70 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " This surprises me none ; for so they did discounte- 
 nance poor Denys. And that whole day I wore in ex- 
 perimenting these German lasses ; and 'twas still the 
 same. An ye doff bonnet to them they stiffen into 
 statues; distance for distance. But accost them with 
 honest freedom, and with that customarv. and. though 
 rustical, most gracious proffer, of the kissed hand, and 
 they withhold neither their hands in turn nor their 
 acquaintance in an honest way. Seeing which I vexed 
 myself that Denys was not with us to prattle with them : 
 he is so fond of women." (-Are you fond of icome?i. 
 Denys?") And the reader opened two great violet eyes 
 upon him with gentle surprise. 
 
 Deni/s. Ahem ! he says so, she-comrade. By Hanni- 
 bal's helmet 'tis their fault, not mine. They will have 
 such soft voices, and white skins, and sunny hair, and 
 dark blue eyes, and — 
 
 Margaret (reading suddenly). Which their affability 
 I put to profit thus. I asked them how they made 
 shift to grow roses in Yule ? For know, dear Margaret, 
 that throughout Germany the baser sort of lasses wear 
 for head-dress naught but a - crantz.' or wreath of roses, 
 encircling their bare hair, as laurel Caesar's : and though 
 of the worshipful scorned, yet is braver. I wist, to your 
 eye and mine which painters be, though sorry ones, than 
 the gorgeous, uncouth, mechanical head-gear of the time, 
 and adorns, not hides, her hair, that goodly ornament 
 fitted to her head by craft divine. So the good lassf 
 being questioned close, did let me know the rosebuds 
 are cut in summer and laid then in great clay pots, thus 
 ordered : first bay salt, then a row of buds, and over that 
 row bay salt sprinkled : then another row of buds placed 
 crosswise: for they. say it is death to the buds to touch 
 one another ; and so on. buds and salt in layers. Then 
 each pot is covered and soldered tight, and kept in cool 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 71 
 
 cellar. And on Saturday night the master of the house, 
 or mistress, if master be none, opens a pot, and doles the 
 rosebuds out to every female in the house, high or low, 
 withouten grudge ; then solders it up again. And such 
 as of these buds would full-blown roses make, put them 
 in warm water a little space, or else in the stove, and 
 then with tiny brush and soft, wetted in Rhenish wine, 
 do coax them till they ope their folds. And some per- 
 fume them with rosewater. For, alack, their smell it is 
 fled with the summer; and only their fair bodyes lie 
 withouten soul, in tomb of clay, awaiting resurrection. 
 
 "And some with the roses and buds mix nutmegs 
 gilded, but not by my good will ; for gold, brave in 
 itself, cheek by jowl with roses, is but yellow earth. 
 And it does the eye's heart good to see these fair heads 
 of hair come, blooming with roses, over snowy roads, and 
 by snow-capped hedges, setting winter's beauty by the 
 side of summer's glory. For what so fair as winter's 
 lilies, snow yclept, and what so brave as roses ? And 
 shouldst have had a picture here, but for their supersti- 
 tion. Leaned a lass in Sunday garb, cross-ankled, against 
 her cottage corner, whose low roof was snow-clad, and 
 with her crantz did seem a summer flower sprouting 
 from winter's bosom. I drew rein, and out pencil and 
 brush to limn her for thee. But the simpleton, fearing 
 the evil eye, or glamour, claps both hands to her face 
 and flies panic-stricken. But, indeed, they are not more 
 superstitious than the Sevenbergen folk, which take thy 
 father for a magician. Yet softly, sith at this moment 
 I profit by this darkness of their minds ; for, at first, 
 sitting down to write this diary, I could frame nor 
 thought nor word, so harried and deaved was I with 
 noise of mechanical persons, and hoarse laughter at dull 
 jests of one of these parti-colored ' fools,' which are so 
 rife in Germany. But oh, sorry wit, that is driven to 
 
72 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 the poor resource of pointed ear-caps, and a green and 
 yellow body. True wit, methinks, is of the mind. We 
 met in Burgundy an honest Avench, though over free for 
 my palate, a chambermaid, had made havoc of all these 
 zanies, droll by brute force. Oh, digressor ! Well, then, 
 I to be rid of roaring rusticalls, and mindless jests, put 
 my finger in a glass and drew on the table a great watery 
 circle ; whereat the rusticalls did look askant, like ven- 
 ison at a cat ; and in that circle a smaller circle. The 
 rusticalls held their peace ; and beside these circles 
 cabalistical, I laid down on the table solemnly yon 
 parchment deed I had out of your house. The rusti- 
 calls held their breath. Then did I look as glum as 
 might be, and muttered slowly thus : ' Videamus — quam 
 diu tu fictus morio — vosque veri stulti — audebitis — in 
 hue aula morari, strepitantes ita — et olentes — ut dulcis- 
 simce nequeam miser seribere.'' They shook like aspens, 
 and stole away on tiptoe one by one at first, then in a 
 rush and jostling, and left me alone ; and most sacred of 
 all was the fool : never earned jester fairer his ass's ears. 
 So rubbed I their foible, who first rubbed mine ; for of 
 all a traveller's foes I dread those giants twain, Sir 
 Noise, and eke Sir Stench. The saints and martyrs for- 
 give my peevishness. Thus I write to thee in balmy 
 peace, and tell thee trivial things scarce worthy ink, 
 also how I love thee, which there was no need to tell, 
 for well thou knowest it. And, oh, dear Margaret, look- 
 ing on their roses, which grew in summer, but blow in 
 winter, I see the picture of our true affection ; born it 
 was in smiles and bliss, but soon adversity beset us sore 
 with many a bitter blast. Yet our love hath lost no leaf, 
 thank God, but blossoms full and fair as ever, proof 
 against frowns, and gibes, and prison, and banishment, 
 as those sweet German flowers a-blooming in winter's 
 snow. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 73 
 
 u January 2. — My servant, the count, finding me curi- 
 ous, took me to the stables of the prince that rules this 
 part. In the first court was a horse-bath, adorned with 
 twenty-two pillars, graven with the prince's arms ; and 
 also the horse-leech's shop, so furnished as a rich apoth- 
 cary might envy. The stable is a fair quadrangle whereof 
 three sides filled with horses of all nations. Before each 
 horse's nose was a glazed window, with a green curtain 
 to be drawn at pleasure, and at his tail a thick wooden 
 pillar with a brazen shield, whence by turning of a pipe 
 he is watered, and serves too for a cupboard to keep his 
 Bomb and rubbing clothes. Each rack was iron, and each 
 manger shining copper, and each nag covered with a 
 scarlet mantle, and above him his bridle and saddle 
 hung, ready to gallop forth in a minute ; and not less 
 than two hundred horses, whereof twelve score of foreign 
 breed. And Ave returned to our inn full of admiration, 
 and the two varlets said sorrowfully, ' Why were we born 
 with two legs ? ' And one of the grooms that was civil, 
 and had of me trinkgeld, stood now at his cottage door 
 and asked us in. There we found his wife, and children 
 of all ages, from five to eighteen, and had but one room 
 to bide and sleep in, a thing pestiferous and most uncivil. 
 Then I asked my servant, knew he this prince ? Ay, 
 did he, and had often drunk with him in a marble cham- 
 ber above the stable, where, for table, was a curious and 
 artificial rock, and the drinking vessels hang on its pin- 
 nacles, and at the hottest of the engagement a statue 
 of a horseman in bronze came forth bearing a bowl of 
 liquor, and he that sat nearest behooved to drain it. 
 "Tis well,' said I: 'now, for thy penance, whisper thou 
 in yon prince's ear, that God hath given him his people 
 freely, and not sought a price for them as for horses. 
 And pray him look inside the huts at his horse-palace 
 door, and bethink himself is it well to house his horses, 
 
7-4 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 and stable his folk.' Said he, ' 'Twill give sore offence.' 
 ' But,' said I, ' ye must do it discreetly and choose your 
 time.' So he promised. And riding on we heard plaint- 
 ive cries. 'Alas/ said I, 'some sore mischance hath 
 befallen some poor soul : what may it be ? And we 
 rode up, and lo ! it was a wedding feast, and the guests 
 were plying the business of drinking, sad and silent, but 
 ever and anon cried loud and dolefully, ' Seyte frolich / 
 Be merry.' 
 
 "January 3. — Yesterday between Numberg and Augs- 
 burg we parted company. I gave my lord, late servant, 
 back his brave clothes for mine ; but his horse he made 
 me keep, and five gold pieces, and said he was still my 
 debtor ; his penance it had been slight along of me, but 
 profitable. But his best word was this : ' I see 'tis more 
 noble to be loved than feared.' And then he did so 
 praise me as I blush to put on paper; yet, poor fool, 
 would fain thou couldst hear his words, but from some 
 other pen than mine. And the servants did heartily 
 grasp my hand, and wish me good luck. And riding 
 apace, yet could I not reach Augsburg till the gates were 
 closed ; but it mattered little, for this Augsburg it is an 
 enchanted city. For a small coin one took me a long 
 way round to a famous postern called der Einlasse. 
 Here stood two guardians, like statues. To them I gave 
 my name and business. They nodded me leave to knock. 
 I knocked, and the iron gate opened with a great noise 
 and hollow rattling of a chain, but no hand seen nor 
 chain ; and he, who drew the hidden chain, sits a butt's 
 length from the gate ; and I rode in, and the gate closed 
 with a clang after me. I found myself in a great build- 
 ing with a bridge at my feet. This I rode over, and 
 presently came to a porter's lodge, where one asked me 
 again my name and business, then rang a bell, and a 
 great portcullis that barred the way began to rise, drawn 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 75 
 
 by a wheel overhead, and no hand seen. Behind the 
 portcullis was a thick oaken door studded with steel. It 
 opened without hand, and I rode into a hall as dark as 
 pitch. Trembling there a while, a door opened and 
 showed me a smaller hall lighted. I rode into it ; a tin 
 goblet came down from the ceiling by a little chain ; I 
 put two batzen into it, and it went up again. Being 
 gone, another thick door creaked and opened, and I rid 
 through. It closed on me with a tremendous clang, and 
 behold me in Augsburg city. I lay at an inn called 
 ' The Three Moors/ over an hundred years old ; and, this 
 morning, according to my way of viewing towns to learn 
 their compass and shape, I mounted the highest tower I 
 could find, and setting my dial at my foot surveyed the 
 beautiful city; whole streets of palaces, and churches 
 tiled with copper burnished like gold; and the house- 
 fronts gayly painted and all glazed, and the glass so 
 clean and burnished as 'tis most resplendent and rare ; 
 and I, now first seeing a great citie, did crow with 
 delight, and like cock on his ladder, and at the tower 
 foot was taken into custody for a spy; for whilst I 
 watched the city the watchman had watched me. The 
 burgomaster received me courteously and heard my 
 story ; then rebuked he the officers. ' Could ye not ques- 
 tion him yourselves, or read in his face ? This is to 
 make our city stink in strangers' report.' Then he told 
 me my curiosity was of a commendable sort ; and seeing 
 I was a craftsman and inquisitive, bade his clerk take 
 me among the guilds. God bless the city where the 
 very burgomaster is cut of Solomon's cloth ! 
 
 " January 5. — Dear Margaret, it is a noble city, and a 
 kind mother to arts. Here they cut in wood and ivory, 
 that 'tis like spider's work, and paint on glass, and sing 
 angelical harmonies. Writing of books is quite gone by ; 
 here be six printers. Yet was I offered a bountiful wage 
 
76 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 to write fairly a merchant's accounts, one Fugger, a 
 grand and wealthy trader, and hath store of ships, yet 
 his father was but a poor weaver. But here in com- 
 merce her very garden, men swell like mushrooms. 
 And he bought my horse of me, and abated me not a jot, 
 which way of dealing is not known in Holland. But, 
 
 0 Margaret ! the workmen of all the guilds are so kind 
 and brotherly to one another, and to me. Here, methinks, 
 
 1 have found the true German mind, loyal, frank, and 
 kindly, somewhat choleric withal, but nought revengeful. 
 Each mechanic wears a sword. The very weavers at the 
 loom sit girded with their weapons, and all Germans on 
 too slight occasion draw them and fight ; but no treach- 
 ery j challenge first, then draw, and with the edge only, 
 mostly the face, not with Sir Point ; for if in these com- 
 bats one thrust at his adversary and hurt him, 'tis called 
 ein schelemstucke, a heinous act; both men and women 
 turn their backs on him ; and even the judges punish 
 thrusts bitterly, but pass over cuts. Hence in Germany 
 be good store of scarred faces, three in five at least, and 
 in France scarce more than one in three. 
 
 "But in arts mechanical no citizens may compare 
 with these. Fountains in every street that play to 
 heaven, and in the gardens seeming trees, which being 
 approached, one standing afar touches a spring, and 
 every twig shoots water, and souses the guests to their 
 host's much delectation. Big culverins of war they cast 
 with no more ado than our folk horse-shoes, and have 
 done this fourscore years. All stuffs they weave, and 
 linen fine as ours at home, or nearly, which elsewhere in 
 Europe vainly shall you seek. Sir Printing Press — sore 
 foe to poor Gerard, but to other humans beneficial — 
 plyeth by night and day, and casteth goodly words like 
 sower a-field ; while I, poor fool, can but sow them as I 
 saw women in France sow rye, dribbling it in the furrow 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 77 
 
 grain by grain. And of their strange mechanical skill 
 take two examples. For ending of exemplary rogues 
 they have a figure like a woman, seven feet high, and 
 called Jung Frau ; but lo, a spring is touched : she seiz- 
 eth the poor wretch with iron arms, and opening herself, 
 hales him inside her, and there pierces him through and 
 through with twoscore lances. Secondly, in all great 
 houses the spit is turned not by a scrubby boy, but by 
 smoke. Ay, mayst well admire, and judge me a lying 
 knave. These cunning Germans do set in the chimney 
 a little windmill, and the smoke struggling to wend past, 
 turns it, and from the mill a wire runs through the wall 
 and turns the spit on wheels ; beholding which I doffed 
 my bonnet to the men of Augsburg, for who but these 
 had ere devised to bind ye so dark and subtle a knave as 
 Sir Smoke, and set him to roast Dame Pullet ? 
 
 "This day, January 8, with three craftsmen of the 
 town, I painted a pack of cards. They were for a sena- 
 tor in a hurry. I the diamonds. My queen came forth 
 with eyes like spring violets, hair a golden brown, and 
 witching smile. My fellow-craftsmen saw her, and put 
 their arms round my neck and hailed me master. Oh, 
 noble Germans ! No jealousy of a brother-workman; no 
 sour looks at a stranger; and would have me spend 
 Sunday with them after matins ; and the merchant paid 
 me so richly, as I was ashamed to take the guerdon ; and 
 I to my inn, and tried to paint the queen of diamonds 
 for poor Gerard ; but no, she would not come like again. 
 Luck will not be bespoke. Oh, happy rich man that 
 hath got her ! Fie ! fie ! Happy Gerard, that shall have 
 herself one day, and keep house with her at Augsburg. 
 
 "January 8. — With my fellows, and one Yeit Stoss, 
 a wood-carver, and one Hafnagel, of the goldsmiths' 
 guild, and their wives and lasses, to Hafnagel's cousin, a 
 senator of this free city, and his stupendous wine-vessel. 
 
78 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 It is ribbed like a ship, and hath been eighteen months 
 in hand, and finished but now, and holds a hundred and 
 fifty hogsheads, and standeth not, but lieth ; yet even so 
 ye get not on his back withouten ladders two, of thirty 
 steps. And we sat about the miraculous mass, and 
 drank Rhenish from it, drawn by a little artificial pump, 
 and the lasses pinned their crantzes to it, and we danced 
 round it, and the senator danced on its back, but with 
 drinking of so many garausses, lost his footing and fell 
 off, glass in hand, and broke an arm and a leg in the 
 midst of us. So scurvily ended our drinking bout for 
 this time. 
 
 " January 10. — This day started for Venice with a 
 company of merchants, and among them him who had 
 desired me for his scrivener ; and so we are now agreed, 
 I to write at night the letters he shall diet, and other 
 matters, he to feed and lodge me on the road. We be 
 many and armed, and soldiers with us to boot, so fear 
 not the thieves which men say lie on the borders of 
 Italy. But an if I find the printing press at Venice I 
 trow I shall not go unto Rome, for man may not vie 
 with iron. 
 
 " Imprimit una dies quantum non scribitur anno. And, 
 dearest, something tells me you and I shall end our days 
 at Augsburg, whence going, I shall leave it all I can — 
 my blessing. 
 
 " January 12. — My master affecteth me much, and 
 now maketh me sit with him in his horse-litter. A 
 grave good man, of all respected, but sad for loss of a 
 dear daughter, and loveth my psaltery ; not giddy-paced 
 ditties, but holy harmonies such as Cul de Jatte made 
 wry mouths at. So many men, so many minds. But 
 cooped in horse-litter and at night writing his letters, 
 my journal halteth. 
 
 " January 14. — When not attending on my good mer- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 79 
 
 chant, I consort with such of our company as are Italians, 
 for 'tis to Italy I wend, and I am ill seen in Italian 
 tongue. A courteous and a subtle people ; at meat deli- 
 cate feeders, and cleanly : love not to put their left hand 
 in the dish. They say Venice is the garden of Lombardy, 
 Lombardy the garden of Italy, Italy of the world. 
 
 " January 16. — Strong ways and steep, and the mount- 
 ain-girls so girded up, as from their armpits to their 
 waist is but a handful. Of all the garbs I yet have seen, 
 the most unlovely. 
 
 " January 18. — In the midst of life we are in death. 
 Oh ! dear Margaret, I thought I had lost thee. Here I 
 lie in pain and dole, and shall write thee that, which 
 read you it in a romance ye should cry, ' Most improba- 
 ble ! ' And so still wondering that I am alive to write 
 it, and thanking for it God and the saints, this is what 
 befell thy Gerard. Yestreen I wearied of being shut up 
 in litter, and of the mule's slow pace, and so went for- 
 ward ; and being, I know not why, strangely full of spirit 
 and hope, as I have heard befall some men when on 
 trouble's brink, seemed to tread on air, and soon dis- 
 tanced them all. Presently I came to two roads, and 
 took the larger ; I should have taken the smaller. After 
 travelling a good half-hour, I found my error, and 
 returned ; and deeming my company had long passed by, 
 pushed bravely on, but I could not overtake them ; and 
 small wonder, as you shall hear. Then I was anxious, 
 and ran, but bare was the road of those I sought ; and 
 night came down, and the wild beasts afoot, and I 
 bemoaned my folly ; also I was hungered. The moon 
 rose clear and bright exceedingly, and presently, a little 
 way off the road, I saw a tall wind-mill. i Come,' said I, 
 * mayhap the miller will take ruth on me.' Near the 
 mill was a haystack, and scattered about were store of 
 little barrels j but, lo! they were not flour-barrels, but 
 
80 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 tar-barrels, one or two, and the rest of spirits, Brant 
 vein and Schiedam ; I knew them momently, having seen 
 the like in Holland. I knocked at the mill-door, but 
 none answered. I lifted the latch, and the door opened 
 inwards. I went in, and gladly, for the night was fine 
 but cold, and a rime on the trees, which were a kind of 
 lofty sycamores. There was a stove, but black ; I lighted 
 it with some of the hay and wood, for there was a great 
 pile of wood outside, and, I know not how, I went to 
 sleep. Not long had I slept, I trow, when hearing a 
 noise 1 awoke, and there were a dozen men around me, 
 with wild faces, and long black hair, and black sparkling 
 eyes." 
 
 Catherine. Oh, my poor boy ! those black-haired ones 
 do still scare me to look on. 
 
 " I made my excuses in such Italian as I knew, and 
 eking out by signs. They grinned. 'I had lost my 
 company.' They grinned. 'I was an hungered.' Still 
 they grinned, and spoke to one another in a tongue I 
 knew not. At last one gave me a piece of bread and a 
 tin mug of wine, as I thought, but it was spirits neat. 
 I made a wry face, and asked for water ; then these wild 
 men laughed a horrible laugh. I thought to fly, but, 
 looking towards the door, it was bolted with two enor- 
 mous bolts of iron ; and now first, as I ate my bread, I 
 saw it was all guarded too, and ribbed with iron. My 
 blood curdled within me, and yet I could not tell thee 
 why; but hadst thou seen the faces, wild, stupid, and 
 ruthless. I mumbled my bread, not to let them see I 
 feared them ; but oh, it cost me to swallow it and keep it 
 in me. Then it whirled in my brain, was there no way 
 to escape ? Said I, ' They will not let me forth by the 
 door; these be smugglers or robbers.' So I feigned 
 drowsiness, and taking out two batzen said, ' Good men, 
 for our Lady's grace let me lie on a bed and sleep, for I 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 81 
 
 am faint with, travel/ They nodded and grinned their 
 horrible grin, and bade one light a lanthorn and lead me. 
 He took me np a winding staircase, up, up, and I saw no 
 windows, but the wooden walls were pierced like a barbi- 
 can tower, and methinks for the same purpose ; and 
 through these slits I got glimpses of the sky, and 
 thought, ' Shall I e'er see thee again ? ' He took me to 
 the very top of the mill, and there was a room with a 
 heap of straw in one corner, and many empty barrels, 
 and by the wall a truckle-bed. He pointed to it, and 
 went down-stairs heavily, taking the light, for in this 
 room was a great window, and the moon came in bright. 
 I looked out to see, and lo, it was so high that even the 
 mill sails at their highest came not up to my window by 
 some feet, but turned very slow and stately underneath, 
 for wind there was scarce a breath ; and the trees seemed 
 silver filagree made by angel craftsmen. My hope of 
 flight was gone. 
 
 "But now, those wild faces being out of sight, I smiled 
 at my fears : what an if they were ill men, would it 
 profit them to hurt me ? Natheless, for caution against 
 surprise, I would put the bed against the door. I went 
 to move it, but could not. It was free at the head, but 
 at the foot fast clamped with iron to the floor. So I 
 flung my psaltery on the bed, but for myself made a 
 layer of straw at the door, so as none could open on me 
 unawares. And I laid my sword ready to my hand, and 
 said my prayers for thee and me, and turned to sleep. 
 
 "Below they drank and made merry. And hearing 
 this gave me confidence. Said I, 'Out of sight, out of 
 mind. Another hour, and the good Schiedam will make 
 them forget that I am here.' And so I composed myself 
 to sleep. And for some time could not for the boister- 
 ous mirth below. At last I dropped off. How long I 
 slept I knew not ; but I woke with a start : the noise 
 6 
 
82 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 had ceased below, and the sudden silence woke me. And 
 scarce was I awake, when sudden the truckle bed was 
 gone with a loud clang all but the feet, and the floor 
 yawned, and I heard my psaltery fall and break to atoms, 
 deep, deep, below the very floor of the mill. It had fallen 
 into a well. And so had I done, lying where it lay." 
 
 Margaret shuddered, and put her face in her hands ; 
 but speedily resumed. 
 
 " I lay stupefied at first. Then horror fell on me, and 
 I rose, but stood rooted there, shaking from head to foot. 
 At last I found myself looking down into that fearsome 
 gap, and my very hair did bristle as I peered. And then, 
 I remember, I turned quite calm, and made up my mind 
 to die sword in hand. For I saw no man must know this 
 their bloody secret and live. And I said, 'Poor Mar- 
 garet ! 9 And I took out of my bosom, where they lie 
 ever, our marriage lines, and kissed them again and 
 again. And I pinned them to my shirt again, that they 
 might lie in one grave with me, if die I must. And I 
 thought, ' All our love and hopes to end thus ! ' " 
 
 Mi Whisht all ! Their marriage lines ? Give her 
 time ! But no word. I can bear no chat. My poor 
 lad! 
 
 During the long pause that ensued, Catherine leaned 
 forward and passed something adroitly from her own lap 
 under her daughter's apron, who sat next her. 
 
 "Presently thinking, all in a whirl, of all that ever 
 passed between us, and taking leave of all those pleasant 
 hours, I called to mind how one day at Sevenbergen thou 
 taughtest me to make a rope of straw. Mindest thou ? 
 The moment memory brought that happy day back to 
 me, I cried out very loud, ' Margaret gives me a chance 
 for life even here ! ' I woke from my lethargy. I seized 
 on the straw and twisted it eagerly, as thou didst teach 
 me, but my fingers trembled and delayed the task. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 83 
 
 Whiles I wrought I heard a door open below. That 
 was a terrible moment. Even as I twisted my rope I 
 got to the window and looked down at the great arms of 
 the mill coming slowly up, then passing, then turning 
 less slowly down, as it seemed ; and I thought, ' They go 
 not as when there is wind : yet, slow or fast, what man 
 rid ever on such steed as these, and lived ? Yet,' said I, 
 ' better trust to them and God, than to ill men.' And I 
 prayed to Him whom even the wind obeyeth. 
 
 "Dear Margaret, I fastened my rope, and let myself 
 gently down, and fixed my eye on that huge arm of the 
 mill, which then was creeping up to me, and went to 
 spring on to it. But my heart failed me at the pinch. 
 And methought it was not near enow. And it passed calm 
 and awful by. I watched for another ; they were three. 
 And after a little while one crept up slower than the rest 
 methought. And I with my foot thrust myself in good 
 time somewhat out from the wall, and crying aloud, 
 ' Margaret ! ' did grip with all my soul the woodwork 
 of the sail, and that moment was swimming in the air." 
 
 Giles. Well done ! well done ! 
 
 " Motion I felt little ; but the stars seemed to go round 
 the sky, and then the grass came up to me nearer and 
 nearer, and when the hoary grass was quite close I was 
 sent rolling along it as if hurled from a catapult, and got 
 up breathless, and every point and tie about me broken. 
 I rose, but fell down again in agony. I had but one leg 
 I could stand on." 
 
 Catherine. Eh ! dear ! his leg is broke, my boy's leg 
 is broke. 
 
 "And, e'en as I lay groaning, I heard a sound like 
 thunder. It was the assassins running up the stairs. 
 The crazy old mill shook under them. They must have 
 found I had not fallen into their bloody trap, and were 
 running to despatch me. Margaret, I felt no fear t for I 
 
84 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 had now no hope. I could neither run, nor hide ; so wild 
 the place, so bright the moon. I struggled up all agony 
 and revenge, more like some wounded wild beast than 
 your Gerard. Leaning on my sword hilt I hobbled 
 round ; and swift as lightning, or vengeance, I heaped 
 a great pile of their hay and wood at the mill door : then 
 drove my dagger into a barrel of their smuggled spirits, 
 and flung it on ; then out with my tinder and lighted the 
 pile. ' This will bring true men round my dead body,' 
 said I. ' Aha ! ' I cried, ' think you I'll die alone, cow- 
 ards, assassins, reckless fiends ! ' and at each word on 
 went a barrel pierced. But, 0 Margaret ! the fire fed 
 by the spirits surprised me : it shot up and singed my 
 very hair ; it went roaring up the side of the mill swift 
 as falls the lightning : and I jelled and laughed in my 
 torture and despair, and pierced more barrels, and the 
 very tar-barrels, and flung them on. The fire roared like 
 a lion for its prey, and voices answered it inside from 
 the top of the mill, and the feet came thundering down, 
 and I stood as near that awful fire as I could, with 
 uplifted sword to slay and be slain. The bolt was drawn. 
 A tar-barrel caught fire. The door was opened. What 
 followed ? Not the men came out, but the fire rushed in 
 at them like a living death, and the first I thought to 
 fight with was blackened and crumpled on the floor like 
 a leaf. One fearsome yell, and dumb forever. The feet 
 ran up again, but fewer. I heard them hack with their 
 swords a little way up, at the mill's wooden sides ; but 
 they had no time to hew their way out : the fire and reek 
 were at their heels, and the smoke burst out at every 
 loop-hole, and oozed blue in the moonlight through each 
 crevice. I hobbled back, racked with pain and fury. 
 There were white faces up at my window. They saw 
 me. They cursed me. I cursed them back, and shook 
 my naked sword : ' Come down the road I came/ I cried. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 85 
 
 'But ye must come one by one, and, as ye come, ye die 
 upon this steel.' Some cursed at that, but others wailed. 
 For I had them all at deadly vantage. And, doubtless, 
 with my smoke-grimed face and fiendish rage I looked a 
 demon. And now there was a steady roar inside the 
 mill. The flame was going up it as furnace up its chim- 
 ney. The mill caught fire. Fire glimmered through it. 
 Tongues of flame darted through each loop-hole and shot 
 sparks and fiery flakes into the night. One of the assas- 
 sins leaped on to the sail as I had done. In his hurry 
 he missed his grasp and fell at my feet, and bounded 
 from the hard ground like a ball, and never spoke nor 
 moved again. And the rest screamed like women, and 
 with their despair came back to me both ruth for them 
 and hope of life for myself. And the fire gnawed through 
 the mill in placen, and shot forth showers of great flat 
 sparks like flakes of fiery snow ; and the sails caught fire 
 one after another ; and I became a man again and stag- 
 gered away terror-stricken, leaning on my sword, from 
 the sight of my revenge, and with great bodily pain 
 crawled back to the road. And, dear Margaret, the rimy 
 trees were now all like pyramids of golden filagree, and 
 lace, cobweb fine, in the red firelight. Oh ! most beau- 
 tiful. And a poor wretch got entangled in the burning 
 sails, and whirled round screaming, and lost hold at the 
 wrong time, and hurled like stone from mangonel high 
 into the air ; then a dull thump ; it was his carcass strik- 
 ing the earth. The next moment there was a loud crash. 
 The mill fell in on its destroyer, and a million great 
 sparks flew up, and the sails fell over the burning wreck, 
 and at that a million more sparks flew up, and the ground 
 was strewn with burning wood and men. I prayed God 
 forgive me, and kneeling with my back to that fiery 
 shambles, I saw lights on the road ; a welcome sight. It 
 was a company coming towards me, and scarce two fur< 
 
86 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 longs off. I hobbled towards them. Ere I had gone far 
 I heard a swift step behind me. I turned. One had 
 escaped ; how escaped, who can divine ? His sword 
 shone in the moonlight. I feared him ; methought the 
 ghosts of all those dead sat on that glittering glaive. I 
 put my other foot to the ground, maugre the anguish, 
 and fled towards the torches, moaning with pain and 
 shouting for aid. But what could I do ? He gained on 
 me. Behooved me turn and fight. Denys had taught 
 me sword-play in sport. I wheeled, our swords clashed. 
 His clothes they smelled all singed. I cut swiftly up- 
 ward with supple hand, and his dangled bleeding at the 
 wrist, and his sword fell ; it tinkled on the ground. I 
 raised my sword to hew him should he stoop for't. He 
 stood and cursed me. He drew his dagger with his left ; 
 I opposed my point, and dared him with my eye to close. 
 A great shout arose behind me from true men's throats. 
 He started. He spat at me in his rage, then gnashed 
 his teeth and fled blaspheming. I turned and saw torches 
 close at hand. Lo, they fell to dancing up and down 
 methought, and the next — moment — all — was — dark. 
 I had — ah!" 
 
 Catherine. Here, help ! water ! Stand aloof, you that 
 be men ! 
 
 Margaret had fainted away. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 When she recovered, her head was on Catherine's arm, 
 and the honest half of the family she had invaded like 
 a foe stood round her uttering rough, homely words of 
 encouragement, especially Giles, who roared at her that 
 she was not to take on like that. " Gerard was alive and 
 well, or he could not have writ this letter, the biggest 
 mankind has seen as yet, and/' as he thought, " the beau- 
 tifullest and most moving, and smallest writ." 
 
 "Ay, good Master Giles," sighed Margaret, feebly, "he 
 was alive ; but how know I what hath since befallen 
 him ? Oh, why left he Holland to go among strangers 
 fierce as lions ? And why did I not drive him from me 
 sooner than part him from his own flesh and blood? 
 Forgive me, you that are his mother ! " 
 
 And she gently removed Catherine's arm, and made a 
 feeble attempt to slide off the chair on to her knees, 
 which, after a brief struggle with superior force, ended 
 in her finding herself on Catherine's bosom. Then Mar- 
 garet held out the letter to Eli, and said faintly but 
 sweetly, " I will trust it from my hand now. In sooth, 
 I am little fit to read any more — and — and — loath to 
 leave my comfort : " and she wreathed her other arm 
 round Catherine's neck. 
 
 "Read thou, Richart," said Eli ; "thine eyes be younger 
 than mine." 
 
 Richart took the letter. " Well," said he, " such writ- 
 ing saw I never. A writeth with a needle's point ; and 
 clear to boot. Why is he not in my counting-house at 
 Amsterdam instead of vagabonding it out yonder ? " 
 
88 
 
 THE CLOISTER AJSID THE HEARTH. 
 
 " When I came to myself I was seated in the litter, 
 and my good merchant holding of my hand. I babbled 
 I know not what, and then shuddered awhile in silenco. 
 He put a horn of wine to my lips." 
 
 Catherine. Bless him ! bless him J 
 
 Eli. Whisht ! 
 
 " And I told him what had befallen. He would see 
 my leg. It was sprained sore, and swelled at the ankle ; 
 and all my points were broken, as I could scarce keep up 
 my hose, and I said, ' Sir, I shall be but a burden to you, 
 I doubt, and can make you no harmony now ; my poor 
 psaltery it is broken ; ' and I did grieve over my broken 
 music, companion of so many weary leagues. But he 
 patted me on the cheek, and bade me not fret ; also he 
 did put up my leg on a pillow, and tended me like a kind 
 father. 
 
 "January 14. I sit all day in the litter, for we are 
 pushing forward with haste, and at night the good, 
 kind merchant sendeth me to bed, and will not let me 
 work. Strange ! whene'er I fall in with men like fiends, 
 then the next moment God still sendeth me some good 
 man or woman, lest I should turn away from human kind. 
 
 0 Margaret ! how strangely mixed they be, and how old 
 
 1 am by what I was three months agone ! And lo ! if 
 good Master Fugger hath not been and bought me a 
 psaltery." 
 
 Catherine. Eli, my man, an yon merchant comes our 
 way, let us buy a hundred ells of cloth of him, and not 
 higgle. 
 
 Eli. That will I, take your oath on't ! 
 
 While Eichart prepared to read, Kate looked at her 
 mother, and with a faint blush drew out a piece of work 
 from under her apron, and sewed with head depressed a 
 little more than necessary. On this her mother drew a 
 piece of work out of her pocket, and sewed too, while 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 89 
 
 Richart read. Both the specimens these sweet surrepti- 
 tious creatures now first exposed to observation were 
 babies' caps, and more than half finished, which told a 
 tale. Horror ! they were like little monks' cowls in 
 shape and delicacy. 
 
 " January 12. Laid up in the litter, and as good as 
 blind, but, halting to bait, Lombardy plains burst on me. 
 Oh, Margaret ! a land flowing with milk and honey ; all 
 sloping plains, goodly rivers, jocund meadows, delecta- 
 ble orchards, and blooming gardens ; and, though winter, 
 looks warmer than poor beloved Holland at midsummer, 
 and makes the wanderer's face to shine, and his heart to 
 leap for joy, to see earth so kind and smiling. Here be 
 vines, cedars, olives, and cattle plenty, but three goats 
 to a sheep. The draught oxen wear white linen on their 
 necks, and standing by dark green olive-trees each one 
 is a picture ; and the folk, especially women, wear deli- 
 cate strawen hats with flowers and leaves fairly imitated 
 in silk, with silver mixed. This day we crossed a river 
 prettily in a chained ferry-boat. On either bank was a 
 windlass, and a single man by turning of it drew our 
 whole company to his shore, whereat I did admire, being 
 a stranger. Passed over with us some country folk. 
 And, an old woman looking at a young wench, she did 
 hide her face with her hand, and held her crucifix out 
 like knight his sword in tournay, dreading the evil eye. 
 
 " January 15. Safe at Venice. A place whose strange 
 and passing beauty is well known to thee by report of 
 our mariners. Dost mind too how Peter would oft fill 
 our ears withal, we handed beneath the table, and he 
 still discoursing of this sea-enthroned and peerless citie, 
 in shape a bow, and its great canal and palaces on piles, 
 and its watery ways plied by scores of gilded boats ; and 
 that market-place of nations, orbis, non urbis, forum, St. 
 Mark his place ? And his statue with the peerless 
 
90 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 jewels in his eyes, and the lion at his gate ? But I, 
 lying at my window in pain, may see none of these 
 beauties as yet, but only a street, fairly paved, which is 
 dull, and houses with oiled paper and linen, in lieu of 
 glass, which is rude ; and the passers-by, their habits and 
 their gestures, wherein they are superfluous. Therefore, 
 not to miss my daily comfort of whispering to thee, I 
 will e'en turn mine eyes inward, and bind my sheaves of 
 wisdom reaped by travel. For I love thee so, that no 
 treasure pleases me not shared with thee ; and what 
 treasure so good and enduring as knowledge ? This 
 then have I, Sir Footsore, learned, that each nation hath 
 its proper wisdom, and its proper folly ; and, methinks, 
 could a great king, or duke, tramp like me, and see with 
 his own eyes, he might pick the flowers and eschew the 
 weeds of nations, and go home and set his own folk on 
 Wisdom's hill. The Germans in the north were churlish, 
 but frank and honest ; in the south, kindly and honest 
 too. Their general blot is drunkenness, the which they 
 carry even to mislike and contempt of sober men. They 
 say commonly, ' Kanstu niecht sauffen und fressen so 
 kanstu kienem hern wol dienen.' In England the vulgar 
 sort drink as deep, but the worshipful hold excess in this 
 a reproach, and drink a health or two for courtesy, not 
 gluttony, and still sugar the wine. In their cups the 
 Germans use little mirth, or discourse, but ply the busi- 
 ness sadly, crying, ^ Seyte frolich ! ' The best of their 
 drunken sport is * Kurlem,urlehuff,' > a way of drinking 
 with touching deftly of the glass the beard, the table, 
 in due turn, intermixed with whistlings and snappings 
 of the finger so curiously ordered as 'tis a labor of Her- 
 cules, but to the beholder right pleasant and mirthful. 
 Their topers, by advice of German leeches, sleep with 
 pebbles in their mouths. For, as of a boiling pot the 
 lid must be set ajar, so with these fleshly wine-pots, to 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 91 
 
 vent the heat of their inward parts, spite of which many 
 die suddenly from drink ; but 'tis a matter of religion 
 to slur it, and gloze it, and charge some innocent disease 
 therewith. Yet 'tis more a custom than very nature, for 
 their women come among the tipplers, and do but stand 
 a moment, and, as it were, kiss the wine-cup, and are in- 
 deed most temperate in eating and drinking, and, of all 
 women, modest and virtuous, and true spouses and 
 friends to their mates : far before our Holland lassies, 
 that, being maids, put the question to the men, and being 
 wived, do lord it over them. Why, there is a wife in 
 Tergou, not far from our door. One came to the house 
 and sought her man. Says she, ' You'll not find him : 
 he asked my leave to go abroad this afternoon, and I did 
 give it him.' " 
 
 Catherine. 'Tis sooth ! 'tis sooth ! 'Twas Beck Hulse, 
 J onah's wife. This comes of a woman wedding a boy. 
 
 " In the south where wine is, the gentry drink them- 
 selves bare, but not in the north, for with beer a noble 
 shall sooner burst his body than melt his lands. They 
 are quarrelsome, but 'tis the liquor, not the mind, for 
 they are none revengeful. And when they have made a 
 bad bargain drunk, they stand to it sober. They keep 
 their windows bright, and judge a man by his clothes. 
 Whatever fruit or grain or herb grows by the roadside, 
 gather and eat. The owner seeing you shall say, ' Art 
 welcome, honest man.' But an ye pluck a wayside grape, 
 your very life is in jeopardy. 'Tis eating of that Heaven 
 gave to be drunken. The French are much fairer 
 spoken, and not nigh so true-hearted. Sweet words cost 
 them nought. They call it 'payer en blanche.'' " 
 
 Denys. Les coquins ! ha ! ha ! 
 
 " Natheless, courtesy is in their hearts, ay, in their 
 very blood. They say commonly, 'Give yourself the 
 trouble of sitting down ; ' and such straws of speech show 
 
92 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 how blows the wind. Also at a public show, if you 
 would leave your seat, yet not lose it, tie but your 
 napkin round the bench, and no French man or woman 
 will sit here, but rather keep the place for you." 
 
 Catherine. Gramercy ! that is manners. France for 
 me ! 
 
 Denys rose and placed his hand gracefully to his 
 breastplate. 
 
 " Natheless, they say things in sport which are not 
 courteous, but shocking. ' Le diable tfemporte / ' ' Allez au 
 diable ! ' and so forth. But I trow they mean not such 
 dreadful wishes : custom belike. Moderate in drinking, 
 and mix water with their wine, and sing and dance over 
 their cups, and are then enchanting company. They are 
 curious not to drink in another man's cup. In war the 
 English gain the better of them in the field; but the 
 French are their masters in attack and defence of cities. 
 Witness Orleans, where they besieged their besiegers, 
 and hashed them sore with their double and treble cul- 
 verines, and many other sieges in this our century. 
 More than all nations they natter their women, and de- 
 spise them. No She may be their sovereign ruler. Also 
 they often hang their female malefactors, instead of 
 drowning them decently as other nations use. The fur- 
 niture in their inns is walnut, in Germany only deal. 
 French windows are ill. The lower half is of wood, and 
 opens : the upper half is of glass, but fixed, so that the 
 servant cannot come at it to clean it. The German win- 
 dows are all glass, and movable, and shine far and near 
 like diamonds. In France many mean houses are not 
 glazed at all. Once I saw a Frenchman pass a church 
 without unbonneting. This I ne'er witnessed in Hol- 
 land, Germany, or Italy. At many inns they show the 
 traveller his sheets to give him assurance they are clean, 
 and warm them at the fire before him, — a laudable cus- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 93 
 
 torn. They receive him kindly and like a guest : they 
 mostly cheat him, and whiles cut his throat. They 
 plead in excuse hard and tyrannous laws. And true it 
 is their law thrusteth its nose into every platter, and its 
 finger into every pie. In France worshipful men wear 
 their hats and their furs in-doors, and go abroad lighter 
 clad. In Germany they don hat and furred cloak to go 
 abroad, but sit bareheaded and light clad round the 
 stove. 
 
 " The French intermix not the men and women folk 
 in assemblies, as we Hollanders use. Bound their 
 preachers the women sit on their heels in rows, and the 
 men stand behind them. Their harvests are rye, and 
 flax, and wine. Three mules shall you see to one horse, 
 and whole flocks of sheep as black as coal. 
 
 "In Germany the snails be red. I lie not. The 
 French buy minstrelsy, but breed jests, and make their 
 own mirth. The Germans foster their set fools with 
 ear-caps, which move them to laughter by simulating 
 madness, — a calamity that asks pity, not laughter. In 
 this particular I deem that lighter nation wiser than the 
 graver German. What sayest thou ? Alas ! canst not 
 answer me now. 
 
 " In Germany the petty laws are wondrous wise and 
 just : those against criminals, bloody ; in France bloodier 
 still, and executed a trifle more cruelly there. Here the 
 wheel is common, and the fiery stake ; and under this 
 king they drown men by the score in Paris river, Seine 
 yclept. But the English are as peremptory in hanging 
 and drowning for a light fault ; so travellers report. 
 Finally, a true-hearted Frenchman, when ye chance on 
 one, is a man as near perfect as earth affords ; and such 
 a man is my Denys, spite of his foul mouth." 
 
 Denys. My foul mouth! Is that so writ, Master 
 Richart ? 
 
94 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Richart. Ay, in sooth ; see else. 
 Denys. (Inspecting the letter gravely.) I read not 
 the letter so. 
 Richart. How then ? 
 
 Denys. Hnmph ! ahem ! why, just the contrary. — He 
 added, "'Tis kittle work perusing of these black scratches 
 men are agreed to take for words. And I trow 'tis still 
 by guess you clerks do go, worthy sir. My foul mouth ! 
 This is the first time e'er I heard on't. Eh, mesdames ? " 
 
 But the females did not seize the opportunity he gave 
 them, and burst into a loud and general disclaimer. 
 Margaret blushed and said nothing : the other two bent 
 silently over their work wi th something very like a sly 
 smile. Denys inspected their countenances long and 
 carefully ; and the perusal was so satisfactory that he 
 turned with a tone of injured, but patient, innocence, 
 and bade Richart read on. 
 
 " The Italians are a polished and subtle people. They 
 judge a man, not by his habits, but his speech and gest- 
 ure. Here Sir Chough may by no means pass for falcon 
 gentle, as did I in Germany, pranked in my noble serv- 
 ant's feathers. Wisest of all nations in their singular 
 temperance of food and drink. Most foolish of all to 
 search strangers coming into their borders, and stay 
 them from bringing much money in. They should 
 rather invite it, and, like other nations, let the traveller 
 from taking of it out. Also here in Venice the dames 
 turn their black hair yellow by the sun and art, to be 
 wiser than Him who • made them. Ye enter no Italian 
 town without a bill of health, though now is no plague 
 in Europe. This peevishness is for extortion's sake. 
 The innkeepers cringe and fawn, and cheat, and, iD 
 country places, murder you. Yet will they give you 
 clean sheets by paying therefor. Delicate in eating, and 
 abhor from putting their hand in the plate : sooner they 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 95 
 
 will apply a crust or what not. They do even tell of 
 a cardinal at Kome which armeth his guest's left hand 
 with a little bifurcal dagger to hold the meat, while his 
 knife cutteth it. But methinks this, too, is to be wiser 
 than Him who made the hand so supple and prehensile." 
 
 Eli. I am of your mind, my lad. 
 
 " They are sore troubled with the itch ; and ointment 
 for it, unguento per la rogna, is cried at every corner of 
 Venice. From this my window I saw an urchin sell it 
 to three several dames in silken trains, and to two vel- 
 vet knights." 
 
 Catherine. Italy, my lass, I rede ye wash your body 
 i' the tub o' Sundays ; and then ye can put your hand i' 
 the plate o' Thursday withouten offence. 
 
 " Their bread is lovely white. Their meats they spoil 
 with sprinkling cheese over them. 0 perversity ! Their 
 salt is black : without a lie. In commerce these Vene- 
 tians are masters of the earth and sea, and govern their 
 territories wisely. Only one flaw I find; the same I 
 once heard a learned friar cast up against Plato his re- 
 public ; to wit, that here women are encouraged to venal 
 frailty, and do pay a tax to the state, which, not content 
 with silk and spice, and other rich and honest freights 
 good store, must trade in sin. Twenty thousand of these 
 Jezebels there be in Venice and Candia, and about, pam- 
 pered and honored for bringing strangers to the city, and 
 many live in princely palaces of their own. But herein 
 methinks the politic signors of Venice forget what King 
 David saith, ' Except the Lord keep the citie, the watch- 
 man waketh but in vain.' Also, in religion, they hang 
 their cloth according to the wind, siding now with the 
 Pope, now with the Turk, but ay with the god of trad- 
 ers, Mammon hight. Shall flower so cankered bloom to 
 the world's end? But since I speak of flowers, this 
 none may deny them, that they are most cunning in 
 
96 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 making roses and gilliflowers to blow unseasonably. In 
 summer they nip certain of the budding roses and water 
 them not. Then in winter they dig round these dis- 
 couraged plants, and put in cloves, and so with great art 
 rear sweet-scented roses, and bring them to market in 
 January. And did first learn this art of a cow. Buds 
 she grazed in summer, and they sprouted at Yule. 
 Women have sat in the doctors' chairs at their colleges, 
 But she that sat in St. Peter's was a German. Italy too, 
 for artful fountains and figures that move by water and 
 enact life. And next for fountains is Augsburg, where 
 they harness the foul knave Smoke to good Sir Spit, and 
 he turneth stout Master Roast. But lest any one place 
 should vaunt, two towns there be in Europe, which, 
 scorning giddy fountains, bring water tame in pipes to 
 every burgher's door, and he filleth his vessels with but 
 turning of a cock. One is London, so watered this many 
 a year by pipes of a league from Paddington, a neighbor- 
 ing city; and the other is the fair town of Lubeck. 
 Also the fierce English are reported to me wise in that 
 they will not share their land and flocks with wolves, 
 but have fairly driven those marauders into their mount- 
 ains. But neither in France, nor Germany, nor Italy, 
 is a wayfarer's life safe from the vagabones after sun- 
 down. I can hear of no glazed house in all Venice, but 
 only oiled linen and paper, and, behind these barbarian 
 eyelets, a wooden jalosy. Their name for a cowardly 
 assassin is ' a brave man,' and for an harlot, ' a courteous 
 person,' which is as much as to say that a woman's worst 
 vice, and a man's worst vice, are virtues. But I pray 
 God for little Holland that there an assassin may be 
 yclept an assassin, and an harlot an harlot till doomsday, 
 and then gloze foul faults with silken names who can ! " 
 
 Mi. (With a sigh.) He should have been a priest, 
 saving your presence, my poor lass. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 97 
 
 " Go to, peevish writer ; art tied smarting by the leg, 
 and may not see the beauties of Venice. So thy pen 
 kicketh all around like a wicked mule. 
 
 "January 16. Sweetheart, I must be brief and tell 
 thee but a part of that I have seen, for this day my 
 journal ends. To-night it sails for thee, and I, unhappy, 
 not with it, but to-morrow, in another ship, to Borne. 
 
 " Dear Margaret, I took a hand litter, and was carried 
 to St. Mark his church. Outside it, towards the market- 
 place, is a noble gallery, and above it four famous horses, 
 cut in brass by ancient Romans, and seem all moving, 
 and at the very next step must needs leap down on the 
 beholder. About the church are six hundred pillars of 
 marble, porphyry, and ophites. Inside is a treasure 
 greater than either at St. Denys, or Loretto, or Toledo. 
 Here a jewelled pitcher given the seigniory by a Persian 
 king, also the ducal cap blazing with jewels, and on its 
 crown a diamond and a chrysolite, each as big as an 
 almond : two golden crowns and twelve golden stomachers 
 studded with jewels, from Constantinople ; item, a mon- 
 strous sapphire ; item, a great diamond given by a French 
 king ; item, a prodigious carbuncle ; item, three unicorns' 
 horns. But what are these compared with the sacred 
 relics ? 
 
 " Dear Margaret, I stood and saw the brazen chest that 
 holds the body of St. Mark the Evangelist. I saw with 
 these eyes, and handled, his ring and his Gospel written 
 with his own hand, and all my travels seemed light : for 
 who am I that I should see such things ? Dear Margaret, 
 his sacred body was first brought from Alexandria by 
 merchants in 810, and then not prized as now ; for be- 
 tween 829, when this church was builded, and 1094, the 
 very place where it lay was forgotten. Then holy priests 
 fasted and prayed many days seeking for light, and lo, 
 the Evangelist's body brake at midnight through the 
 
98 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 marble and stood before theni. They fell to the earth : 
 but in the morning found the crevice the sacred body 
 had burst through, and peering through it saw him 
 lie. Then they took and laid him in his chest beneath 
 the altar, and carefully put back the stone with its 
 miraculous crevice, which crevice I saw, and shall gape 
 for a monument while the world lasts. After that they 
 showed me the Virgin's chair, it is of stone; also her 
 picture, painted by St. Luke, very dark, and the features 
 now scarce visible. This picture, in time of drought, they 
 carry in procession, and brings the rain. I wish I had 
 not seen it. Item, two pieces of marble spotted with 
 John the Baptist's blood ; item, a piece of the true cross 
 and of the pillar to which Christ was tied; item, the 
 rock struck by Moses, and wet to this hour ; also a stone 
 Christ sat on, preaching at Tyre ; but some say it is the 
 one the Patriarch Jacob laid his head on, and I hold 
 with them, by reason our Lord never preached at Tyre. 
 Going hence they showed me the state nursery for the 
 children of those aphrodisian dames, their favorites. 
 Here in the outer wall was a broad niche, and if they 
 bring them so little as they can squeeze them through it 
 alive, the bairn falls into a net inside, and the state takes 
 charge of it, but if too big, their mothers must even take 
 them home again, with whom abiding 'tis like to be mail 
 corvi mali ovum. Coming out of the church we met them 
 carrying in a corpse, with the feet and face bare. This I 
 then first learned is Venetian custom, and sure no other 
 town will ever rob them of it, nor of this that follows. 
 On a great porphyry slab in the piazza were three ghastly 
 heads rotting and tainting the air, and in their hot sum- 
 mers like to take vengeance with breeding of a plague. 
 These were traitors to the state, and a heavy price — two 
 thousand ducats — being put on each head, their friends 
 had slain them and brought all three to the slab, and so 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 99 
 
 sold blood of others and their own faith. No state buys 
 heads so many nor pays half so high a price for that sorry 
 merchandise. But what I most admired was to see over 
 against the duke's palace a fair gallows in alabaster, 
 reared express to hang him, and no other, for the least 
 treason to the state ; and there it stands in his eye whis- 
 pering him memento mori. I pondered, and owned these 
 signors my masters, who will let no man, not even their 
 sovereign, be above the common weal. Hard by, on a 
 wall, the workmen were just finishing, by order of the 
 seigniory, the stone effigy of a tragical and enormous 
 act enacted last year, yet on the wall looks innocent. 
 Here two gentlefolks whisper together, and there other 
 twain, their swords by their side. Four brethren were 
 they, which did on either side conspire to poison the 
 other two, and so halve their land in lieu of quartering 
 it; and at a mutual banquet these twain drugged the 
 wine, and those twain envenomed a marchpane, to such 
 good purpose, that the same afternoon lay four ' brave 
 men ' around one table grovelling in mortal agony, and 
 cursing of one another and themselves, and so concluded 
 miserably, and the land, for which they had lost their 
 immortal souls, went into another family. And why not ? 
 it could not go into a worse. 
 
 " But 0 sovereign wisdom of by-words ! how true they 
 put the ringer on each nation's, or particular's, fault. 
 
 ' Quand Italie sera sans poison 
 Et France sans trahison 
 Et l'Angleterre sans guerre, 
 Lors sera le monde sans terra.' " 
 
 Eichart explained this to Catherine, then proceeded: 
 " And after this they took me to the quay, and presently 
 I espied among the masts one garlanded with amaranth 
 flowers. < Take me thither/ said I, and I let my guide 
 
100 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 know the custom of our Dutch skippers to hoist flowers 
 to the mast-head when they are courting a maid. Oft 
 had I scoffed at this, saying, ' So then his wooing is the 
 earth's concern.' But now, so far from the Rotter, that 
 bunch at a mast-head made my heart leap with assurance 
 of a countryman. They carried me, and oh, Margaret ! 
 on the stern of that Dutch hoy, was writ in muckle 
 letters : 
 
 RlCHART ELIASSOEN, AMSTERDAM. 
 
 ( Put me down,' I said : £ for our Lady's sake put me 
 down.' I sat on the bank and looked, scarce believing 
 my eyes, and looked, and presently fell to crying, till I 
 could see the words no more. All me, how they went to 
 my heart, those bare letters in a foreign land. Dear 
 Richart ! good kind brother Richart ! often have I sat on 
 his knee and rid on his back. Kisses many has he given 
 me, unkind word from him had I never. And there was 
 his name on his own ship, and his face and all his grave 
 but good and gentle ways came back to me, and I sobbed 
 vehemently, and cried aloud, * Why, why is not brother 
 Richart here, and not his name only ? ' I spake in 
 Dutch, for my heart was too full to hold their foreign 
 tongues, and " — 
 
 Mi. Well, Richart, go on, lad, prithee go on. Is this 
 a place to halt at ? 
 
 Richart. Father, with my duty to you, it is easy to 
 say Go on, but think ye I am not flesh and blood ? The 
 poor boy's — simple grief and brotherly love coming — so 
 sudden — on me, they go through my heart and — I 
 cannot go on : sink me if I can even see the words, 'tis 
 writ so fine. 
 
 Denys. Courage, good Master Richart ! Take your 
 time. Here are more eyne wet than yours. Ah, little 
 comrade ! would God thou wert here, and I at Venice for 
 thee. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 101 
 
 Richart. Poor little curly-headed lad, what had he 
 done thai lye have driven him so far ? 
 
 "That is what I fain would know," said Catherine, 
 dryly, then fell to weeping and rocking herself, with her 
 apron over her head. 
 
 "Kind dame, good friends," said Margaret, trembling, 
 " let me tell you how the letter ends. The skipper hear- 
 ing our Gerard speak his grief in Dutch, accosted him, 
 and spake comfortably to him ; and after a while our 
 Gerard found breath to say he was worthy Master 
 Richart's brother. Thereat was the good skipper all 
 agog to serve him." 
 
 Richart. So ! so ! skipper ! Master Richart aforesaid 
 will be at thy wedding and bring's purse to boot. 
 
 Margaret. Sir, he told Gerard of his consort that 
 was to sail that very night for Rotterdam ; and dear 
 Gerard had to go home and finish his letter and bring 
 it to the ship. And the rest, it is but his poor dear 
 words of love to me, the which, an't please you, I think 
 shame to hear them read aloud, and ends with the lines 
 I sent to Mistress Kate, and they would sound so harsh 
 now and ungrateful. 
 
 The pleading tone, as much as the words, prevailed, 
 and Richart said he would read no more aloud, but run 
 his eye over it for his own brotherly satisfaction. She 
 blushed and looked uneasy, but made no reply. 
 
 " Eli," said Catherine, still sobbing a little, " tell me, 
 for our Lady's sake, how our poor boy is to live at that 
 nasty Rome. He is gone there to write, but here be his 
 own words to prove writing avails nought ; a had died 
 o' hunger by the way but for paint-brush and psaltery. 
 Well-a-day ! " 
 
 " Well," said Eli, " he has got brush and music still. 
 Besides, so many men so many minds. Writing, thof it 
 had no sale in other parts, may be merchandise at Rome." 
 
102 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Father," said little Kate, " have I your good leave to 
 put in my word 'twixt mother and you ? " 
 "And welcome, little heart." 
 
 " Then, seems to me, painting and music, close at hand, 
 be stronger than writing, but being distant, nought to 
 compare ; for see what glamour written paper hath done 
 here but now. Our Gerard, writing at Venice, hath 
 verily put his hand into this room at Eotterdam, and 
 turned all our hearts. Ay, dear dear Gerard, methinks 
 thy spirit hath rid hither on these thy paper wings ; and 
 oh ! dear father, why not do as we should do were he 
 here in the body ? " 
 
 " Kate," said Eli, " fear not ; Eichart and I will give 
 him glamour for glamour. We will write him a letter, 
 and send it to Eome by a sure hand with money, and bid 
 him home on the instant." 
 
 Cornells and Sybrant exchanged a gloomy look. 
 
 " Ah, good father ! And meantime ? " 
 
 " Well, meantime ? " 
 
 " Dear father, dear mother, what can we do to pleasure 
 the absent, but be kind to his poor lass ; and her own 
 trouble afore her ? " 
 
 "'Tis well!" said Eli; "but I am older than thou." 
 Then he turned gravely to Margaret : " Wilt answer me 
 a question, my pretty mistress ? " 
 
 " If I may, sir," faltered Margaret. 
 
 " What are these marriage lines Gerard speaks of in 
 the letter ? " 
 
 " Our marriage lines, sir. His and mine. Know you 
 not that we are betrothed ? " 
 " Before witnesses ? " 
 
 "Ay, sure. My poor father and Martin Wittenhaagen." 
 " This is the first I ever heard of it. How came they 
 in his hands ? They should be in yours." 
 
 " Alas, sir, the more is my grief ; but I ne'er doubted 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 103 
 
 hini : and he said it was a comfort to him to have them 
 in his bosom." 
 
 " Y' are a very foolish lass." 
 
 " Indeed I was, sir. But trouble teaches the simple." 
 
 "'Tis a good answer. Well, foolish or no, y'are 
 honest. I had shown ye more respect at first, but I 
 thought y'had been his leman, and that is the truth." 
 
 " God forbid, sir ! Denys, methinks 'tis time for us to 
 go. Give me my letter, sir ! " 
 
 " Bide ye ! bide ye ! be not so hot for a word ! Nathe- 
 less, wife, methinks her red cheek becomes her." 
 
 " Better than it did you to give it her, my man." 
 
 " Softly, wife, softly. I am not counted an unjust 
 man thof I be somewhat slow." 
 
 Here Eichart broke in. " Why, mistress, did ye shed 
 your blood for our Gerard ? " 
 
 " Not I, sir. But maybe I would." 
 
 " Nay, nay. But he says you did. Speak sooth, now ! " 
 
 " Alas ! I know not what ye mean. I rede ye believe 
 not all that my poor lad says of me. Love makes him 
 blind." 
 
 "Traitress!" cried Denys. "Let her not throw dust 
 in thine eyes, Master Richart. Old Martin tells me — ye 
 need not make signals to me, she-comrade ; I am as blind 
 as love. Martin tells me she cut her arm, and let her 
 blood flow, and smeared her heels when Gerard was hunted 
 by the bloodhounds, to turn the scent from her lad." 
 
 " Well, and if I did, 'twas my own, and spilled for the 
 good of my own," said Margaret, defiantly. But, Cath- 
 erine suddenly clasping her, she began to cry at having 
 found a bosom to cry on, of one who would have also 
 shed her blood for Gerard in danger. 
 
 Eli rose from his chair. " Wife," said he, solemnly, 
 " you will set another chair at our table for every meal : 
 also another plate and knife. They will be for Margaret 
 
104 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 and Peter. She will come when she likes, and stay 
 away when she pleases. None may take her place at my 
 left hand. Such as can welcome her are welcome to me. 
 Such as cannot, I force them not to bide with me. The 
 world is wide and free. Within my walls I am master, 
 and my son's betrothed is welcome.'' 
 
 Catherine bustled out to prepare supper. Eli and 
 Eichart sat down and concocted a letter to bring Gerard 
 home. Eichart promised it should go by sea to Eome 
 that very week. Sybrandt and Cornells exchanged a 
 gloomy wink, and stole out. Margaret, seeing Giles 
 deep in meditation, for the dwarf's intelligence had taken 
 giant's strides, asked him to bring her the letter. " You 
 have heard but half, good Master Giles," said she. " Shall 
 I read you the rest ? " 
 
 " I shall be much beholden to you," shouted the courtier. 
 
 She gave him her stool : curiosity bowed his pride to 
 sit on it : and Margaret murmured the first part of the 
 letter into his ear very low, not to disturb Eli and 
 Eichart. And, to do this, she leaned forward and put her 
 lovely face cheek by jowl with Giles's hideous one : a 
 strange contrast, and worth a painter's while to try and 
 represent. And in this attitude Catherine found her, 
 and all the mother warmed towards her, and she ex- 
 changed an eloquent glance with little Kate. 
 
 The latter smiled, and sewed, with drooping lashes. 
 
 " Get him home on the instant," roared Giles. " I'll 
 make a man of him. I can do aught with the duke." 
 
 " Hear the boy ! " said Catherine, half comically, half 
 proudly. 
 
 " We hear him," said Eichart ; " a mostly makes him- 
 self heard when a do speak." 
 
 Sybrandt. Which will get to him first ? 
 Cornells (gloomily). Who can tell ? 
 
A STRANGE CONTRAST, AND WORTH A PAINTER'S WHILE. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 105 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 About two months before this scene in Eli's home, the 
 natives of a little maritime place between Naples and 
 Rome might be seen nocking to the sea beach, with eyes 
 cast seaward at a ship, that labored against a stiff gale 
 blowing dead on the shore. 
 
 At times she seemed likely to weather the danger, and 
 then the spectators congratulated her aloud: at others 
 the wind and sea drove her visibly nearer, and the lookers- 
 on were not without a secret satisfaction they would not 
 have owned even to themselves. 
 
 Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas 
 Sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est. 
 
 And the poor ship, though not scientifically built for sail- 
 ing, was admirably constructed for going ashore, with 
 her extravagant poop that caught the wind, and her 
 lines like a cocked hat reversed. To those on the beach 
 that battered laboring frame of wood seemed alive, and 
 struggling against death with a panting heart. But 
 could they have been transferred to her deck they would 
 have seen she had not one beating heart but many, and 
 not one nature but a score were coming out clear in that 
 fearful hour. 
 
 The mariners stumbled wildly about the deck, hand- 
 ling the ropes as each thought fit, and cursing and pray- 
 ing alternately. 
 
 The passengers were huddled together round the mast, 
 some sitting, some kneeling, some lying prostrate, and 
 grasping the bulwarks as the vessel rolled and pitched iu 
 
106 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 the mighty waves. One comely young man, whose ashy 
 cheek, but compressed lips, showed how hard terror was 
 battling in him with self-respect, stood a little apart, 
 holding tight by a shroud, and wincing at each sea. It 
 was the ill-fated Gerard. Meantime prayers and vows 
 rose from the trembling throng amidships, and, to hear 
 them, it seemed there were almost as many gods about 
 as men and women. The sailors, indeed, relied on a 
 single goddess. They varied her titles only, calling on 
 her as " Queen of Heaven," " Star of the Sea," " Mistress 
 of the World," "Haven of Safety." But among the 
 landsmen polytheism raged. Even those who by some 
 strange chance hit on the same divinity did not hit on 
 the same edition of that divinity. An English merchant 
 vowed a heap of gold to our Lady of Walsingham. But 
 a Genoese merchant vowed a silver collar of four pounds 
 to our Lady of Loretto ; and a Tuscan noble promised ten 
 pounds of wax lights to our Lady of Bavenna ; and with 
 a similar rage for diversity they pledged themselves, not 
 on the true Cross, but on the true Cross in this, that, or 
 the other, modern city. 
 
 Suddenly a more powerful gust than usual catching the 
 sail at a disadvantage, the rotten shrouds gave way, and 
 the sail was torn out with a loud crack and went down 
 the wind smaller and smaller, blacker and blacker, and 
 fluttered into the sea, half a mile off, like a sheet of 
 paper, and, ere the helmsman could put the ship's head 
 before the wind, a wave caught her on the quarter and 
 drenched the poor wretches to the bone, and gave them a 
 foretaste of chill death. Then one vowed aloud to turn 
 Carthusian monk, if St. Thomas would save him. Another 
 would go a pilgrim to Compostella, bareheaded, bare- 
 footed, with nothing but a coat of mail on his naked 
 skin, if St. James would save him. Others invoked 
 Thomas, Dominic, Denys, and, above all, Catherine of 
 Sienna. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 107 
 
 Two petty Neapolitan traders stood shivering. 
 
 One shouted at the top of his voice, "I vow to St. 
 Christopher at Paris a waxen image of his own weight, 
 if I win safe to land." 
 
 On this the other nudged him, and said, "Brother, 
 brother, take heed what you vow. Why, if you sell all 
 you have in the world by public auction, 'twill not buy 
 his weight in wax." 
 
 "Hold your tongue, you fool," said the vociferator. 
 Then in a whisper : 
 
 " Think ye I am in earnest ? Let me but win safe to 
 land, I'll not give him a rush dip." 
 
 Others lay flat and prayed to the sea. " 0 most merci- 
 ful sea ! 0 sea most generous ! 0 bountiful sea ! 0 
 beautiful sea! be gentle, be kind, preserve us in this 
 hour of peril." 
 
 And others wailed and moaned in mere animal terror 
 each time the ill-fated ship rolled or pitched more 
 terribly than usual ; and she was now a mere plaything 
 in the arms of the tremendous waves. 
 
 A Eoman woman of the humbler class sat with her 
 child at her half-bared breast, silent amid that wailing 
 throng : her cheek ashy pale ; her eyes calm ; and her 
 lips moved at times in silent prayer, but she neither 
 wept, nor lamented, nor bargained with the gods. When- 
 ever the ship seemed really gone under their feet, and 
 bearded men squeaked, she kissed her child ; but that was 
 all. And so she sat patient, and suckled him in death's 
 jaws; for why should he lose any joy she could give 
 him ; moribundo ? Ay, there, do I believe, sat antiquity 
 among those medisevals. Sixteen hundred years had not 
 tainted the old Eoman blood in her veins; and the 
 instinct of a race she had perhaps scarce heard of 
 taught her to die with decent dignity. 
 
 A gigantic friar stood on the poop with feet apart. 
 
108 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 like the Colossus of Khodes, not so nmeh defying, as 
 ignoring, the peril that surrounded him. He recited 
 verses from the Canticles with a loud unwavering voice ; 
 and invited the passengers to confess to him. Some did 
 so on their knees, and he heard them, and laid his hands 
 on them, and absolved them as if he had been in a snug 
 sacristy, instead of a perishing ship. Gerard got nearer 
 and nearer to him, by the instinct that takes the waver- 
 ing to the side of the impregnable. And, in truth, the 
 courage of heroes facing fleshly odds might have paled 
 by the side of that gigantic friar, and his still more 
 gigantic composure. Thus, even here, two were found 
 who maintained the dignity of our race : a woman, tender, 
 yet heroic, and a monk steeled by religion against mortal 
 fears. 
 
 And now, the sail being gone, the sailors cut down the 
 useless mast a foot above the board, and it fell with its 
 remaining hamper over the ship's side. This seemed to 
 relieve her a little. 
 
 But now the hull, no longer impelled by canvas, could 
 not keep ahead of the sea. It struck her again and again 
 on the poop, and the tremendous blows seemed given by 
 a rocky mountain, not by a liquid. 
 
 The captain left the helm and came amidships pale as 
 death. " Lighten her," he cried. " Fling all overboard, 
 or we shall founder ere we strike, and lose the one little 
 chance we have of life." While the sailors were execut- 
 ing this order, the captain, pale himself, and surrounded 
 by pale faces that demanded to know their fate, was 
 talking as unlike an English skipper in like peril as can 
 well be imagined. u Friends," said he, "last night when 
 all was fair, too fair, alas ! there came a globe of fire 
 close to the ship. When a pair of them come it is good 
 luck, and nought can drown her that voyage. We mari- 
 ners call these fiery globes Castor and Pollux. But if 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 109 
 
 Castor come without Pollux, or Pollux without Castor, 
 she is doomed. Therefore, like good Christians, prepare 
 to die." 
 
 These words were received with a loud wail. 
 
 To a trembling inquiry how long they had to prepare, 
 the captain replied, " She may, or may not, last half an 
 hour ; over that, impossible ; she leaks like a sieve ; 
 bustle, men, lighten her." 
 
 The poor passengers seized on everything that was on 
 deck and flung it overboard. Presently they laid hold of 
 a heavy sack ; an old man was lying on it, sea-sick. 
 They lugged it from under him. It rattled. Two of 
 them drew it to the side ; up started the owner, and, 
 with an unearthly shriek, pounced on it. " Holy Moses ! 
 what would you do ? 'Tis my all ; 'tis the whole fruits 
 of my journey ; silver candlesticks, silver plates, brooches, 
 hanaps " — 
 
 " Let go, thou hoary villain," cried the others ; " shall 
 all our lives be lost for thy ill-gotten gear ? " " Fling 
 him in with it," cried one ; " 'tis this Ebrew we Chris- 
 tian men are drowned for." Numbers soon wrenched it 
 from him, and heaved it over the side. It splashed into 
 the waves. Then its owner uttered one cry of anguish, 
 and stood glaring, his white hair streaming in the wind, 
 and was going to leap after it, and would, had it floated. 
 But it sank, and was gone forever ; and he staggered to 
 and fro, tearing his hair, and cursed them and the ship, 
 and the sea, and all the powers of heaven and hell 
 alike. 
 
 And now the captain cried out : " See, there is a church 
 in sight. Steer for that church, mate, and you, friends, 
 pray to the saint, whoe'er he be." 
 
 So they steered for the church and prayed to the 
 unknown god it was named after. A tremendous sea 
 pooped them, broke the rudder, and jammed it immova- 
 ble, and flooded the deck. 
 
110 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Then wild with superstitious terror some of them 
 came round Gerard. "Here is the cause of all," they 
 cried. " He has never invoked a single saint. He is a 
 heathen ; here is a pagan aboard." 
 
 "Alas, good friends, say not so," said Gerard, his 
 teeth chattering with cold and fear. " Eather call these 
 heathens, that lie a-praying to the sea. Friends, I do 
 honor the saints, — but I dare not pray to them now, — 
 there is no time — (oh !) what avail me Dominic, and 
 Thomas, and Catherine ? Nearer God's throne than these 
 St. Peter sitteth ; and, if I pray to him, it's odd, but I 
 shall be drowned ere he has time to plead my cause with 
 God. Oh! oh! oh! I must need go straight to Him 
 that made the sea, and the saints, and me. Our Father, 
 which art in heaven, save these poor souls and me that 
 cry for the bare life ! Oh, sweet Jesus, pitiful Jesus, 
 that didst walk Genezaret when Peter sank, and wept for 
 Lazarus dead when the apostles' eyes were dry, oh, save 
 poor Gerard — for dear Margaret's sake ! " 
 
 At this moment the sailors were seen preparing to 
 desert the sinking ship in the little boat, which even at 
 that epoch every ship carried ; then there was a rush of 
 egotists ; and thirty souls crowded into it. Remained 
 behind three who were bewildered, and two who were 
 paralyzed, with terror. The paralyzed sat like heaps of 
 wet rags, the bewildered ones ran to and fro, and saw the 
 thirty egotists put off, but made no attempt to join them : 
 only kept running to and fro, and wringing their hands. 
 Besides these there was one on his knees praying over 
 the wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, as large as life, 
 which the sailors had reverently detached from the mast. 
 It washed about the deck, as the water came slushing in 
 from the sea, and pouring out at the scuppers ; and this 
 poor soul kept following it on his knees, with his hands 
 clasped at it, and the water playing with it. And there 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. Ill 
 
 was the J ew palsied, but not by fear. He was no longer 
 capable of so petty a passion. He sat cross-legged, 
 bemoaning his bag, and, whenever the spray lashed him, 
 shook his fist at where it came from, and cursed the 
 Nazarenes, and their gods, and their devils, and their 
 ships, and their waters, to all eternity. 
 
 And the gigantic Dominican, having shriven the whole 
 ship, stood calmly communing with his own spirit. And 
 the Roman woman sat pale and patient, only drawing 
 her child closer to her bosom as death came nearer. 
 
 Gerard saw this, and it awakened his manhood. " See ! 
 see ! " he said, " they have ta'en the boat and left tha 
 poor woman and her child to perish.'' 
 
 His heart soon set his wit working. 
 
 "Wife, I'll save thee yet, please God." And he ran to 
 find a cask or a plank to float her. There was none. 
 
 Then his eye fell on the wooden image of the Virgin. 
 He caught it up in his arms, and, heedless of a wail that 
 issued from its worshipper like a child robbed of its toy, 
 ran aft with it. " Come, wife," he cried. " I'll lash thee 
 and the child to this. 'Tis sore worm-eaten, but 'twill 
 serve." 
 
 She turned her great dark eye on him and said a 
 single word : 
 "Thyself?" 
 
 But with wonderful magnanimity and tenderness. 
 
 " I am a man, and have no child to take care of." 
 
 " Ah ! " said she, and his words seemed to animate her 
 face with a desire to live. He lashed the image to her 
 side. Then with the hope of life she lost something of 
 her heroic calm ; not much : her body trembled a little, 
 but not her eye. 
 
 The ship was now so low in the water that by using 
 an oar as a lever he could slide her into the waves. 
 
 " Come," said he, " while yet there is time." 
 
112 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 She turned her great Roman eyes, wet now, upon him. 
 " Poor youth ! — God forgive me ! — My child ! " And 
 he launched her on the surge, and with his oar kept her 
 from being battered against the ship. 
 
 A heavy hand fell on him ; a deep sonorous voice 
 sounded in his ear : " 'Tis well. Now come with me." 
 
 It was the gigantic friar. 
 
 Gerard turned, and the friar took two strides, and laid 
 hold of the broken mast. Gerard did the same, obeying 
 him instinctively. Between them, after a prodigious 
 effort, they hoisted up the remainder of the mast, and 
 carried it off. " Fling it in," said the friar, " and follow 
 it." They flung it in; but one of the bewildered, pass- 
 engers had run after them, and jumped first and got on 
 one end. Gerard seized the other, the friar the middle. 
 
 It was a terrible situation. The mast rose and plunged 
 with each wave like a kicking horse, and the spray 
 flogged their faces mercilessly, and blinded them : to 
 help knock them off. 
 
 Presently was heard a long grating noise ahead. The 
 ship had struck, and soon after, she being stationary 
 now, they were hurled against her with tremendous 
 force. Their companion's head struck against the upper 
 part of the broken rudder with a horrible crack, and was 
 smashed like a cocoa-nut by a sledge-hammer. He sunk 
 directly, leaving no trace but a red stain on the water, 
 and a white clot on the jagged rudder, and a death cry 
 ringing in their ears, as they drifted clear under the lee 
 of the black hull. The friar uttered a short Latin prayer 
 for the safety of his soul, and took his place composedly. 
 They rolled along tine* Ouvaioio ; one moment they saw 
 nothing, and seemed down in a mere basin of watery 
 hills : the next they caught glimpses of the shore 
 speckled bright with people, who kept throwing up their 
 arms with wild Italian gestures to encourage them, and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 113 
 
 the black boat driving bottom upwards, and between it 
 and them the woman rising and falling like themselves. 
 She had come across a paddle, and was holding her child 
 tight with her left arm, and paddling gallantly with her 
 right. 
 
 When they had tumbled along thus for a long time, 
 suddenly the friar said quietly: "I touched the ground." 
 
 " Impossible, father," said Gerard, " we are more than 
 a hundred yards from shore. Prithee, prithee, leave not 
 our faithful mast." 
 
 " My son," said the friar, " you speak prudently. But 
 know that I have business of holy Church on hand, and 
 may not waste time floating when I can walk, in her serv- 
 ice. There, I felt it with my toes again ; see the bene- 
 fit of wearing sandals, and not shoon. Again; and 
 sandy. Thy stature is less than mine ; keep to the 
 mast ! I walk." He left the mast accordingly, and ex- 
 tending his powerful arms, rushed through the water. 
 Gerard soon followed him. At each overpowering wave 
 the monk stood like a tower, and closing his mouth, 
 threw his head back to encounter it, and was entirely 
 lost under it awhile ; then emerged, and ploughed lustily 
 on. At last they came close to the shore ; but the suc- 
 tion outward baffled all their attempts to land. Then 
 the natives sent stout fishermen into the sea, holding 
 by long spears in a triple chain ; and so dragged them 
 ashore. 
 
 The friar shook himself, bestowed a short paternal 
 benediction on the natives, and went on to Eome, with 
 eyes bent on earth, according to his rule, and without 
 pausing. He did not even cast a glance back upon that 
 sea, which had so nearly engulfed him, but had no power 
 to harm him without his Master's leave. 
 
 While he stalks on alone to Eome without looking 
 back, I, who am not in the service of holy Church, stop 
 8 
 
114 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 a moment to say that the reader and I were within six 
 inches of this giant once before ; but we escaped him 
 that time. Now, I fear, we are in for him. Gerard 
 grasped every hand upon the beach. They brought him 
 to an enormous fire, and with a delicacy he would hardly 
 have encountered in the north, left him to dry himself 
 alone ; on this he took out of his bosom a parchment, 
 and a paper, and dried them carefully. When this was 
 done to his mind, and not till then, he consented to put 
 on a fisherman's dress and leave his own by the fire, and 
 went down to the beach. What he saw may be briefly 
 related. 
 
 The captain stuck by the ship, not so much from 
 gallantry, as from a conviction that it was idle to resist 
 Castor or Pollux, whichever it was that had come for 
 him in a ball of fire. 
 
 Nevertheless the sea broke up the ship and swept the 
 poop, captain and all, clear of the rest, and took him safe 
 ashore. Gerard had a principal hand in pulling him out 
 of the water. The disconsolate Hebrew landed on 
 another fragment, and on touching earth, offered a re- 
 ward for his bag, which excited little sympathy, but 
 some amusement. Two more were saved on pieces of 
 the wreck. The thirty egotists came ashore, but one at 
 a time, and dead ; one breathed still. Him, the natives, 
 with excellent intentions, took to a hot fire. So then he 
 too retired from this shifting scene. 
 
 As Gerard stood by the sea, watching, with horror and 
 curiosity mixed, his late companions washed ashore, a 
 hand was laid lightly on his shoulder. He turned. It 
 was the Roman matron, burning with womanly grati- 
 tude. She took his hand gently, and raising it slowly 
 to her lips, kissed it ; but so nobly, she seemed to be 
 conferring an honor on one deserving hand. Then, with 
 face all beaming and moist eyes, she held her child up, 
 and made him kiss his preserver. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 115 
 
 Gerard kissed the child; more than once. He was 
 fond of children. But he said nothing. He was much 
 moved ; for she did not speak at all, except with her 
 eyes, and glowing cheeks, and noble antique gesture, so 
 large and stately. Perhaps she was right. Gratitude is 
 not a thing of words. It was an ancient Eoman matron 
 thanking a modern from her heart of hearts. 
 
 Next day, towards afternoon, Gerard — twice as old 
 as last year, thrice as learned in human ways, a boy no 
 more, but a man who had shed blood in self-defence, and 
 grazed the grave by land and sea — reached the eternal 
 city ; post tot naufragia tutus. 
 
116 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Gerard took a modest lodging on the west bank of 
 the Tiber, and every day went forth in search of work, 
 taking a specimen round to every shop he could hear of 
 that executed such commissions. 
 
 They received him coldly. "We make our letter 
 somewhat thinner than this," said one. " How dark 
 your ink is," said another. But the main cry was, 
 " What avails this ? Scant is the Latin writ here now. 
 Can ye not write Greek ? " 
 
 " Ay, but not nigh so well as Latin." 
 
 " Then you shall never make your bread at Borne." 
 
 Gerard borrowed a beautiful Greek manuscript at a 
 high price, and went home with a sad hole in his purse, 
 but none in his courage. 
 
 In a fortnight he had made vast progress with the 
 Greek character ; so then, to lose no time, he used to 
 work at it till noon, and hunt customers the rest of the 
 day. 
 
 When he carried round a better Greek specimen than 
 any they possessed, the traders informed him that Greek 
 and Latin were alike unsalable ; the city was thronged 
 with works from all Europe. He should have come last 
 year. 
 
 Gerard bought a psaltery. 
 
 His landlady, pleased with his looks and manners, 
 used often to speak a kind word in passing. One day 
 she made him dine with her, and somewhat to his sur- 
 prise asked him what had dashed his spirits. He told 
 \ei. She gave him her reading of the matter. " Those 
 
the cloister and the hearth. 
 
 11? 
 
 siy traders, she would be bound, had writers in their 
 pay for whose work they received a noble price and paid 
 a sorry one. So no wonder they blow cold on you. Me- 
 thinks you write too well. How know I that ? say you. 
 Marry — marry, because you lock not your door, like the 
 churl Pietro, and women will be curious. Ay, ay, you 
 write too well for themP 
 
 Gerard asked an explanation. 
 
 " Why," said she, " your good work might put out the 
 eyes of that they are selling." 
 
 Gerard sighed. " Alas ! dame, you read folk on the 
 ill side, and you so kind and frank yourself." 
 
 " My dear little heart, these Romans are a subtle race. 
 Me ? I am a Siennese, thanks to the Virgin." 
 
 " My mistake was leaving Augsburg," said Gerard. 
 
 " Augsburg ? " said she, haughtily ; " is that a place to 
 even to Rome ? I never heard of it, for my part." 
 
 She then assured him that he should make his fortune 
 in spite of the booksellers. "Seeing thee a stranger, 
 they lie to thee without sense or discretion. Why, all 
 the world knows that our great folk are bitten with the 
 writing spider this many years, and pour out their 
 money like water, and turn good land and houses into 
 writ sheepskins to keep in a chest or a cupboard. God 
 help them, and send them safe through this fury, as He 
 hath through a heap of others ; and in sooth hath been 
 somewhat less cutting and stabbing among rival fac- 
 tions, and vindictive eating of their opposites' livers, 
 minced and fried, since scribbling came in. Why, / can 
 tell you two. There is his Eminence Cardinal Bassarion, 
 and his Holiness the Pope himself. There be a pair 
 could keep a score such as thee a-writing night and day. 
 But I'll speak to Teresa; she hears the gossip of the 
 court." 
 
 The next day she told him she had seen Teresa, and 
 
118 THE CLOISTER AH£> THE HEARTH. 
 
 had heard of five more signors who were bitten with the 
 writing spider. Gerard took down their names, and 
 bought parchment, and busied himself for some days in 
 preparing specimens. He left one, with his name and 
 address, at each of these signors' doors, and hopefully- 
 awaited the result. 
 There was none. 
 
 Day after day passed and left him heartsick. 
 
 And strange to say this was just the time when 
 Margaret was fighting so hard against odds to feed her 
 male dependents at Botterdam, and arrested for curing 
 without a license instead of killing with one. 
 
 Gerard saw ruin staring him in the face. 
 
 He spent the afternoons picking up canzonets and 
 mastering them. He laid in playing cards to color, and 
 struck off a meal per day. 
 
 This last stroke of genius got him into fresh trou- 
 ble. 
 
 In these "camere locande" the landlady dressed all 
 the meals, though the lodgers bought the provisions. So 
 Gerard's hostess speedily detected him, and asked him 
 if he was not ashamed himself ; by which brusque open- 
 ing, having made him blush and look scared, she pacified 
 herself all in a moment, and appealed to his good sense 
 whether adversity was a thing to be overcome on an 
 empty stomach. 
 
 " Fatienza, my lad ! times will mend, meantime I will 
 feed you for the love of heaven " (Italian for " gratis "). 
 
 "Nay, hostess," said Gerard, "my purse is not yet 
 quite void, and it would add to my trouble an if true folk 
 should lose their due by me." 
 
 " Why, you are as mad as your neighbor Pietro, with 
 his one bad picture." 
 
 " Why, how know you 'tis a bad picture ? " 
 
 " Because nobody will buy it. There is one that hath 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 119 
 
 no gift. He will have to don casque and glaive, and 
 carry his panel for a shield." 
 
 Gerard pricked up his ears at this : so she told him 
 more. Pietro had come from Florence with money in 
 his purse, and an unfinished picture ; had taken her one 
 unfurnished room, opposite Gerard's, and furnished it 
 neatly. When his picture was finished, he received 
 visitors and had offers for it; these, though in her opin- 
 ion liberal ones, he had refused so disdainfully as to 
 make enemies of his customers. Since then he had 
 often taken it out with him to try and sell, but had 
 always brought it back ; and, the last month, she had seen 
 one movable after another go out of his room, and now 
 he wore but one suit, and lay at night on a great chest. 
 She had found this out only by peeping through the key- 
 hole, for he locked the door most vigilantly whenever 
 he went out. " Is he afraid we shall steal his chest, or 
 his picture, that no soul in all Rome is weak enough to 
 buy ? " 
 
 " Nay, sweet hostess, see you not 'tis his poverty he 
 would screen from view ? " 
 
 " And the more fool he ! Are all our hearts as ill as 
 his ? A might give us a trial first any way." 
 
 " How you speak of him ! Why, his case is mine ; and 
 your countryman to boot." 
 
 " Oh, we Siennese love strangers. His case yours ? 
 nay, 'tis just the contrary. You are the comeliest youth 
 ever lodged in this house ; hair like gold : he is a dark, 
 sour-visaged loon. Besides, you know how to take a 
 woman on her better side ; but not he. Natheless I wish 
 he would not starve to death in my house, to get me a 
 bad name. Any way, one starveling is enough in any 
 house. You are far from home, and it is for me, which 
 am the mistress here, to number your meals — for me 
 and the Dutch wife, your mother, that is far away : we 
 
120 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 two women shall settle that matter. Mind thou thine 
 own business, being a man, and leave cooking and the 
 like to us, that are in the world for little else that I see 
 but to roast fowls, and suckle men at starting, and sweep 
 their grown-up cobwebs." 
 
 "Dear kind dame, in sooth you do often put me in 
 mind of my mother that is far away." 
 
 " All the better ; I'll put you more in mind of her 
 before I have done with you." And the honest soul 
 beamed with pleasure. 
 
 Gerard not being an egotist, nor blinded by female 
 partialities, saw his own grief in poor proud Pietro ; and 
 the more he thought of it, the more he resolved to share 
 his humble means with that unlucky artist; Pietro's 
 sympathy would repay him. He tried to waylay him : 
 but without success. 
 
 One day he heard a groaning in the room. He knocked 
 at the door, but received no answer. He knocked again. 
 A surly voice bade him enter. 
 
 He obeyed somewhat timidly, and entered a garret 
 furnished with a chair, a picture, face to wall, an iron 
 basin, an easel, and a long chest, on which was coiled a 
 haggard young man with a wonderfully bright eye. Any- 
 thing more like a coiled cobra ripe for striking the first 
 comer was never seen. 
 
 " Good Signor Pietro," said Gerard, " forgive me that, 
 weary of my own solitude, I intrude on yours ; but I am 
 your nighest neighbor in this house, and methinks your 
 brother in fortune. I am an artist, too." 
 
 " You are a painter ? Welcome, signor. Sit down on 
 my bed." 
 
 And Pietro jumped off and waved him into the vacant 
 throne with a magnificent demonstration of courtesy. 
 
 Gerard bowed and smiled, but hesitated a little. " I 
 may not call myself a painter. I am a writer, a calli- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 121 
 
 graph. I copy Greek and Latin manuscripts, when I can 
 get them to copy." 
 
 " And you call that an artist ! " 
 
 " Without offence to your superior merit, Signor 
 Pietro." 
 
 " No offence, stranger, none. Only, meseemeth, an art- 
 ist is one who thinks, and paints his thought. Now a 
 calligraph but draws in black and white the thoughts of 
 another." 
 
 "'Tis well distinguished, signor. But then, a writer 
 can write the thoughts of the great ancients, and matters 
 of pure reason, such as no man may paint : ay, and the 
 thoughts of God, which angels could not paint. But let 
 that pass. I am a painter as well ; but a sorry one." 
 
 " The better thy luck. They will buy thy work in 
 Rome." 
 
 " But seeking to commend myself to one of thy emi- 
 nence, I thought it well rather to call myself a capable 
 writer than a scurvy painter." 
 
 At this moment a step was heard on the stair. " Ah ! 
 'tis the good dame," cried Gerard. " What ho ! hostess, 
 1 am here in conversation with Signor Pietro. I dare 
 say he will let me have my humble dinner here." 
 
 The Italian bowed gravely. 
 
 The landlady brought in Gerard's dinner smoking and 
 savory. She put the dish down on the bed with a face 
 divested of all expression, and went. 
 
 Gerard fell to. But ere he had eaten many mouthfuls, 
 he stopped, and said : " I am an ill-mannered churl, 
 Signor Pietro. I ne'er eat to my mind, when I eat 
 alone. For our Lady's sake put a spoon into this ragout 
 with me ; 'tis not unsavory, I promise you." 
 
 Pietro fixed his glittering eye on him. 
 
 " What, good youth, thou a stranger, and offerest me 
 thy dinner ? " 
 
122 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Why, see, there is more than one can eat." 
 
 " Well, I accept," said Pietro : and took the dish with 
 some appearance of calmness, and flung the contents out 
 of window. 
 
 Then he turned trembling with mortification and ire, 
 and said : " Let that teach thee to offer alms to an artist 
 thou knowest not, master writer." 
 
 Gerard's face flushed with anger, and it cost him a 
 bitter struggle not to box this high-souled creature's 
 ears. And then to go and destroy good food ! His 
 mother's milk curdled in his veins with horror at such 
 impiety. Finally, pity at Pietro's petulance and egotism, 
 and a touch of respect for poverty-struck pride prevailed. 
 
 However, he said coldly, " Likely what thou hast 
 done might pass in a novel of thy countryman, Signor 
 Boccaccio ; but 'twas not honest." 
 
 " Make that good ! " said the painter sullenly. 
 
 " I offered thee half my dinner ; no more. But thou 
 hast ta'en it all. Hadst a right to throw away thy share, 
 but not mine. Pride is well, but justice is better." 
 
 Pietro stared, then reflected. 
 
 "'Tis well. I took thee for a fool, so transparent was 
 thine artifice. Forgive me ! And prithee leave me. 
 Thou seest how 'tis with me. The world hath soured 
 me. I hate mankind. I was not always so. Once more 
 excuse that my discourtesy, and fare thee well." 
 
 Gerard sighed, and made for the door. 
 
 But suddenly a thought struck him. " Signor Pietro," 
 said he, "we Dutchmen are hard bargainers. We are 
 the lads 1 een eij schee?*en,' that is 'to shave an egg.' 
 Therefore, I, for my lost dinner, do claim to feast mine 
 eyes on your picture, whose face is towards the wall." 
 
 "Nay, nay," said the painter hastily, "ask me not 
 that ; I have already misconducted myself enough towards 
 thee. I would not shed thy blood." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 123 
 
 " Saints forbid ! My blood ? " 
 
 " Stranger/' said Pietro sullenly, " irritated by repeated 
 insults to my picture, which is my child, my heart, I did 
 in a moment of rage make a solemn vow to drive my dag- 
 ger into the next one that should flout it, and the labor 
 and love that I have given to it." 
 
 " What, are all to be slain that will not praise this 
 picture ? " and he looked at its back with curiosity. 
 
 " Nay, nay : if you would but look at it, and hold your 
 parrot tongues. But you will be talking. So I have 
 turned it to the wall forever. Would I were dead, and 
 buried in it for my coffin ! " 
 
 Gerard reflected. 
 
 " I accept the conditions. Show me the picture ! I 
 can but hold my peace." 
 
 Pietro went and turned its face, and put it in the best 
 light the room afforded, and coiled himself again on his 
 chest, with his eye and stiletto glittering. 
 
 The picture represented the Virgin and Christ, flying 
 through the air, in a sort of cloud of shadowy cherubic 
 faces ; underneath was a landscape, forty or fifty miles 
 in extent, and a purple sky above. 
 
 Gerard stood and looked at it in silence. Then he 
 stepped close, and looked. Then he retired as far off 
 as he could, and looked ; but said not a word. 
 
 When he had been at this game half an hour, Pietro 
 cried out querulously and somewhat inconsistently: 
 " Well, have you not a word to say about it ? " 
 
 Gerard started. " I cry your mercy ; I forgot there 
 were three of us here. Ay, I have much to say." And 
 he drew his sword. 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! " cried Pietro, jumping in terror from 
 his lair. " What wouldst thou ? " 
 
 "Marry, defend myself against thy bodkin, signor; 
 and at due odds, being, as aforesaid, a Dutchman. There- 
 
124 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 fore, hold aloof, while I deliver judgment, or I will pin 
 thee to the wall like a cockchafer." 
 
 " Oh ! is that all ? " said Pietro, greatly relieved. " I 
 feared you were going to stab my poor picture with your 
 sword, stabbed already by so many foul tongues." 
 
 Gerard " pursued criticism under difficulties." Put 
 himself in a position of defence, with his sword's point 
 covering Pietro, and one eye glancing aside at the pic- 
 ture. " First, signor, I would have you know that, in the 
 mixing of certain colors, and in the preparation of your 
 oil, you Italians are far behind us Flemings. But let 
 that flea stick. For, as small as I am, I can show you 
 certain secrets of the Van Eycks, that you will put to 
 marvellous profit in your next picture. Meantime I see 
 in this one the great qualities of your nation. Verily, 
 ye are soils filii. If we have color you have imagination. 
 Mother of heaven ! an he hath not flung his immortal 
 soul upon the panel. One thing I go by is this ; it makes 
 other pictures I once admired seem drossy, earth-born 
 things. The drapery here is somewhat short and stiff. 
 Why not let it float freely, the figures being in air and 
 motion ? " 
 
 " I will ! I will ! " cried Pietro eagerly. " I will do 
 anything for those who will but see what I have done." 
 
 " Humph ! This landscape it enlightens me. Hence- 
 forth I scorn those little huddled landscapes that did erst 
 content me. Here is nature's very face : a spacious 
 plain, each distance marked, and every tree, house, figure, 
 field and river smaller and less plain, by exquisite grada- 
 tion, till vision itself melts into distance. 0 beautiful ! 
 And the cunning rogue hath hung his celestial figure in 
 air out of the way of his little world below. Here, float- 
 ing saints beneath heaven's purple canopy. There, far 
 down, earth and her busy hives. And they let you take 
 this painted poetry, this blooming hymn, through the 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 125 
 
 streets of Rome and bring it home unsold. But I tell 
 thee in Ghent or Bruges, or even in Rotterdam, they 
 would tear it out of thy hands. But 'tis a common say- 
 ing that a stranger's eye sees clearest. Courage, Pietro 
 Vanucci ! I reverence thee, and though myself a scurvy 
 painter, do forgive thee for being a great one. Forgive 
 thee ? I thank God for thee and such rare men as thou 
 art ; and bow the knee to thee in just homage. Thy 
 picture is immortal, and thou, that hast but a chest to 
 sit on, art a king in thy most royal art. Viva, il maestro ! 
 Viva!" 
 
 At this unexpected burst the painter, with all the 
 abandon of his nation, flung himself on Gerard's neck. 
 " They said it was a maniac's dream," he sobbed. 
 
 " Maniacs themselves ! no, idiots ! " shouted Gerard. 
 
 " Generous stranger ! I will hate men no more, since 
 the world hath such as thee. I was a viper to fling thy 
 poor dinner away ; a wretch, a monster." 
 
 "Well, monster, wilt be gentle now, and sup with 
 me?" 
 
 " Ah ! that I will. Whither goest thou ? " 
 
 " To order supper on the instant. We will have the 
 picture for third man." 
 
 " I will invite it whiles thou art gone. My poor pic- 
 ture, child of my heart." 
 
 " Ah ! master ; 'twill look on many a supper after the 
 worms have eaten you and me." 
 
 " I hope so," said Pietro. 
 
126 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 About a week after this the two friends sat working 
 together, but not in the same spirit. Pietro dashed fit- 
 fully at his, and did wonders in a few minutes, and then 
 did nothing, except abuse it ; then presently resumed it 
 in a fury, to lay it down with a groan. Through all 
 which kept calmly working, calmly smiling, the canny 
 Dutchman. 
 
 To be plain, Gerard, who never had a friend he did 
 not master, had put his onagra in harness. The friends 
 were painting playing cards to boil the pot. 
 
 When done, the indignant master took up his picture 
 to make his daily tour in search of a customer. 
 
 Gerard begged him to take the cards as well, and try 
 and sell them. He looked all the rattlesnake, but event- 
 ually embraced Gerard in the Italian fashion, and took 
 them, after first drying the last-finished ones in the sun, 
 which was now powerful in that happy clime. 
 
 Gerard, left alone, executed a Greek letter or two, and 
 then mended a little rent in his hose. His landlady 
 found him thus employed, and inquired ironically 
 whether there were no women in the house. 
 
 " When you have done that," said she, " come and talk 
 to Teresa, my friend I spoke to thee of, that hath a 
 husband not good for much, which brags his acquaint- 
 ance with the great." 
 
 Gerard went down, and who should Teresa be but the 
 Roman matron ! 
 
 " Ah, madama," said he, " is it you ? The good dame 
 told me not that. And the little fair-haired boy, is he 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 127 
 
 well ? is he none the worse for his voyage in that 
 strange boat ? 99 
 
 " He is well," said the matron. 
 
 "Why, what are you two talking about?" said the 
 landlady, staring at them both in turn ; "and why 
 tremble you so, Teresa mia ? " 
 
 "He saved my child's life," said Teresa, making an 
 effort to compose herself. 
 
 " What ! my lodger ? and he never told me a word of 
 that. Art not ashamed to look me in the face ? " 
 
 " Alas ! speak not harshly to him," said the matron. 
 She then turned to her friend and poured out a glowing 
 description of Gerard's conduct, during which Gerard 
 stood blushing like a girl, and scarce recognizing his own 
 performance, gratitude painted it so fair. 
 
 "And to think thou shouldst ask me to serve thy 
 lodger, of whom I knew nought but that he had thy 
 good word, 0 Fiammina : and that was enough for me. 
 Dear youth, in serving thee I serve myself." 
 
 Then ensued an eager description, by the two women, 
 of what had been done, and what should be done, to 
 penetrate the thick wall of fees, commissions, and chi- 
 canery, which stood between the patrons of art and an 
 unknown artist in the Eternal City. 
 
 Teresa smiled sadly at Gerard's simplicity in leaving 
 specimens of his skill at the doors of the great. 
 
 " What ! " said she, " without promising the servants 
 a share — without even feeing them, to let the signors 
 see thy merchandise ! As well have flung it into Tiber." 
 
 " Well-a-day ! " sighed Gerard. " Then how is an 
 artist to find a patron ? for artists are poor, not rich." 
 
 " By going to some city nobler and not so greedy as 
 this," said Teresa. " La corte Romana non vuoV pecora 
 senza lana" 
 
 She fell into thought, and said she would come again 
 to-morrow. 
 
128 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The landlady felicitated Gerard. " Teresa has got 
 something in her head/' said she. 
 
 Teresa was scarce gone when Pietro returned with his 
 picture, looking black as thunder. Gerard exchanged a 
 glance with the landlady, and followed him up-stairs to 
 console him. 
 
 "What, have they let thee bring home thy master- 
 piece ? " 
 
 "As heretofore." 
 
 " More fools they, then." 
 
 " That is not the worst." 
 
 " Why, what is the matter ? " 
 
 " They have bought the cards," yelled Pietro, and ham- 
 mered the air furiously right and left. 
 
 " All the better," said Gerard cheerfully. 
 
 " They flew at me for them. They were enraptured 
 with them. They tried to conceal their longing for 
 them, but could not. I saw, I feigned, I pillaged ; curse 
 the boobies ! " 
 
 And he flung down a dozen small silver coins on the 
 floor, and jumped on them, and danced on them with 
 basilisk eyes, and then kicked them assiduously, and 
 sent them spinning and flying, and running all abroad. 
 Down went Gerard on his knees, and followed the mal- 
 treated innocents directly, and transferred them tenderly 
 to his purse. 
 
 " Shouldst rather smile at their ignorance, and put it 
 to profit," said he. 
 
 " And so I will," said Pietro, with concentrated indig- 
 nation. " The brutes ! We will paint a pack a day ; we 
 will set the whole city gambling and ruining itself, while 
 we live like princes on its vices and stupidity. There 
 was one of the queens, though, I had fain kept back. 
 'Twas you limned her, brother. She had lovely red- 
 brown hair and sapphire eyes, and above all, soul." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 129 
 
 " Pietro," said Gerard softly, " I painted that one from 
 my heart. " 
 
 The quick-witted Italian nodded, and his eyes twinkled. 
 
 " You love her so well, yet leave her." 
 
 " Pietro, it is because I love her so dear, that I have 
 wandered all this weary road." 
 
 This interesting colloquy was interrupted by the land- 
 lady crying from below, " Come down, you are wanted." 
 He went down, and there was Teresa again. 
 
 " Come with me, Ser Gerard." 
 
130 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Gerard walked silently beside Teresa, wondering in 
 his own mind, after the manner of artists, what she was 
 going to with him, instead of asking her. So at last 
 she told him of her own accord. A friend had informed 
 her of a working goldsmith's wife who had wanted a 
 writer. " Her shop is hard by ; you will not have far 
 to go." 
 
 Accordingly they soon arrived at the goldsmith's wife. 
 
 " Madama," said Teresa, " Leonora tells me you want 
 a writer : I have brought you a beautiful one ; he saved 
 my child at sea. Prithee look on him with favor." 
 
 The goldsmith's wife complied in one sense. She 
 fixed her eyes on Gerard's comely face, and could hardly 
 take them off again. But her reply was unsatisfactory. 
 "Nay, I have no use for a writer. Ah ! I mind now, it 
 is my gossip ; Clselia, the sausage-maker, wants one : she 
 told me, and I told Leonora." 
 
 Teresa made a courteous speech and withdrew. 
 
 Clselia lived at some distance, and when they reached 
 her house she was out. Teresa said calmly, "I will 
 await her return," and sat so still, and dignified, and 
 statuesque, that Gerard was beginning furtively to draw 
 her, when Clselia returned. 
 
 " Madama, I hear from the goldsmith's wife, the excel- 
 lent Olympia, that you need a writer (here she took 
 Gerard by the hand and led him forward) ; I have 
 brought you a beautiful one ; he saved my child from 
 the cruel waves. For our Lady's sake, look with favor 
 on him." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 131 
 
 " My good dame, my fair ser," said Claelia, " I have no 
 use for a writer ; but now you remind me, it was my 
 friend Appia Claudia asked me for one but the other 
 day. She is a tailor, lives in the Via Lepida." 
 
 Teresa retired calmly. 
 
 " Madama," said Gerard, "this is likely to be a tedious 
 business for you." 
 
 Teresa opened her eyes. 
 
 " What was ever done without a little patience ? " 
 She added mildly, "We will knock at every door at 
 Rome but you shall have justice." 
 
 "But, madama, I think we are dogged. I noticed a 
 man that follows us, sometimes afar, sometimes close." 
 
 " I have seen it," said Teresa coldly : but her cheek 
 colored faintly. " It is my poor Lodovico." 
 
 She stopped and turned, and beckoned with her finger. 
 
 A figure approached them somewhat unwillingly. 
 
 When he came up, she gazed him full in the face, and 
 he looked sheepish. 
 
 "Lodovico mio" said she, "know this young ser, of 
 whom I have so often spoken to thee. Know him and 
 love him, for he it was who saved thy wife and child." 
 
 At these last words Lodovico, who had been bowing 
 and grinning artificially, suddenly changed to an expres- 
 sion of heartfelt gratitude, and embraced Gerard warmly. 
 
 Yet somehow there was something in the man's origi- 
 nal manner, and his having followed his wife by stealth, 
 that made Gerard uncomfortable under this caress. How- 
 ever, he said, " We shall have your company, Ser 
 Lodovico ? " 
 
 " No, signor," replied Lodovico, " I go not on that side 
 Tiber." 
 
 " Addio, then," said Teresa significantly. 
 
 " When shall you return home, Teresa mia ? " 
 
 " When I have done mine errand, Lodovico." 
 
132 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 They pursued their way in silence. Teresa now wore 
 a sad and almost gloomy air. 
 
 To be brief, Appia Claudia was merciful, and did not 
 send them over Tiber again, but only a hundred yards 
 down the street to Lucretia, who kept the glove shop; 
 she it was who wanted a writer; but what for, Appia 
 Claudia could not conceive. Lucretia was a merry little 
 dame, who received them heartily enough, and told them 
 she wanted no writer, kept all her accounts in her head. 
 " It was for my confessor, Father Colonna ; he is mad 
 after them." 
 
 " I have heard of his excellency," said Teresa. 
 
 " Who has not ? " 
 
 " But, good dame, he is a friar ; he has made vow of 
 poverty. I cannot let the young man write and not be 
 paid. He saved my child at sea." 
 
 " Did he now ? " And Lucretia cast an approving look 
 on Gerard. " Well, make your mind easy ; a Colonna 
 never wants for money. The good father has only to 
 say the word, and the princes of his race will pour a 
 thousand crowns into his lap. And such a confessor, 
 dame ! the best in Eome. His head is leagues and 
 leagues away all the while ; he never heeds what you are 
 saying. Why, I think no more of confessing my sins 
 to him than of telling them to that wall. Once, to try 
 him, I confessed, along with the rest, as how I had killed 
 my lodger's little girl and baked her in a pie. Well, 
 when my voice left off confessing, he started out of his 
 dream, and says he, a-mustering up a gloom, ' My erring 
 sister, say three paternosters and three Ave Marias kneel- 
 ing, and eat no butter nor eggs next Wednesday, and 
 pax vobiscum / 9 and off a went with his hands behind 
 him, looking as if there was no such thing as me in the 
 world." 
 
 Teresa waited patiently, then calmly brought this dis- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 133 
 
 cursive lady back to the point : " Would she be so kind 
 as to go with this good youth to the friar and speak for 
 him?" 
 
 " Alack ! how can I leave my shop ? And what need ? 
 His door is aye open to writers, and painters, and schol- 
 ars, and all such cattle. Why, one day he would not 
 receive the Duke d'Urbino, because a learned Greek was 
 closeted with him, and the friar's head and his so close 
 together over a dusty parchment just come in from 
 Greece, as you could put one cowl over the pair. His 
 wench Onesta told me. She mostly looks in here for a 
 chat when she goes an errand." 
 
 " This is the man for thee, my friend," said Teresa. 
 
 " All you have to do," continued Lucretia, " is to go to 
 his lodgings (my boy shall show them you), and tell 
 Onesta you come from me, and you are a writer, and she 
 will take you up to him. If you put a piece of silver 
 in the wench's hand, 'twill do you no harm ; that stands 
 to reason." 
 
 " I have silver," said Teresa warmly. 
 
 " But stay," said Lucretia, " mind one thing. What 
 the young man saith he can do, that he must be able to 
 do, or let him shun the good friar like poison. He is a 
 very wild beast against all bunglers. Why, 'twas but 
 t'other day one brought him an ill-carved crucifix. Says 
 he, ' Is this how you present Salvator Mundi ? who 
 died for you in mortal agony ; and you go and grudge 
 him careful work. This slovenly gimcrack a crucifix ? 
 But that it is a crucifix of some sort, and I am a holy 
 man, I'd dust your jacket with your crucifix,' says he. 
 Onesta heard every word through the keyhole ; so 
 mind." 
 
 "Have no fears, madama," said Teresa, loftily. "I 
 will answer for his ability ; he saved my child." 
 
 Gerard was not subtle enough to appreciate this con- 
 
134 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 elusion : and was so far from sharing Teresa's confidence 
 that he begged a respite. He would rather not go to 
 the friar to-day : would not to-morrow do as well ? 
 
 " Here is a coward for ye," said Lucretia. 
 
 " No, he is not a coward," said Teresa, firing up. " He 
 is modest." 
 
 "I am afraid of this high-born, fastidious friar," said 
 Gerard. "Consider, he has seen the handiwork of all 
 the writers in Italy, dear Dame Teresa; if you would but 
 let me prepare a better piece of work than yet I have 
 done, and then to-morrow I will face him with it." 
 
 " I consent," said Teresa. 
 
 They walked home together. 
 
 Not far from his own lodging was a shop that sold 
 vellum. There was a beautiful white skin in the win- 
 dow. Gerard looked at it wistfully ; but he knew he 
 could not pay for it; so he went on rather hastily. 
 However, he soon made up his mind where to get vel- 
 lum ; and, parting with Teresa at his own door, ran 
 hastily up stairs, and took the bond he had brought all 
 the way from Sevenbergen, and laid it with a sigh on 
 the table. He then prepared with his chemicals to erase 
 the old writing ; but, as this was his last chance of read- 
 ing it, he now overcame his deadly repugnance to bad 
 writing, and proceeded to decipher the deed in spite of 
 its detestable contractions. It appeared by this deed 
 that Ghysbrecht Van Swieten was to advance some 
 money to Floris Brandt on a piece of land, and was to 
 repay himself out of the rent. 
 
 On this Gerard felt it would be imprudent and im- 
 proper to destroy the deed. On the contrary he vowed 
 to decipher every word at his leisure. He went down- 
 stairs, determined to buy a small piece of vellum with 
 his half of the card-money. 
 
 At the bottom of the stairs he found the landlady and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 135 
 
 Teresa talking. At sight of him the former cried : 
 "Here he is. You are caught, donna mia. See what 
 she has bought you ! " And whipped out from under 
 her apron the very skin of vellum Gerard had longed 
 for. 
 
 " Why, dame ! why, Donna Teresa ! " And he was 
 speechless with pleasure and astonishment. 
 
 " Dear Donna Teresa, there is not a skin in all Rome 
 like it. However came you to hit on this one ? 'Tis 
 glamour." 
 
 "Alas, dear boy, did not thine eye rest on it with 
 desire ? and didst thou not sigh in turning away from 
 it ? And was it for Teresa to let thee want the thing 
 after that ? " 
 
 " What sagacity ! what goodness, madama ! Oh, dame, 
 I never thought I should possess this. What did you 
 pay for it ? " 
 
 " I forget. Addio, Fiammina. Addio, Ser Gerard. 
 Be happy, be prosperous, as you are good." And the 
 Roman matron glided away while Gerard was hesitating, 
 and thinking how to offer to pay so stately a creature 
 for her purchase. , 
 
 The next day in the afternoon he went to Lucretia, 
 and her boy took him to Fra Colonna's lodgings. He 
 announced his business, and feed Onesta, and she took 
 him up to the friar. Gerard entered with a beating 
 heart. The room, a large one, was strewed and heaped 
 with objects of art, antiquity, and learning, lying about 
 in rich profusion and confusion. Manuscripts, pictures, 
 carvings in wood and ivory, musical instruments ; and 
 in this glorious chaos sat the friar, poring intently over 
 an Arabian manuscript. 
 
 He looked up a little peevishly at the interruption. 
 Onesta whispered in his ear. 
 
 "Very well," said he. "Let him be seated. Stay; 
 
136 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 young man, show me how you write." And he threw 
 Gerard a piece of paper, and pointed to an inkhorn. 
 
 " So please you, reverend father," said Gerard, " my 
 hand it trembleth too much at this moment ; but last 
 night I wrote a vellum page of Greek, and the Latin 
 version by its side, to show the various character." 
 
 " Show it me." 
 
 Gerard brought the work to him in fear and trem- 
 bling ; then stood, heart-sick, awaiting his verdict. 
 
 When it came it staggered him. For the verdict was, 
 a Dominican falling on his neck. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 137 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Happy the man who has two chain-cables ; merit and 
 women. 
 
 Oh, that I, like Gerard, had a chaine des dames to pull 
 up by! 
 
 I would be prose laureate, or professor of the spasmodic, 
 or something, in no time. En attendant, I will sketch 
 the Fra Colonna. 
 
 The true revivers of ancient learning and philosophy 
 were two writers of fiction — Petrarch and Boccaccio. 
 
 Their labors were not crowned with great, public, and 
 immediate success ; but they sowed the good seed ; and 
 it never perished, but quickened in the soil, awaiting 
 sunshine. 
 
 From their day Italy was never without a native 
 scholar or two, versed in Greek ; and each learned Greek 
 who landed there was received fraternally. The four- 
 teenth century, ere its close, saw the birth of Poggio, 
 Valla, and the elder Guarino : and early in the fifteenth 
 Florence under Cosmo de Medici was a nest of Platonists. 
 These, headed by Gemistus Pletho, a born Greek, began 
 about a.d. 1440. to write down Aristotle. For few minds 
 are big enough to be just to great A without being unjust 
 to capital B. 
 
 Theodore Gaza defended that great man with modera- 
 tion ; George of Trebizond with acerbity, and retorted 
 on Plato. Then Cardinal Bessarion, another born Greek, 
 resisted the said George and his idol, in a tract Adversus 
 calumniator em Platonis. 
 
 Pugnacity, whether wise or not, is a form of vitality. 
 
138 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Born without controversial bile in so zealous an epoch, 
 Francesco Colonna, a young nobleman of Florence, lived 
 for the arts. At twenty he turned Dominican friar. 
 His object was quiet study. He retired from idle com- 
 pany, and faction fights, the humming and the stinging 
 of the human hive, to St. Dominic and the Nine Muses. 
 
 An eager student of languages, pictures, statues, chro- 
 nology, coins, and monumental inscriptions. These last 
 loosened his faith in popular histories. 
 
 He travelled many years in the East, and returned 
 laden with spoils : master of several choice MSS., and 
 versed in Greek and Latin, Hebrew and Syriac. He 
 found his country had not stood still. Other lettered 
 princes besides Cosmo had sprung up. Alfonso, King of 
 Naples, Nicolas d'Este, Lionel d'Este, etc. Above all, 
 his old friend Thomas of Sarzana had been made pope, 
 and had lent a mighty impulse to letters ; had accumu- 
 lated five thousand MSS. in the library of the Vatican, 
 and had set Poggio to translate Diodorus Siculus and 
 Xenophon's Cyropsedia, Laurentius Valla to translate 
 Herodotus and Thucydides, Theodore Gaza, Theophras- 
 tus ; George of Trebizond, Eusebius, and certain treatises 
 of Plato, etc., etc. 
 
 The monk found Plato and Aristotle under armistice, 
 but Poggio and Valla at loggerheads over verbs and 
 nouns, and on fire with odium philologicum. All this 
 was heaven ; and he settled down in his native land, his 
 life a rosy dream. None so happy as the versatile, pro- 
 vided they have not their bread to make by it. And 
 Fra Colonna was versatility. He knew seven or eight 
 languages, and a little mathematics ; could write a bit, 
 paint a bit, model a bit, sing a bit, strum a bit ; and 
 could relish superior excellence in all these branches. 
 For this last trait he deserved to be as happy as he was. 
 For, gauge the intellects of your acquaintances, and you 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 139 
 
 will find but few whose minds are neither deaf nor blind 
 nor dead to some great art or science, 
 
 And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 
 
 And such of them as are conceited as well as stupid, 
 shall even parade, instead of blushing for, the holes in 
 their intellects. 
 
 A zealot in art, the friar was a sceptic in religion. 
 
 In every age there are a few men who hold the opin- 
 ions of another age ; past or future. Being a lump of 
 simplicity, his scepticism was as naif as his enthusiasm. 
 He affected to look on the religious ceremonies of his 
 day as his models ; the heathen philosophers regarded 
 the worship of gods and departed heroes, mummeries 
 good for the populace. But here his mind drew uncon- 
 sciously a droll distinction. Whatever Christian cere- 
 mony his learning taught him was of purely pagan 
 origin, that he respected out of respect for antiquity ; 
 though had he, with his turn of mind, been a pagan and 
 its contemporary, he would have scorned it from his phil- 
 osophic heights. 
 
 Fra Colonna was charmed with his new artist, and, 
 having the run of half the palaces in Rome, sounded his 
 praises so that he was soon called upon to resign him. 
 He told Gerard what great princes wanted him. " But 
 I am so happy with you, father," objected Gerard. 
 "Fiddlestick about being happy with me/' said Fra 
 Colonna, " you must not be happy ; you must be a man 
 of the world ; the grand lesson I impress on the young 
 is, be a man of the world. Now these Montesini can 
 pay you three times as much as I can, and they shall too 
 — by Jupiter." 
 
 And the friar clapped a terrific price on Gerard's pen. 
 It was acceded to without a murmur. Much higher 
 
140 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 prices were going for copying than authorship evei 
 obtained for centuries under the printing-press. 
 
 Gerard had three hundred crowns for Aristotle's treat- 
 ise on rhetoric. 
 
 The great are mighty sweet upon all their pets, while 
 the fancy lasts; and in the rage for Greek MSS. the 
 handsome writer soon became a pet, and nobles of both 
 sexes caressed him like a lapdog. 
 
 It would have turned a vain fellow's head ; but the canny 
 Dutchman saw the steel hand beneath the velvet glove, 
 and did not presume. Nevertheless it was a proud day 
 for him when he found himself seated with Fra Colonna 
 at the table of his present employer, Cardinal Bessarion. 
 They were about a mile from the top of that table ; but, 
 never mind, there they were ; and Gerard had the advan- 
 tage of seeing roast pheasants dished up with all their 
 feathers as if they had just flown out of a coppice instead 
 of off the spit : also chickens cooked in bottles, and 
 tender as peaches. But the grand novelty was the nap- 
 kins, surpassingly fine, and folded into cocked hats, and 
 birds' wings, and fans, etc., instead of lying flat. This 
 electrified Gerard: though my readers have seen the 
 dazzling phenomenon without tumbling backwards chair 
 and all. 
 
 After dinner the tables were split in pieces, and carried 
 away, and lo ! under each was another table spread with 
 sweetmeats. The signoras and signorinas fell upon them 
 and gormandized ; but the signors 1 eyed them with rea- 
 sonable suspicion. 
 
 "But, dear father," objected Gerard, "I see not the 
 bifurcal daggers with which men say his excellency 
 armeth the left hand of a man." 
 
 "Nay, 'tis the Cardinal Orsini which hath invented 
 yon peevish instrument for his guests to fumble their 
 meats withal. One, being in haste, did skewer his 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 141 
 
 tongue to his palate with it, I hear; 0 tempora, 0 
 mores / The ancients, reclining god-like at their feasts, 
 how had they spurned such pedantries." 
 
 As soon as the ladies had disported themselves among 
 the sugar-plums, the tables were suddenly removed, and 
 the guests sat in a row against the wall. Then came in, 
 ducking and scraping, two ecclesiastics with lutes, and 
 kneeled at the cardinal's feet and there sang the service 
 of the day ; then retired with a deep obeisance : in an- 
 swer to which the cardinal fingered his skull-cap as our 
 late Iron Duke his hat: the company dispersed, and 
 Gerard had dined with a cardinal, and one that had 
 thrice just missed being pope. 
 
 But greater honor was in store. 
 
 One day the cardinal sent for him, and, after praising 
 the beauty of his work, took him in his coach to the 
 Vatican, and up a private stair to a luxurious little room 
 with a great oriel window. Here were inkstands, slop^ 
 ing frames for writing on, and all the instruments of art. 
 The cardinal whispered a courtier, and presently the 
 Pope's private secretary appeared with a glorious, grimy 
 old MS. of " Plutarch's Lives." And soon Gerard was 
 seated alone copying it, awe-struck, yet half delighted at 
 the thought that his Holiness would handle his work and 
 read it. 
 
 The papal inkstands were all glorious externally ; but 
 within the ink was vile. But Gerard carried ever good 
 ink, home-made, in a dirty little inkhorn : he prayed on 
 his knees for a firm and skilful hand, and set to work. 
 
 One side of his room was nearly occupied by a massive 
 curtain divided in the centre : but its ample folds over- 
 lapped. After a while, Gerard felt drawn to peep through 
 that curtain. He resisted the impulse. It returned. It 
 overpowered him. He left Plutarch; stole across the 
 matted floor ; took the folds of the curtain, and gently 
 
142 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 gathered them up with his fingers, and putting his nose 
 through the chink ran it against a cold steel halbert. 
 Two soldiers armed cap-a-pie were holding their glitter- 
 ing weapons crossed in a triangle. Gerard drew swiftly 
 back : but in that instant he heard the soft murmur of 
 voices and saw a group of persons cringing before some 
 hidden figure. 
 
 He never repeated his attempt to pry through the 
 guarded curtain, but often eyed it. Every hour or so an 
 ecclesiastic peeped in, eyed him, chilled him, and exit. 
 All this was gloomy and mechanical. But the next day 
 a gentleman, richly armed, bounced in, and glared at 
 him. " What is toward here ? " said he. 
 
 G-erard told him he was writing out Plutarch, with the 
 help of the saints. The spark said he did not know the 
 signor in question. Gerard explained the circumstances 
 of time and space that had deprived the signor Plutarch 
 of the advantage of the spark's conversation. 
 
 " Oh ! one of those old dead Greeks they keep such a 
 coil about." 
 
 "Ay, signor, one of them, who, being dead, yet live." 
 
 "I understand you not, young man," said the noble, 
 with all the dignity of ignorance. " What did the old 
 fellow write ? Love stories ? " and his eyes sparkled ; 
 " merry tales, like Boccaccio ? " 
 
 " Nay ; lives of heroes, and sages." 
 
 " Soldiers, and popes ? " 
 
 " Soldiers, and princes." 
 
 " Wilt read me of them some day ? " 
 
 "And willingly, signor. But what would they say 
 who employ me, were I to break off work ? " 
 
 " Oh, never heed that ; know you not who I am ? I 
 am Jacques Bonaventura, nephew to his Holiness the 
 Pope, and captain of his guards. And I came here to 
 look after my fellows. I trow they have turned them 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 143 
 
 out of their room for you." Signor Bonaventura then 
 hurried away. This lively companion, however, having 
 acquired a habit of running into that little room, and 
 finding Gerard good company, often looked in on him, 
 and chattered ephemeralities, while Gerard wrote the 
 immortal lives. 
 
 One day he came, a changed and moody man, and 
 threw himself into a chair, crying, " Ah, traitress ! 
 traitress ! " Gerard inquired what was his ill ? " Trai- 
 tress ! traitress ! " was the reply. Whereupon Gerard 
 wrote Plutarch. Then says Bonaventura, "I am melan- 
 choly ; and for our Lady's sake read me a story out of 
 Ser Plutarcho, to soothe my bile ; in all that Greek is 
 there nought about lovers betrayed ? " 
 
 Gerard read him the life of Alexander. He got 
 excited, marched about the room, and embracing the 
 reader, vowed to shun " soft delights," that bed of 
 nettles, and follow glory. 
 
 Who so happy now as Gerard ? His art was honored, 
 and fabulous prices paid for it; in a year or two he 
 should return by sea to Holland, with good store of 
 money, and set up with his beloved Margaret in Bruges, 
 or Antwerp, or dear Augsburg, and end their days in 
 peace, and love, and healthy, happy labor. His heart 
 never strayed an instant from her. 
 
 In his prosperity he did not forget poor Pietro. He 
 took the Fra Colonna to see his picture. The friar 
 inspected it severely and closely, fell on the artist's 
 neck, and carried the picture to one of the Colonnas, 
 who gave a noble price for it. 
 
 Pietro descended to the first floor, and lived like a 
 gentleman. 
 
 But Gerard remained in his garret. To increase his 
 expenses would have been to postpone his return to 
 Margaret. Luxury had no charms for the single-hearted 
 one, when opposed to love. 
 
144 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Jacques Bonaventura made him acquainted with other 
 gay young fellows. They loved him, and sought to 
 entice him into vice, and other expenses. But he begged 
 humbly to be excused. So he escaped that temptation. 
 But a greater was behind. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 145 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Fra Colonna had the run of the Pope's library, and 
 sometimes left off work at the same hour and walked 
 the city with Gerard; on which occasions the happy 
 artist saw all things en beau, and was wrapped up in the 
 grandeur of Rome and its churches, palaces, and ruins. 
 
 The friar granted the ruins, but threw cold water on 
 the rest. 
 
 " This place Rome ? It is but the tomb of mighty 
 Rome." He showed Gerard that twenty or thirty feet 
 of the old triumphal arches were underground, and that 
 the modern streets ran over ancient palaces, and over 
 the tops of columns ; and coupling this with the compara- 
 tively narrow limits of the modern city, and the gigantic 
 vestiges of antiquity that peeped above ground here and 
 there, he uttered a somewhat remarkable simile. " I tell 
 thee this village they call Rome is but as one of those 
 swallows' nests ye shall see built on the eaves of a 
 decayed abbey." 
 
 "Old Rome must indeed have been fair then," said 
 Gerard. 
 
 " Judge for yourself, my son ; you see the great sewer, 
 the work of the Romans in their very childhood, and 
 shall outlast Vesuvius. You see the fragments of the 
 Temple of Peace. How would you look could you see 
 also the Capitol with its five and twenty temples ? Do 
 but note this Monte Savello : what is it, an it please you, 
 but the ruins of the ancient theatre of Marcellus ? and 
 as for Testacio, one of the highest hills in modern Rome, 
 it is but an ancient dust-heap ; the women of old Rome 
 10 
 
146 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 flung their broken pots and pans there, and lo, a 
 mountain. 
 
 ' Ex pede Herculem ; ex ungue leonem. 1 " 
 
 Gerard listened respectfully, but when the holy friar 
 proceeded by analogy to imply that the moral superiority 
 of the heathen Romans was proportionably grand, he 
 resisted stoutly. "Has then the world lost by Christ 
 his coming ? " said he ; but blushed, for he felt himself 
 reproaching his benefactor. 
 
 "Saints forbid!" said the friar. "'Twere heresy to 
 say so." And, having made this direct concession, he 
 proceeded gradually to evade it by subtle circumlocution, 
 and reached the forbidden door by the spiral back stair- 
 case. In the midst of all which they came to a church 
 with a knot of persons in the porch. A demon was 
 being exorcised within. Now Fra Colonna had a way of 
 uttering a curious sort of little moan, when things Zeno 
 or Epicurus would not have swallowed were presented to 
 him as facts. This moan conveyed to such as had often 
 heard it, not only strong dissent, but pity for human 
 credulity, ignorance, and error, especially, of course, 
 when it blinded men to the merits of Pagandom. 
 
 The friar moaned, and said, " Then come away." 
 
 " Nay, father, prithee ! prithee ! I ne'er saw a divell 
 cast out." 
 
 The friar accompanied Gerard into the church, but had 
 a good shrug first. There they found the demoniac 
 forced down on his knees before the altar with a scarf 
 tied round his neck, by which the officiating priest held 
 him like a dog in a chain. 
 
 Not many persons were present, for fame had put 
 forth that the last demon cast out in that church went 
 no farther than into one of the company : "as a cony 
 ferreted out of one burrow runs to the next." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 147 
 
 When Gerard and the friar came up, the priest seemed 
 to think there were now spectators enough, and began. 
 
 He faced the demoniac, breviary in hand, and first set 
 himself to learn the individual's name with whom he 
 had to deal. 
 
 " Come out, Ashtaroth. Oho ! it is not you, then. 
 Come out, Belial. Come out, Tatzi. Come out, Eza. 
 No, he trembles not. Come out, Azymoth. Come out, 
 Feriander. Come out, Foletho. Come out, Astyma. 
 Come out, Nebul. Aha ! what, have I found ye ? 'tis 
 thou, thou reptile, at thine old tricks. Let us pray ! — 
 
 " 0 Lord, we pray thee to drive the foul fiend Nebul 
 out of this thy creature : out of his hair, and his eyes, 
 out of his nose, out of his mouth, out of his ears, out of 
 his gums, out of his teeth, out of his shoulders, out of 
 his arms, legs, loins, stomach, bowels, thighs, knees, 
 calves, feet, ankles, finger-nails, toe-nails, and soul. 
 Amen." 
 
 The priest then rose from his knees, and turning to 
 the company said, with quiet geniality, "Gentles, we 
 have here as obstinate a divell as you may see in a 
 summer day." Then, facing the patient, he spoke to 
 him with great rigor, sometimes addressing the man, and 
 sometimes the fiend, and they answered him in turn 
 through the same mouth, now saying that they hated 
 those holy names the priest kept uttering, and now com- 
 plaining they did feel so bad in their inside. 
 
 It was the priest who first confounded the victim and 
 the culprit in idea, by pitching into the former, cuffing 
 him soundly, kicking him, and spitting repeatedly in his 
 face. Then he took a candle and lighted it, and turned 
 it down, and burned it till it burned his fingers, when he 
 dropped it double-quick. Then took the custodial, and 
 showed the patient the Corpus Domini within. Then 
 burned another candle as before, but more cautiously ; 
 
148 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 then spoke civilly to the demoniac in his human char- 
 acter, dismissed him, and received the compliments of 
 the company. 
 
 "Good father/' said Gerard, "how you have their 
 names by heart. Our northern priests have no such 
 exquisite knowledge of the hellish squadrons." 
 
 "Ay, young man, here we know all their names, and 
 eke their ways, the reptiles. This Nebul is a bitter 
 hard one to hunt out." 
 
 He then told the company in the most affable way 
 several of his experiences, concluding with his feat of 
 yesterday, when he drove a great hulking fiend out of a 
 woman by her mouth, leaving behind him certain nails, 
 and pins, and a tuft of his own hair, and cried out in a 
 voice of anguish, " 'Tis not thou that conquers me. See 
 that stone on the window-sill. Know that the angel 
 Gabriel coming down to earth once lighted on that stone ; 
 'tis that has done my business." 
 
 The friar moaned. " And you believed him ? " 
 
 " Certes ! who, but an infidel, had discredited a revela- 
 tion so precise ? " 
 
 " What, believe the father of lies ? That is pushing 
 credulity beyond the age." 
 
 " Oh, a liar does not always lie." 
 
 " Ay doth he, whenever he tells an improbable story 
 to begin, and shows you a holy relic ; arms you against 
 the satanic host. Fiends (if any) be not so simple. 
 Shouldst have answered him out of antiquity, — 
 
 ' Timeo Danaos et dona f erentes. 1 
 
 Some blackguard chopped his wife's head off on that 
 stone, young man ; you take my word for it." And the 
 friar hurried Gerard away. 
 
 "Alack, father, I fear you abashed the good priest." 
 
 " Ay, by Pollux," said the friar, with a chuckle j " I 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 149 
 
 blistered him with a single touch of 'Socratic inter- 
 rogation.' What modern can parry the weapons of 
 antiquity ? " 
 
 One afternoon, when Gerard had finished his day's 
 work, a fine lackey came and demanded his attendance 
 at the palace Cesarini. He went, and was ushered into 
 a noble apartment ; there was a girl seated in it, working 
 on a tapestry. She rose and left the room, and said she 
 would let her mistress know. 
 
 A good hour did Gerard cool his heels in that great 
 room, and at last he began to fret. " These nobles think 
 nothing of a poor fellow's time." However, just as he 
 was making up his mind to slip out, and go about his 
 business, the door opened, and a superb beauty entered 
 the room, folloAved by two maids. It was the young 
 princess of the house of Cesarini. She came in talking 
 rather loudly and haughtily to her dependents, but at 
 sight of Gerard lowered her voice to a very feminine 
 tone, and said, " Are you the writer, messer ? " 
 
 "I am, signora." 
 
 " 'Tis well." She then seated herself ; Gerard and her 
 maids remained standing. 
 
 " What is your name, good youth ? " 
 "Gerard, signora." 
 
 " Gerard ? body of Bacchus ! is that the name of a 
 human creature ? " 
 
 " It is a Dutch name, signora. . I was born at Tergou, 
 in Holland." 
 
 "A harsh name, girls, for so well-favored a youth; 
 what say you ? " 
 
 The maids assented warmly. 
 
 " What did I send for him for ? " inquired the lady, 
 with lofty languor. " Ah, I remember. Be seated, Ser 
 Gerardo, and write me a letter to Ercole Orsini, my 
 lover 5 at least he says so." 
 
150 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Gerard seated himself, took out paper and ink, and 
 looked up to the princess for instructions. 
 
 She, seated on a much higher chair, almost a throne, 
 looked down at him with eyes equally inquiring. 
 
 "Well, Gerardo?" 
 
 " I am ready, your excellence." 
 
 "Write, then." 
 
 " I but await the words." 
 
 "And who, think you, is to provide them?" 
 
 " Who but your grace, whose letter it is to be ? " 
 
 "Gramercy ! what, you writers, find you not the words ? 
 What avails your art without the words ? I doubt you 
 are an impostor, Gerardo." 
 
 " Nay, signora, I am none. I might make shift to put 
 your highness's speech into grammar, as well as writing, 
 but I cannot interpret your silence. Therefore, speak 
 what is in your heart, and I will empaper it before your 
 eyes." 
 
 " But there is nothing in my heart. And sometimes I 
 think I have got no heart." 
 
 " What is in your mind, then ? " 
 
 " But there is nothing in my mind ; nor my head 
 neither." 
 
 " Then why write at all ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ? That is the first word of sense either 
 you or I have spoken, Gerardo. Pestilence seize him ! 
 why writeth he not first ? then I could say nay to this, 
 and ay to that, withouten headache. Also, is it a lady's 
 part to say the first word ? " 
 
 "No, signora; the last." 
 
 " It is well spoken, Gerardo. Ha ! ha ! Shalt have a 
 gold piece for thy wit. Give me my purse ! " And she 
 paid him for the article on the nail a la moyen age. 
 Money never yet chilled zeal. Gerard, after getting a 
 gold piece so cheap, felt bound to pull her out of her 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 151 
 
 difficulty ; if the wit of man might achieve it. " Signo- 
 rina," said he, " these things are only hard because folk 
 attempt too much ; are artificial, and labor phrases. Do 
 but figure to yourself the signor you love " — 
 " I love him not." 
 
 " Well, then, the signor you love not — seated at this 
 table, and diet to me just what you would say to him." 
 
 " Well, if he sat there, I should say, 1 Go away.' " 
 
 Gerard, who was flourishing his pen by way of prepa- 
 ration, laid it down with a groan. 
 
 "And when he was gone," said Floretta, "your high- 
 ness would say, ' Come back.' " 
 
 "Like enough, wench. Now silence, all, and let me 
 think. He pestered me to write, and I promised ; so 
 mine honor is engaged. What lie shall I tell the Ge- 
 rardo to tell the fool ? " and she turned her head away 
 from them and fell into deep thought, with her noble 
 chin resting on her white hand, half clenched. 
 
 She was so lovely and statuesque, and looked so inspired 
 with thoughts celestial, as she sat thus, impregnating her- 
 self with mendacity, that Gerard forgot all, except art, 
 and proceeded eagerly to transfer that exquisite profile 
 to paper. 
 
 He had very nearly finished when the fair statue turned 
 brusquely round and looked at him. 
 
 "Nay, signora," said he, a little peevishly, "for heav- 
 en's sake change not your posture ; 'twas perfect. See, 
 you are nearly finished." 
 
 All eyes were instantly on the work, and all tongues 
 active. " How like ! and done in a minute : nay, me- 
 thinks her highness's chin is not quite so " — 
 
 " Oh, a touch will make that right." 
 
 "What a pity 'tis not colored. I'm all for colors. 
 Hang black and white ! And her highness hath such a 
 lovely skin. Take away her skin, and half her beauty 
 is lost." 
 
152 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Peace. Can you color, Ser Gerardo ? " 
 
 "Ay, signorina. I am a poor hand at oils; there shines 
 my friend Pietro : but in this small way I can tint you to 
 the life, if you have time to waste on such vanity." 
 
 " Call you this vanity ? And for time, it hangs on me 
 like lead. Send for your colors now, — quick, this mo- 
 ment, — for love of all the saints." 
 
 " Nay, signorina, I must prepare them. I could come 
 at the same time to-morrow." 
 
 " So be it. And you, Floretta, see that he be admitted 
 at all hours. Alack ! Leave my head ! leave my head ! " 
 
 « Forgive me, signora ; I thought to prepare it at home 
 to receive the colors. But I will leave it. And now let 
 us despatch the letter." 
 
 "What letter?" 
 
 " To the Signor Orsini." 
 
 "And shall I waste my time on such vanity as writing 
 letters — and to that empty creature, to whom I am as 
 indifferent as the moon ? Nay, not indifferent, for I 
 have just discovered my real sentiments. I hate him 
 and despise him. Girls, I here forbid you once for all 
 to mention that signor's name to me again; else Pll 
 whip you till the blood comes. You know how I can lay 
 on when Pm roused." 
 
 " We do ; we do." 
 
 " Then provoke me not to it ; " and her eye flashed 
 daggers, and she turned to Gerard all instantaneous 
 honey. "Addio, il Gerar-do" And Gerard bowed him- 
 self out of this velvet tiger's den. 
 
 He came next day and colored her ; and next he was 
 set to make a portrait of her on a large scale ; and then 
 a full-length figure ; and he was obliged to set apart two 
 hours in the afternoon for drawing and painting this 
 princess, whose beauty and vanity were prodigious, and 
 candidates for a portrait of her numerous. Here the 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 153 
 
 thriving Gerard found a new and fruitful source of 
 income. 
 
 Margaret seemed nearer and nearer. 
 
 It was Holy Thursday. No work this day. Fra 
 Colonna and Gerard sat in a window and saw the reli- 
 gious processions. Their number and pious ardor thrilled 
 Gerard with the devotion that now seemed to animate 
 the whole people, lately bent on earthly joys. 
 
 Presently the Pope came pacing majestically at the 
 head of his cardinals, in a red hat, white cloak, a capu- 
 chin of red velvet, and riding a lovely white Neapolitan 
 barb, caparisoned with red velvet fringed and tasselled 
 with gold ; a hundred horsemen, armed cap-a-pie, rode 
 behind him with their lances erected, the butt-end resting 
 on the man's thigh. The cardinals went uncovered, all 
 but one, de Medicis, who rode close to the Pope and con- 
 versed with him as with an equal. At every fifteen steps 
 the Pope stopped a single moment, and gave the people 
 his blessing, then on again. 
 
 Gerard and the friar now came down, and, threading 
 some by-streets, reached the portico of one of the seven 
 churches. It was hung with black, and soon the Pope 
 and cardinals, who had entered the church by another 
 door, issued forth, and stood with torches on the steps, 
 separated by barriers from the people ; then a canon read 
 a Latin bull, excommunicating several persons by name, 
 especially such princes as were keeping the Church out 
 of any of her temporal possessions. 
 
 At this awful ceremony Gerard trembled, and so did 
 the people. But two of the cardinals spoiled the effect 
 by laughing unreservedly the whole time. 
 
 When this was ended, the black cloth was removed, 
 and revealed a gay panoply ; and the Pope blessed the 
 people, and ended by throwing his torch among them ; 
 
154 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 so did two cardinals. Instantly there was a scramble for 
 the torches : they were fought for, and torn in pieces by 
 the candidates, so devoutly that small fragments were 
 gained at the price of black eyes, bloody noses, and 
 burnt fingers ; in which hurtling his Holiness and suite 
 withdrew in peace. 
 
 And now there was a cry, and the crowd rushed to a 
 square where was a large, open stage : several priests 
 were upon it praying. They rose, and with great cere- 
 mony donned red gloves. Then one of their number 
 kneeled, and with signs of the lowest reverence drew 
 forth from a shrine a square frame, like that of a mirror, 
 and inside was as it were the impression of a face. 
 
 It was the Vera icon, or true impression of our Saviour's 
 face, taken at the very moment of his most mortal agony 
 for us. Keceived as it was without a grain of doubt, 
 imagine how it moved every Christian heart. 
 
 The people threw themselves on their faces when the 
 priest raised it on high ; and cries of pity were in every 
 mouth, and tears in almost every eye. After a while the 
 people rose, and then the priests went round the plat- 
 form, showing it for a single moment to the nearest ; and 
 at each sight loud cries of pity and devotion burst forth. 
 
 Soon after this the friends fell in with a procession of 
 Flagellants flogging their bare shoulders till the blood 
 ran streaming down ; but without a sign of pain in their 
 faces, and many of them laughing and jesting as they 
 lashed. The bystanders out of pity offered them wine ; 
 they took it, but few drank it ; they generally used it to 
 free the tails of the cat, which were hard with clotted 
 blood, and make the next stroke more effective. Most 
 of them were boys, and a young woman took pity on one 
 fair urchin. " Alas ! dear child," said she, " why wound 
 thy white skin so ? " "Basta," said he, laughing, " 'tis 
 for your sins I do it, not for mine." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 155 
 
 "Hear you that ? " said the friar. " Show me the whip 
 that can whip the vanity out of man's heart ! The young 
 monkey ! how knoweth he that stranger is a sinner more 
 than he ? " 
 
 " Father," said Gerard, " surely this is not to our Lord's 
 mind. He was so pitiful." 
 
 " Our Lord ? " said the friar, crossing himself. "What 
 has He to do with this ? This was a custom in Kome six 
 hundred years before He was born. The boys used to go 
 through the streets at the Lupercalia, flogging themselves. 
 And the married women used to shove in, and try and get 
 a blow from the monkeys' scourges ; for these blows con- 
 ferred fruitfulness — in those days. A foolish trick this 
 flagellation, but interesting to the bystander ; reminds 
 him of the grand old heathen. We are so prone to for- 
 get all we owe them." 
 
 Next they got into one of the seven churches, and saw 
 the Pope give the mass. The ceremony was imposing, 
 but again spoiled by the inconsistent conduct of the car- 
 dinals, and other prelates, who sat about the altar with 
 their hats on, chattering all through the mass like a flock 
 of geese. 
 
 The eucharist in both kinds was tasted by an official 
 before the Pope would venture on it : and this surprised 
 Gerard beyond measure. " Who is that base man ? and 
 what doth he there ? " 
 
 " Oh, that is the Preguste, and he tastes the eucharist 
 by way of precaution. This is the country for poison ; 
 and none fall oftener by it than the poor Popes." 
 
 " Alas ! so I have heard ; but after the miraculous 
 change of the bread and wine to Christ his body and 
 blood, poison cannot remain ; gone is the bread with all 
 its properties and accidents ; gone is the wine." 
 
 " So says faith ; but experience tells another tale. 
 Scores have died in Italy, poisoned in the host," 
 
156 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " And I tell you, father, that were both bread and wine 
 charged with direst poison before his Holiness had con- 
 secrated them, yet after consecration I would take them 
 both withouten fear." 
 
 " So would I, but for the fine arts." 
 
 " What mean you ? " 
 
 " Marry, that I would be as ready to leave the world 
 as thou, were it not for those arts which beautify exist- 
 ence here below, and make it dear to men of sense and 
 education. No : so long as the Nine Muses strew my 
 path with roses of learning and art, me may Apollo inspire 
 with wisdom and caution, that, knowing the wiles of my 
 countrymen, I may eat poison neither at God's altar 
 nor at a friend's table, since, wherever I eat it or drink 
 it, it will assuredly cut short my mortal thread ; and I 
 am writing a book — heart and soul in it — 'The Dream 
 of Polifilo,' the man of many arts. So name not poison 
 to me till that is finished and copied." 
 
 And now the great bells of St. John Lateran's were 
 rung with a clash at short intervals, and the people hur- 
 ried thither to see the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul. 
 
 Gerard and the friar got a good place in the church, 
 and there was a great curtain, and, after long and breath- 
 less expectation of the people, this curtain was drawn by 
 jerks, and at a height of about thirty feet were two 
 human heads with bearded faces, that seemed alive. 
 They were shown no longer than the time to say an 
 Ave Maria, and then the curtain drawn. But they were 
 shown in this fashion three times. St. Peter's complex- 
 ion was pale, his face oval, his beard gray and forked ; 
 his head crowned with a papal mitre. St. Paul was dark 
 skinned, with a thick, square beard ; his face also and 
 head were more square and massive, and full of resolution. 
 
 Gerard was awe-struck. The friar approved after his 
 fashion. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 157 
 
 " This exhibition of the imagines, or waxen effigies of 
 heroes and demigods, is a venerable custom, and inciteth 
 the vulgar to virtue by great and visible examples." 
 
 " Waxen images ? What, are they not the apostles 
 themselves, embalmed, or the like ? " 
 
 The friar moaned. 
 
 " They did not exist in the year 800. The great old 
 Eoman families always produced at their funerals a series 
 of these imagines, thereby tying past and present history 
 together, and showing the populace the features of far- 
 famed worthies. I can conceive nothing more thrilling 
 or instructive. But then the effigies were portraits made 
 during life or at the hour of death. These of St. Paul 
 and St. Peter are moulded out of pure fancy." 
 
 " Ah ! say not so, father." 
 
 " But the worst is, this humor of showing them up on 
 a shelf, and half in the dark, and by snatches, and with 
 the poor mountebank trick of a drawn curtain. 
 
 ' Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' 
 
 Enough ; the men of this day are not the men of old. 
 Let us have done with these new-fangled mummeries, 
 and go among the Pope's books ; there we shall find the 
 wisdom we shall vainly hunt in the streets of modern 
 Eome." 
 
 And, this idea having once taken root, the good friar 
 plunged and tore through the crowd, and looked neither 
 to the right hand nor to the left, till he had escaped the 
 glories of the Holy Week, which had brought fifty thou- 
 sand strangers to Borne; and had got nice and quiet 
 among the dead in the library of the Vatican. 
 
 Presently, going into Gerard's room, he found a hot 
 dispute afoot, between him and Jacques Bonaventura. 
 That spark had come in, all steel from head to toe; 
 doffed helmet ; puffed, and railed most scornfully on a 
 
158 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ridiculous ceremony, at which he and his soldiers had 
 been compelled to attend the Pope ; to wit, the blessing 
 of the beasts of burden. 
 
 Gerard said it was not ridiculous : nothing a pope did 
 could be ridiculous. 
 
 The argument grew warm, and the friar stood grimly 
 neuter, waiting like the stork that ate the frog and the 
 mouse at the close of their combat, to grind them both 
 between the jaws of antiquity : when lo, the curtain was 
 gently drawn, and there stood a venerable old man in a 
 purple skull-cap, with a beard like white floss silk, look- 
 ing at them with a kind though feeble smile. 
 
 " Happy youth," said he, " that can heat itself over 
 such matters." 
 
 They all fell on their knees. It was the Pope. 
 
 "Nay, rise, my children," said he, almost peevishly. 
 " I came not into this corner to be in state. How goes 
 Plutarch ? " 
 
 Gerard brought his work, and kneeling on one knee 
 presented it to his Holiness, who had seated himself, the 
 others standing. 
 
 His Holiness inspected it with interest. "'Tis excel- 
 lently writ," said he. 
 
 Gerard's heart beat with delight. 
 
 " Ah ! this Plutarch, he had a wondrous art, Francesco. 
 How each character standeth out alive on his page : how 
 full of nature each, yet how unlike his fellow ! " 
 
 Jacques Bonaventura. Give me the Signor Boccac- 
 cio. 
 
 His Holiness. An excellent narrator, Capitano, and 
 writeth exquisite Italian. But in spirit a thought too 
 monotonous. Monks and nuns were never all unchaste : 
 one or two such stories were right pleasant and diverting ; 
 but five score paint his time falsely, and sadden the 
 heart of such as love mankind, Moreover he hath no 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEAKTH. 159 
 
 skill at characters. Now this Greek is supreme in that 
 great art : he carveth them with pen : and, turning his 
 page, see into how real and great a world we enter of 
 war, and policy, and business, and love in its own place : 
 for with him, as in the great world, men are not all 
 running after a wench. With this great open field com- 
 pare me not the narrow garden of Boccaccio, and his 
 little mill-round of dishonest pleasures. 
 
 " Your Holiness, they say, hath not disdained to write 
 a novel." 
 
 " My holiness hath done more foolish things than one, 
 whereof it repents too late. When I wrote novels I little 
 thought to be head of the Church." 
 
 61 1 search in vain for a copy of it to add to my poor 
 library." 
 
 " It is well. Then the strict orders I gave four years 
 ago to destroy every copy in Italy, have been well dis- 
 charged. However, for your comfort, on my being made 
 Pope, some fool turned it into French : so that you may 
 read it, at the price of exile." 
 
 " Eeduced to this strait we throw ourselves on your 
 Holiness's generosity. Vouchsafe to give us your infalli- 
 ble judgment on it." 
 
 " Gently, gently, good Francesco. A pope's novels are 
 not matters of faith. I can but give you my sincere 
 impression. Well, then, the work in question had, as 
 far as I remember, all the vices of Boccaccio, without 
 his choice Italian." 
 
 Fra Colonna. Your Holiness is known for slighting 
 iEneas Silvius as other men never slighted him. I did 
 him injustice to make you his judge. Perhaps your 
 Holiness will decide more justly between these two boys 
 — about blessing the beasts. 
 
 , The Pope demurred. In speaking of Plutarch he had 
 brightened up for a moment, and his eye had even flashed j 
 
160 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 but his general manner was as unlike what youthful 
 females expect in a Pope as you can conceive. I can 
 only describe it in French. Le gentilhomme blase. A 
 high-bred and highly cultivated gentleman, who had 
 done and said and seen and known everything, and whose 
 body was nearly worn out. But double languor seemed 
 to seize him at the father's proposal. 
 
 " My poor Francesco/' said he, " bethink thee that I 
 have had a life of controversy, and am sick on't ; sick as 
 death. Plutarch drew me to this calm retreat : not 
 divinity." 
 
 " Nay, but, your Holiness, for moderating of strife be- 
 tween two hot young bloods. 
 
 i Manaqiov ol eiQ^vonoiov. 1 " 
 
 " And know you nature so ill, as to think either of 
 these high-mettled youths will reck what a poor old Pope 
 saith ? " 
 
 " Oh ! your Holiness," broke in Gerard, blushing and 
 gasping, " sure, here is one who will treasure your words 
 all his life as words from heaven." 
 
 " In that case," said the Pope, " I am fairly caught. 
 As Francesco here would say, — 
 
 ' ovx soiiv o<m£ ecrx' avrjQ elevdegog.' 
 
 I came to taste that eloquent heathen, dear to me e'en 
 as to thee, thou Paynim monk ; and I must talk divinity, 
 or something next door to it. But the youth hath a 
 good and a winning face, and writeth Greek like an 
 angel. Well, then, my children, to comprehend the 
 ways of the Church, we should still rise a little above 
 the earth, since the Church is between heaven and earth, 
 and interprets betwixt them. 
 
 "The question is then, not how vulgar men feel, but 
 how the common Creator of man and beast doth feel, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 161 
 
 towards the lower animals. This, if we are too proud to 
 search for it in the lessons of the Church, the next best 
 thing is to go to the most ancient history of men and 
 animals." 
 
 Colonna. Herodotus. 
 
 " Nay, nay ; in this matter Herodotus is but a mush- 
 room. Finely were we sped for ancient history, if we 
 depended on your Greeks, who did but write on the last 
 leaf of that great book, Antiquity." 
 
 The friar groaned. Here was a pope uttering heresy 
 against his demigods. 
 
 " 'Tis the Vulgate I speak of. A history that handles 
 matters three thousand years before him pedants call 
 1 the Father of History.' " 
 
 Colonna. Oh ! the Vulgate ? I cry your Holiness 
 mercy. How you frightened me. I quite forgot the 
 Vulgate. 
 
 " Forgot it ? art sure thou ever readst it, Francesco 
 mio ? " 
 
 " Not quite, your Holiness. 'Tis a pleasure I have long 
 promised myself, the first vacant moment. Hitherto 
 these grand old heathen have left me small time for 
 recreation." 
 
 His Holiness. First then you will find in Genesis 
 that God, having created the animals, drew a holy pleas- 
 ure, undefinable by us, from contemplating of their 
 beauty. Was it wonderful ? See their myriad forms ; 
 their lovely hair, and eyes, their grace, and of some the 
 power and majesty : the color of others, brighter than 
 roses or rubies. And when, for man's sin, not their own, 
 they were destroyed, yet were two of each kind spared. 
 
 " And when the ark and its trembling inmates tumbled 
 solitary on the world of water, then, saith the Word, 
 'God remembered Noah, and the cattle that were with 
 him in the ark.' 
 
162 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Thereafter God did write His rainbow in the sky as 
 a bond that earth should be flooded no more ; and be- 
 tween whom the bond ? between God and man ? nay : 
 between God and man, and every living creature of all 
 flesh ; or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus 
 God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet 
 blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He forbade to 
 muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. ' Nay, let the poor 
 overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toil- 
 some round : the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' 
 Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, 
 saith rudely, ' Doth God care for oxen ? ' Verily, had I 
 been Peter, instead of the humblest of his successors, I 
 had answered him: 'Drop thy theatrical poets, Paul, 
 and read the Scriptures : then shalt thou know whether 
 God careth only for men and sparrows, or for all His 
 creatures. 0 Paul,' had I made bold to say, ' think not 
 to learn God by looking into Paul's heart, nor any heart 
 of man, but study that which He hath revealed concern- 
 ing Himself.' 
 
 " Thrice he forbade the Jews to boil the kid in his 
 mother's milk; not that this is cruelty, but want of 
 thought and gentle sentiments, and so paves the way for 
 downright cruelty. A prophet riding on an ass did meet 
 an angel. Which of these two, Paulo judice, had seen 
 the heavenly spirit ? marry, the prophet. But it was 
 not so. The man, his vision cloyed with sin, saw nought. 
 The poor despised creature saw all. Nor is this recorded 
 as miraculous. Poor proud things, we overrate ourselves. 
 The angel had slain the prophet and spared the ass, but 
 for that creature's clearer vision of essences divine. He 
 said so, methinks. But in sooth I read it many years 
 agone. Why did God spare repentant Nineveh? Be- 
 cause in that city were sixty thousand children, besides 
 much cattle. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 1C>3 
 
 "Profane history and vulgar experience add their mite 
 of witness. The cruel to animals end in cruelty to man ; 
 and strange and violent deaths, marked with retribution's 
 bloody finger, have in all ages fallen from heaven on such 
 as wantonly harm innocent beasts. This I myself have 
 seen. All this duly weighed, and seeing that despite 
 this Francesco's friends, the Stoics, who in their vanity 
 say the creatures all subsist for man's comfort, there be 
 snakes and scorpions which kill i Dominum terrce ' with 
 a nip, mosquitoes which eat him piecemeal, and tigers 
 and sharks which crack him like an almond, we do well 
 to be grateful to these true, faithful, patient, four-footed 
 friends, which, in lieu of powdering us, put forth their 
 strength to relieve our toils, and do feed us like mothers 
 from their gentle dugs. 
 
 " Methinks then the Church is never more divine than 
 in this benediction of our four-footed friends, which has 
 revolted yon great theological authority, the captain of 
 the Pope's guards ; since here she inculcates humility 
 and gratitude, and rises towards the level of the mind 
 divine, and interprets God to man, God the creator, 
 parent, and friend of man and beast. 
 
 "But all this, young gentles, you will please to re- 
 ceive, not as delivered by the Pope ex cathedra, but 
 uttered carelessly, in a free hour, by an aged clergyman. 
 On that score you will perhaps do well to entertain it 
 with some little consideration. For old age must surely 
 bring a man somewhat, in return for his digestion (his 
 dura puerorum ilia, eh, Francesco ?), which it carries 
 away." 
 
 Such was the purport of the Pope's discourse : but the 
 manner high-bred, languid, kindly, and free from all tone 
 of dictation. He seemed to be gently probing the matter 
 in concert with his hearers, not playing Sir Oracle. At 
 the bottom of all which was doubtless a slight touch of 
 
164 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 humbug, but the humbug that embellishes life ; and all 
 sense of it was lost in the subtle Italian grace of the 
 thing. 
 
 "I seem to hear the oracle of Delphi/' said Fra Colonna, 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 " I call that good sense," shouted Jacques Bonaventura. 
 
 " Oh, captain, good sense ! " said Gerard, with a deep 
 and tender reproach. 
 
 The Pope smiled on Gerard. " Cavil not at words ; that 
 was an unheard-of concession from a rival theologian." 
 
 He then asked for all Gerard's work, and took it away 
 in his hand. But, before going, he gently pulled Fra 
 Colonna's ear, and asked him whether he remembered 
 when they were schoolfellows together, and robbed the 
 Virgin by the roadside of the money dropped into her 
 box. " You took a flat stick and applied bird-lime to 
 the top, and drew the money out through the chink, you 
 rogue," said his Holiness, severely. 
 
 " To every signor his own honor," replied Fra Colonna. 
 " It was your Holiness's good wit invented the manoeuvre. 
 I was but the humble instrument." 
 
 " It is well. Doubtless you know 'twas sacrilege." 
 
 " Of the first water ; but I did it in such good com- 
 pany, it troubles me not." 
 
 " Humph ! I have not even that poor consolation. 
 What did we spend it in, dost mind ? " 
 
 " Can your Holiness ask ? why, sugar-plums." 
 
 " What, all on't ? " 
 
 " Every doit." 
 
 " These are delightful reminiscences, my Francesco. 
 Alas ! I am getting old. I shall not be here long ; and 
 I am sorry for it for thy sake. They will go and burn 
 thee when I am gone ; art far more a heretic than Huss, 
 whom I saw burned with these eyes ; and oh, he died 
 like a martyr ! " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 165 
 
 " Ay, your Holiness j but I believe in the Pope, and 
 Huss did not." 
 
 " Fox ! They will not burn thee : wood is too dear. 
 Adieu, old playmate ; adieu, young gentlemen ; an old 
 man's blessing be on you." 
 
 That afternoon the Pope's secretary brought Gerard a 
 little bag : in it were several gold pieces. 
 
 He added them to his store. 
 
 Margaret seemed nearer and nearer. 
 
 For some time past, too, it appeared as if the fairies 
 had watched over him. Baskets of choice provisions 
 and fruits were brought to his door by porters, who knew 
 not who had employed them, or affected ignorance ; and 
 one day came a jewel in a letter, but no words. 
 
 At this point the suspicions of his landlady broke out. 
 "This is none of thy patrons, silly boy: this is some 
 lady that hath fallen in love with thy sweet face. Marry, 
 I blame her not." 
 
166 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Princess Claelia ordered a full-length portrait of 
 herself. Gerard advised her to employ his friend Pietro 
 Vanucci. 
 
 But she declined. " 'Twill be time to put a slight on the 
 Gerardo when his work discontents me." Then Gerard, 
 who knew he was an excellent draughtsman, but not so 
 good a colorist, begged her to stand to him as a Roman 
 statue. He showed her how closely he could mimic 
 marble on paper. She consented at first, but demurred 
 when this enthusiast explained to her that she must 
 wear the tunic, toga, and sandals of the ancients. 
 
 " Why, I had as lieve be presented in my smock," 
 said she with mediseval frankness. 
 
 " Alack ! signorina," said Gerard, " you have surely 
 never noted the ancient habit, so free, so ample, so sim- 
 ple, yet so noble ; and most becoming your highness, to 
 whom Heaven hath given the Roman features, and eke 
 a shapely arm and hand, hid in modern guise." 
 
 " What, can you natter, like the rest, Gerardo ? Well, 
 give me time to think on't. Come o' Saturday, and then 
 I will say ay or nay." 
 
 The respite thus gained was passed in making the 
 tunic and toga, etc., and trying them on in her chamber 
 to see whether they suited her style of beauty well 
 enough to compensate their being a thousand years out 
 of date. 
 
 Gerard, hurrying along to this interview, was suddenly 
 arrested and rooted to earth at a shop-window. 
 
 His quick eye had discerned in that window a copy of 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 167 
 
 Lactantius, lying open. " That is fairly writ, any way," 
 thought he. 
 
 He eyed it a moment more with all his eyes. 
 
 It was not written at all. It was printed. 
 
 Gerard groaned. " I am sped : mine enemy is at the 
 door. The press is in Rome." 
 
 He went into the shop, and, affecting nonchalance, in- 
 quired how long the printing-press had been in Rome. 
 The man said he believed there was no such thing in the 
 city. " Oh, the Lactantius ; that was printed on the top 
 of the Apennines." 
 
 " What, did the printing-press fall down there out o' 
 the moon ? " 
 
 " Nay, messer," said the trader laughing, " it shot up 
 there out of Germany. See the title-page." 
 
 Gerard took the Lactantius eagerly, and saw the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 Operd et impenszs Sweynheim et Pannartz 
 Alumnorum Joannis Fust. 
 Impressum Subiacis. a.d. 1465. 
 
 " Will ye buy, messer ? See how fair and even be the 
 letters. Few are left can write like that ; and scarce a 
 quarter of the price." 
 
 " I would fain have it," said Gerard sadly, " but my 
 heart will not let me. Know that I am a calligraph, and 
 these disciples of Fust run after me round the world 
 a-taking the bread out of my mouth. But I wish them 
 no ill. Heaven forbid ! " And he hurried from the 
 shop. 
 
 " Dear Margaret," said he to himself, " we must lose 
 no time : we must make our hay while shines the sun. 
 One month more, and an avalanche of printer's type 
 shall roll down on Rome from those Apennines, and lay 
 us waste that writers be." 
 
168 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 And lie almost ran to the Princess Clselia. 
 
 He was ushered into an apartment new to him. It 
 was not very large, but most luxurious ; a fountain 
 played in the centre, and the floor was covered with the 
 skins of panthers, dressed with the hair, so that no foot- 
 fall could be heard. The room was an antechamber to 
 the princess's boudoir, for on one side there was no door, 
 but an ample curtain of gorgeous tapestry. 
 
 Here Gerard was left alone till he became quite uneasy, 
 and doubted whether the maid had not shown him to 
 the wrong place. 
 
 These doubts were agreeably dissipated. 
 
 A light step came swiftly behind the curtain : it 
 parted in the middle, and there stood a figure the hea- 
 thens might have worshipped. It was not quite Venus, 
 nor quite Minerva, but between the two ; nobler than 
 Venus, more womanly than Jupiter's daughter. Toga, 
 tunic, sandals ; nothing was modern. And as for 
 beauty, that is of all times. 
 
 Gerard started up, and all the artist in him flushed 
 with pleasure. 
 
 " Oh ! " he cried, innocently, and gazed in rapture. 
 
 This added the last charm to his model ; a light blush 
 tinted her cheek, and her eyes brightened, and her mouth 
 smiled with delicious complacency at this genuine trib- 
 ute to her charms. 
 
 When they had looked at one another so some time, 
 and she saw Gerard's eloquence was confined to ejaculat- 
 ing and gazing, she spoke. " Well, Gerardo, thou seest 
 I have made myself an antique monster for thee." 
 
 " A monster ? I doubt Fra Colonna would fall down 
 and adore your highness, seeing you so habited." 
 
 " Nay, I care not to be adored by an old man. I would 
 liever be loved by a young one ; of my own choosing." 
 
 Gerard took out his pencils, arranged his canvas, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 169 
 
 which, he had covered with stout paper, and set to work ; 
 and so absorbed was he that he had no mercy on his 
 model. At last, after near an hour in one posture, 
 " Gerardo," said she, faintly, " I can stand so no more, 
 even for thee." 
 
 " Sit down and rest awhile, signora." 
 
 " I thank thee," said she ; and sinking into a chair 
 turned pale and sighed. 
 
 Gerard was alarmed, and saw also he had been incon- 
 siderate. He took water from the fountain, and was 
 about to throw it in her face ; but she put up a white 
 hand deprecatingly : " Nay, hold it to my brow with 
 thine hand : prithee, do not fling it at me ! " 
 
 Gerard timidly and hesitating applied his wet hand to 
 her brow. 
 
 " Ah ! " she sighed, " that is reviving. Again." 
 
 He applied it again. She thanked him, and asked 
 him to ring a little hand-bell on the table. He did so, 
 and a maid came, and was sent to Floretta with orders to 
 bring a large fan. 
 
 Floretta speedily came with the fan. 
 
 She no sooner came near the princess, than that lady's 
 high-bred nostrils suddenly expanded like a blood horse's, 
 " Wretch ! " said she ; and rising up with a sudden return 
 to vigor, seized Floretta with her left hand, twisted it in 
 her hair, and with the right hand boxed her ears severely 
 three times. 
 
 Floretta screamed and blubbered ; but obtained no 
 mercy. 
 
 The antique toga left quite disengaged a bare arm, 
 that now seemed as powerful as it was beautiful ; it rose 
 and fell like the piston of a modern steam-engine, and 
 heavy slaps resounded one after another on Floretta's 
 shoulders ; the last one drove her sobbing and scream- 
 ing through the curtain, and there she was heard crying 
 bitterly for some time after. 
 
170 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Saints of heaven ! " cried Gerard, " what is amiss ? 
 what hath she done ? " 
 
 " She knows right well. 'Tis not the first time. The 
 nasty toad ! I'll learn her to come to me stinking of the 
 musk-cat." 
 
 " Alas ! signora, 'twas a small fault methinks." 
 
 "A small fault? Nay, 'twas a foul fault." She 
 added with an amazing sudden descent to humility and 
 sweetness, "Are you wroth with me for beating her, 
 Gerar-do ? " 
 
 "Signora, it ill becomes me to school you; but me- 
 thinks such as Heaven appoints to govern others should 
 govern themselves." 
 
 " That is true, Gerardo. How wise you are, to be so 
 young." She then called the other maid, and gave her a 
 little purse. "Take that to Floretta, and tell her 'the 
 Gerardo ' hath interceded for her ; and so I must needs 
 forgive her. There, Gerardo." 
 
 Gerard colored all over at the compliment ; but not 
 knowing how to turn a phrase equal to the occasion, 
 asked her if he should resume her picture. 
 
 "Not yet; beating that hussy hath somewhat breathed 
 me. I'll sit awhile, and you shall talk to me. I know 
 you can talk, an it pleases you, as rarely as you draw." 
 
 " That were easily done." 
 
 "Do it then, Gerardo." 
 
 Gerard was taken aback. 
 
 "But, signora, I know not what to say. This is 
 sudden." 
 
 " Say your real mind. Say you wish you were any- 
 where but here." 
 
 " Nay, signora, that would not be sooth. I wish one 
 thing though." 
 
 " Ay, and what is that ? " said she, gently. 
 
 " I wish I could have drawn you as you were beating 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 171 
 
 that poor lass. You were awful, yet lovely. Oh, what 
 a subject for a Pythoness ! " 
 
 " Alas ! he thinks but of his art. And why keep such 
 a coil about my beauty, Gerardo ? You are far fairer 
 than I am. You are more like Apollo than I to Yenus. 
 Also, you have lovely hair, and lovely eyes — but you 
 know not what to do with them." 
 
 " Ay, do I. To draw you, signora." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; you can see my features with them ; but 
 you cannot see what any Roman gallant had seen long 
 ago in your place. Yet sure you must have noted how 
 welcome you are to me, Gerardo ? " 
 
 "I can see your highness is always passing kind to 
 me ; a poor stranger like me." 
 
 "No, I am not, Gerardo. I have often been cold to 
 you ; rude sometimes ; and you are so simple you see 
 not the cause. Alas ! I feared for my own heart. I 
 feared to be your slave. I who have hitherto made 
 slaves. Ah ! Gerardo, I am unhappy. Ever since you 
 came here I have lived upon your visits. The day you 
 are to come, I am bright. The other days I am listless, 
 and wish them fled. You are not like the Roman gal- 
 lants. You make me hate them. You are ten times 
 braver to my eye : and you are wise and scholarly, and 
 never flatter and lie. I scorn a man that lies. Gerar-do, 
 teach me thy magic; teach me to make thee as happy by 
 my side as I am still by thine." 
 
 As she poured out these strange words, the princess's 
 mellow voice sunk almost to a whisper, and trembled 
 with half-suppressed passion, and her white hand stole 
 timidly yet earnestly down Gerard's arm, till it rested 
 like a soft bird upon his wrist, and as ready to fly away 
 at a word. 
 
 Destitute of vanity and experience, wrapped up in his 
 Margaret and his art, Gerard had not seen this revela* 
 
172 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 tion coming, though it had come by regular and visible 
 gradations. 
 
 He blushed all over. His innocent admiration of the 
 regal beauty that besieged him, did not for a moment 
 displace the absent Margaret's image. Yet it was regal 
 beauty, and wooing with a grace and tenderness he had 
 never even figured in imagination. How to check her 
 without wounding her ? 
 
 He blushed and trembled. 
 
 The siren saw, and encouraged him. " Poor Gerardo," 
 she murmured, " fear not ; none shall ever harm thee 
 under my wing. Wilt not speak to me, Gerar-do mio ? " 
 
 " Signora ! " muttered Gerard, deprecatingly. 
 
 At that moment his eye, lowered in his confusion, fell 
 on the shapely white arm and delicate hand that curled 
 round his elbow like a tender vine, and it flashed across 
 him how he had just seen that lovely limb employed on 
 Floretta. 
 
 He trembled and blushed. 
 
 "Alas ! " said the princess, "I scare him. Am I then 
 so very terrible ? Is it my Eoman robe ? I'll doff it, 
 and habit me as when thou first earnest to me. Mindest 
 thou ? 'Twas to write a letter to yon barren knight 
 Ercole d'Orsini. Shall I tell thee ? 'twas the sight of 
 thee, and thy pretty ways, and thy wise words, made me 
 hate him on the instant. I liked the fool well enough 
 before ; or wist I liked him. Tell me now how many 
 times hast thou been here since then. Ah ! thou knowest 
 not ; lovest me not, I doubt, as I love thee. Eighteen 
 times, Gerardo. And each time dearer to me. The day 
 thou comest not, 'tis night not day, to Claelia. Alas ! I 
 speak for both. Cruel boy, am I not worth a word? 
 Hast every day a princess at thy feet ? Nay, prithee, 
 prithee, speak to me, Gerar-do." 
 
 " Signora," faltered Gerard, " what can I say, that were 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 173 
 
 not better left unsaid ? Oh, evil day that ever I came 
 here." 
 
 " Ah ! say not so. 'Twas the brightest day ever shone 
 on me, or indeed on thee. I'll make thee confess so 
 much ere long, ungrateful one." 
 
 "Your highness," began Gerard, in a low, pleading 
 voice. 
 
 " Call me Claelia, Gerar-do." 
 
 " Signora, I am too young and too little wise to know 
 how I ought to speak to you, so as not to seem blind nor 
 yet ungrateful. But this I know, I were both naught 
 and ungrateful, and the worst foe e'er you had, did I 
 take advantage of this mad fancy. Sure some ill spirit 
 hath had leave to afflict you withal. For 'tis all un- 
 natural that a princess adorned with every grace should 
 abase her affections on a churl." 
 
 The princess withdrew her hand slowly from Gerard's 
 wrist. 
 
 Yet as it passed lightly over his arm it seemed to 
 linger a moment at parting. • 
 
 " You fear the daggers of my kinsmen," said she, half 
 sadly, half contemptuously. 
 
 "No more than I fear the bodkins of your women," 
 said Gerard, haughtily. " But I fear God and the saints, 
 and my own conscience." 
 
 " The truth, Gerardo, the truth ! Hypocrisy sits awk- 
 wardly on thee. Princesses, while they are young, are 
 not despised for love of God, but of some other woman. 
 Tell me whom thou lovest ; and if she is worthy thee I 
 will forgive thee." 
 
 " No she in Italy, upon my soul." 
 
 u Ah ! there is one somewhere, then. Where ? where ? " 
 
 " In Holland, my native country." 
 
 " Ah ! Marie de Bourgogne is fair, they say. Yet she 
 is but a child." 
 
174 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Princess, she I love is not noble. She is as I am. 
 Nor is she so fair as thou. Yet is she fair ; and linked 
 to my heart for ever by her virtues, and by all the 
 dangers and griefs we have borne together, and for one 
 another. Forgive me ; but I would not wrong my Mar- 
 garet for all the highest dames in Italy." 
 
 The slighted beauty started to her feet, and stood 
 opposite him, as beautiful, but far more terrible than 
 when she slapped Floretta, for then her cheeks were red, 
 but now they were pale, and her eyes full of concen- 
 trated fury. 
 
 " This to my face, unmannered wretch ! " she cried. 
 " Was I born to be insulted, as well as scorned, by such 
 as thou ? Beware ! We nobles brook no rivals. Bethink 
 thee whether is better, the love of a Cesarini, or her 
 hate : for after all I have said and done to thee, it must 
 be love or hate between us and to the death. Choose 
 now ! " 
 
 He looked up at her with wonder and awe, as she 
 • stood towering over him in her Boman toga, offering 
 this strange alternative. 
 
 He seemed to have affronted a goddess of antiquity ; 
 he, a poor puny mortal. 
 
 He sighed deeply, but spoke not. 
 
 Perhaps something in his deep and patient sigh touched 
 a tender chord in that ungoverned creature ; or perhaps 
 the time had come for one passion to ebb and another to 
 flow. The princess sank languidly into a seat, and the 
 tears began to steal rapidly down her cheeks. 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! " said Gerard. " Weep not, sweet lady ; 
 your tears they do accuse me, and I am like to weep for 
 company. My kind patron ; be yourself ! you will live 
 to see how much better a friend I was to you than I 
 seemed." 
 
 "I see it now, Gerardo," said the princess. "Friend 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 175 
 
 is the word : the only word can ever pass between us 
 twain. I was mad. Any other man had ta'en advantage 
 of my folly. You must teach me to be your friend and 
 nothing more." 
 
 Gerard hailed this proposition with joy ; and told her 
 out of Cicero how godlike a thing was friendship, and 
 how much better and rarer and more lasting than love : 
 to prove to her he was capable of it, he even told her 
 about Denys and himself. 
 
 She listened with her eyes half shut, watching his 
 words to fathom his character, and learn his weak 
 point. 
 
 At last, she addressed him calmly thus ; "Leave me 
 now, Gerardo, and come as usual to-morrow. You will 
 find your lesson well bestowed." She held out her hand 
 to him : he kissed it ; and went away pondering deeply 
 this strange interview, and wondering whether he had 
 done prudently or not. 
 
 The next day he was received with marked distance, 
 and the princess stood before him literally like a statue, 
 and after a very short sitting, excused herself and dis- 
 missed him. Gerard felt the chilling difference : but 
 said to himself, " She is wise." So she was in her 
 way. 
 
 The next day he found the princess waiting for him, 
 surrounded by young nobles flattering her to the skies. 
 She and they treated him like a dog that could do one 
 little trick they could not. The cavaliers in particular 
 criticised his work with a mass of ignorance and inso- 
 lence combined that made his cheeks burn. 
 
 The princess watched his face demurely with half- 
 closed eyes, at each sting the insects gave him : and, 
 when they had fled, had her doors closed against every 
 one of them for their pains. 
 
 The - next day Gerard found her alone : cold, and. 
 
176 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 silent. After standing to him so some time, she said, 
 " You treated my company with less respect than became 
 you." 
 
 " Did I, signora ? " 
 
 " Did you ? you fired up at the comments they did you 
 the honor to make on your work." 
 
 " Nay, I said nought," observed Gerard. 
 
 " Oh, high looks speak as plain as high words. Your 
 cheeks were red as blood." 
 
 " I was nettled a moment at seeing so much ignorance 
 and ill-nature together." 
 
 " Now it is me, their hostess, you affront." 
 
 "Forgive me, signora, and acquit me of design. It 
 would ill become me to affront the kindest patron and 
 friend I have in Eome — but one." 
 
 " How humble we are all of a sudden. In sooth, Ser 
 Gerardo, you are a capital feigner. You can insult or 
 truckle at will." 
 
 " Truckle ? to whom ? " 
 
 " To me, for one ; to one whom you affronted for a 
 base-born girl like yourself, but whose patronage you 
 claim all the same." 
 
 Gerard rose, and put his hand to his heart. " These 
 are biting words, signora. Have I really deserved 
 them ? " 
 
 " Oh, what are words to an adventurer like you ? cold 
 steel is all you fear." 
 
 " I am no swashbuckler, yet I have met steel with 
 steel ; and methinks I had rather face your kinsmen's 
 swords than your cruel tongue, lady. Why do you use 
 me so ? " 
 
 " Gerar-do, for no good reason, but because I am way- 
 ward, and shrewish, and curst, and because everybody 
 admires me but you." 
 
 " I admire you too, signora. Your friends may flatter 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 177 
 
 you more ; but, believe me, they have not the eye to see 
 half your charms. Their babble yesterday showed me 
 that. None admire you more truly, or wish you better, 
 than the poor artist, who might not be your lover, but 
 hoped to be your friend : but no, I see that may not be 
 between one so high as you, and one so low as I." 
 
 " Ay ! but it shall, Gerardo," said the princess eagerly. 
 " I will not be so curst. Tell me now where abides thy 
 Margaret, and I will give thee a present for her ; and on 
 that you and I will be friends." 
 
 " She is the daughter of a physician called Peter, and 
 they bide at Sevenbergen ; ah me, shall I e'er see it 
 again ? " 
 
 " 'Tis well. Now go." And she dismissed him some- 
 what abruptly. 
 
 Poor Gerard ! He began to wade in deep waters when 
 he encountered this Italian princess ; callida et calida 
 solis filia. He resolved to go no more when once he had 
 finished her likeness. Indeed, he now regretted having 
 undertaken so long and laborious a task. 
 
 This resolution was shaken for a moment by his next 
 reception, which was all gentleness and kindness. 
 
 After standing to him some time in her toga, she said 
 she was fatigued, and wanted his assistance in another 
 way : would he teach her to draw a little ? He sat down 
 beside her, and taught her to make easy lines. He found 
 her wonderfully apt. He said so. 
 
 " I had a teacher before thee, Gerar-do. Ay, and one 
 as handsome as thyself." She then went to a drawer, 
 and brought out several heads drawn with a complete 
 ignorance of the art, but with great patience and natural 
 talent. They were all heads of Gerard, and full of 
 spirit : and really not unlike. One was his very image. 
 " There," said she, " now thou seest who was my teacher." 
 
 " Not I, signora." 
 12 
 
178 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " What, know you not who teaches us women to do all 
 things ? "lis love, Gerar-do. Love made me draw 
 because thou drawest, Gerar-do. Love prints thine 
 image in my bosom. My fingers touch the pen, and love 
 supplies the want of art, and lo ! thy beloved features 
 lie upon the paper." 
 
 Gerard opened his eyes with astonishment at this 
 return to an interdicted topic. " Oh, signora, you prom- 
 ised me to be friends and nothing more." 
 
 She laughed in his face. " How simple you are ! who 
 believes a woman promising nonsense, impossibilities ? 
 Friendship, foolish boy ! who ever built that temple on 
 red ashes ? Nay, Gerar-do," she added gloomily, " be- 
 tween thee and me it must be love or hate." 
 
 " Which you will, signora," said Gerard firmly. " But 
 for me, I will neither love nor hate you ; but with your 
 permission I will leave you." And he rose abruptly. 
 
 She rose too, pale as death, and said, "Ere thou 
 leavest me so, know thy fate ; outside that door are 
 armed men who wait to slay thee at a word from me." 
 
 " But you will not speak that word, signora." 
 
 " That word I will speak. Nay, more ; I shall noise 
 it abroad it was for proffering brutal love to me thou 
 wert slain ; and I will send a special messenger to Seven- 
 bergen : a cunning messenger, well taught his lesson. 
 Thy Margaret shall know thee dead, and think thee 
 faithless ; now, go to thy grave, — a dog's. For a man 
 thou art not." 
 
 Gerard turned pale, and stood dumb-stricken. " God 
 have mercy on us both ! " 
 
 "Nay, have thou mercy on her, and on thyself. She 
 will never know in Holland what thou dost in Kome ; 
 unless I be driven to tell her my tale. Come, yield thee, 
 Gerar-do mio ; what will it cost thee to say thou lovest 
 me ? I ask thee but to feign it handsomely. Thou art 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 179 
 
 young : die not for the poor pleasure of denying a lady 
 what — the shadow of a heart. Who will shed a tear for 
 thee ? I tell thee men will laugh, not weep, over thy 
 tombstone — ah!" She ended in a little scream, for 
 Gerard threw himself in a moment at her feet, and 
 poured out in one torrent of eloquence the story of his 
 love and Margaret's. How he had been imprisoned, 
 hunted with bloodhounds for her, driven to exile for her ; 
 how she had shed her blood for him, and now pined at 
 home. How he had walked through Europe environed 
 by perils, torn by savage brutes, attacked by furious men 
 with sword and axe and trap, robbed, shipwrecked, for 
 her. 
 
 The princess trembled, and tried to get away from 
 him : but he held her robe, he clung to her, he made her 
 hear his pitiful story and Margaret's ; he caught her 
 hand, and clasped it between both his, and his tears fell 
 fast on her hand, as he implored her to think on all the 
 woes of the true lovers she would part: and what but 
 remorse, swift and lasting, could come of so deep a love 
 betrayed, and so false a love feigned, with mutual hatred 
 lurking at the bottom. 
 
 In such moments none ever resisted Gerard. 
 
 The princess, after in vain trying to get away from 
 him, for she felt his power over her, began to waver and 
 sigh, and her bosom to rise and fall tumultuously, and 
 her fiery eyes to fill. 
 
 " You conquer me," she sobbed. " You, or my better 
 angel. Leave Rome ! " 
 
 " I will, I will." 
 
 " If you breathe a word of my folly, it will be your 
 last." 
 
 "Think not so poorly of me. You are my benefac- 
 tress once more. Is it for me to slander you ? " 
 
 "Go ! I will send you the means. I know myself j if 
 
180 
 
 THE CLOISTER A5D THE HZAP.TH. 
 
 you cross my path, again. I shall kill you. Addio; my 
 heart is broken."' 
 
 She touched her bell •• Floretta," said she. in a choked 
 voice, •'•'take him safe out of the house, through, my 
 chamber, and by the side postern." 
 
 He turned at the door ; she was leaning with one hand 
 on a chair, crying, with, averted head. Then he thought 
 only of her kindness, and ran back and kissed her robe. 
 She never moved. 
 
 Once clear of the house he darted home, thanking 
 Heaven for his escape, soul and body. 
 
 ■■ Landlady/' said he. there is one would pick a quar- 
 rel with me. What is to be done ? " 
 
 Strike him first, and at vantage ! Get behind him : 
 and then draw." 
 
 •• Alas. I lack your Italian courage. To be serious, 
 'tis a noble." 
 
 •• Oh, holy saints, that is another matter. Change thy 
 lodging awhile, and keep snug : and alter the fashion of 
 thy habits.'' 
 
 She then took him to her own niece, who let lodgings 
 at some little distance, and installed him there. 
 
 He had little to do now. and no princess to draw, so 
 he set himself resolutely to read that deed of Floris 
 Brandt, from which he had hitherto been driven by the 
 abominably bad writing. He mastered it. and saw at 
 once that the loan on this land must have been paid over 
 and over again by the rents, and that Ghysbrecht was 
 keeping Peter Brandt out of his own. 
 
 *•' Fool ! not to have read this before." he eriecL He 
 hired a horse and rode down to the nearest port. A 
 vessel was to sail for Amsterdam in four days. 
 
 He took a passage : and paid a small sum to secure it. 
 
 u The land is too full of cut-throats for me." said he ; 
 •and 'tis lovely fair weather for the sea. Our Dutch 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. ISi 
 
 Skippers are not shipwrecked like these bungling Ital- 
 ians." 
 
 When he returned home there sat his old landlady 
 with her eyes sparkling. 
 
 " You are in luck, my young master," said she. " All 
 the fish run to your net this day methinks. See what a 
 lackey hath brought to our house ! This bill and this 
 bag." 
 
 Gerard broke the seals, and found it full of silver 
 crowns. The letter contained a mere slip of paper with 
 this line, cut out of some MS. : "La lingua non ha osso, 
 ma fa romper e il dosso." 
 
 " Fear me not ! " said Gerard, aloud. " I'll keep mine 
 between my teeth." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing. Am I not happy, dame ? I am going 
 back to my sweetheart with money in one pocket, and 
 land in the other." And he fell to dancing round 
 her. 
 
 "Well," said she, "I trow nothing could make you 
 happier." 
 
 "Nothing, except to be there." 
 
 "Well, that is a pity, for I thought to make you a 
 little happier with a letter from Holland." 
 
 " A letter ? for me ? where ? how ? who brought it ? 
 Oh, dame ! " 
 
 "A stranger; a painter, with a reddish face and an 
 outlandish name ; Anselmin, I trow." 
 
 "Hans Memling? a friend of mine. God bless 
 him!" 
 
 " Ay, that is it ; Anselmin. He could scarce speak a 
 word, but a had the wit to name thee : and a puts the 
 letter down, and a nods and smiles, and I nods and 
 smiles, and gives him a pint o' wine, and it went down 
 him like a spoonful." 
 
182 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " That is Hans, honest Hans. 0h ; dame, I am in luck 
 to-day : but I deserve it. For, I care not if I tell you, I 
 have just overcome a great temptation for dear Mar- 
 garet's sake.' 7 
 
 " Who is she ? " 
 
 " Nay, I'd have my tongue cut out sooner than betray 
 her, but oh, it was a temptation. Gratitude pushing me 
 wrong, Beauty almost divine pulling me wrong : curses, 
 reproaches, and, hardest of all to resist, gentle tears from 
 eyes used to command. Sure some saint helped me ; 
 Anthony belike. But my reward is come." 
 
 " Ay is it, lad ; and no farther off than my pocket. 
 Come out, Gerard's reward," and she brought a letter out 
 of her capacious pocket. 
 
 Gerard threw his arm round her neck and hugged her. 
 " My best friend," said he, " my second mother, I'll read 
 it to you." 
 
 "Ay, do, do." 
 
 " Alas ! it is not from Margaret. This is not her hand." 
 And he turned it about. 
 
 " Alack ! but may be her bill is within. The lasses 
 are aye for gliding in their bills under cover of another 
 hand." 
 
 " True. Whose hand is this ? sure I have seen it. I 
 trow 'tis my dear friend the demoiselle Van Eyck. Oh, 
 then Margaret's bill will be inside." He tore it open. 
 " Nay, 'tis all in one writing. ' Gerard, my well-beloved 
 son' (she never called me that before, that I mind), ' this 
 letter brings thee heavy news from one would liever 
 send thee joyful tidings. Know that Margaret Brandt 
 died in these arms on Thursday se'nnight last.' (What 
 does the doting old woman mean by that ?) ( The last 
 word on her lips was " Gerard : " she said, " Tell him I 
 prayed for him at my last hour : and bid him pray for 
 ^e." She died very comfortable, and I saw her laid in 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 183 
 
 the earth, for her father was useless, as you shall know. 
 So no more at present from her that is with sorrowing 
 heart thy loving friend and servant, 
 
 " Margaret Van Eyck." 
 
 " Ay, that is her signature sure enough. Now what 
 d'ye think of that, dame ? " cried Gerard, with a grating 
 laugh. " There is a pretty letter to send to a poor fellow 
 so far from home. But it is Keicht Heynes I blame for 
 humoring the old woman and letting her do it j as for 
 the old woman herself, she dotes, she has lost her head, 
 she is fourscore. Oh, my heart, I'm choking. For all 
 that she ought to be locked up, or her hands tied. Say 
 this had come to a fool ; say I was idiot enough to believe 
 this ; know ye what I should do ? run to the top of the 
 highest church tower in Rome and fling myself off 
 it, cursing Heaven. Woman ! woman ! what are you 
 doing ? " And he seized her rudely by the shoulder. 
 " What are ye weeping for ? " he cried in a voice all un- 
 like his own, and loud and hoarse as a raven. " Would 
 ye scald me to death with your tears ? She believes it. 
 She believes it. Ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! — Then there 
 is no God." 
 
 The poor woman sighed and rocked herself. "And 
 must I be the one to bring it thee all smiling and smirk- 
 ing ? I could kill myself for't. Death spares none," 
 she sobbed. " Death spares none." 
 
 Gerard staggered against the window-sill. "But He 
 is master of death," he groaned. Or they have taught 
 me a lie. I begin to fear there is no God, and the saints 
 are but dead bones, and hell is master of the world. My 
 pretty Margaret ; my sweet, my loving Margaret ! The 
 best daughter, the truest lover ! the pride of Holland ! 
 the darling of the world! It is a lie. Where is this 
 caitiff Hans ? I'll hunt him round the town. I'll cram 
 his murdering falsehood down his throat." 
 
184 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 And he seized his hat and ran furiously about the 
 streets for hours. 
 
 Towards sunset he came back white as a ghost. He 
 had not found Memling : but his poor mind had had 
 time to realize the woman's simple words, that Death 
 spares none. 
 
 He crept into the house bent, and feeble as an old 
 man, and refused all food. Nor would he speak, but sat, 
 white, with great staring eyes, muttering at intervals, 
 " There is no God." 
 
 Alarmed both on his account and on her own (for he 
 looked a desperate maniac), his landlady ran for her 
 aunt. 
 
 The good dame came, and the two women, braver 
 together, sat one on each side of him, and tried to soothe 
 him with kind and consoling voices. But he heeded 
 them no more than the chairs they sat on. Then the 
 younger held a crucifix out before him, to aid her. 
 " Maria, mother of heaven, comfort him," they sighed. 
 But he sat glaring, deaf to all external sounds. 
 
 Presently, without any warning, he jumped up, struck 
 the crucifix rudely out of hi% way with a curse, and made 
 a headlong dash at the door. The poor women shrieked. 
 But, ere he reached the door, something seemed to them 
 to draw him up straight by his hair, and twirl him round 
 like a top. He whirled twice round with arms extended ; 
 then fell like a dead log upon the floor, with blood trick- 
 ling from his nostrils and ears. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 185 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Gerard returned to consciousness and to despair. 
 
 On the second day he was raving with fever on the 
 brain. On a table hard by lay his rich auburn hair, long 
 as a woman's. 
 
 The deadlier symptoms succeeded one another rapidly. 
 On the fifth day his leech retired and gave him up. 
 On the sunset of that same day he fell into a deep 
 sleep. 
 
 Some said he would wake only to die. 
 
 But an old gossip, whose opinion carried weight (she 
 had been a professional nurse), declared that his youth 
 might save him yet, could he sleep twelve hours. 
 
 On this his old landlady cleared the room and watched 
 him alone. She vowed a wax candle to the Virgin for 
 every hour he should sleep. 
 
 He slept twelve hours. 
 
 The good soul rejoiced, and thanked the Virgin on her 
 knees. 
 
 He slept twenty-four hours. 
 
 His kind nurse began to doubt. At the thirtieth hour 
 she sent for the woman of art. " Thirty hours ! shall we 
 wake him ? " 
 
 The other inspected him closely for some time. 
 
 " His breath is even, his hand moist. I know there 
 be learned leeches would wake him, to look at his tongue, 
 and be none the wiser; but we that be women should 
 have the sense to let bon nature alone. When did sleep 
 ever harm the racked brain or the torn heart ? " 
 
 When he had been forty-eight hours asleep, it got 
 
186 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 wind, and they had much ado to keep the curious out. 
 But they admitted only Fra Colonna and his friend the 
 gigantic Fra Jerome. 
 
 These two relieved the women, and sat silent ; the 
 former eying his young friend with tears in his eyes ; 
 the latter with beads in his hand looked as calmly on 
 him, as he had on the sea when Gerard and he encount- 
 ered it hand to hand. 
 
 At last, I think it was about the sixtieth hour of this 
 strange sleep, the landlady touched Fra Colonna with 
 her elbow. He looked. Gerard had opened his eyes 
 as gently as if he had been but dozing. 
 
 He stared. 
 
 He drew himself up a little in bed. 
 He put his hand to his head, and found his hair was 
 gone. 
 
 He noticed his friend Colonna, and smiled with pleas- 
 ure. But in the middle of smiling his face stopped, and 
 was convulsed in a moment with anguish unspeakable, 
 and he uttered a loud cry, and turned his face to the 
 wall. 
 
 His good landlady wept at this. She had known what 
 it is to awake bereaved. 
 
 Fra Jerome recited canticles, and prayers from his 
 breviary. 
 
 Gerard rolled himself in the bed-clothes. 
 
 Fra Colonna went to him, and, whimpering, reminded 
 him that all was not lost. The divine Muses were im- 
 mortal. He must transfer his affection to them ; they 
 would never betray him nor fail him like creatures of 
 clay. The good, simple father then hurried away ; for 
 he was overcome by his emotion. 
 
 Fra Jerome remained behind. " Young man," said he, 
 "the Muses exist but in the brains of pagans and vision- 
 aries. The Church alone gives repose to the heart on 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 187 
 
 earth, and happiness to the soul hereafter. Hath earth 
 deceived thee, hath passion broken thy heart after tear- 
 ing it, the Church opens her arms : consecrate thy gifts 
 to her ! The Church is peace of mind." 
 
 He spoke these words solemnly at the door, and was 
 gone as soon as they were uttered. 
 
 " The Church ! " cried Gerard, rising furiously and 
 shaking his fist after the friar. "Malediction on the 
 Church ! But for the Church I should not lie broken 
 here, and she lie cold, cold, cold, in Holland. 0 my 
 Margaret ! 0 my darling ! my darling ! And I must run 
 from thee the few months thou hadst to live. Cruel ! 
 cruel ! The . monsters, they let her die. Death comes 
 not without some signs. These the blind, selfish wretches 
 saw not, or recked not ; but I had seen them, I that love 
 her. Oh, had I been there, I had saved her, I had saved 
 her ! Idiot ! idiot ! to leave her for a moment." 
 
 He wept bitterly a long time. 
 
 Then, suddenly bursting into rage again, he cried, 
 vehemently, " The Church ! for whose sake I was driven 
 from her ; my malison be on the Church ! and the hypo- 
 crites that name it to my broken heart. Accursed be 
 the world ! Ghysbrecht lives ; Margaret dies. Thieves, 
 murderers, harlots, live forever. Only angels die. Curse 
 life ! Curse death ! and whosoever made them what 
 they are ! " 
 
 The friar did not hear these mad and wicked words ; 
 but only the yell of rage with which they were flung 
 after him. 
 
 It was as well. For, if he had heard them, he would 
 have had his late shipmate burned in the forum with as 
 little hesitation as he would have roasted a kid. 
 
 His old landlady, who had accompanied Fra Colonna 
 down the stair, heard the raised voice, and returned in 
 some anxiety. 
 
188 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 She found Gerard putting on his clothes, and crying. 
 She remonstrated. 
 
 " What avails my lying here ? " said he, gloomily. 
 " Can I find here that which I seek ? " 
 
 " Saints preserve us ! Is he distraught again ? What 
 seek ye ? " 
 
 " Oblivion." 
 
 " Oblivion, my little heart ? Oh, but y'are young to 
 talk so." 
 
 " Young or old, what else have I to live for ? " 
 He put on his best clothes. 
 
 The good dame remonstrated. "My pretty Gerard, 
 know that it is Tuesday, not Sunday." 
 
 " Oh, Tuesday is it ? I thought it had been Saturday." 
 
 " Nay, thou hast slept long. Thou never wearest thy 
 brave clothes on working days. Consider." 
 
 " What I did, when she lived, I did. Now I shall do 
 whatever erst I did not. The past is the past. There 
 lies my hair, and with it my way of life. I have served 
 one master as well as I could. You see my reward. 
 Now I'll serve another, and give him a fair trial, too." 
 
 " Alas ! " sighed the woman, turning pale, " what mean 
 these dark words ? and what new master is this whose 
 service thou wouldst try ? " 
 
 " Satan." 
 
 And with this horrible declaration on his lips the 
 miserable creature walked out with his cap and feather 
 set jauntily on one side, and feeble limbs, and a sinister 
 face pale as ashes, and all drawn down as if by age. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A dark cloud fell on a noble mind. 
 
 His pure and unrivalled love for Margaret had been 
 his polar star. It was quenched, and he drifted on the 
 gloomy sea of no hope. 
 
 Nor was he a prey to despair alone, but to exasperation 
 at all his self-denial, fortitude, perils, virtue, wasted, and 
 worse than wasted; for it kept burning and stinging 
 him, that, had he stayed lazily, selfishly, at home, he 
 should have saved his Margaret's life. 
 
 These two poisons, raging together in his young blood, 
 maddened and demoralized him. He rushed fiercely 
 into pleasure. And in those days, even more than now, 
 pleasure was vice. 
 
 Wine, women, gambling, whatever could procure him 
 an hour's excitement and a moment's oblivion, — he 
 plunged into these things, as men tired of life have 
 rushed among the enemy's bullets. 
 
 The large sums he had put by for Margaret gave him 
 ample means for debauchery, and he was soon the leader 
 of those loose companions he had hitherto kept at a 
 distance. 
 
 His heart deteriorated along with his morals. 
 
 He sulked with his old landlady for thrusting gentle 
 advice and warning on him ; and finally removed to 
 another part of the town, to be clear of remonstrance 
 and reminiscences. When he had carried this game on 
 some time, his hand became less steady, and he could no 
 longer write to satisfy himself. Moreover, his patience 
 declined as the habits of pleasure grew on him. So he 
 gave up that art, and took likenesses in colors. 
 
190 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 But this he neglected whenever the idle rakes, his 
 companions, came for him. 
 
 And so he dived in foul waters, seeking that sorry 
 oyster-shell, oblivion. 
 
 It is not my business to paint at full length the scenes 
 of coarse vice, in which this unhappy young man now 
 played a part. But it is my business to impress the 
 broad truth that he was a rake, a debauchee, and a 
 drunkard, and one of the wildest, loosest, and wickedest 
 young men in Kome. 
 
 They are no lovers of truth, nor of mankind, who con- 
 ceal or slur the wickedness of the good, and so by their 
 want of candor rob despondent sinners of hope. 
 
 Enough, the man was not born to do things by halves. 
 And he was not vicious by halves. 
 
 His humble female friends often gossiped about him. 
 His old landlady told Teresa he was going to the bad, 
 and prayed her to try and find out where he was. 
 
 Teresa told her husband Lodovico his sad story, and 
 bade him look about and see if he could discover the 
 young man's present abode. "Shouldst remember his 
 face, Lodovico mio ? " 
 
 " Teresa, a man in my way of life never forgets a face, 
 least of all a benefactor's. But thou knowest I seldom 
 go abroad by daylight." 
 
 Teresa sighed. "And how long is it to be so, Lodo- 
 vico ? " 
 
 "Till some cavalier passes his sword through me. 
 They will not let a poor fellow like me take to any 
 honest trade." 
 
 Pietro Vanucci was one of those who bear prosperity 
 worse than adversity. 
 
 Having been ignominiously ejected for late hours by 
 their old landlady, and meeting Gerard in the street, he 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 191 
 
 greeted him warmly, and soon after took up his quarters 
 in the same house. 
 
 He brought with him a lad called Andrea, who ground 
 his colors, and was his pupil, and also his model, being 
 a youth of rare beauty, and as sharp as a needle. 
 
 Pietro had not quite forgotten old times, and professed 
 a warm friendship for Gerard. 
 
 Gerard, in whom all warmth of sentiment seemed 
 extinct, submitted coldly to the other's friendship. 
 
 And a fine acquaintance it was. This Pietro was not 
 only a libertine, but half a misanthrope, and an open 
 infidel. 
 
 And so they ran in couples, with mighty little in 
 common. Oh, rare phenomenon ! 
 
 One day, when Gerard had undermined his health, 
 and taken the bloom off his beauty, and run through 
 most of his money, Vanucci got up a gay party to mount 
 the Tiber in a boat drawn by buffaloes. Lorenzo de' 
 Medici had imported these creatures into Florence about 
 three years before. But they were new in Rome, and 
 nothing would content this beggar on horseback, Vanucci, 
 but being drawn by the brutes up the Tiber. 
 
 Each libertine was to bring a lady ; and she must be 
 handsome, or he be fined. But the one that should con- 
 tribute the loveliest was to be crowned with laurel, and 
 voted a public benefactor. Such was their reading of 
 " Vir bonus est quis ? " They got a splendid galley, and 
 twelve buffaloes. And all the libertines and their female 
 accomplices assembled by degrees at the place of embark- 
 ation. But no Gerard. 
 
 They waited for him some time, at first patiently, then 
 impatiently. 
 
 Vanucci excused him. " I heard him say he had for- 
 gotten to provide himself with a fardingale. Comrades, 
 the good lad is hunting for a beauty fit to take rank 
 
192 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 among these peerless dames. Consider the difficulty, 
 ladies, and be patient ! " 
 
 At last Gerard was seen at some distance with a 
 female in his hand. 
 
 "She is long enough," said one of her sex, criticising 
 her from afar. 
 
 " Gemini ! what steps she takes," said another. " Oh I 
 it is wise to hurry into good company," was Pietro's 
 excuse. 
 
 But when the pair came up, satire was choked. 
 
 Gerard's companion was a peerless beauty. She extin- 
 guished the boat-load as stars the rising sun. Tall, but 
 not too tall, and straight as a dart, yet supple as a young 
 panther. Her face a perfect oval, her forehead white, 
 her cheeks a rich olive with the eloquent blood mantling 
 below ; and her glorious eyes fringed with long, thick, 
 silken eyelashes, that seemed made to sweep up sensitive 
 hearts by the half-dozen. Saucy red lips, and teeth of 
 the whitest ivory. 
 
 The women were visibly depressed by this wretched 
 sight ; the men in ecstasies ; they received her with loud 
 shouts and waving of caps, and one enthusiast even went 
 down on his knees upon the boat's gunwale, and hailed 
 her of origin divine. But his chere amie pulling his hair 
 for it — and the goddess giving him a little kick — 
 contemporaneously, he lay supine ; and the peerless creat- 
 ure frisked over his body without deigning him a look, 
 and took her seat at the prow. Pietro Vanucci sat in a 
 sort of collapse, glaring at her, and gaping with his 
 mouth open like a dying codfish. 
 
 The drover spoke to the buffaloes, the ropes tightened, 
 and they moved up stream. 
 
 " What think ye of this new beef, mesdames ? " 
 
 " We ne'er saw monsters so vilely ill-favored, with 
 their nasty horns that make one afeard, and their foul 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 193 
 
 nostrils cast up into the air. Holes be they ; not nos- 
 trils." 
 
 " Signorina, the beeves are a present from Florence 
 the beautiful. Would ye look a gift beef i' the nose ? " 
 
 " They are so dull," objected a lively lady. " I went 
 up Tiber twice as fast last time with but five mules and 
 an ass." 
 
 "Nay, that is soon mended," cried a gallant, and 
 jumping ashore he drew his sword, and, despite the 
 remonstrances of the drivers, went down the dozen buffa- 
 loes goading them. 
 
 They snorted and whisked their tails, and went no 
 faster, at which the boat-load laughed loud and long; 
 finally he goaded a patriarch bull, who turned instantly 
 on the sword, sent his long horns clean through the 
 spark, and with a furious jerk of his prodigious neck 
 sent him flying over his head into the air. He described 
 a bold parabola and fell sitting, and unconsciously waving 
 his glittering blade, into the yellow Tiber. The laugh- 
 ing ladies screamed and wrung their hands, all but 
 Gerard's fair. She uttered something very like an oath, 
 and seizing the helm steered the boat out, and the gallant 
 came up sputtering, griped the gunwale, and was drawn 
 in dripping. 
 
 He glared round him confusedly. " I understand not 
 that," said he, a little peevishly ; puzzled, and, therefore, 
 it would seem, discontented. At which, finding he was 
 by some strange accident not slain, his doublet being 
 perforated, instead of his body, they began to laugh 
 again louder than ever. 
 
 " What are ye cackling at ? " remonstrated the spark. 
 " I desire to know how 'tis that one moment a gentleman 
 is out yonder a-pricking of African beef, and the next 
 moment " — 
 
 Gerard } s lady. Disporting in his native stream. 
 
194 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Tell trim not, a soul of ye ! n cried Vanucci. " Let 
 him find out's own riddle." 
 
 "Confound ye all. I might puzzle my brains till 
 doomsday, I should ne'er find it out. Also, where is my 
 
 sword ? " 
 
 Gerard's lady. Ask Tiber ! Your best way, signor, 
 will be to do it over again ; and, in a word, keep pricking 
 of Afric's beef, till your mind receives light. So shall 
 you comprehend the matter by degrees, as lawyers mount 
 heaven, and buffaloes Tiber. 
 
 Here a chevalier remarked that the last speaker tran- 
 scended the sons of Adam as much in wit as she did the 
 daughters of Eve in beauty. 
 
 At which, and indeed at all their compliments, the 
 conduct of Pietro Vanucci was peculiar. That signor 
 had left off staring and gaping bewildered, and now sat 
 coiled up snake-like, on a bench, his mouth muffled, and 
 two bright eyes fixed on the lady, and twinkling and 
 scintillating most comically. 
 
 He did not appear to interest or amuse her in return. 
 Her glorious eyes and eyelashes swept him calmly at 
 times, but scarce distinguished him from the benches 
 and things. 
 
 Presently the unanimity of the party suffered a 
 momentary check. 
 
 Mortified by the attention the cavaliers paid to Ge- 
 rard's companion, the ladies began to pick her to pieces 
 sotto voce, and audibly. 
 
 The lovely girl then showed that, if rich in beaut}*, 
 she was poor in feminine tact. Instead of revenging 
 herself like a true woman through the men, she permitted 
 herself to overhear, and openly retaliate on her detract- 
 ors. 
 
 " There is not one of you that wears Nature's colors," 
 said she. " Look here ! " and she pointed rudely in one's 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 195 
 
 face. " This is the beauty that is to be bought in every 
 shop. Here is cerussa, here is stibium, and here pur- 
 purissum. Oh, I know the articles : bless you ! I use 
 them every day, — but not on my face, no, thank you." 
 
 Here Vanucci's eyes twinkled themselves nearly out 
 of sight. 
 
 " Why, your lips are colored, and the very veins in 
 your forehead : not a charm but would come off with a 
 wet towel. And look at your great coarse black hair 
 like a horse's tail, drugged and stained to look like tow. 
 And then your bodies are as false as your heads and 
 your cheeks, and your hearts I trow. Look at your 
 padded bosoms, and your wooden-heeled chopines to 
 raise your little stunted limbs up and deceive the world. 
 Skinny dwarfs ye are, cushioned and stiltified into great 
 fat giants. Aha, mesdames, well is it said of you, 
 grande — di legni : grosse — di straci : rosse — di bettito : 
 bianche — di calcina" 
 
 This drew out a rejoinder. "Avaunt, vulgar toad, 
 telling the men everything. Your coarse, ruddy cheeks 
 are your own, and your little handful of African hair. 
 But who is padded more ? Why, you are shaped like a 
 fire-shovel." 
 
 " Ye lie, malapert." 
 
 " Oh the well-educated young person ! Where didst 
 pick her up, Ser Gerard ? " 
 
 " Hold thy peace, Marcia," said Gerard, awakened by 
 the raised trebles from a gloomy reverie. "Be not so 
 insolent ! The grave shall close over thy beauty, as it 
 hath over fairer than thee." 
 
 " They began," said Marcia petulantly. 
 
 " Then be thou the first to leave off." 
 
 "At thy request, my friend." She then whispered 
 Gerard, " It was only to make you laugh : you are dis- 
 traught, you are sad. Judge whether I care for the 
 
196 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 quips of these little fools, or the admiration of these 
 big fools. Dear Signor Gerard, would I were what they 
 take me for? You should not be so sad." Gerard 
 sighed deeply, and shook his head. but. touched by the 
 earnest young tones, caressed the jet-black locks, much 
 as one strokes the head of an affectionate dog. 
 
 At this moment a galley drifting slowly down stream 
 got entangled for an instant in their ropes : for. the river 
 turning suddenly, they had shot out into the stream, and 
 this galley came between them and the bank. In it a 
 lady of great beauty was seated under a canopy, with 
 gallants and dependents standing behind her. 
 
 Gerard looked up at the interruption. It was the 
 Princess Claelia. 
 
 He colored, and withdrew his hand from Mareia's 
 head. 
 
 Marcia was all admiration. ■'• Aha ! ladies," said she. 
 ° here is a rival an ye will Those cheeks were colored 
 by Xature — like mine." 
 
 "Peace, child, peace ! " said Gerard. "Make not too 
 free with the great." 
 
 ••"Why. she heard me not. Oh. Ser Gerard, what a 
 lovely creature ! " 
 
 Two of the females had been for some time past put- 
 ting their heads together and casting glances at Marcia. 
 
 One of them now addressed her. 
 
 "Signorina. do you love almonds ?" 
 
 The speaker had a lapful of them. 
 
 ••Yes. I love them, when I can get them," said Mar- 
 cia pettishly, and eying the fruit with ill-concealed 
 desire ; " but yours is not the hand to give me any, I 
 trow." 
 
 "You are much mistook," said the other. "Here, 
 catch ! " and suddenly threw a double handful into Mar- 
 cia's lap. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 197 
 
 Marcia brought her knees together by an irresistible 
 instinct. 
 
 " Aha ! you are caught, my lad," cried she of the nuts. 
 "'Tis a man, or a boy. A woman still parteth her 
 knees to catch the nuts the surer in her apron, but a 
 man closeth his for fear they should fall between his 
 hose. Confess, now, didst never wear fardingale ere 
 to-day." 
 
 " Give me another handful, sweetheart, and I'll tell 
 thee." 
 
 " There ! I said he was too handsome for a woman." 
 
 " Ser Gerard, they have found me out," observed the 
 Epicsene, calmly cracking an almond. 
 
 The libertines vowed it was impossible, and all glared 
 at the goddess like a battery. But Vanucci struck in, 
 and reminded the gaping gazers of a recent controversy, 
 in which they had, with an unanimity not often found 
 among dunces, laughed Gerard and him to scorn for 
 saying that men were as beautiful as women in a true 
 artist's eye. 
 
 " Where are ye now ? This is my boy Andrea. And 
 you have all been down on your knees to him. Ha ! ha ! 
 But oh, my little ladies, when he lectured you and flung 
 your stibium, your cerussa, and your purpurissum back 
 in your faces, 'tis then I was like to burst : a grinds my 
 colors. Ha ! ha ! he ! he ! he ! ho ! " 
 
 " The little impostor ! Duck him ! " 
 
 " What for, signors ? " cried Andrea in dismay, and 
 lost his rich carnation. 
 
 But the females collected round him, and vowed 
 nobody should harm a hair of his head. 
 
 " The dear child ! How well his pretty little saucy 
 ways become him." 
 
 " Oh, what eyes, and teeth ! " 
 
 " And what eyebrows and hair ! 99 
 
198 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " And what lashes ! " 
 
 " And what a nose ! " 
 
 " The sweetest little ear in the world ! " 
 
 " And what health ! Touch but his cheek with a pin, 
 the blood should squirt." 
 
 " Who would be so cruel ? " 
 
 " He is a rosebud washed in dew." 
 
 And they revenged themselves for their beaux' ad- 
 miration of her by lavishing all their tenderness on 
 him. 
 
 But one there was who was still among these butter- 
 flies, but no longer of them. 
 
 The sight of the Princess Claelia had torn open his 
 wound. 
 
 Scarce three months ago he had declined the love of 
 that peerless creature, — a love illicit and insane, but at 
 least refined. How much lower had he fallen now ! 
 
 How happy he must have been when the blandish- 
 ments of Clselia, that might have melted an anchorite, 
 could not tempt him from the path of loyalty ! 
 
 Now what was he ? He had blushed at her seeing 
 him in such company. Yet it was his daily company. 
 
 He hung over the boat in moody silence. 
 
 And from that hour another phase of his misery 
 began, and grew upon him. 
 
 Some wretched fools try to drown care in drink. 
 
 The fumes of intoxication vanish : the inevitable care 
 remains, and must be faced at last, — with an aching 
 head, a disordered stomach, and spirits artificially de- 
 pressed. 
 
 Gerard's conduct had been of a piece with these 
 maniacs'. To survive his terrible blow he needed all his 
 forces: his virtue, his health, his habits of labor, and 
 the calm sleep that is labor's satellite; above all, his 
 piety. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 199 
 
 Yet all these balms to wounded hearts he flung away, 
 and trusted to moral intoxication. 
 
 Its brief fumes fled : the bereaved heart lay still 
 heavy as lead within his bosom, but now the dark vult- 
 ure Remorse sat upon it rending it. 
 
 Broken health ; means wasted ; innocence fled ; Mar- 
 garet parted from him by another gulf wider than the 
 grave. 
 
 The hot fit of despair passed away. 
 The cold fit of despair came on. 
 
 Then this miserable young man spurned his gay com- 
 panions, and all the world. 
 
 He wandered alone. He drank wine alone to stupefy 
 himself, and paralyze a moment the dark foes to man 
 that preyed upon his soul. He wandered alone amidst 
 the temples of old Eome, and lay stony-eyed, woe- 
 begone, among their ruins, worse wrecked than they. 
 
 Last of all came the climax to which solitude, that 
 gloomy yet fascinating foe of minds diseased, pushes the 
 hopeless. 
 
 He wandered alone at night by dark streams, and eyed 
 them, and eyed them, with decreasing repugnance. There 
 glided peace ; perhaps annihilation. 
 
 What else was left him ? 
 
 These dark spells have been broken by kind words, by 
 loving and cheerful voices. 
 
 The humblest friend the afflicted one possesses may 
 speak, or look, or smile, a sunbeam between him and that 
 worst madness. Gerard now brooded. 
 
 Where was Teresa? Where his hearty, kind old 
 landlady ? 
 
 They would see with their homely but swift intelli- 
 gence ; they would see and save. 
 
 No ; they knew not where he was, or whither he was 
 gliding. 
 
200 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 And is there no mortal eye upon the poor wretch, and 
 the dark road he is going ? 
 
 Yes : one eye there is upon him, watching his every 
 movement, following him abroad, tracking him home. 
 
 Aud that eye is the eye of an enemy. 
 
 An enemy to the death. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 201 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 In an apartment richly furnished, the floor covered 
 with striped and spotted skins of animals, a lady sat 
 with her arms extended before her, and her hands half 
 clenched. The agitation of her face corresponded with 
 this attitude : she was pale and red by turns, and her 
 foot restless. 
 
 Presently the curtain was drawn by a domestic. 
 
 The lady's brow flushed. 
 
 The maid said, in an awe-struck whisper, "Altezza, 
 the man is here." 
 
 The lady bade her admit him, and snatched up a little 
 black mask and put it on ; and in a moment her color 
 was gone, and the contrast between her black mask and 
 her marble cheeks was strange and fearful. 
 
 A man entered bowing and scraping. It was such a 
 figure as crowds seem made of: short hair, roundish 
 head, plain but decent clothes : features neither comely 
 nor forbidding. Nothing to remark in him but a singu- 
 larly restless eye. 
 
 After a profusion of bows he stood opposite the lady, 
 and awaited her pleasure. 
 
 " They have told you for what you are wanted ? " 
 
 "Yes, signora." 
 
 " Did those who spoke to you agree as to what you are 
 to receive ? 
 
 " Yes, signora. ? Tis the full price, and purchases the 
 greater vendetta, unless of your benevolence you choose 
 to content yourself with the lesser." 
 
 " I understand you not," said the lady. 
 
202 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Ah. ! this is the signora's first. The lesser vendetta, 
 lady, is the death of the body only. We watch our man 
 come out of a church, or take him in an innocent hour, 
 and so deal with him. In the greater vendetta we watch 
 him, and catch Kim hot from some unrepented sin, and 
 so slay his soul as well as his body. But this vendetta is 
 not so run upon now as it was a few years ago/"' 
 
 " Man, silence me his tongue, and let his treasonable 
 heart beat no more. But his soul I have no feud with." 
 
 " So be it, signora. He who spoke to me knew not 
 the man, nor his name, nor his abode. From whom shall 
 I learn these ? 93 
 
 " From myself." 
 
 At this the man, with the first symptoms of anxiety 
 he had shown, entreated her to be cautious and particu- 
 lar in this part of the business. 
 
 " Fear me not," said she. " Listen. It is a young 
 man, tall of stature, and auburn hair, and dark-blue eyes, 
 and an honest face, would deceive a saint. He lives in 
 Via Claudia, at the corner house : the glover's. In that 
 house there lodge but three males : he. and a painter 
 short of stature and dark visaged, and a }'oung, slim 
 boy. He that hath betrayed me is a stranger, fair, and 
 taller than thou art." 
 
 The bravo listened with all his ears. " It is enough," 
 said he. " Stay, signora ; haunteth he any secret place 
 where I may deal with him ? 93 
 
 "My spy doth report me, he hath of late frequented 
 the banks of Tiber after dusk ; doubtless to meet his 
 light o' love, who calls me her rival ; even there slay 
 him ! and let my rival come and find him ; the smooth, 
 heartless, insolent traitor." 
 
 " Be calm, signora. He will betray no more ladies." 
 
 " I know not that. He weareth a sword, and can use 
 it. He is young and resolute." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 203 
 
 "Neither will avail him." 
 
 " Are ye so sure of your hand ? What are your 
 weapons ? n 
 
 The bravo showed her a steel gauntlet. " We strike 
 with such force, we need must guard our hand. This is 
 our mallet." He then undid his doublet, and gave her a 
 glimpse of a coat of mail beneath, and finally laid his 
 glittering stiletto on the table with a flourish. 
 
 The lady shuddered at first, but presently took it up 
 in her white hand and tried its point against her finger. 
 
 " Beware, madam," said the bravo. 
 
 " What, is it poisoned ? " 
 
 " Saints forbid ! We steal no lives. We take them 
 with steel point, not drugs. But 'tis newly ground, and 
 I feared for the signora's white skin." 
 
 " His skin is as white as mine," said she, with a sud- 
 den gleam of pity. It lasted but a moment. " But his 
 heart is as black as soot. Say, do I not well to remove 
 a traitor that slanders me ? " 
 
 " The signora will settle that with her confessor. I 
 am but a tool in noble hands ; like my stiletto." 
 
 The princess appeared not to hear the speaker. " Oh, 
 how I could have loved him : to the death ; as now I 
 hate him. Fool ! he will learn to trifle with princes ; 
 to spurn them and fawn on them, and prefer the scum 
 of the town to them, and make them a by-word." She 
 looked up : " Why loiter'st thou here ? haste thee, re- 
 venge me." 
 
 " It is customary to pay half the price beforehand, 
 signora." 
 
 " Ah, I forgot ; thy revenge is bought. Here is more 
 than half," and she pushed a bag across the table to him. 
 " When the blow is struck, come for the rest." 
 
 "You will soon see me again, signora." 
 
 And he retired bowing and scraping. 
 
204 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The princess, burning with jealousy, mortified pride, 
 and dread of exposure (for till she knew Gerard no 
 public stain had fallen on her), sat where he left her, 
 masked, with her arms straight out before her, and the 
 nails of her clenched hand nipping the table. 
 
 So sat the fabled sphinx ; so sits a tigress. 
 
 Yet there crept a chill upon her, now that the assassin 
 was gone. And moody misgivings heaved within her, 
 precursors of vain remorse. Gerard and Margaret were 
 before their age. This was your true mediaeval. Proud, 
 amorous, vindictive, generous, foolish, cunning, impul- 
 sive, unprincipled ; and ignorant as dirt. 
 
 Power is the curse of such a creature. 
 
 Forced to do her own crimes, the weakness of her 
 nerves would have balanced the violence of her passions, 
 and her bark been worse than her bite. But power 
 gives a feeble, furious woman, male instruments. And 
 the effect is as terrible as the combination is unnatural. 
 
 In this instance it whetted an assassin's dagger for a 
 poor forlorn wretch just meditating suicide. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 205 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 It happened, two days after the scene I have endeav- 
 ored to describe, that Gerard, wandering through one 
 of the meanest streets in Rome, was overtaken by a 
 thunderstorm, and entered a low hostelry. He called 
 for wine, and, the rain continuing, soon drank himself 
 into a half-stupid condition, and dozed with his head on 
 his hands, and his hands upon the table. 
 
 In course of time the room began to fill, and the noise 
 of the rude guests to wake him. 
 
 Then it was he became conscious of two figures near 
 him conversing in a low voice. 
 
 One was a pardoner. The other by his dress, clean 
 but modest, might have passed for a decent tradesman ; 
 but the way he had slouched his hat over his brows so as 
 to hide all his face except his beard, showed he was one 
 of those who shun the eye of honest men, and of the 
 law. The pair were driving a bargain in the sin market. 
 And by an arrangement not uncommon at that date, the 
 crime to be forgiven was yet to be committed — under 
 the celestial contract. 
 
 He of the slouched hat was complaining of the price 
 pardons had reached. " If they go up any higher we 
 poor fellows shall be shut out of heaven altogether." 
 
 The pardoner denied the charge flatly. " Indulgences 
 were never cheaper to good husbandmen." 
 
 The other inquired, " Who were they ? " 
 
 "Why, such as sin by the market like reasonable 
 creatures. But if you will be so perverse as go and pick 
 out a crime the Pope hath set his face against, blame 
 yourself, not me." 
 
206 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Then to prove that crime of one sort or another was 
 within the means of all but the very scum of society, he 
 read out the scale from a written parchment. 
 
 It was a curious list : but not one that could be 
 printed in this book. And to mutilate it would be to 
 misrepresent it. It is to be found in any great library. 
 Suffice it to say that murder of a layman was much 
 cheaper than many crimes my lay readers would deem 
 light by comparison. 
 
 This told ; and, by a little trifling concession on each 
 side, the bargain was closed, the money handed over, and 
 the aspirant to heaven's favor forgiven beforehand for 
 removing one layman. The price for disposing of a clerk 
 bore no proportion. 
 
 The word " assassination " was never once uttered by 
 either merchant. 
 
 All this buzzed in Gerard's ear. But he never lifted 
 his head from the table ; only listened stupidly. 
 
 However, when the parties rose and separated, he half 
 raised his head, and eyed with a scowl the retiring figure 
 of the purchaser. 
 
 " If Margaret was alive," muttered he, " I'd take thee 
 by the throat and throttle thee, thou cowardly stabber. 
 But she is dead ! dead ! dead. Die all the world ; 'tis 
 not to me ; so that I die among the first." 
 
 When he got home there was a man in a slouched hat 
 walking briskly to and fro on the opposite side of the 
 way. 
 
 " Why, there is that cur again," thought Gerard. 
 But in his state of mind, the circumstance made no 
 impression whatever on him. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 207 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Two nights after this Pietro Vanucci and Andrea sat 
 waiting supper for Gerard. 
 
 The former grew peevish. It was past nine o'clock. 
 At last he sent Andrea to Gerard's room on the desperate 
 chance of his having come in unobserved. Andrea 
 shrugged his shoulders and went. 
 
 He returned without Gerard, but with a slip of paper. 
 Andrea could not read, as scholars in his day, and charity 
 boys in ours, understand the art ; but he had a quick eye, 
 and had learned how the words Pietro Vanucci looked 
 on paper. 
 
 " That is for you, I trow," said he, proud of his in- 
 telligence. 
 
 Pietro snatched it, and read it to Andrea, with his 
 satirical comments. 
 
 * ' Dear Pietro, dear Andrea, life is too great a burden.' 
 
 " So 'tis, my lad ; but that is no reason for being abroad 
 at supper-time. Supper is not a burden. 
 
 " ' Wear my habits ! ' 
 
 "Said the poplar to the juniper bush. 
 
 " i And thou, Andrea, mine amethyst ring ; and me in 
 both your hearts a month or two.' 
 
 " Why, Andrea?" 
 
 " ' For my body, ere this ye read, it will lie in Tiber. 
 Trouble not to look for it. 'Tis not worth the pains. 
 Oh, unhappy day that it was born ; oh, happy night that 
 rids me of it. 
 
 " ' Adieu ! adieu ! 
 
 " i The broken-hearted Gerard.' 
 
208 
 
 THE CLOISTER AJND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Here is a sorry jest of the peevish rogue," said 
 Pietro. But his pale cheek and chattering teeth belied 
 his words. Andrea filled the house with his cries. 
 
 " 0 miserable day ! 0 calamity of calamities ! Gerard, 
 my friend, my sweet patron ! Help ! help ! He is kill- 
 ing himself ! Oh, good people, help me save him ! " 
 And after alarming all the house he ran into the street, 
 bareheaded, imploring all good Christians to help him 
 save his friend. 
 
 A number of persons soon collected. 
 
 But poor Andrea could not animate their sluggish- 
 ness. Go down to the river ? Xo. It was not their 
 business. What part of the river ? It was a wild-goose 
 chase. 
 
 It was not lucky to go down to the river after sunset. 
 Too many ghosts walked those banks all night. 
 
 A lackey, however, who had been standing some time 
 opposite the house, said he would go with Andrea ; and 
 this turned three or four of the younger ones. 
 
 The little band took the way to the river. 
 
 The lackey questioned Andrea. 
 
 Andrea, sobbing, told him about the letter, and 
 Gerard's moody ways of late. 
 
 That lackey was a spy of the Princess Claelia. 
 
 Their Italian tongues went fast till they neared the 
 Tiber. 
 
 But the moment they felt the air from the river, and 
 the smell of the stream in the calm spring night, they 
 were dead silent. 
 
 The moon shone calm and clear in a cloudless sky. 
 Their feet sounded loud and ominous. Their tongues 
 were hushed. 
 
 Presently hurrying round a corner they met a man. 
 He stopped irresolute at sight of them. 
 
 The man was bareheaded, and his dripping hair glis- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 209 
 
 tened in the moonlight ; and at the next step they saw 
 his clothes were drenched with water. 
 
 "Here he is," cried one of the young men, unac- 
 quainted with Gerard's face and figure. 
 
 The stranger turned instantly and fled. 
 
 They ran after him might and main, Andrea leading, 
 and the princess's lackey next. 
 
 Andrea gained on him ; but in a moment he twisted 
 up a narrow alley. Andrea shot by, unable to check 
 himself ; and the pursuers soon found themselves in a 
 labyrinth in which it was vain to pursue a quick-footed 
 fugitive who knew every inch of it, and could now only 
 be followed by the ear. 
 
 They returned to their companions, and found them 
 standing on the spot where the man had stood, and 
 utterly confounded. For Pietro had assured them that 
 the fugitive had neither the features nor the stature of 
 Gerard. 
 
 " Are ye verily sure ? 99 said they. " He had been in 
 the river. Why, in the saints' names, fled he at our 
 approach ? " 
 
 Then said Vanucci, "Friends, methinks this has 
 nought to do with him we seek. What shall we do, 
 Andrea ? " 
 
 Here the lackey put in his word. " Let us track him 
 to the water's side, to make sure. See, he hath come 
 dripping all the way." 
 
 This advice was approved, and with very little diffi- 
 culty they tracked the man's course. 
 
 But soon they encountered a new enigma. 
 
 They had gone scarcely fifty yards ere the drops 
 turned away from the river, and took them to the gate 
 of a large gloomy building. It was a monastery. 
 
 They stood irresolute before it, and gazed at the dark 
 pile. It seemed to them to hide some horrible mystery 
 14 
 
210 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 But presently Andrea gave a shout. "Here be the 
 drops again," cried he. "And this road leadeth to the 
 river." 
 
 They resumed the chase; and soon it became clear 
 the drops were now leading them home. The track be- 
 came wetter and wetter, and took them to the Tiber's 
 edge. And there on the bank a bucketful appeared to 
 have been discharged from the stream. 
 
 At first they shouted, and thought they had made a 
 discovery ; but reflection showed them it amounted to 
 nothing. Certainly a man had been in the water, and 
 had got out of it in safety : 1 ut that man was not Gerard. 
 One said he knew a fisherman hard by that had nets 
 and drags. They found the fisher, and paid him liber- 
 ally to sink nets in the river below the place, and to 
 drag it above and below ; and promised him gold should 
 he find the body. Then they ran vainly up and down 
 the river, which flowed so calm and voiceless, holding 
 this and a thousand more strange secrets. Suddenly 
 Andrea, with a ^ry of hope, ran back to the house. 
 
 He returned in less than half an hour. 
 
 "No," he groaned, and wrung his hands. 
 
 " What is the hour ? " asked the lackey. 
 
 " Four hours past midnight." 
 
 "My pretty lad," said the lackey solemnly, "say a 
 mass for thy friend's soul : for he is not among living 
 men." 
 
 The morning broke. Worn out with fatigue, Andrea 
 and Pietro went home, heart-sick. 
 
 The days rolled on, mute as the Tiber as to Gerard's 
 fate. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 211 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 It would indeed have been strange if with such barren 
 data as they possessed, those men could have read the 
 handwriting on the river's bank. 
 
 For there on that spot an event had just occurred, 
 which, take it altogether, was perhaps without a parallel 
 in the history of mankind, and may remain so to the 
 end of time. 
 
 But it shall be told in a very few words, partly by me, 
 and partly by an actor in the scene. 
 
 Gerard, then, after writing this brief adieu to Pietro 
 and Andrea, had stolen down to the river at nightfall. 
 
 He had taken his measures with a dogged resolution 
 not uncommon in those who are bent on self-destruction. 
 He filled his pockets with all the silver and copper he 
 possessed, that he might sink the surer; and, so pro- 
 vided, hurried to a part of the stream that he had seen 
 was little frequented. 
 
 There are some, especially women, who look about to 
 make sure there is somebody at hand. 
 
 But this resolute wretch looked about him to make 
 sure there was nobody. 
 
 And, to his annoyance, he observed a single figure 
 leaning against the corner of an alley. So he affected 
 to stroll carelessly away ; but returned to the spot. 
 
 Lo ! the same figure emerged from a side street and 
 loitered about. 
 
 " Can he be watching me ? Can he know what I am 
 here for ? " thought Gerard. " Impossible ! " 
 
 He went briskly off, walked along a street or two, 
 made a detour and came back. 
 
212 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The man had vanished. But, lo ! on Gerard looking 
 all round, to make sure, there he was a few yards behind, 
 apparently fastening his shoe. 
 
 Gerard saw he was watched, and at this moment 
 observed in the moonlight a steel gauntlet in his senti- 
 nel's hand. 
 
 Then he knew it was an assassin. 
 
 Strange to say, it never occurred to him that his was 
 the life aimed at. To be sure, he was not aware he had 
 an enemy in the world. 
 
 He turned and walked up to the bravo. " My good 
 friend," said he eagerly, " sell me thine arm ! a single 
 stroke ! See, here is all I have ; " and he forced his 
 money into the bravo's hands. " Oh, prithee, prithee ! 
 do one good deed, and rid me of my hateful life ! " and 
 even while speaking he undid his doublet, and bared his 
 bosom. 
 
 The man stared in his face. 
 
 " Why do ye hesitate ? " shrieked Gerard. " Have ye 
 no bowels ? Is it so much pains to lift your arm and 
 fall it ? Is it because I am poor, and can't give ye gold ? 
 Useless wretch, canst only strike a man behind ; not 
 look one in the face. There, then, do but turn thy head 
 and hold thy tongue ! " 
 
 And with a snarl of contempt he ran from him, and 
 flung himself into the water. 
 
 " Margaret ! " 
 
 At the heavy plunge of his body in the stream, the 
 bravo seemed to recover from a stupor. He ran to the 
 bank, and with a strange cry the assassin plunged in 
 after the self-destroyer. 
 
 What followed will be related by the assassin. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 213 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A woman has her own troubles, as a man has his. 
 
 And we male writers seldom do more than indicate 
 the griefs of the other sex. The intelligence of the 
 female reader must come to our aid, and fill ' up our cold 
 outlines. So have I indicated, rather than described, 
 what Margaret Brandt went through up to that eventful 
 day, when she entered Eli's house an enemy, read her 
 sweetheart's letter, and remained a friend. 
 
 And now a woman's greatest trial drew near, and 
 Gerard far away. 
 
 She availed herself but little of Eli's sudden favor; 
 for this reserve she had always a plausible reason ready ; 
 and never hinted at the true one, which was this : there 
 were two men in that house at sight of whom she shud- 
 dered with instinctive antipathy and dread. She had 
 read wickedness and hatred in their faces, and mysteri- 
 ous signals of secret intelligence. She preferred to 
 receive Catherine and her daughter at home. The for- 
 mer went to see her every day, and was wrapped up in 
 the expected event. 
 
 Catherine was one of those females whose office is to 
 multiply, and rear the multiplied: who, when at last 
 they consent to leave off pelting one out of every room 
 in the house with babies, hover about the fair scourges 
 that are still in full swing, and do so cluck, they seem to 
 multiply by proxy. It was in this spirit she entreated 
 Eli to let her stay at Rotterdam while he went back ta 
 Tergou. 
 
 " The poor lass hath not a soul about her, that knows 
 
214 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 anything about anything. What avail a pair o' soldiers ? 
 Why, that sort o' cattle should be putten out o' doors the 
 first, at such an a time." 
 
 Need I say that this was a great comfort to Margaret ? 
 
 Poor soul, she was full of anxiety as the time drew 
 near. 
 
 She should die ; and Gerard away. 
 
 But things balance themselves. Her poverty, and her 
 father's helplessness, which had cost her such a struggle, 
 stood her in good stead now. 
 
 Adversity's iron hand had forced her to battle the 
 lassitude that overpowers the rich of her sex, and to be 
 forever on her feet, working. She kept this up to the 
 last by Catherine's advice. 
 
 And so it was, that one fine evening, just at sunset, 
 she lay weak as water, but safe ; with a little face by 
 her side, and the heaven of maternity opening on her. 
 
 " Why dost weep, sweetheart ? All of a sudden ? " 
 
 "He is not here to see it." 
 
 "Ah, well, lass, he will be here ere 'tis weaned. 
 Meantime, God hath been as good to thee as to e'er a 
 woman born; and do but bethink thee it might have 
 been a girl : didn't my very own Kate threaten me with 
 one ! and here we have got the bonniest boy in Holland, 
 and a rare heavy one, the saints be praised for't." 
 
 "Ay, mother, I am but a sorry, ungrateful wretch to 
 weep. If only Gerard were here to see it. 'Tis strange ; 
 I bore him well enow to be away from me in my sorrow ; 
 but oh, it doth seem so hard he should not share my 
 joy. Prithee, prithee, come to me, Gerard ! dear, dear 
 Gerard ! " And she stretched out her feeble arms. 
 
 Catherine bustled about, but avoided Margaret's eyes ; 
 for she could not restrain her own tears at hearing her 
 own absent child thus earnestly addressed. 
 
 Presently, turning round, she found Margaret look- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 215 
 
 ing at her with, a singular expression. " Heard you 
 nought ?" 
 
 "No, my lamb. What?" 
 
 " I did cry on Gerard, but now." 
 
 " Ay, ay, sure I heard that." 
 
 " Well, he answered me." 
 
 " Tush, girl : say not that." 
 
 " Mother, as sure as I lie here, with his boy by my 
 side, his voice came back to me, i Margaret ! ' So. Yet 
 methought 'twas not his happy voice. But that might 
 be the distance. All voices go off sad like at a distance. 
 Why art not happy, sweetheart? and I so happy this 
 night ? Mother, I seem never to have felt a pain or 
 known a care." And her sweet eyes turned and gloated 
 on the little face in silence. 
 
 That very night Gerard flung himself into the Tiber. 
 And, bhat very hour she heard him speak her name, he 
 cried aloud in death's jaws and despair's : 
 
 " Margaret ! " 
 
 Account for it, those who can. I cannot. 
 
216 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 In the guest chamber of a Dominican convent lay a 
 single stranger, exhausted by successive and violent fits 
 of nausea, which had at last subsided, leaving him 
 almost as weak as Margaret lay that night in Holland. 
 
 A huge wood fire burned on the hearth, and beside it 
 hung the patient's clothes. 
 
 A gigantic friar sat by his bedside reading pious col- 
 lects aloud from his breviary. 
 
 The patient at times eyed him, and seemed to listen ; 
 at others closed his eyes and moaned. 
 
 The monk kneeled down with his face touching the 
 ground, and prayed for him : then rose and bade him 
 farewell. " Day breaks," said he, " I must prepare for 
 matins." 
 
 "Good father Jerome, before you go, how came I 
 hither ? " 
 
 " By the hand of heaven. You flung away God's gift. 
 He bestowed it on you again. Think on it ! Hast tried 
 the world and found its gall. Now try the Church. The 
 Church is peace. Pax vobisciim." 
 
 He was gone. Gerard lay back, meditating and won- 
 dering, till weak and wearied he fell into a doze. 
 
 When he awoke again he found a new nurse seated 
 beside him. It was a layman, with an eye as small and 
 restless as Friar Jerome's was calm and majestic. 
 
 The man inquired earnestly how he felt. 
 
 "Very, very weak. Where have I seen you before, 
 messer ? " 
 
 "None the worse for my gauntlet?" inquired the 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 217 
 
 other, with considerable anxiety ; " I was fain to strike 
 you withal, or both you and I should be at the bottom 
 of Tiber." 
 
 Gerard stared at him. " What, 'twas you saved me ? 
 How ? " 
 
 " Well, signor, I was by the banks of Tiber on — on 
 — an errand, no matter what. You came to me, and 
 begged hard for a dagger stroke. But ere I could oblige 
 you, ay, even as you spoke to me, I knew you for the 
 signor that saved my wife and child upon the sea." 
 
 " It is Teresa's husband. And an assassin ! " 
 
 "At your service. Well, Ser Gerard, the next thing 
 was, you flung yourself into Tiber, and bade me hold 
 aloof." 
 
 " I remember that." 
 
 " Had it been any but you, believe me I had obeyed 
 you, and not wagged a finger. Men are my foes. They 
 may all hang on one rope, or drown in one river, for me. 
 But when thou, sinking in Tiber, didst cry 6 Margaret ! ' " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " My heart it cried ' Teresa ! ' How could I go home 
 and look her in the face, did I let thee die, and by the 
 very death thou savedst her from ? So in I went : and 
 luckily for us both I swim like a duck. You, seeing me 
 near, and being bent on destruction, tried to grip me, 
 and so end us both. But I swam round thee, and (re- 
 ceive my excuses) so buffeted thee on the nape of the 
 neck with my steel glove, that thou lost sense, and I 
 with much ado, the stream being strong, did draw thy 
 body to land, but insensible and full of water. Then I 
 took thee on my back and made for my own home. 
 ( Teresa will nurse him, and be pleased with me/ thought 
 I. But, hard by this monastery, a holy friar, the biggest 
 e'er I saw, met us, and asked the matter. So I told him. 
 He looked hard at thee. 1 1 know the face/ quoth he. 
 
218 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Tis one Gerard, a fair youth from Holland.' 'The 
 same,' quo' I. Then said his reverence, ' He hath friends 
 among our brethren. Leave him with us. Charity, it 
 is our office.' 
 
 "Also he told me they of the convent had better means 
 to tend thee than I had. And that was true enow. So 
 I just bargained to be let in to see thee once a day, and 
 here thou art." 
 
 And the miscreant cast a strange look of affection and 
 interest upon Gerard. 
 
 Gerard did not respond to it. He felt as if a snake 
 were in the room. He closed his eyes. 
 
 "Ah, thou wouldst sleep," said the miscreant, eagerly, 
 " I go." And he retired on tip-toe with a promise to 
 come every day. 
 
 Gerard lay with his eyes closed : not asleep, but deeply 
 pondering. 
 
 Saved from death by an assassin ! 
 
 Was not this the finger of Heaven ? 
 
 Of that Heaven he had insulted, cursed, and de- 
 fied. 
 
 He shuddered at his blasphemies. He tried to 
 pray. 
 
 He found he could utter prayers. But he could not 
 pray. 
 
 "I am doomed eternally," he cried, "doomed, doomed." 
 
 The organ of the convent church burst on his ear in 
 rich and solemn harmony. 
 
 Then rose the voices of the choir chanting a full 
 service. 
 
 Among them was one that seemed to hover above the 
 others, and tower towards heaven ; a sweet boy's voice, 
 full, pure, angelic. 
 
 He closed his eyes and listened. The days of his own 
 boyhood flowed back upon him in those sweet, pious har- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 219 
 
 monies. No earthly dross there, no foul, fierce passions, 
 rending and corrupting the soul. 
 
 Peace, peace ; sweet, balmy peace. 
 
 " Ay," he sighed, " the Church is peace of mind. Till 
 I left her bosom I ne'er knew sorrow nor sin." 
 
 And the poor, torn, worn creature wept. 
 
 And, even as he wept, there beamed on him the sweet 
 and reverend face of one he had never thought to see 
 again. It was the face of Father Anselm. 
 
 The good father had only reached the convent the 
 night before last. Gerard recognized him in a moment, 
 and cried to him, " 0 Father Anselm ! you cured my 
 wounded body in Juliers, now cure my hurt soul in 
 Rome ! Alas, you cannot ! " 
 
 Anselm sat down by the bedside, and, putting a gentle 
 hand on his head, first calmed him with a soothing word 
 or two. 
 
 He then (for he had learned how Gerard came there) 
 spoke to him kindly but solemnly, and made him feel his 
 crime, and urged him to repentance and gratitude to that 
 Divine Power, which had thwarted his will to save his 
 soul. 
 
 "Come, my son," said he, "first purge thy bosom of its 
 load." 
 
 " Ah, father," said Gerard, " in Juliers I could ; then 
 I was innocent ; but now, impious monster that I am, I 
 dare not confess to you." 
 
 "Why not, my son ? Thinkest thou I have not sinned 
 against Heaven in my time, and deeply, oh, how deeply ? 
 Come, poor laden soul, pour forth thy grief, pour forth 
 thy faults ; hold back nought ! Lie not oppressed and 
 crushed by hidden sins." 
 
 And soon Gerard was at Father Anselm's knees, con- 
 fessing his every sin with sighs and groans of penitence. 
 
 " Thy sins are great," said Anselm. " Thy temptation 
 
220 THE CLOISTER A2STD THE HEARTH. 
 
 also was great, terribly great. I must consult our good 
 prior." 
 
 The good Anselm kissed his brow, and left him to 
 consult the superior as to his penance. 
 And lo ! Gerard could pray now. 
 And he prayed with all his heart. 
 
 The phase through which this remarkable mind now 
 passed, may be summed in a word — Penitence. 
 
 He turned with terror and aversion from the world, 
 and begged passionately to remain in the convent. To 
 him, convent nurtured, it was like a bird returning 
 wounded, wearied, to its gentle nest. 
 
 He passed his novitiate in prayer and mortification, 
 and pious reading and meditation. 
 
 The Princess Clselia's spy went home and told her 
 that Gerard was certainly dead, the manner of his death 
 unknown at present. 
 
 She seemed literally stunned. 
 
 "When, after a long time, she found breath to speak at 
 all, it was to bemoan her lot, cursed with such ready 
 tools. " So soon," she sighed ; " see how swift these 
 monsters are to do ill deeds. They come to us in our 
 hot blood, and first tempt us with their venal daggers ; 
 then enact the mortal deeds we ne'er had thought on but 
 for them." 
 
 Ere many hours had passed, her pity for Gerard and 
 hatred of his murderer had risen to fever heat ; which 
 with this fool was blood heat. 
 
 ''•'Poor soul! I cannot call thee back to life; but he 
 shall never live that traitorously slew thee." 
 
 And she put armed men in ambush, and kept them on 
 guard all day, ready, when Lodovico should come for his 
 money, to fall on him in a certain ante-chamber and hack 
 him to pieces. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 221 
 
 " Strike at his head," said she, " for he weareth a privy 
 coat of mail ; and if he goes hence alive your own heads 
 shall answer it." 
 
 And so she sat weeping her victim, and pulling the 
 strings of machines to shed the blood of a second for 
 having been her machine to kill the first. 
 
222 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 One of the novice Gerard's self-imposed penances was 
 to receive Lodovico kindly, feeling secretly as to a slimy 
 serpent. 
 
 Never was self-denial better bestowed : and, like most 
 rational penances, it soon became no penance at all. At 
 first the pride and complacency with which the assassin 
 gazed on the one life he had saved was perhaps as ludi- 
 crous as pathetic, but it is a great thing to open a good 
 door in a heart. One good thing follows another through 
 the aperture. Finding it so sweet to save life, the mis- 
 creant went on to be averse to taking it ; and from that 
 to remorse; and from remorse to something very like 
 penitence. And here Teresa co-operated by threatening, 
 not for the first time, to leave him unless he would con- 
 sent to lead an honest life. The good fathers of the 
 convent lent their aid, and Lodovico and Teresa were 
 sent by sea to Leghorn, where Teresa had friends, and 
 the assassin settled down and became a porter. 
 
 He found it miserably dull work at first, and said so. 
 
 But methinks this dull life of plodding labor was better 
 for him than the brief excitement of being hewn in pieces 
 by the Princess Clselia's myrmidons. His exile saved the 
 unconscious penitent from that fate ; and the princess, 
 balked of her revenge, took to brooding, and fell into a 
 profound melancholy ; dismissed her confessor, and took 
 a new one with a great reputation for piety, to whom she 
 confided what she called her griefs. The new confessor 
 was no other than Fra Jerome. She could not have 
 fallen into better hands. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 223 
 
 He heard her grimly out. Then took her and shook 
 the delusions out of her as roughly as if she had been a 
 kitchen-maid. For, to do this hard monk justice, on the 
 path of duty he feared the anger of princes as little as he 
 did the sea. He showed her in a few words, all thunder 
 and lightning, that she was the criminal of criminals. 
 
 " Thou art the devil, that with thy money hath tempted 
 one man to slay his fellow, and then, blinded with self- 
 love, instead of blaming and punishing thyself, art thirst- 
 ing for more blood of guilty men, but not so guilty as 
 thou." 
 
 At first she resisted, and told him she was not used to 
 be taken to task by her confessors. But he overpowered 
 her, and so threatened her with the Church's curse here 
 and hereafter, and so tore the scales off her eyes, and 
 thundered at her, and crushed her, that she sank down 
 and grovelled with remorse and terror at the feet of the 
 gigantic Boanerges. 
 
 " Oh, holy father, have pity on a poor, weak woman, 
 and help me save my guilty soul. I was benighted for 
 want of ghostly counsel like thine, good father. I 
 waken as from a dream." 
 
 " Doff thy jewels," said Fra Jerome, sternly. 
 
 "I will, I will." 
 
 " Doff thy silk and velvet ; and, in humbler garb than 
 wears thy meanest servant, wend thou instant to Loretto." 
 "I will," said the princess, faintly. 
 " No shoes, but a bare sandal." 
 "No, father." 
 
 " Wash the feet of pilgrims both going and coming 
 and to such of them as be holy friars tell thy sin, and 
 abide their admonition." 
 
 " Oh, holy father, let me wear my mask." 
 
 "Humph!" 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! Bethink thee ! My features are known 
 through Italy." 
 
224 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Ay; beauty is a curse to most of ye. 'Well, thou 
 mayst mask thine eyes ; no more." 
 
 On this concession she seized his hand, and was about 
 to kiss it ; but he snatched it rudely from her. 
 
 " What would ye do ? That hand handled the eucha- 
 rist but an hour agone : is it fit for such as thou to touch 
 it ? " 
 
 " Ah, no. But, oh, go not without giving your penitent 
 daughter your blessing." 
 
 "Time enow to ask it when you come back from 
 Loretto." 
 
 Thus that marvellous occurrence by Tiber's banks left 
 its mark on all the actors, as prodigies are said to do. 
 The assassin, softened by saving the life he was paid to 
 take, turned from the stiletto to the porter's knot. The 
 princess went barefoot to Loretto, weeping her crime and 
 washing the feet of base-born men. 
 
 And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent 
 a suicide, now passed for a young saint within its walls. 
 
 Loving but experienced eyes were on him. 
 
 Upon a shorter probation than usual he was admitted 
 to priests' orders. 
 
 And soon after took the monastic vows, and became a 
 friar of St. Dominic. 
 
 Dying to the world, the monk parted with the very 
 name by which he had lived in it, and so broke the last 
 link of association with earthly feeling. 
 
 Here Gerard ended^ and Brother Clement began. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 225 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " As is the race of leaves, so is that of man." And a 
 great man budded unnoticed in a tailor's house at Rotter- 
 dam this year, and a large man dropped to earth with 
 great eclat. 
 
 Philip, Duke of Burgundy, Earl of Holland, etc., etc., 
 lay sick at Bruges. Now paupers got sick and got well 
 as nature pleased : but woe betided the rich in an age 
 when, for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy. 
 
 The duke's complaint, nameless then, is now diphtheria. 
 It is, and was, a very weakening malady, and the duke 
 was old ; so altogether Dr. Remedy bled him. 
 
 The duke turned very cold : wonderful ! 
 
 Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science. 
 
 " Ho ! this is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, and 
 clap him to the duke's breast ! " 
 
 Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to 
 counteract the bloodthirsty tomfoolery of the human 
 species. 
 
 Perdition ! The duke was out of apes. There were 
 buffaloes, lizards, Turks, leopards ; any unreasonable 
 beast but the right one. 
 
 " Why, there used to be an ape about/' said one. " If 
 I stand here, I saw him." 
 
 So there used; but the mastiff had mangled the 
 sprightly creature for stealing his supper, and so ful- 
 filled the human precept : " Soyez de votre Steele / " 
 
 In this emergency, the seneschal cast his despairing 
 eyes around ; and not in vain. A hopeful light shot into 
 them. 
 
226 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Here is this" said he, sotto voce. " Surely this will 
 serve ; 'tis altogether apelike, doublet aud hose apart.*' 
 
 "Nay," said the chancellor, peevishly, a the Princess 
 Marie would hang us. She doteth on this." 
 
 Now this was our friend Giles, strutting, all uncon- 
 scious, in cloth of gold. 
 
 Then Dr. Kemedy grew impatient, and bade flay a 
 dog. 
 
 " A dog is next best to an ape ; only it must be a dog 
 all of one color." 
 
 So they flayed a liver-colored dog, and clapped it, yet 
 palpitating, to their sovereign's breast : and he died. 
 
 Philip the Good, thus scientifically disposed of, left 
 thirty-one children : of whom one, somehow or another, 
 was legitimate ; and reigned in his stead. 
 
 The good duke provided for nineteen out of the other 
 thirty ; the rest shifted for themselves. 
 
 According to the Flemish chronicle the deceased prince 
 was descended from the kings of Troy through Thierry 
 of Aquitaine, and Chilperic, Pharamond, etc., the old 
 kings of Franconia. 
 
 But this in reality was no distinction. Not a prince of 
 his day have I been able to discover who did not come 
 down from Troy. "Priam" was mediaeval for "Adam." 
 
 The good duke's body was carried into Burgundy, and 
 laid in a noble mausoleum of black marble at Dijon. 
 
 Holland rang with his death ; and little dreamed that 
 anything as famous was born in her territory that 
 year. That judgment has been long reversed. Men 
 gaze at the tailor's house, where the great birth of 
 the fifteenth century took place. In what house the 
 good duke died "no one knows and no one cares/' as 
 the song says. 
 
 And why ? 
 
 Dukes Philip the Good come and go, and leave man- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 227 
 
 kind not a halfpenny wiser, nor better, nor other, than 
 they found it. But when, once in three hundred years, 
 such a child is born to the world as Margaret's son, lo ! a 
 human torch lighted by fire from heaven; and "Fiat 
 lux" thunders from pole to pole. 
 
228 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE CLOISTEK. 
 
 The Dominicans, or preaching friars, once the most 
 powerful order in Europe, were now on the wane ; tneir 
 rivals and bitter enemies, the Franciscans, were over- 
 powering them throughout Europe ; even in England, a 
 rich and religious country, where, under the name of the 
 Black Friars, they had once been paramount. 
 
 Therefore the sagacious men, who watched and directed 
 the interests of the order, were never so anxious to in- 
 corporate able and zealous sons, and send them forth to 
 win back the world. 
 
 The zeal and accomplishments of Clement, especially 
 his rare mastery of language (for he spoke Latin, Italian, 
 French, high and low Dutch) soon transpired, and he 
 was destined to travel and preach in England, corre- 
 sponding with the Roman centre. 
 
 But Jerome, who had the superior's ear, obstructed 
 this design. 
 
 " Clement," said he, " has the milk of the world still 
 in his veins, its feelings, its weaknesses; let not his 
 new-born zeal and his humility tempt us to forego our 
 ancient wisdom. Try him first, and temper him, lest 
 one day we find ourselves leaning on a reed for a staff." 
 
 " It is well advised," said the prior. " Take him in 
 hand thyself." 
 
 Then Jerome, following the ancient wisdom, took 
 Clement and tried him. 
 
 One day he brought him to a field where the young 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEABTH. 229 
 
 men amused themselves at the games of the day; he 
 knew this to be a haunt of Clement's late friends. 
 
 And sure enough ere long Pietro Vanucci and Andrea 
 passed by them, and cast a careless glance on the two 
 friars. They did not recognize their dead friend in a 
 shaven monk. 
 
 Clement gave a very little start, and then lowered his 
 eyes and said a paternoster. 
 
 " Would ye not speak with them, brother ? n said 
 Jerome, trying him. 
 
 " No, brother : yet was it good for me to see them. 
 They remind me of the sins I can never repent enough." 
 
 " It is well," said Jerome, and he made a cold report 
 in Clement's favor. 
 
 Then Jerome took Clement to many death-beds. And 
 then into noisome dungeons ; places where the darkness 
 was appalling, and the stench loathsome, pestilential; 
 and men looking like wild beasts lay coiled in rags and 
 filth and despair. It tried his body hard ; but the soul 
 collected all its powers to comfort such poor wretches 
 there as were not past comfort. And Clement shone in 
 that trial. Jerome reported that Clement's spirit was 
 willing, but his flesh was weak. 
 
 " Good ! " said Anselm ; " his flesh is weak, but his 
 spirit is willing." 
 
 But there was a greater trial in store. 
 
 I will describe it as it was seen by others. 
 
 One morning a principal street in Rome was crowded, 
 and even the avenues blocked up with heads. It was an 
 execution. No common crime had been done, and on no 
 vulgar victim. 
 
 The governor of Eome had been found in his bed at 
 daybreak, slaughtered. His hand, raised probably in 
 self-defence, lay by his side severed at the wrist ; his 
 throat was cut, and his temples bruised with some blunt 
 
23 ■ 
 
 THE CLOESTEB AMI THE 
 
 instrument. The murder had been traced to his servant, 
 
 and was to be expiated in kind this very morning. 
 
 murder was thought to call for exact and bloody retribu- 
 tion. 
 
 The criminal was brought to the house of the murdered 
 man. and fastened for half an hour to its w-\*h After 
 this foretaste of legal vengeance his left haul —as 
 struck off. like his victim's. A new-killed fowl was eat 
 open and fastened round the bleeding 5 rant : — ::h — hat 
 view I really don't know ; but, by the look of it, some 
 mare's nest of the poor dear doctors ; and the murderer, 
 thus mutilated and canclageoa ~ as uoroiea a : the staff eli. 
 and there a young friar was most earnest and affectionate 
 in praying with him, and for him, and holding the 
 crucifix close to Ms eyes. 
 
 Presently the executioner pulled the friar roughly on 
 one side, and in a moment felled the culprit with a 
 heavy mallet, and, falling on him, cot his throat from 
 ear to ear. 
 
 There was a cry of horror from the crowd. 
 The voung friar swooned 
 A Laurie monk strode 
 like a child. 
 
 couraged. He confessed 
 regret. 
 
 " Courage, son Clement," 
 can is not made in a day 
 trial. And I forbid thee to 
 bowed his head in token of 
 to wait. A robber was 
 monster of villany and era 
 pure wantonness, after ro": 
 his last night in prison w 
 
 oat :f 
 
 -ang." Cement 
 ^e nan n:t -in a* 
 the soafaili: a 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 231 
 
 the scaffold, and then prayed with him and for him so 
 earnestly that the hardened ruffian shed tears and em- 
 braced him. Clement embraced him too, though his flesh 
 quivered with repugnance ; and held the crucifix earnestly 
 before his eyes. The man was garrotted, and Clement 
 lost sight of the crowd, and prayed loud and earnestly 
 while that dark spirit was passing from earth. He was 
 no sooner dead than the hangman raised his hatchet and 
 quartered the body on the spot. And, oh, mysterious 
 heart of man ! the people who had seen the living body 
 robbed of life with indifference, almost with satisfaction, 
 uttered a piteous cry at each stroke of the axe upon his 
 corpse that could feel nought. Clement too shuddered 
 then, but stood firm, like one of those rocks that vibrate 
 but cannot be thrown down. But suddenly Jerome's 
 voice sounded in his ear. 
 
 " Brother Clement, get thee on that cart and preach to 
 the people. Nay, quickly ! strike with all thy force on 
 all this iron, while yet 'tis hot, and souls are to be 
 saved." 
 
 Clement's color came and went ; and he breathed hard. 
 But he obeyed, and with ill-assured step mounted 
 the cart, and preached his first sermon to the first 
 crowd he had ever faced. Oh, that sea of heads ! His 
 throat seemed parched, his heart thumped, his voice 
 trembled. 
 
 By-and-by the greatness of the occasion, the sight of 
 the eager upturned faces, and his own heart full of zeal, 
 fired the pale monk. He told them this robber's history, 
 warm from his own lips in the prison, and showed his 
 hearers by that example the gradations of folly and 
 crime, and warned them solemnly not to put foot on the 
 first round of that fatal ladder. And as alternately he 
 thundered against the shedders of blood, and moved the 
 crowd to charity and pity, his tremors left him, and he 
 
232 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 felt all strung up like a lute, and gifted with an unsus- 
 pected force; he was master of that listening crowd, 
 could feel their very pulse, could play sacred melodies 
 on them as on his psaltery. Sobs and groans attested 
 his power over the mob already excited by the tragedy 
 before them. Jerome stared like one who goes to light 
 a stick, and fires a rocket. After a while Clement 
 caught his look of astonishment, and, seeing no approba- 
 tion in it, broke suddenly off, and joined him. 
 
 "It was my first endeavor," said he, apologetically. 
 "Your behest came on me like a thunderbolt. Was I 
 — did I ? — Oh, correct me and aid me with your expe- 
 rience, brother Jerome." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Jerome, doubtfully. He added rather 
 sullenly after long reflection, "Give the glory to God, 
 brother Clement ; my opinion is, thou art an orator 
 born." 
 
 He reported the same at headquarters, half reluctantly. 
 For he was an honest friar though a disagreeable one. 
 
 One Julio Antonelli was accused of sacrilege; three 
 witnesses swore they saw him come out of the church 
 whence the candlesticks were stolen, and at the very 
 time. Other witnesses proved an alibi for him as posi- 
 tively. Neither testimony could be shaken. In this 
 doubt Antonelli was permitted the trial by water, hot or 
 cold. By the hot trial he must put his bare arm into 
 boiling water, fourteen inches deep, and take out a 
 pebble ; by the cold trial his body must be let down into 
 eight feet of water. The clergy, who thought him inno- 
 cent, recommended the hot water trial, which, to those 
 whom they favored, was not so terrible as it sounded. 
 But the poor wretch had not the nerve, and chose the 
 cold ordeal. And this gave Jerome another opportunity 
 of steeling Clement. Antonelli took the sacrament, and 
 then was stripped naked on the banks of the Tiber, and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 233 
 
 tied hand and foot, to prevent those struggles by which a 
 man, throwing his arms out of the water, sinks his body. 
 
 He was then let down gently into the stream, and 
 floated a moment, with just his hair above water. A 
 simultaneous roar from the crowd on each bank pro- 
 claimed him guilty. But the next moment the ropes, 
 which happened to be new, got wet, and he settled down. 
 Another roar proclaimed his innocence. They left him 
 at the bottom of the river the appointed time, rather 
 more than half a minute, then drew him up, gurgling, 
 and gasping, and screaming for mercy ; and, after the 
 appointed prayers, dismissed him, cleared of the charge. 
 - During the experiment Clement prayed earnestly on 
 the bank. When it was over he thanked God in a loud 
 but slightly quavering voice. 
 
 By-and-by he asked Jerome whether the man ought 
 not to be compensated. 
 
 " For what ? " 
 
 " For the pain, the dread, the suffocation. Poor soul, 
 he liveth, but hath tasted all the bitterness of death. 
 Yet he had done no ill." 
 
 " He is rewarded enough in that he is cleared of his 
 fault." 
 
 "But, being innocent of that fault, yet hath he drunk 
 Death's cup, though not to the dregs ; and his accusers, 
 less innocent than he, do suffer nought." 
 
 Jerome replied, somewhat sternly : 
 
 "It is not in this world men are really punished, 
 brother Clement. Unhappy they who sin, yet suffer 
 not. And happy they who suffer such ills as earth hath 
 power to inflict ; 'tis counted to them above, ay, and a 
 hundredfold." 
 
 Clement bowed his head submissively. 
 
 " May thy good words not fall to the ground, but take 
 root in my heart, brother Jerome." 
 
234 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 But the severest trial Clement underwent at Jerome's 
 hands was unpremeditated. It came about thus. Jerome, 
 in an indulgent moment, went with him to Fra Colonna, 
 and there "The Dream of Polifilo" lay on the table just 
 copied fairly. The poor author, in the pride of his heart, 
 pointed out a master-stroke in it. 
 
 " For ages," said he, " fools have been lavishing poetic 
 praise and amorous compliment on mortal women, mere 
 creatures of earth, smacking palpably of their origin; 
 sirens at the windows, where our Soman women in par- 
 ticular have by lifelong study learned the wily art to 
 show their one good feature, though but an ear or an 
 eyelash, at a jalosy, and hide all the rest ; magpies at 
 the door, Capre n 9 i giardini, Angeli in Strada, Sante in 
 cliiesa, Diavoli in casa. Then come I and ransack the 
 minstrels' lines for amorous turns, not forgetting those 
 which Petrarch wasted on that French jilt Laura, the 
 slyest of them all ; and I lay you the whole bundle of 
 spice at the feet of the only females worthy amorous 
 incense ; to wit, the Nine Muses." 
 
 " By which goodly stratagem," said Jerome, who had 
 been turning the pages all this time, "you, a friar of St. 
 Dominic, have produced an obscene book." And he 
 dashed Polifilo on the table. 
 
 " Obscene ? thou discourteous monk ! " And the author 
 ran round the table, snatched Polifilo away, locked him 
 up, and, trembling with mortification, said, " My Gerard 
 — pshaw ! brother What's-his-name — had not found 
 Polifilo obscene. Puris omnia pura," 
 
 " Such as read your Polifilo — Heaven grant they may 
 be few ! — will find him what I find him." 
 
 Poor Colonna gulped down this bitter pill as he might ; 
 and had he not been in his own lodgings, and a high- 
 born gentleman as well as a scholar, there might have 
 been a vulgar quarrel. As it was, he made a great effort 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 235 
 
 and turned the conversation to a beautiful chrysolite the 
 Cardinal Colonna had lent him ; and, while Clement 
 handled it, enlarged on its moral virtues : for he went 
 the whole length of his age as a worshipper of jewels. 
 But Jerome did not, and expostulated with him for 
 believing that one dead stone could confer valor on its 
 wearer, another chastity, another safety from poison, 
 another temperance. 
 
 " The experience of ages proves they do," said Colonna. 
 " As to the last virtue you have named, there sits a living 
 proof. This Gerard — I beg pardon, brother Thingemy 
 — comes from the north, where men drink like fishes ; 
 yet was he ever most abstemious. And why ? Carried 
 an amethyst, the clearest and fullest colored e'er I saw 
 on any but noble finger. Where, in Heaven's name, is 
 thine amethyst ? Show it this unbeliever ! " 
 
 "And 'twas that amethyst made the boy temperate ? " 
 asked Jerome, ironically. 
 
 " Certainly. Why, what is the derivation and meaning 
 of amethyst ? a negative, and [isdva to tipple. Go to, 
 names are but the signs of things. A stone is not called 
 a/jedvaxog for two thousand years out of mere sport, and 
 abuse of language." 
 
 He then went through the prime jewels, illustrating 
 their moral properties, especially of the ruby, the sap- 
 phire, the emerald, and the opal, by anecdotes out of 
 grave historians. 
 
 " These be old wives' fables," said Jerome, contempt- 
 uously. "Was ever such credulity as thine ? " 
 
 Now credulity is a reproach sceptics have often the 
 ill-luck to incur ; but it mortifies them none the less for 
 that. 
 
 The believer in stones writhed under it, and dropped 
 the subject. Then Jerome, mistaking his silence, ex- 
 horted him to go a step farther, and give up from this 
 
236 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEAETH. 
 
 day his vain pagan lore, and study the lives of the saints. 
 "Blot ont these heathen superstitions from thy rnind, 
 brother, as Christianity hath blotted thern from the 
 earth." 
 
 And in this strain he proceeded, repeating, incautiously, 
 some current but loose theological statements. Then the 
 smarting Polifilo revenged himself. He flew out, and 
 hurled a mountain of crude, miscellaneous lore upon 
 Jerome, of which, partly for want of time, partly for 
 lack of learning, I can reproduce but a few frag- 
 ments. 
 
 " The heathen blotted out ? Why, they hold four- 
 fifths of the world. And what have we Christians in- 
 vented without their aid ? Painting ? sculpture ? these 
 are heathen arts, and we but pygmies at them. What 
 modern mind can conceive and grave so godlike forms 
 as did the chief Athenian sculptors, and the Libyan 
 Licas, and Dinocrates of Macedon, and Scopas, Tinio- 
 theus, Leochares, and Briaxis ; Chares, Lysippus, and 
 the immortal three of Ehodes, that wrought Laocoon 
 from a single block ? What prince hath the genius to 
 turn mountains into statues, as was done at Bagistan, 
 and projected at Athos ? what town the soul to plant a 
 colossus of brass in the sea, for the tallest ships to sail 
 in and out between his legs ? Is it architecture we have 
 invented ? Why, here too we are but children. Can 
 we match for pure design the Parthenon, with its clus- 
 ters of double and single Doric columns ? (I do adore 
 the Doric when the scale is large), and, for grandeur and 
 finish, the theatres of Greece and Koine, or the prodigious 
 temples of Egypt, up to whose portals men walked awe- 
 struck through avenues a mile long of sphinxes, each as 
 big as a Venetian palace. And all these prodigies of 
 porphyry cut and polished like crystal, not rough hewn 
 as in our puny structures. Even now their polished col- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 237 
 
 umns and pilasters lie overthrown and broken, o'ergrown 
 with acanthus and myrtle, but sparkling still, and flout- 
 ing the slovenly art of modem workmen. Is it sewers, 
 aqueducts, viaducts ? 
 
 " Why, we have lost the art of making a road — lost it 
 with the world's greatest models under our very eye. Is 
 it sepulchres of the dead? Why, no Christian nation 
 has erected a tomb, the sight of which does not set a 
 scholar laughing. Do but think of the Mausoleum, and 
 the Pyramids, and the monstrous sepulchres of the 
 Indus and Ganges, which outside are mountains, and 
 within are mines of precious stones. Ah, you have not 
 seen the East, Jerome, or you could not decry the 
 heathen." 
 
 Jerome observed that these were mere material things. 
 True greatness was in the soul. 
 
 " Well, then," replied Colonna, " in the world of mind, 
 what have we discovered ? Is it geometry ? Is it logic ? 
 Nay, we are all pupils of Euclid and Aristotle. Is it 
 written characters, an invention almost divine ? We no 
 more invented it than Cadmus did. Is it poetry ? 
 Homer hath never been approached by us, nor hath 
 Virgil, nor Horace. Is it tragedy or comedy ? Why, 
 poets, actors, theatres, all fell to dust at our touch. 
 Have we succeeded in reviving them ? Would you com- 
 pare our little miserable mysteries and moralities, all 
 frigid personification and dog Latin, with the glories of 
 a Greek play (on the decoration of which a hundred 
 thousand crowns had been spent) performed inside a 
 marble miracle, the audience a seated city, and the poet 
 a Sophocles ? 
 
 " What, then, have we invented ? Is it monotheism ? 
 Why, the learned and philosophical among the Greeks 
 and Romans held it : even their more enlightened poets 
 were monotheists in their sleeves. 
 
238 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 * Zsvg sgtiv ovgavog, Zsvg is yrj Zsvg toi naviaf 
 saith the Greek, and Lucan echoes him : 
 
 * Jupiter est quod cunque vides quo cunque moveris. 1 
 
 " Their vulgar were polytheists ; and what are ours ? 
 We have not invented ' invocation of the saints.' Our 
 sancti answers to their Dsemones and Divi, and the 
 heathen used to pray their Divi or deified mortals to 
 intercede with the higher divinity ; but the ruder minds 
 among them, incapable of nice distinctions, worshipped 
 those lesser gods they should have but invoked. And 
 so do the mob of Christians in our day, following the 
 heathen vulgar by unbroken tradition. For in holy writ 
 is no polytheism of any sort or kind. 
 
 "We have not invented so much as a form, or variety, 
 of polytheism. The pagan vulgar worshipped all sorts 
 of deified mortals, and each had his favorite, to whom he 
 prayed ten times for once to the Omnipotent. Our vul- 
 gar worship canonized mortals, and each has his favor- 
 ite, to whom he prays ten times for once to God. Call 
 you that invention ? Invention is confined to the East. 
 Among the ancient vulgar only the mariners were mono- 
 theists ; they worshipped Venus ; called her Stella maris, 
 and Regina coelorum. Among our vulgar only the mari- 
 ners are monotheists ; they worship the Virgin Mary, 
 and call her the i Star of the Sea/ and the ' Queen of 
 Heaven.' Call you theirs a new religion? An old 
 doublet with a new button. Our vulgar make images 
 and adore them, which is absurd; for adoration is the 
 homage due from a creature to its creator; now here 
 man is the creator ; so the statues ought to worship him, 
 and would if they had brains enough to justify a rat in 
 worshipping them. But even this abuse, though childish 
 enough to be modern, is ancient. The pagan vulgar in 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 239 
 
 these parts made their images, then knelt before them, 
 adorned them with flowers, offered incense to them, 
 lighted tapers before them, carried them in procession, 
 and made pilgrimages to them, just to the smallest tittle 
 as we their imitators do." 
 
 Jerome here broke in impatiently, and reminded him 
 that the images the most revered in Christendom were 
 made by no mortal hand, but had dropped from heaven. 
 
 " Ay," cried Colonna, " such are the tutelary images of 
 most great Italian towns. I have examined nineteen of 
 them, and made draughts of them. If they came from 
 the sky, our worst sculptors are our angels. But my 
 mind is easy on that score. Ungainly statue, or villan- 
 ous daub, fell never yet from heaven to smuggle the 
 bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is 
 Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imagi- 
 nations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden 
 statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The 
 Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and 
 soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their 
 Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul 
 trouble at Ephesus ; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell 
 down from Jupiter : credat qui credere jpossit." 
 
 "What, would you cast your profane doubts on that 
 picture of our blessed Lady, which scarce a century 
 agone hung lustrous in the air over this very city, and 
 was taken down by the Pope and bestowed in St. Peter's 
 Church ? " 
 
 "I have no profane doubts on the matter, Jerome. 
 This is the story of Numa's shield, revived by theolo- 
 gians with an itch for fiction, but no talent that way; 
 not being Orientals. The ancile or sacred shield of Numa 
 hung lustrous in the air over this very city, till that 
 pious prince took it down and hung it in the temple of 
 Jupiter. Be just, swallow both stories or neither. The 
 
240 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Bocca delta Vevita passes for a statue of the Virgin, and 
 convicted a woman of perjury the other day ; it is in 
 reality an image of the goddess Rhea, and the modern 
 figment is one of its ancient traditions ; swallow both or 
 neither. 
 
 ' Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina, Mavi.' 
 
 " But indeed we owe all our Palladiuncula, and all our 
 speaking, nodding, winking, sweating, bleeding statues, 
 to these poor abused heathens : the Athenian statues all 
 sweated before the battle of Chaeronea, so did the Eoman 
 statues during Tally's consulship, viz., the statue of 
 Victory at Capua, of Mars at Home, and of Apollo out- 
 side the gates. The Palladium itself was brought to 
 Italy by iEneas, and after keeping quiet three centuries, 
 made an observation in Vesta's Temple : a trivial one, I 
 fear, since it hath not survived; Juno's statue at Veii 
 assented with a nod to go to Rome. Antony's statue on 
 Mount Alban bled from every vein in its marble before 
 the fight of Actium. Others cured diseases : as that of 
 Pelichus, derided by Lucian; for the wiser among the 
 heathen believed in sweating marble, weeping wood, and 
 bleeding brass — as I do. Of all our marks and dents 
 made in stone by soft substances, this saint's knee, and 
 that saint's finger, and t'other's head, the original is 
 heathen. Thus the footprints of Hercules were shown 
 on a rock in Scythia. Castor and Pollux fighting on 
 white horses for Rome against the Latians, left the 
 prints of their hoofs on a rock at Regillum. A temple 
 was built to them on the spot, and the marks were to be 
 seen in Tully's day. You may see near Venice a great 
 stone cut nearly in half by St. George's sword. This 
 he ne'er had done but for the old Roman who cut the 
 whetstone in two with his razor. 
 
 1 Qui Bavium non odit amet tua carmina, Mavi.* 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 241 
 
 " Kissing of images, and the Pope's toe, is Eastern 
 Paganism. The Egyptians had it of the Assyrians, the 
 Greeks of the Egyptians, the Eomans of the Greeks, and 
 we of the Komans, whose Pontifex Maximns had his toe 
 kissed under the Empire. The Druids kissed their 
 high priest's toe a thousand years b.c. The Mussul- 
 mans, who, like you, profess to abhor heathenism, kiss 
 the stone of the Caaba : a Pagan practice. 
 
 " The priests of Baal kissed their idols so. 
 
 " Tully tells us of a fair image of Hercules at Agrigen- 
 tum, whose chin was worn by kissing. The lower parts 
 of the statue we call Peter are Jupiter. The toe is sore 
 worn, but not all by Christian mouths. The heathen 
 vulgar laid their lips there first, for many a year, and 
 ours have but followed them, as monkeys their masters. 
 And that is why down with the poor heathen ! Pereant 
 qui ante nos nostra fecerint. 
 
 " Our infant baptism is Persian, with the font, and 
 the signing of the child's brow. Our throwing three 
 handfuls of earth on the coffin, and saying, Dust to dust, 
 is Egyptian. 
 
 "Our incense is Oriental, Koman, Pagan; and the 
 early fathers of the Church regarded it with supersti- 
 tious horror, and died for refusing to handle it. Our 
 holy water is Pagan, and all its uses. See, here is a 
 Pagan aspersorium. Could you tell it from one of ours ? 
 It stood in the same part of their temples, and was used 
 in ordinary worship as ours, and in extraordinary purifi- 
 cations. They called it aqua lustralis. Their vulgar, 
 like ours, thought drops of it falling on the body would 
 wash out sin ; and their men of sense, like ours, smiled 
 or sighed at such credulity. What saith Ovid of this 
 folly, which hath outlived him ? 
 
 ' Ah nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina coedis 
 Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqua.' 
 
 16 
 
242 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Thou seest the heathen were not all fools. No more are 
 we. Not all." 
 
 Fra Colonna uttered all this with such volubility, that 
 his hearers could not edge in a word of remonstrance ; and 
 not being interrupted in praising his favorites, he re- 
 covered his good humor without any diminution of his 
 volubility. 
 
 " We celebrate the miraculous Conception of the Vir- 
 gin on the 2d of February. The old Romans celebrated 
 the miraculous Conception of Juno on the 2d of Febru- 
 ary. Our Feast of All Saints is on the 2d November. 
 The Festum Dei Mortis was on the 2d November. Our 
 Candlemas is also an old Roman feast : neither the date 
 nor the ceremony altered one tittle. The patrician 
 ladies carried candles about the city that night as our 
 signoras do now. At the gate of San Croce our courte- 
 sans keep a feast on the 20th August. Ask them why ! 
 The little noodles cannot tell you. On that very spot 
 stood the Temple of Venus. Her building is gone ; but 
 her rite remains. Did we discover Purgatory ? On the 
 contrary, all we really know about it is from two treat- 
 ises of Plato, the G-orgias and the Phaedo, and the sixth 
 book of Virgil's iEneid." 
 
 " I take it from a holier source : St. Gregory," said 
 Jerome sternly. 
 
 "Like enough," replied Colonna dryly. "But St. 
 Gregory was not so nice ; he took it from Virgil. Some 
 souls, saith Gregory, are purged by fire, others by water, 
 others by air. 
 
 " Says Virgil : — 
 
 ' Aliae panduntur inanes, 
 Suspensse ad ventos, aliis sub gurgite vasto 
 Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni. 1 
 
 But peradventure, you think Pope Gregory I. lived be- 
 fore Virgil, and Virgil versified him. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 243 
 
 " But the doctrine is Eastern, and as much older than 
 Plato as Plato than Gregory. Our prayers for the dead 
 came from Asia with ^Eneas. Ovid tells, that when he 
 prayed for the soul of Anchises, the custom was strange 
 in Italy. 
 
 1 Hunc morem iEnseas, pietatis idoneus auctor 
 Attulit in terras, juste Latine, tuas.' 
 
 The ' Biblicse Sortes,' which I have seen consulted on the 
 altar, are a parody on the ' Sortes Virgilianse.' Our numer- 
 ous altars in one church are heathen : the Jews, who are 
 monotheists, have but one altar in a church. But the 
 Pagans had many, being polytheists. In the temple of 
 Paphian Venus were a hundred of them. ' Centum que 
 Sabceo thure calent arce.' Our altars and our hundred 
 lights around St. Peter's tomb are Pagan. ' Centum aras 
 posuit vigilemque sacraverat ignemJ We invent nothing, 
 not even numerically. Our very Devil is the god Pan : 
 horns and hoofs and all ; but blackened. For we cannot 
 draw ; we can but daub the figures of antiquity with a 
 little sorry paint or soot. Our Moses hath stolen the 
 horns of Amnion ; our Wolfgang the hook of Saturn ; and 
 Janus bore the keys of heaven before St. Peter. All our 
 really old Italian bronzes of the Virgin and Child are 
 Venuses and Cupids. So is the wooden statue, that 
 stands hard by this house, of Pope Joan and the child 
 she is said to have brought forth there in the middle of 
 a procession. Idiots ! are new-born children thirteen 
 years old ? And that boy is not a day younger. Cupid ! 
 Cupid ! Cupid ! And since you accuse me of credulity, 
 know that to my mind that Papess is full as mythologi- 
 cal, born of froth, and every way unreal, as the goddess 
 who passes for her in the next street, or as the saints you 
 call St. Baccho and St. Quirina : or St. Oracte, which is a 
 dunce-like corruption of Mount Soracte ; or St. Amphibo- 
 
244 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 lus, an English saint, which is a dunce-like corruption 
 of the cloak worn by their St. Alban ; or as the Spanish 
 saint, St. Viar, which words on his tombstone, written 
 thus : 1 S. Viar,' prove him no saint, but a good old name- 
 less heathen, and 'prcefectus Viarum,' or overseer of 
 roads (would he were back to earth, and paganizing of 
 our Christian roads !) ; or as our St. Veronica of Benasco, 
 which Veronica is a dunce-like corruption of the ' Vera 
 icon, 3 which this saint brought into the Church. I wish 
 it may not be as unreal as the donor, or as the eleven 
 thousand virgins of Cologne, who were but a couple." 
 
 Clement interrupted him to inquire what he meant. 
 " I have spoken with those have seen their bones." 
 
 " What, of eleven thousand virgins all collected in one 
 place and at one time ? Do but bethink thee, Clement, 
 Not one of the great Eastern cities of antiquity could 
 collect eleven thousand Pagan virgins at one time, far 
 less a puny Western city. Eleven thousand Christian 
 virgins in a little, wee Paynim city ! 
 
 • Quod cunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' 
 
 The simple sooth is this. The martyrs were two : the 
 Breton princess herself, falsely called British, and her 
 maid, Onesimilla, which is a Greek name, Onesima, 
 diminished. This some fool did mispronounce undecim 
 mille, eleven thousand: loose tongue found credulous 
 ears, and so one fool made many ; eleven thousand of 
 them, an you will. And you charge me with credulity, 
 Jerome ? and bid me read the lives of the saints. Well, 
 I have read them, and many a dear old Pagan acquaint- 
 ance I found there. The best fictions in the book are 
 Oriental, and are known to have been current in Persia 
 and Arabia eight hundred years and more before the 
 dates the Church assigns to them as facts. As for the 
 true Western figments, they lack the Oriental plausi- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 245 
 
 bility. Think you I am credulous enough to believe 
 that St. Ida joined a decapitated head to its body ? that 
 Cuthbert's carcass directed his bearers where to go, and 
 where to stop ; that a city was eaten up of rats to punish 
 one Hatto for comparing the poor to mice ; that angels 
 have a little horn in their foreheads, and that this was 
 seen and recorded at the time by St. Veronica of Benasco, 
 who never existed, and hath left us this information and 
 a miraculous handkercher ? For my part, I think the 
 holiest woman the world ere saw must have an existence 
 ere she can have a handkercher or an eye to take uni- 
 corns for angels. Think you I believe that a brace of 
 lions turned sextons and helped Anthony bury Paul of 
 Thebes ? that Patrick, a Scotch saint, stuck a goat's 
 beard on all the descendants of one that offended him ? 
 that certain thieves having stolen the convent ram, and 
 denying it, St. Pol de Leon bade the ram bear witness, 
 and straight the mutton bleated in the thief's belly ? 
 Would you have me give up the skilful figments of 
 antiquity for such old wives' fables as these ? The 
 ancients lied about animals, too: but then, they lied 
 logically ; we unreasonably. Do but compare Ephis and 
 his lion, or, better still, Androcles and his lion, with 
 Anthony and his two lions. Both the Pagan lions do 
 what lions never did ; but at the least they act in charac- 
 ter. A lion with a bone in his throat, or a thorn in his 
 foot, could not do better than be civil to a man. But 
 Anthony's lions are asses in a lion's skin. What leonine 
 motive could they have in turning sextons ? A lion's 
 business is to make corpses, not inter them." He added, 
 with a sigh, "Our lies are as inferior to the lies of the 
 ancients as our statues, and for the same reason; we do 
 not study nature as they did. We are imitators, servum 
 pecus. Believe you ' the lives of the saints ; ' that Paul 
 the Theban was the first hermit, and Anthony the first 
 
246 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 csenobite ? Why, Pythagoras was an eremite, and 
 under ground for seven years : and his daughter was an 
 abbess. Monks and hermits were in the East long be- 
 fore Moses, and neither old Greece nor Eome was ever 
 without them. As for St. Francis and his snowballs, he 
 did but mimic Diogenes, who, naked, embraced statues 
 on which snow had fallen. The folly without the poetry. 
 Ape of an ape — for Diogenes was but a mimic therein 
 of the Brahmins and Indian gymnosophists. Nathe- 
 less, the children of this Francis bid fair to pelt us 
 out of the Church with their snowballs. Tell me now, 
 Clement, what habit is lovelier than the vestments of 
 our priests ? Well, we owe them all to ISTuma Pompilius, 
 except the girdle and the stole, which are Judaical. As 
 for the amice and the alb, they retain the very names 
 they bore in Isuma's day. The 'pelt' worn by the 
 canons comes from primeval Paganism. 'Tis a relic of 
 those rude times when the sacrificing priest wore the 
 skins of the beasts with the fur outward. Strip off thy 
 black gown, Jerome, thy girdle and cowl, for they come 
 to us all three from the Pagan ladies. Let thy hair 
 grow like Absalom's, Jerome! for the tonsure is as 
 Pagan as the Muses." 
 
 " Take care what thou sayest," said Jerome, sternly. 
 " We know the very year in which the Church did first 
 ordain it." 
 
 " But not invent it, Jerome. The Brahmins wore it a 
 few thousand years ere that. From them it came through 
 the Assyrians to the priests of Isis in Egypt, and after- 
 wards of Serapis at Athens. The late Pope (the saints 
 be good to him) once told me the tonsure was forbidden 
 by God to the Levites in the Pentateuch. If so, this 
 was because of the Egyptian priests wearing it. I trust 
 to his Holiness. I am no biblical scholar. The Latin of 
 thy namesake Jerome is a barrier I cannot overleap. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 247 
 
 ' Dixit ad me Dominus Dens. Dixi ad Dominant Deum? 
 No, thank you, holy Jerome ; I can stand a good deal, 
 but I cannot stand thy Latin. Nay ; give me the New 
 Testament ! 'Tis not the Greek of Xenophon ; but 'tis 
 Greek. And there be heathen sayings in it too. For 
 St. Paul was not so spiteful against them as thou. When 
 the heathen said a good thing that suited his matter, by 
 Jupiter he just took it, and mixed it to all eternity with 
 the inspired text." 
 
 " Come forth, Clement, come forth ! " said Jerome 
 rising ; " and thou, profane monk, know that but for the 
 powerful house that upholds thee, thy accursed heresy 
 should go no farther, for I would have thee burned at 
 the stake." And he strode out white with indignation. 
 
 Colonna's reception of this threat did credit to him as 
 an enthusiast. He ran and hallooed joyfully after 
 Jerome : " And that is Pagan. Burning of men's 
 bodies for the opinions of their souls is a purely Pagan 
 custom — as Pagan as incense, holy water, a hundred 
 altars in one church, the tonsure, the cardinal's or 
 flamen's hat, the word Pope, the " — 
 
 Here Jerome slammed the door. 
 
 But ere they could get clear of the house a jalosy was 
 flung open, and the Paynim monk came out head and 
 shoulders, and overhung the street, shouting — 
 
 " ' Affecti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum 
 Novas superstitionis ac maleficse.'" 
 
 And having delivered this parting blow, he felt a great 
 triumphant joy, and strode exultant to and fro ; and not 
 attending with his usual care to the fair way (for his 
 room could only be threaded by little paths wriggling 
 among the antiquities), tripped over the beak of an 
 Egyptian stork, and rolled upon a regiment of Armenian 
 gods, which he found tough in argument though small in 
 stature. 
 
248 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " You will go no more to that heretical monk/' said 
 Jerome to Clement. 
 
 Clement sighed. " Shall we leave him and not try to 
 correct him ? Make allowance for heat of discourse ; he 
 was nettled. His words are worse than his acts. Oh ! 
 'tis a pure and charitable soul." 
 
 " So are all arch-heretics. Satan does not tempt them 
 like other men. Rather he makes them more moral, to 
 give their teaching weight. Fra Colonna cannot be cor- 
 rected ; his family is all-powerful in Rome. Pray we 
 the saints he blasphemes to enlighten him. 'Twill not 
 be the first time they have returned good for evil. Mean- 
 time thou art forbidden to consort with him. From this 
 day go alone through the city. Confess and absolve 
 sinners ; exorcise demons ; comfort the sick ; terrify 
 the impenitent; preach wherever men are gathered 
 and occasion serves ; and hold no converse with the Fra 
 Colonna ! " 
 
 Clement bowed his head. 
 
 Then the prior, at Jerome's request, had the young 
 friar watched. And one day the spy returned with the 
 news that brother Clement had passed by the Fra 
 Colonna's lodging, and had stopped a little while in 
 the street, and then gone on, but with his hand to his 
 eyes, and slowty. 
 
 This report Jerome took to the prior. The prior 
 asked his opinion, and also Anselm's, who was then 
 taking leave of him on his return to Juliers. 
 
 Jerome. Humph ! He obeyed, but with regret, ay, 
 with childish repining. 
 
 Anselm. He shed a natural tear at turning his back 
 on a friend and a benefactor. But he obeyed. 
 
 Now Anselm was one of your gentle irresistibles. He 
 had at times a mild ascendant even over J erome. 
 
 " Worthy brother Anselm," said Jerome, " Clement is 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 249 
 
 weak to the very bone. He will disappoint thee. He 
 will do nothing great, either for the Church or for our 
 holy order. Yet he is an orator, and hath drunken of 
 the spirit of St. Dominic. Fly him, then, with a string." 
 
 That same day it was announced to Clement that he 
 was to go to England immediately with brother Jerome. 
 
 Clement folded his hands on his breast, and bowed his 
 head in calm submission. 
 
250 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE HEARTH. 
 
 A Catherine is not an unmixed good in a strange 
 house. The governing power is strong in her. She has 
 scarce crossed the threshold ere the utensils seem to 
 brighten ; the hearth to sweep itself ; the windows to let 
 in more light ; and the soul of an enormous cricket to 
 animate the dwelling-place. But this cricket is a busy- 
 body. And that is a tremendous character. It has no 
 discrimination. It sets everything to rights, and every- 
 body. Now many things are the better for being set to 
 rights. But everything is not. Everything is the one 
 thing that won't stand being set to rights, except in that 
 calm and cool retreat, the grave. 
 
 Catherine altered the position of every chair and table 
 in Margaret's house, and perhaps for the better. 
 
 But she must go further, and upset the live furniture. 
 
 When Margaret's time was close at hand, Catherine 
 treacherously invited the aid of Denys and Martin ; and, 
 on the poor, simple-minded fellows asking her earnestly 
 what service they could be, she told them they might 
 make themselves comparatively useful by going for a 
 little walk. So far so good. But she intimated further 
 that should the promenade extend into the middle of 
 next week, all the better. This was not ingratiating. 
 
 The subsequent conduct of the strong under the yoke 
 of the weak might have propitiated a she-bear with 
 three cubs, one sickly. They generally slipped out of 
 the house at daybreak, and stole in like thieves at night ; 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, 251 
 
 and if by any chance they were at home, they went 
 about like cats on a wall tipped with broken glass, and 
 wearing awe-struck visages, and a general air of subjuga- 
 tion and depression. 
 
 But all would not do. Their very presence was ill- 
 timed, and jarred upon Catherine's nerves. 
 
 Did instinct whisper, a pair of depopulators had no 
 business in a house with multipliers twain ? 
 
 The breastplate is no armor against a female tongue, 
 and Catherine ran infinite pins and needles of speech 
 into them. In a word, when Margaret came down-stairs, 
 she found the kitchen swept of heroes. 
 
 Martin, old and stiff, had retreated no farther than the 
 street, and with the honors of war : for he had carried 
 off his baggage, a stool, and sat on it in the air. 
 
 Margaret saw he was out in the sun, but was not 
 aware he was a fixture in that luminary. She asked for 
 Denys. " Good, kind Denys : he will be right pleased 
 to see me about again." 
 
 Catherine, wiping a bowl with now superfluous vigor, 
 told her Denys was gone to his friends in Burgundy. 
 "And high time. Hasn't been a-nigh them this three 
 years, by all accounts." 
 
 " What, gone without bidding me farewell ? " said 
 Margaret, opening two tender eyes like full-blown 
 violets. 
 
 Catherine reddened. For this new view of the matter 
 set her conscience pricking her. 
 
 But she gave a little toss, and said, "Oh, you were 
 asleep at the time, and I would not have you wakened." 
 
 " Poor Denys," said Margaret ; and the dew gathered 
 visibly on the open violets. 
 
 Catherine saw out of the corner of her eye, and, with- 
 out taking a bit of open notice, slipped off and lavished 
 hospitality and tenderness on the surviving depopulator. 
 
252 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 It was sudden ; and Martin old and stiff in more ways 
 than one. 
 
 "No, thank you, dame. I have got used to out o' 
 doors. And I love not changing and changing. I 
 meddle wi 5 nobody here, and nobody meddles wi' me." 
 
 " Oh, you nasty, cross, old wretch ! " screamed Cathe- 
 rine, passing in a moment from treacle to sharpest 
 vinegar. And she flounced back into the house. 
 
 On calm reflection she had a little cry. Then she half 
 reconciled herself to her conduct by vowing to be so 
 kind, Margaret should never miss her plagues of soldiers. 
 But, feeling still a little uneasy, she dispersed all regrets 
 by a process at once simple and sovereign. 
 
 She took and washed, the child. 
 
 From head to foot she washed him in tepid water; 
 and heroes, and their wrongs, became as dust in an ocean 
 — of soap and water. 
 
 While this celestial ceremony proceeded, Margaret 
 could not keep quiet. She hovered round the fortunate 
 performer. She must have an apparent hand in it, if 
 not a real. She put her finger into the water — to pave 
 the way for her boy, I suppose, for she could not have 
 deceived herself so far as to think Catherine would 
 allow her to settle the temperature. During the ablu- 
 tion she kneeled down opposite the little Gerard, and 
 prattled to him with amazing fluency ; taking care, how- 
 ever, not to articulate like grown-up people; for, how 
 could a cherub understand their ridiculous pronuncia- 
 tion ? 
 
 "I wish you could wash out that," said she, fLrng 
 her eyes on the little boy's hand. 
 "What?" 
 
 " What, have you not noticed ? on his little finger." 
 Granny looked, and there was a little brown mole. 
 l - Eh, but this is wonderful ! " she cried. " Nature, my 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 253 
 
 lass, y' are strong, and meddlesome, to boot. Hast 
 noticed such a mark on some one else ? Tell the truth, 
 girl." 
 
 "What, on him? Nay, mother, not I." 
 
 "Well then, he has, and on the very spot. And you 
 never noticed that much. But, dear heart, I forgot; 
 you hain't known him from child to man as I have. I 
 have had him hundreds o' times on my knees, the same 
 as this, and washed him from top to toe in lu-warm 
 water." And she swelled with conscious superiority ; 
 and Margaret looked meekly up to her as a woman 
 beyond competition. 
 
 Catherine looked down from her dizzy height, and 
 moralized. She differed from other busybodies in this, 
 that she now and then reflected ; not deeply ; or of course 
 I should take care not to print it. 
 
 "It is strange," said she, "how things come round and 
 about. Life is but a whirligig. Leastways, we poor 
 women, our lives are all cut upon one pattern. Wasn't 
 I for washing out my Gerard's mole in his young days ? 
 1 Oh, fie ! here's a foul blot,' quo' I ; and scrubbed away 
 at it I did till I made the poor wight cry; so then I 
 thought 'twas time to give over. And now says you to 
 me, ' Mother,' says you, ' do try and wash yon out o' my 
 Gerard's finger,' says you. Think on't ! " 
 
 " Wash it out ? " cried Margaret " I wouldn't for all 
 the world. Why, it is the sweetest bit in his little dar- 
 ling body. I'll kiss it morn and night till he, that owned 
 it first, comes back to us three. Oh, bless you, my jewel 
 of gold and silver, for being marked like your own daddy v 
 to comfort me." 
 
 And she kissed little Gerard's little mole, but she 
 could not stop there ; she presently had him sprawling 
 on her lap, and kissed his back all over again and again, 
 and seemed to worry him as wolf a lamb. Catherine 
 
254 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 looking on and smiling. She had seen a good many of 
 these savage onslaughts in her day. 
 
 And this little sketch indicates the tenor of Margaret's 
 life for several months. One or two small things occurred 
 to her during that time, which must be told; but I 
 reserve them, since one string will serve for many glass 
 beads. But, while her boy's father was passing through 
 those fearful tempests of the soul, ending in the dead 
 monastic calm, her life might fairly be summed in one 
 great blissful word : — 
 
 Maternity. 
 
 You, who know what lies in that word, enlarge my 
 little sketch, and see the young mother nursing and 
 washing, and dressing and undressing, and crowing and 
 gambolling with her first-born ; then swifter than light- 
 ning dart your eye into Italy, and see the cold cloister ; 
 and the monks passing like ghosts, eyes down, hands 
 meekly crossed over bosoms dead to earthly feelings. 
 
 One of these cowled ghosts is he, whose return, full 
 of love, and youth, and joy, that radiant young mother 
 awaits. 
 
 In the valley of Grindelwald the traveller has on one 
 side the perpendicular Alps, all rock, ice, and everlasting 
 snow, towering above the clouds, and piercing to the 
 sky ; on his other hand little every-day slopes, but green 
 as emeralds, and studded with cows and pretty cots, and 
 life; whereas those lofty neighbors stand leafless, life- 
 less, inhuman, sublime. Elsewhere sweet commonplaces 
 of nature are apt to pass unnoticed ; but, fronting the 
 grim Alps, they soothe, and even gently strike, the mind 
 by contrast with their tremendous opposites. Such, in 
 their way, are the two halves of this story, rightly looked 
 at ; on the Italian side rugged adventure, strong passion, 
 blasphemy, vice, penitence, pure ice, holy snow, soaring 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 255 
 
 direct at heaven. On the Dutch side, all on a humble 
 scale and womanish, but ever green. And as a pathway 
 parts the ice towers of Grindelwald, aspiring to the sky, 
 from its little sunny braes, so here is but a page between 
 " the Cloister and the Hearth." 
 
256 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE CLOISTER. 
 
 The new Pope favored the Dominican order. The 
 convent received a message from the Vatican, requiring 
 a capable friar to teach at the University of Basle. 
 Now Clement was the very monk for this : well versed 
 in languages, and in his worldly days had attended the 
 lectures of Guarini the younger. His visit to England 
 was therefore postponed, though not resigned ; and mean- 
 time he was sent to Basle ; but not being wanted there 
 for three months, he was to preach on the road. 
 
 He passed out of the northern gate with his eyes 
 lowered, and the whole man wrapped in pious contem- 
 plation. 
 
 Oh, if we could paint a mind and its story, what a 
 walking fresco was this barefooted friar ! 
 
 Hopeful, happy love, bereavement, despair, impiety, 
 vice, suicide, remorse, religious despondency, penitence, 
 death to the world, resignation. 
 
 And all in twelve short months. 
 
 And now the traveller was on foot again. But all was 
 changed. No perilous adventures now. The very thieves 
 and robbers bowed to the ground before him, and, instead 
 of robbing him, forced stolen money on him, and begged 
 his prayers. 
 
 This journey, therefore, furnished few picturesque 
 incidents. I have, however, some readers to think of, 
 who care little for melodrama, and expect a quiet peep 
 at what passes inside a man. To such students things 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 257 
 
 undramatic are often vocal, denoting the progress of a 
 mind. 
 
 The first Sunday of Clement's journey was marked by 
 this. He prayed for the soul of Margaret. He had 
 never done so before. Not that her eternal welfare was 
 not dearer to him than anything on earth. It was his 
 humility. The terrible impieties that burst from him 
 on the news of her death horrified my well-disposed 
 readers ; but not as on reflection they horrified him who 
 had uttered them. For a long time during his novitiate 
 he was oppressed with religious despair. He thought 
 he must have committed that sin against the Holy Spirit 
 which dooms the soul forever. By degrees that dark 
 cloud cleared away, Anselmo juvante : but deep self- 
 abasement remained. He felt his own salvation inse- 
 cure ; and, moreover, thought it would be mocking 
 Heaven, should he, the deeply stained, pray for a soul 
 so innocent, comparatively, as Margaret's. So he used 
 to coax good Anselm and another kindly* monk to pray 
 for her. They did not refuse, nor do it by halves. In 
 general the good old monks (and there were good, bad, 
 and indifferent, in every convent) had a pure and tender 
 affection for their younger brethren, which, in truth, 
 was not of this world. 
 
 Clement, then, having preached on Sunday morning in 
 a small Italian town, and being mightily carried onward, 
 was greatly encouraged ; and that day a balmy sense of 
 God's forgiveness and love descended on him. And he 
 prayed for the welfare of Margaret's soul. And from 
 that hour this became his daily habit, and the one puri- 
 fied tie that by memory connected his heart with earth. 
 
 For his family were to him as if they had never been. 
 
 The Church would not share with earth, nor could even 
 the Church cure the great love without annihilating the 
 smaller ones. 
 
258 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 During most of this journey Clement rarely felt any 
 spring of life within him, but when he was in the pulpit. 
 The other exceptions were when he happened to relieve 
 some fellow-creature. 
 
 A young man was tarantula bitten, or perhaps, like 
 many more, fancied it. Fancy or reality, he had been 
 for two days without sleep, and in most extraordinary 
 convulsions, leaping, twisting, and beating the walls. 
 The village musicians had only excited him worse with 
 their music. Exhaustion and death followed the dis- 
 ease, when it gained such a head. Clement passed by 
 and learned what was the matter. He sent for a psal- 
 tery, and tried the patient with soothing melodies, but, 
 if the other tunes maddened him, Clement's seemed to 
 crush him. He groaned and moaned under them, and 
 grovelled on the floor. At last the friar observed that 
 at intervals his lips kept going. He applied his ear, and 
 found the patient was whispering a tune, and a very 
 singular one, fhat had no existence. He learned this 
 tune and played it. The patient's face brightened amaz- 
 ingly. He marched about the room on the light fantas- 
 tic toe, enjoying it ; and when Clement's fingers ached 
 nearly off with playing it, he had the satisfaction of 
 seeing the young man sink complacently to sleep to this 
 lullaby, — the strange creation of his own mind ; for it 
 seems he was no musician, and never composed a tune 
 before or after. This sleep saved his life. And Clement, 
 after teaching the tune to another, in case it should be 
 wanted again, went forward with his heart a little 
 warmer. On another occasion he found a mob haling a 
 decently-dressed man along, who struggled and vocif- 
 erated, but in a strange language. This person had 
 walked into their town erect and sprightly, waving a 
 mulberry branch over his head. Thereupon the na- 
 tives first gazed stupidly, not believing their eyes, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 259 
 
 then pounced on him and dragged him before the 
 podesta. 
 
 Clement went with them, but on the way drew quietly 
 near the prisoner, and spoke to him in Italian; no 
 answer. In French, German, Dutch ; no assets. Then 
 the man tried Clement in tolerable Latin, but with a 
 sharpish accent. He said he was an Englishman, and, 
 oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bough off 
 the nearest tree to save his head. " In my country 
 anybody is welcome to what grows on the highway. 
 Confound the fools ! I am ready to pay for it. But here 
 is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of 
 leaves." 
 
 The pig-headed podesta would have sent the dogged 
 islander to prison, but Clement mediated, and with some 
 difficulty made the prisoner comprehend that silkworms, 
 and by consequence mulberry leaves, were sacred, being 
 under the wing of the sovereign, and his source of in- 
 come, and urged on the podesta that ignorance of his 
 mulberry laws was natural in a distant country, where 
 the very tree, perhaps, was unknown. The opinionative 
 islander turned the still vibrating scale by pulling out 
 a long purse and repeating his original theory, that the 
 whole question was mercantile. " Quid damni?" said he. 
 "Die: et cito solvam." The podesta snuffed the gold, 
 fined him a ducat for the duke, about the value of the 
 whole tree, and pouched the coin. 
 
 The Englishman shook off his ire the moment he was 
 liberated, and laughed heartily at the whole thing, but 
 was very grateful to Clement. 
 
 " You are too good for this hole of a country, father," 
 said he. " Come to England ! That is the only place in 
 the world. I was an uneasy fool to leave it, and wander 
 among mulberries and their idiots. I am a Kentish 
 squire, and educated at Cambridge University. My 
 
260 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 name it is Rolfe, my place Betshanger. The man and 
 the house are both at your service. Come over and stay 
 till domesday. We sit down forty to dinner every day 
 at Betshanger. One more or one less at the board will 
 not be seen. You shall end your days with me and my 
 heirs if you will. Come now ! What an Englishman 
 says, he means." And he gave him a great hearty grip 
 of the hand to confirm it. 
 
 " I will visit thee some day, my son," said Clement, 
 " but not to weary thy hospitality." 
 
 The Englishman then begged Clement to shrive him. 
 "I know not what will become of my soul," said he. 
 " I live like a heathen since I left England." 
 
 Clement consented gladly, and soon the islander was 
 on his knees to him by the roadside, confessing the last 
 month's sins. 
 
 Finding him so pious a son of the Church, Clement 
 let him know he was really coming to England. He then 
 asked him whether it was true that country was overrun 
 with Lollards and Wickliffites. 
 
 The other colored up a little. " There be black sheep 
 in every land," said he. Then after some reflection he 
 said gravely, " Holy father, hear the truth about these 
 heretics. None are better disposed towards holy Church 
 than we English. But we are ourselves, and by our- 
 selves. We love our own ways, and, above all, our own 
 tongue. The Norman could conquer our bill-hooks, but 
 not our tongues ; and hard they tried it for many a long 
 year by law and proclamation. Our good foreign priests 
 utter God to plain English folk in Latin, or in some 
 French or Italian lingo, like the bleating of a sheep. 
 Then come the fox Wickliff and his crew, and read Him 
 out of His own book in plain English, that all men's 
 hearts warm to. Who can withstand this ? God for- 
 give me, I believe the English would turn deaf ears to 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 261 
 
 St. Peter himself, spoke he not to them in the tongue 
 their mothers sowed in their ears and their hearts along 
 with mothers' kisses." He added hastily, " I say not this 
 for myself ; I am Cambridge bred : and good words come 
 not amiss to me in Latin, but for the people in gen- 
 eral. Clavis ad corda Anglorum est lingua materna" 
 
 "My son," said Clement, "blessed be the hour I met 
 thee, for thy words are sober and wise. But, alas ! how 
 shall I learn your English tongue ? No book have I." 
 
 " I would give you my book of hours, father. 'Tis in 
 English and Latin, cheek by jowl. But then, what 
 would become of my poor soul, wanting my ' hours ' in 
 a strange land ? Stay, you are a holy man, and I am an 
 honest one : let us make a bargain, you to pray for me 
 every day for two months, and I to give you my book of 
 hours. Here it is. What say you to that ? " And 
 his eyes sparkled, and he was all on fire with mer- 
 cantility. 
 
 Clement smiled gently at this trait, and quietly de- 
 tached a MS. from his girdle, and showed him that it 
 was in Latin and Italian. 
 
 " See, my son," said he, " Heaven hath foreseen our 
 several needs, and given us the means to satisfy them : 
 let us change books ; and, my dear son, I will give thee 
 my poor prayers and welcome, not sell them thee. I 
 love not religious bargains." 
 
 The islander was delighted. "So shall I learn the 
 Italian tongue without risk to my eternal weal. Near is 
 my purse, but nearer is my soul." 
 
 He forced money on Clement. In vain the friar told 
 him it was contrary to his vow to carry more of that 
 than was barely necessary. 
 
 " Lay it out for the good of the Church and of my 
 soul," said the islander. " I ask you not to keep it, but 
 take it you must and shall." And he grasped Clement's 
 
262 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 hand warmly again ; and Clement kissed him on the 
 brow, and blessed him, and they went each his way. 
 
 About a mile from where they parted, Clement found 
 two tired wayfarers lying in the deep shade of a great 
 chestnut-tree, one of a thick grove the road skirted. 
 Near the men was a little cart, and in it a printing- 
 press, rude and clumsy as a vine-press. A jaded mule 
 was harnessed to the cart. 
 
 And so Clement stood face to face with his old enemy. 
 
 And as he eyed it, and the honest, blue-eyed faces of 
 the wearied craftsmen, he looked back as on a dream at 
 the bitterness he had once felt towards this machine. 
 He looked kindly down on them and said softly, — 
 
 " Sweynheim ! " 
 
 The men started to their feet. 
 
 " Pannartz ! " 
 
 They scuttled into the wood, and were seen no more. 
 
 Clement was amazed, and stood puzzling himself. 
 
 Presently a face peeped from behind a tree. 
 
 Clement addressed it. " What fear ye ? " 
 
 A quavering voice replied, " Say, rather, by what 
 magic you, a stranger, can call us by our names ? I 
 never clapt eyes on you till now." 
 
 " O superstition ! I know ye, as all good workmen 
 are known, — by your works. Come hither and I will 
 tell ye." 
 
 They advanced gingerly from different sides, each 
 regulating his advance by the other's. 
 
 " My children," said Clement, " I saw a Lactantius in 
 Borne, printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz, disciples of 
 Fust." 
 
 " D'ye hear that, Pannartz ? our work has gotten to 
 Eome already." 
 
 " By your blue eyes and flaxen hair I wist ye were 
 Germans ; and the printing-press spoke for itself. Who 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 263 
 
 then should ye be but Fust's disciples, Panuartz and 
 Sweynheim ? " 
 
 The honest Germans were now astonished that they 
 had suspected magic in so simple a matter. 
 
 " The good father hath his wits about him, that is 
 all," said Pannartz. 
 
 "Ay," said Sweynheim, "and with those wits would 
 he could tell us how to get this tired beast to the next 
 town." 
 
 " Yea," said Sweynheim, " and where to find money to 
 pay for his meat and ours when we get there." 
 
 " I will try," said Clement. " Free the mule of the 
 cart, and of all harness but the bare halter." 
 
 This was done, and the animal immediately lay down 
 and rolled on his back in the dust like a kitten. Whilst 
 he was thus employed, Clement assured them he would 
 rise up a new mule. " His Creator hath taught him this 
 art to refresh himself, which the nobler horse knoweth 
 not. Now, with regard to money, know that a worthy 
 Englishman hath intrusted me with a certain sum to 
 bestow in charity. To whom can I better give a stran- 
 ger's money than to strangers ? Take it, then, and be 
 kind to some Englishman or other stranger in his need ; 
 and may all nations learn to love one another one day." 
 
 The tears stood in the honest workmen's eyes. They 
 took the money with heartfelt thanks. 
 
 " It is your nation we are bound to thank and bless, 
 good father, if we but knew it." 
 
 " My nation is the Church." 
 
 Clement was then for bidding them farewell, but the 
 honest fellows implored him to wait a little ; they had 
 no silver nor gold, but they had something they could 
 give their benefactor. They took the press out of the 
 cart, and, while Clement fed the mule, they bustled 
 about, now on the white hot road, now in the deep cool 
 
264 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 shade, now half in and half out, and presently printed 
 a quarto sheet of eight pages, which was already set up. 
 They had not type enough to print two sheets at a time. 
 When, after the slower preliminaries, the printed sheet 
 was pulled all in a moment, Clement was amazed in turn. 
 
 "What, are all these words really fast upon the 
 paper ? " said he. " Is it verily certain they will not 
 go as swiftly as they came ? And you took me for a 
 magician ! 'Tis 1 Augustine de Civitate Dei.' My sons, 
 you carry here the very wings of knowledge. Oh, never 
 abuse this great craft ! Print no ill books ! They would 
 fly abroad countless as locusts, and lay waste men's 
 souls." 
 
 The workmen said they would sooner put their hands 
 under the screw than so abuse their goodly craft. 
 And so they parted. 
 
 There is nothing but meeting and parting in this 
 world. 
 
 At a town in Tuscany the holy friar had a sudden and 
 strange rencontre with the past. He fell in with one of 
 those motley assemblages of patricians and plebeians, 
 piety and profligacy, " a company of pilgrims," — a sub- 
 ject too well painted by others for me to go and daub. 
 
 They were in an immense barn belonging to the inn. 
 Clement, dusty and wearied, and no lover of idle gossip, 
 sat in a corner studying the Englishman's hours, and 
 making them out as much by his own Dutch as by the 
 Latin version. 
 
 Presently a servant brought a bucket half full of 
 water, and put it down at his feet. A female servant 
 followed with two towels. And then a woman came for- 
 ward, and, crossing herself, kneeled down without a word 
 at the bucket-side, removed her sleeves entirely, and 
 motioned to him to put his feet into the water. It was 
 some lady of rank doing penance. She wore a mask 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 2G5 
 
 scarce an inch broad, but effectual. Moreover, she han- 
 dled the friar's feet more delicately than those do who 
 are born to such offices. 
 
 These penances were not uncommon ; and Clement, 
 though he had little faith in this form of contrition, re- 
 ceived the services of the incognita as a matter of 
 course. But presently she sighed deeply, and, with her 
 heartfelt sigh and her head bent low over her menial 
 office, she seemed so bowed with penitence, that he pit- 
 ied her, and said, calmly but gently, " Can I aught for 
 your soul's weal, my daughter ? " 
 
 She shook her head with a faint sob. " Nought, holy 
 father, nought : only to hear the sin of her who is most 
 unworthy to touch thy holy feet. 'Tis part of my pen- 
 ance to tell sinless men how vile I am." 
 
 " Speak, my daughter." 
 
 "Father," said the lady, bending lower and lower, 
 "these hands of mine look white, but they are stained 
 with blood, — the blood of the man I loved. Alas ! you 
 withdraw your foot. Ah, me ! What shall I do ? All 
 holy things shrink from me." 
 
 "Culpa meal culpa mea ! " said Clement, eagerly. 
 " My daughter, it was an unworthy movement of earthly 
 weakness, for which / shall do penance. Judge not the 
 Church by her feeble servants. Not her foot, but her 
 bosom is offered thee, repenting truly. Take courage, 
 then, and purge thy conscience of its load." 
 
 On this the lady in a trembling whisper and hurriedly, 
 cringing a little, as if she feared the Church would strike 
 her bodily for what she had done, made this confession : 
 
 "He was a stranger, and base born, but beautiful as 
 Spring, and wise beyond his years. I loved him. I had 
 not the prudence to conceal my love. Nobles courted 
 me. I ne'er thought one of humble birth could reject 
 me. I showed him my heart ; oh, shame of my sex ! 
 
266 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 He drew back ; yet he admired me : but innocently. He 
 loved another, and he was constant. I resorted to a wom- 
 an's wiles. They availed not. I borrowed the wicked- 
 ness of men, and threatened his life, and to tell his true 
 lover he died false to her. Ah ! you shrink ; your foot 
 trembles. Am I not a monster ? then he wept and prayed 
 to me for mercy ; then my good angel helped me ; I bade 
 him leave Eome. Gerard, Gerard, why did you not obey 
 me ? I thought he was gone. But two months after this 
 I met him. ISTever shall I forget it. I was descending 
 the Tiber in my galley, when he came up it with a gay 
 company, and at his side a woman beautiful as an angel, 
 but bold and bad. That woman claimed me aloud for 
 her rival. Traitor and hypocrite, he had exposed me to 
 her, and to all the loose tongues in Eome. In terror and 
 revenge I hired — a bravo. When he was gone on his 
 bloody errand, I wavered too late. The dagger I had 
 hired struck. He never came back to his lodgings. He 
 was dead. Alas ! perhaps he was not so much to blame : 
 none have ever cast his name in my teeth. His poor body 
 is not found, or I should kiss its wounds, and slay myself 
 upon it. All around his very name seems silent as the 
 grave, to which this murderous hand has sent him. 
 (Clement's eye was drawn by her movement. He rec- 
 ognized her shapely arm and soft white hand.) " And, 
 oh, he was so young to die. A poor thoughtless boy, 
 that had fallen a victim to that bad woman's arts, and 
 she had made him tell her everything. Monster of 
 cruelty, what penance can avail me ? Oh, holy father, 
 what shall I do ? " 
 
 Clement's lips moved in prayer, but he was silent. He 
 could not see his duty clear. 
 
 Then she took his feet and began to dry them. She 
 rested his foot upon her soft arm, and pressed it with the 
 towel so gently she seemed incapable of hurting a fly. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 267 
 
 Yet her lips had just told another story, and a true 
 one. 
 
 While Clement was still praying for wisdom, a tear 
 fell upon his foot. It decided him. "My daughter/' 
 said he, "I myself have been a great sinner." 
 
 "You, father?" 
 
 " I ; quite as great a sinner as thou, though not in the 
 same way. The devil has gins and snares, as well as 
 traps. But penitence softened my impious heart, and 
 then gratitude remoulded it. Therefore, seeing you peni- 
 tent, I hope you can be grateful to Him, who has been 
 more merciful to you than you have to your fellow creat- 
 ure. Daughter, the Church sends you comfort." 
 
 " Comfort to me ? ah ! never ! unless it can raise my 
 victim from the dead." 
 
 "Take this crucifix in thy hand, fix thine eyes on it, 
 and listen to me," was all the reply. 
 
 " Yes, father ; but let me thoroughly dry your feet 
 first : 'tis ill sitting in wet feet : and you are the holiest 
 man of all whose feet I have washed. I know it by your 
 voice." 
 
 " Woman, I am not. As for my feet, they can wait 
 their turn. Obey thou me ! " 
 
 "Yes, father," said the lady, humbly. But with a 
 woman's evasive pertinacity she wreathed one towel 
 swiftly round the foot she was drying, and placed his 
 other foot on the dry napkin ; then obeyed his command. 
 
 And, as she bowed over the crucifix, the low, solemn 
 tones of the friar fell upon her ear, and his words soon 
 made her whole body quiver with various emotions, in 
 quick succession. 
 
 "My daughter, he you murdered — in intent — was one 
 Gerard, a Hollander. He loved a creature, as men should 
 love none but their Eedeemer and his Church. Heaven 
 chastised him. A letter came to Rome. She was dead." 
 
268 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Poor Gerard ! Poor Margaret ! " moaned the peni« 
 tent. 
 
 Clement's voice faltered at this a moment. But soon, 
 by a strong effort, he recovered all his calmness. 
 
 " His feeble nature yielded, body and soul, to the blow. 
 He was stricken down with fever. He revived only to 
 rebel against Heaven. He said, 1 There is no God.' " 
 
 " Poor, poor Gerard ! " 
 
 " Poor Gerard ? thou feeble, foolish woman ! Nay, 
 wicked, impious Gerard. He plunged into vice, and 
 soiled his eternal jewel : those you met him with were 
 his daily companions : but know, rash creature, that the 
 seeming woman you took to be his leman was but a boy, 
 dressed in woman's habits to flout the others, a fair boy 
 called Andrea. What that Andrea said to thee I know 
 not ; but be sure neither he, nor any layman, knows thy 
 folly. This Gerard, rebel against Heaven, was no traitor 
 to thee, unworthy." 
 
 The lady moaned like one in bodily agony, and the 
 crucifix began to tremble in her trembling hands. 
 
 " Courage ! " said Clement. " Comfort is at hand. 
 
 " From crime he fell into despair, and, bent on destroy- 
 ing his soul, he stood one night by Tiber, resolved on 
 suicide. He saw one watching him. It was a bravo." 
 
 "Holy saints!" 
 
 " He begged the bravo to despatch him ; he offered 
 him all his money, to slay him body and soul. The 
 bravo would not. Then this desperate sinner, not 
 softened even by that refusal, flung himself into Tiber." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " And the assassin saved his life. Thou hadst chosen 
 for the task Lodovico, husband of Teresa, whom this 
 Gerard had saved at sea, her and her infant child." 
 
 " He lives ! he lives ! he lives ! I am faint." 
 
 The friar took the crucifix from her hands, fearing it 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 269 
 
 might fall. A shower of tears relieved her. The friar 
 gave her time ; then continued, calmly, " Ay, he lives ; 
 thanks to thee and thy wickedness, guided to his eternal 
 good by an almighty and all-merciful hand. Thou art 
 his greatest earthly benefactor." 
 
 " Where is he ? where ? where ? " 
 
 "What is that to thee?" 
 
 " Only to see him alive. To beg him on my knees to 
 forgive me. I swear to you I will never presume again 
 to — How could I ? He knows all. Oh, shame. Father, 
 does he know ? " 
 
 "All." 
 
 " Then never will I meet his eye ; I should sink into 
 the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch 
 his life unseen. He shall rise in the world, whence I so 
 nearly thrust him, poor soul ; the Csesare, my family, are 
 all-powerful in Rome ; and I am near their head." 
 
 "My daughter," said Clement, coldly, "he you call 
 Gerard needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a 
 miracle from double death, he has left the world, and 
 taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the 
 Church." 
 
 "A priest?" 
 
 " A priest, and a friar." 
 
 " A friar ? Then you are not his confessor ? Yet you 
 know all. That gentle voice ! " 
 
 She raised her head slowly, and peered at him through 
 her mask. 
 
 The next moment she uttered a faint shriek, and lay 
 with her brow upon his bare feet. 
 
270 
 
 THE CLOISTER. AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Clement sighed. He began to doubt whether he had 
 taken the wisest course with a creature so passionate. 
 
 But young as he was, he had already learned many 
 lessons of ecclesiastical wisdom. For one thing he had 
 been taught to pause : i.e., in certain difficulties, neither 
 to do nor to say anything, until the matter should clear 
 itself a little. 
 
 He therefore held his peace and prayed for wisdom. 
 
 All he did was gently to withdraw his foot. 
 
 But his penitent flung her arms round it with a piteous 
 cry, and held it convulsively, and wept over it. 
 
 And now the agony of shame, as well as penitence, she 
 was in, showed itself by the bright red that crept over 
 her very throat, as she lay quivering at his feet. 
 
 "My daughter," said Clement, gently, "take courage. 
 Torment thyself no more about this Gerard, who is not. 
 As for me, I am Brother Clement, whom Heaven hath 
 sent to thee this day to comfort thee, and help thee save 
 thy soul. Thou hast made me thy confessor. I claim, 
 then, thine obedience." 
 
 " Oh, yes," sobbed the penitent. 
 
 "Leave this pilgrimage, and instant return to Eome. 
 Penitence abroad is little worth. There where we live 
 lie the temptations we must defeat, or perish ; not fly in 
 search of others more showy, but less lethal. Easy to 
 wash the feet of strangers, masked ourselves. Hard to 
 be merely meek and charitable with those about us." 
 
 " I'll never, never, lay finger on her again." 
 
 " Nay, I speak not of servants only, but of dependents, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 'ZT1 
 
 kinsmen, friends. This be thy penance ; the last thing 
 at night, and the first thing after matins, call to mind 
 thy sin, and God his goodness ; and so be humble and 
 gentle to the faults of those around thee. The world it 
 courts the rich ; but seek thou the poor : not beggars ; 
 these for the most are neither honest nor truly poor. 
 But rather find out those who blush to seek thee, yet 
 need thee sore. Giving to them, shalt lend to heaven. 
 Marry a good son of the Church." 
 " Me ? I will never marry." 
 
 " Thou wilt marry within the year. I do entreat and 
 command thee to marry one that feareth God ; for thou 
 art very clay. Mated ill, thou shalt be naught. But 
 wedding a worthy husband thou mayest, Dei gratia, live 
 a pious princess j ay, and die a saint." 
 
 " I ? " 
 
 " Thou." 
 
 He then desired her to rise and go about the good 
 work he had set her. 
 
 She rose to her knees, and, removing her mask, cast 
 an eloquent look upon him, then lowered her eyes 
 meekly. 
 
 " I will obey you as I would an angel. How happy I 
 am, yet unhappy ; for, oh, my heart tells me I shall never 
 look on you again. I will not go till I have dried your 
 feet." 
 
 "It needs not. I have excused thee this bootless 
 penance." 
 
 " 'Tis no penance to me. Ah ! you do not forgive me, 
 if you will not let me dry your poor feet." 
 
 " So be it, then," said Clement, resignedly ; and thought 
 to himself, "Levius quid faimind" 
 
 But these weak creatures, that gravitate towards the 
 small, as heavenly bodies towards the great, have yet 
 their own flashes of angelic intelligence. 
 
272 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 When the princess had dried the friar's feet, she looked 
 at him with tears in her beautiful eyes, and murmured 
 with singular tenderness and goodness, — 
 
 " I will have masses said for her soul. May I ? " she 
 added, timidly. 
 
 This brought a faint blush into the monk's cheek, and 
 moistened his cold blue eye. It came so suddenly from 
 one he was just rating so low. 
 
 " It is a gracious thought," he said. " Do as thou wilt : 
 often such acts fall back on the doer like blessed dew. 
 I am thy confessor, not hers ; thine is the soul I must 
 now do my all to save, or woe be to my own. My daugh- 
 ter, my dear daughter, I see good and ill angels fighting 
 for thy soul this day, ay, this moment ; oh, fight thou on 
 thine own side. Dost thou remember all I bade thee ? " 
 
 " Kemember ! " said the princess. " Sweet saint, each 
 syllable of thine is graved in my heart." 
 
 " But one word more, then. Pray much to Christ, and 
 little to His saints." 
 
 "I will." 
 
 " And that is the best word I have light to say to thee. 
 So part we on it. Thou to the place becomes thee best, 
 thy father's house : I to my holy mother's work." 
 
 " Adieu," faltered the princess. " Adieu thou that I 
 have loved too well, hated too ill, known and revered too 
 late; forgiving angel, adieu — forever." 
 
 The monk caught her words, though but faltered in a 
 sigh. 
 
 " Forever ? " he cried aloud, with sudden ardor. 
 " Christians live 1 forever,' and love ' forever,' but they 
 never part ' forever.' They part, as part the earth and 
 sun, to meet more brightly in a little while. You and I 
 part here for life. And what is our life ? One line in 
 the great story of the Church, whose son and daughter 
 we are j one handful in the sand of time, one drop in 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 273 
 
 the ocean of 1 Forever.' Adieu — for the little moment 
 called ' a life ! 7 We part in trouble, we shall meet in 
 peace : we part creatures of clay, we shall meet immortal 
 spirits : we part in a world of sin and sorrow, we shall 
 meet where all is purity and love divine ; where no ill 
 passions are, but Christ is, and his saints around Him 
 clad in white. There, in the turning of an hour-glass, in 
 the breaking of a bubble, in the passing of a cloud, she, 
 and thou, and I, shall meet again ; and sit at the feet of 
 angels and archangels, apostles and saints, and beam like 
 them with joy unspeakable, in the light of the shadow of 
 God upon His throne, forever — and ever — and ever." 
 
 And so they parted. The monk erect, his eyes turned 
 heavenwards and glowing with the sacred fire of zeal ; 
 the princess slowly retiring and turning more than once 
 to cast a lingering glance of awe and tender regret on 
 that inspired figure. 
 
 She went home subdued, and purified. Clement, in 
 due course, reached Basle, and entered on his duties, 
 teaching in the university, and preaching in the town 
 and neighborhood. He led a life that can be comprised 
 in two words ; deep study and mortification. My reader 
 has already a peep into his soul. At Basle he advanced 
 in holy zeal and knowledge. 
 
 The brethren of his order began to see in him a 
 descendant of the saints and martyrs. 
 
274 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE HEARTH. 
 
 When little Gerard was nearly three months old, a 
 messenger came hot from Tergon for Catherine. 
 
 " Now just you go back/' said she, " and tell them I 
 can't come, and I won't : they have got Kate." So he 
 departed, and Catherine continued her sentence : " There, 
 child, I must go : they are all at sixes and sevens : this 
 is the third time of asking; and to-morrow my man 
 would come himself and take me home by the ear, with 
 a flea in't." She then recapitulated her experiences of 
 infants, and instructed Margaret what to do in each com- 
 ing emergency, and pressed money upon her. Margaret 
 declined it with thanks. Catherine insisted, and turned 
 angry. Margaret made excuses all so reasonable that 
 Catherine rejected them with calm contempt; to her 
 mind they lacked femininity. "Come, out with your 
 heart," said she ; " and you and me parting ; and mayhap 
 shall never see one another's face again." 
 
 " Oh ! mother, say not so." 
 
 " Alack, girl, I have seen it so often ; 'twill come into 
 my mind now at each parting. When I was your age, 
 I never had such a thought. Nay, we were all to live 
 forever then : so out wi' it." 
 
 " Well, then, mother — I would rather not have told 
 you — your Cornells must say to me, ' So you are come 
 to share with us, eh, mistress ? ' those were his words. 
 I told him I would be very sorry." 
 
 " Beshrew his ill tongue ! What signifies it ? He will 
 never know." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 275 
 
 " Most likely he would sooner or later. But, whether 
 or no, I will take no grudged bounty from any family ; 
 unless I saw my child starving, and then Heaven only 
 knows what I might do. Nay, mother, give me but thy 
 love — I do prize that above silver, and they grudge me 
 not that, by all I can find — for not a stiver of money 
 will I take out of your house." 
 
 " You are a foolish lass. Why, were it me, I'd take it 
 just to spite him." 
 
 "No, you would not. You and I are apples off one 
 tree." 
 
 Catherine yielded with a good grace ; and, when the 
 actual parting came, embraces and tears burst forth on 
 both sides. 
 
 When she was gone the child cried a good deal ; and 
 all attempts to pacify him failing, Margaret suspected a 
 pin, and, searching between his clothes and his skin, 
 found a gold angel incommoding his backbone. 
 
 "There, now, Gerard," said she to the babe; "I 
 thought granny gave in rather sudden" 
 
 She took the coin and wrapped it in a piece of linen, 
 and laid it at the bottom of her box, bidding the infant 
 observe she could be at times as resolute as granny 
 herself. 
 
 Catherine told Eli of Margaret's foolish pride, and 
 how she had baffled it. Eli said Margaret was right, 
 and she was wrong. Catherine tossed her head. Eli 
 pondered. 
 
 Margaret was not without domestic anxieties. She had 
 still two men to feed, and could not work so hard as she 
 had done. She had enough to do to keep the house, and 
 the child, and cook for them all. But she had a little 
 money laid by, and she used to tell her child his father 
 would be home to help them before it was spent. And 
 with these bright hopes, and that treasury of bliss, her 
 boy, she spent some happy months. 
 
276 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Time wore on: and no Gerard eame; and, stranger 
 still, no news of him. 
 
 Then her mind was disquieted, and, contrary to her 
 nature, which was practical, she was often lost in sad 
 reverie; and sighed in silence. And, while her heart 
 was troubled, her money was melting. And so it was, 
 that one day she found the cupboard empty, and looked 
 in her dependents' faces ; and, at the sight of them, her 
 bosom was all pity; and she appealed to the baby 
 whether she could let grandfather and poor old Martin 
 want a meal ; and went and took out Catherine's angel. 
 As she unfolded the linen a tear of gentle mortification 
 fell on it. She sent Martin out to change it. While he 
 was gone a Frenchman came with one of the dealers in 
 illuminated work, who had offered her so poor a price. 
 He told her he was employed by his sovereign to collect 
 masterpieces for her book of hours. Then she showed 
 him the two best things she had ; and he was charmed 
 with one of them, viz., the flowers and raspberries and 
 creeping things, which Margaret Van Eyck had shaded. 
 He offered her an unheard-of price. "Nay, flout not 
 my need, good stranger," said she: "three mouths there 
 be in this house, and none to fill them but me." 
 
 Curious arithmetic ! Left out No. 1. 
 
 "I flout thee not, fair mistress. My princess charged 
 me strictly, 'Seek the best craftsmen; but I will no 
 hard bargains ; make them content with me, and me 
 with them.' " 
 
 The next minute Margaret was on her knees kissing 
 little Gerard in the cradle, and showering four gold 
 pieces on him again and again, and relating the whole 
 occurrence to him in very broken Dutch. 
 
 "And oh, what a good princess : wasn't she ? We will 
 pray for her, won't we, my lambkin ; when we are old 
 enough ? " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 277 
 
 Martin came in furious. "They will not change it, 
 I trow they think I stole it." 
 
 " I am beholden to thee," said Margaret, hastily, and 
 almost snatched it from Martin, and wrapped it up again, 
 and restored it to its hiding-place. 
 
 Ere these unexpected funds were spent, she got to her 
 ironing and starching again. In the midst of which 
 Martin sickened; and died after an illness of nine 
 days. 
 
 Nearly all her money went to bury him decently. 
 
 He was gone ; and there was an empty chair by her 
 fireside. For he had preferred the hearth to the sun as 
 soon as the busybody was gone. 
 
 Margaret would not allow anybody to sit in this chair 
 now. Yet whenever she let her eye dwell too long on it, 
 vacant, it was sure to cost her a tear. 
 
 And now there was nobody to carry her linen home. 
 To do it herself she must leave little Gerard in charge 
 of a neighbor. But she dared not trust such a treasure 
 to mortal ; and besides she could not bear him out of 
 her sight for hours and hours. So she set inquiries on 
 foot for a boy to carry her basket on Saturday and 
 Monday. 
 
 A plump, fresh-colored youth, called Luke Peterson, 
 who looked fifteen, but was eighteen, came in, and blush- 
 ing, and twiddling his bonnet, asked her if a man would 
 not serve her turn as well as a boy. 
 
 Before he spoke she was saying to herself, " This boy 
 will just do." 
 
 But she took the cue, and said, " Nay ; but a man will 
 maybe seek more than I can well pay." 
 
 " Not I," said Luke, warmly. " Why, Mistress Mar- 
 garet, I am your neighbor, and I do very well at the 
 coopering. I can carry your basket for you before or 
 after my day's work, and welcome. You have no need 
 
278 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 to pay me anything. 'Tisn't as if we were strangers, ye 
 know." 
 
 " Why, Master Luke. I know your face, for that matter ; 
 but I cannot call to mind that ever a word passed 
 between us." 
 
 " Oh yes, you did, Mistress Margaret. What, have 
 you forgotten ? One day you were trying to carry your 
 baby and eke your pitcher full o' water : and quo' I, 
 ' Give me the baby to carry.' 'Nay/ says you, 'I'll give 
 you the pitcher, and keep the bairn myself : ' and I car- 
 ried the pitcher home, and you took it from me at this 
 door, and you said to me, ' I am muckle obliged to you, 
 young man,' with such a sweet voice ; not like the folk 
 in this street speak to a body." 
 
 " I do mind now, Master Luke ; and methinks it was 
 the least I could say." . 
 
 '•'Well, Mistress Margaret, if you will say as much 
 every time I carry your basket, I care not how often I 
 bear it, nor how far." 
 
 "Nay, nay," said Margaret, coloring faintly. "I 
 would not put upon good nature. You are young, Master 
 Luke, and kindly. Say I give you your supper on 
 Saturday night, when you bring the linen home, and 
 your dawn-mete o' Monday ; would that make us anyways 
 even ? " 
 
 " As you please ; only say not I sought a couple o' 
 diets, I, for such a trifle as yon." 
 
 With chubby-faced Luke's timely assistance, and the 
 health and strength which Heaven gave this poor young 
 woman, to balance her many ills, the house went pretty 
 smoothly awhile. But the heart became more and more 
 troubled by Gerard's long and now most mysterious 
 silence. 
 
 And then that mental torturer, Suspense, began to 
 tear her heavy heart with his hot pincers, till she cried 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 279 
 
 often and vehemently, "Oh, that I could know the 
 worst." 
 
 While she was in this state, one day she heard a heavy 
 step mount the stair. She started and trembled. "That 
 is no step that I know ; ill tidings ? " 
 
 The door opened, and an unexpected visitor, Eli, came 
 in, looking grave and kind. 
 
 Margaret eyed him in silence, and with increasing 
 agitation. 
 
 " Girl," said he, " the skipper is come back." 
 
 " One word," gasped Margaret, " is he alive ? " 
 
 " Surely, I hope so. No one has seen him dead." 
 
 " Then they must have seen him alive." 
 
 " No, girl ; neither dead nor alive hath he been seen 
 this many months in Rome. My daughter Kate thinks 
 he is gone to some other city. She bade me tell you her 
 thought." 
 
 "Ay, like enough," said Margaret, gloomily; "like 
 enough. My poor babe ! " 
 
 The old man in a faintish voice asked her for a morsel 
 to eat : he had come fasting. 
 
 The poor thing pitied him with the surface of her 
 agitated mind, and cooked a meal for him, trembling, and 
 scarce knowing what she was about. 
 
 Ere he went he laid his hand upon her head, and said, 
 "Be he alive, or be he dead, I look on thee as my 
 daughter. Can I do nought for thee this day ? Bethink 
 thee now." 
 
 " Ay, old man. Pray for him ; and for me ! " 
 
 Eli sighed, and went sadly and heavily down the stairs. 
 
 She listened half stupidly to his retiring footsteps till 
 they ceased. Then she sank moaning down by the cra- 
 dle, and drew little Gerard tight to her bosom. "Oh, 
 my poor fatherless boy ; my fatherless boy ! " 
 
280 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 Not long after this, as the little family at Tergou sat 
 at dinner, Luke Peterson burst in on them, covered with 
 dust. "Good people, Mistress Catherine is wanted in- 
 stantly at Rotterdam." 
 
 "My name is Catherine, young man. Kate, it will be 
 Margaret." 
 
 " Ay, dame, she said to me, ' Good Luke, hie thee to 
 Tergou, and ask for Eli the hosier, and pray his wife 
 Catherine to come to me, for God his love/ I didn't 
 wait for daylight." 
 
 " Holy saints ! He has come home, Kate. Nay, she 
 would sure have said so. What on earth can it be ? " 
 And she heaped conjecture on conjecture. 
 
 " Mayhap the young man can tell us," hazarded Kate, 
 timidly. 
 
 " That I can," said Luke. " Why, her babe is a-dying. 
 And she was so wrapped up in it ! " 
 
 Catherine started up : " What is his trouble ? " 
 
 " Nay, I know not. But it has been peaking and pining 
 worse and worse this while. " 
 
 A furtive glance of satisfaction passed between Cor- 
 nells and Sybrandt. Luckily for them Catherine did 
 not see it. Her face was turned towards her husband. 
 "Now Eli," cried she, furiously, "if you say a word 
 against it, you and I shall quarrel, after all these years." 
 
 "Who gainsays thee, foolish woman? Quarrel with 
 your own shadow ; while I go borrow Peter's mule for 
 ye." 
 
 " Bless thee, my good man ! Bless thee ! Didst never 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 281 
 
 yet fail me at a pinch. Now eat your dinners who can, 
 while I go and make ready." 
 
 She took Luke back with her in the cart, and, on the 
 way, questioned and cross-questioned him, severely, and 
 seductively, by turns, till she had turned his mind inside 
 out, what there was of it. 
 
 Margaret met her at the door, pale and agitated, and 
 threw her arms round her neck, and looked imploringly 
 in her face. 
 
 " Come, he is alive, thank God," said Catherine, after 
 scanning her eagerly. 
 
 She looked at the failing child, and then at the poor 
 hollow-eyed mother, alternately. "Lucky you sent for 
 me," said she. " The child is poisoned." 
 
 " Poisoned ! by whom ? " 
 
 " By you. You have been fretting." 
 
 " Nay, indeed, mother. How can I help fretting ? " 
 
 " Don't tell me, Margaret. A nursing mother has no 
 business to fret. She must turn her mind away from 
 her grief to the comfort that lies in her lap. Know you 
 not that the child pines if the mother vexes herself ? 
 This comes of your reading and writing. Those idle 
 crafts befit a man ; but they keep all useful knowledge 
 out of a woman. The child must be weaned." 
 
 " Oh, you cruel woman," cried Margaret, vehemently ; 
 " I am sorry I sent for you. Would you rob me of the 
 only bit of comfort I have in the world ? A-nursing my 
 Gerard, I forget I am the most unhappy creature beneath 
 the sun." 
 
 " That you do not," was the retort, " or he would not 
 be the way he is." 
 
 " Mother ! " said Margaret, imploringly. 
 
 "'Tis hard," replied Catherine, relenting. "But be- 
 think thee ; would it not be harder to look down and see 
 his lovely wee face a-looking up at you out of a little 
 coffin?" 
 
282 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " 0 Jesu ! " 
 
 "And how could you face your other troubles with 
 your heart aye full, and your lap empty ? " 
 
 " Oh, mother, I consent to anything. Only save my 
 boy." 
 
 " That is a good lass. Trust to me ! I do stand by, 
 and see clearer than thou." 
 
 Unfortunately there was another consent to be gained ; 
 the babe's : and he was more refractory than his mother. 
 
 " There," said Margaret, trying to affect regret at his 
 misbehavior ; " he loves me too well." 
 
 But Catherine was a match for them both. As she 
 came along she had observed a healthy young woman, 
 sitting outside her own door, with an infant, hard by. 
 She went and told her the case; and would she nurse 
 the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready 
 to wean him ? 
 
 The young woman consented with a smile, and popped 
 her child into the cradle, and came into Margaret's house. 
 She dropped a courtesy, and Catherine put the child into 
 her hands. She examined, and pitied it, and purred over 
 it, and proceeded to nurse it, just as if it had been her 
 own. 
 
 Margaret, who had been paralyzed at her assurance, 
 cast a rueful look at Catherine, and burst out crying. 
 
 The visitor looked up. " What is to do ? Wife, ye 
 told me not the mother was unwilling." 
 
 " She is not : she is only a fool. Never heed her ; and 
 you, Margaret, I am ashamed of you." 
 
 " You are a cruel, hard-hearted woman," sobbed Mar- 
 garet. 
 
 " Them as take in hand to guide the weak, need be 
 hardish. And you will excuse me ; but you are not my 
 flesh and blood : and your boy is." 
 
 After giving this blunt speech time to sink, she added, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 283 
 
 u Come now, she is robbing her own to save yours, and 
 you can think of nothing better than bursting out a-blub- 
 bering in the woman's face. Out, fie, for shame ! " 
 
 " Nay, wife," said the nurse. " Thank Heaven, I have 
 enough for my own and for hers to boot. And prithee 
 wyte not on her ! Maybe the troubles o' life ha' soured 
 her own milk." 
 
 " And her heart into the bargain," said the remorseless 
 Catherine. 
 
 Margaret looked her full in the face ; and down went 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I know I ought to be very grateful to you," sobbed 
 Margaret to the nurse : then turned her head and leaned 
 away over the chair not to witness the intolerable sight 
 of another nursing her Gerard, and Gerard drawing no 
 distinction between this new mother, and her the ban- 
 ished one. 
 
 The nurse replied, " You are very welcome, my poor 
 woman. And so are you, mistress Catherine, which are 
 my townswoman, and know it not." 
 
 " What, are ye from Tergou ? all the better. But I 
 cannot call your face to mind." 
 
 " Oh, you know not me : my husband and me, we are 
 very humble folk by you. But true Eli and his wife are 
 known of all the town ; and respected. So, I am at your 
 call, dame ; and at yours, wife ; and yours, my pretty 
 poppet ; night or day." 
 
 " There's a woman of the right old sort," said Cath- 
 erine, as the door closed upon her. 
 
 " I hate her. I hate her. I hate her," said Margaret 
 with wonderful fervor. 
 
 Catherine only laughed at this outburst. 
 
 " That is right," said she, " better say it, as set sly and 
 think it. It is very natural, after all. Come, here is 
 your bundle o' comfort. Take and hate thatj if ye 
 can ; " and she put the child in her lap. 
 
2S4 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEAETH. 
 
 u No, no ; n said Margaret, turning her head half away 
 from him ; she could not for her life turn the other 
 half. " He is not my child now ; he is hers. I know 
 not why she left him here, for my part. It was very 
 good of her not to take him to her house, cradle and all ; 
 oh! oh! oh! oh: oh: oh: oh: oh: 
 
 "Ah! well, one comfort, he is not dead. This gives 
 me light; some other woman has got him away from 
 me ; like father, like son ; oh : oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! " 
 
 Catherine was sorry for her, and let her cry in peace. 
 And after that, when she wanted J oan's aid, she used to 
 take Gerard out, to give him a little fresh air. Margaret 
 never objected, nor expressed the least incredulity; but 
 on their return was always in tears. 
 
 This connivance was short-lived. She was now alto- 
 gether as eager to wean little Gerard. It was done ; and 
 he recovered health and vigor : and another trouble fell 
 upon him directly : teething. But here Catherine's expe- 
 rience was invaluable : and now, in the midst of her grief 
 and anxiety about the father, Margaret had moments 
 of bliss, watching the son's tiny teeth come through. 
 " Teeth, mother ? I call them not teeth, but pearls of 
 pearls.*' And each pearl that peeped and sparkled on 
 his red gums, was to her the greatest feat nature had 
 ever achieved. 
 
 Her companion partook the illusion. And, had we 
 told them a field of standing corn was equally admirable, 
 Margaret would have changed to a reproachful gazelle, 
 and Catherine turned us out of doors ; so each pearl's 
 arrival was announced with a shriek of triumph by 
 whichever of them was the fortunate discoverer. 
 
 Catherine gossiped with Joan and learned that she was 
 the wife of Jorian Ketel of Tergou, who had been servant 
 to Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, but fallen out of favor, and 
 come back to Rotterdam, his native place. His friends 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 285 
 
 had got him the place of sexton to the parish, and what 
 with that and carpentering he did pretty well. 
 
 Catherine told Joan in return whose child it was she 
 had nursed, and all about Margaret and Gerard, and the 
 deep anxiety his silence had plunged them in. " Ay," 
 said Joan, " the world is full of trouble." One day she 
 said to Catherine, " It's my belief my man knows more 
 about your Gerard than anybody in these parts : but he 
 has got to be closer than ever of late. Drop in some 
 day just afore sunset, and set him talking. And, for our 
 Lady's sake, say not I set you on. The only hiding he 
 ever gave me was for babbling his business : and I do 
 not want another. Gramercy ! I married a man for the 
 comfort of the thing, not to be hided." 
 
 Catherine dropped in. Jorian was ready enough to 
 tell her how he had befriended her son and perhaps 
 saved his life. But this was no news to Catherine : and 
 the moment she began to cross-question him as to 
 whether he could guess why her lost boy neither came- 
 nor wrote, he cast a grim look at his wife, who received 
 it with a calm air of stolid candor and innocent uncon- 
 sciousness; and his answers became short and sullen. 
 " What should he know more than another ? " and so on. 
 He added, after a pause, "Think you the burgomaster 
 takes such as me into his secrets ? " 
 
 " Oh, then the burgomaster knows something ? " said 
 Catherine, sharply. 
 
 " Likely. Who else should ? " 
 
 " I'll ask him." 
 
 " I would." 
 
 " And tell him you say he knows." 
 
 "That is right, dame. Go make him mine enemy. 
 That is what a poor fellow always gets if lie says a word 
 to you women." And Jorian from that moment shrunk 
 in and became impenetrable as a hedgehog, and almost 
 as prickly. 
 
280 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND TTIE HEARTH. 
 
 His conduct caused both, the poor women agonies of 
 mind; alarm, and irritated curiosity. Ghysbrecht was 
 for some cause Gerard's mortal enemy ; had stopped his 
 marriage, imprisoned him, hunted him. And here was 
 his late servant, who when off his guard had hinted that 
 this enemy had the clew to Gerard's silence. After sift- 
 ing Jorian's every word and look, all remained dark and 
 mysterious. Then Catherine told Margaret to go herself 
 to him. "You are young; you are fair. You will, maybe, 
 get more out of him than I could." 
 
 The conjecture was a reasonable one. 
 
 Margaret went with her child in her arms and tapped 
 timidly at Jorian's door just before sunset. " Come in," 
 said a sturdy voice. She entered, and there sat Jorian 
 by the fireside. At sight of her he rose, snorted, and 
 burst out of the house. " Is that for me, wife ? " in- 
 quired Margaret, turning very red. 
 
 " You must excuse him," replied Joan, rather coldly ; 
 " he lays it to your door that he is a poor man instead of 
 a rich one. It is something about a piece of parchment. 
 There was one a-missing, and he got nought from the 
 burgomaster all along of that one." 
 
 "Alas! Gerard took it." 
 
 " Likely. But my man says you should not have let 
 him: you were pledged to him to keep them all safe. 
 And, sooth to say, I blame not my Jorian for being 
 wroth. 'Tis hard for a poor man to be so near fortune 
 and lose it by those he has befriended. However, I tell 
 him another story. Says I, 'Folk that are out o' trouble, 
 like you and me, didn't ought to be too hard on folk that 
 are in trouble : and she has plenty.' Going already ? 
 What is all your hurry, mistress ? " 
 
 " Oh, it is not for me to drive the good man out of his 
 own house." 
 
 " Well, let me kiss the bairn afore ye go. He is not 
 in fault any way ; poor innocent." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 287 
 
 Upon this cruel rebuff Margaret came to a resolution, 
 which, she did not confide even to Catherine. 
 
 After six weeks' stay that good woman returned home. 
 
 On the child's birthday, which occurred soon after, 
 Margaret did no work : but put on her Sunday clothes, 
 and took her boy in her arms and went to the church 
 and prayed there long and fervently for Gerard's safe 
 return. 
 
 That same day and hour Father Clement celebrated a 
 mass and prayed for Margaret's departed soul in the 
 minster church at Basle. 
 
288 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Some blackguard or other, I think it was Sybrandt, 
 said, " A lie is not like a blow with a curtal axe." 
 
 True ; for we can predict in some degree the conse- 
 quences of a stroke with any material weapon. But a 
 lie has no bounds at all. The nature of the thing is to 
 ramify beyond human calculation. 
 
 Often in the every-day world a lie has cost a life, or 
 laid waste two or three. 
 
 And so, in this story, what tremendous consequences 
 of that one heartless falsehood ! 
 
 Yet the tellers reaped little from it. 
 
 The brothers, who invented it merely to have one 
 claimant the less for their father's property, saw little 
 Gerard take their brother's place in their mother's heart, 
 Nay, more, one day Eli openly proclaimed that, Gerard 
 being lost, and probably dead, he had provided by will 
 for little Gerard, and also for Margaret, his poor son's 
 widow. 
 
 At this the look that passed between the black sheep 
 was a caution to traitors. Cornells had it on his lips 
 to say Gerard was most likely alive. But he saw his 
 mother looking at him, and checked himself in time. 
 
 Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the other partner in that lie, 
 was now a failing man. He saw the period fast approach- 
 ing when all his wealth would drop from his body, and 
 his misdeeds cling to his soul. 
 
 Too intelligent to deceive himself entirely, he had 
 never been free from gusts of remorse. In taking 
 Gerard's letter to Margaret he had compounded. " I 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 289 
 
 cannot give up land and money," said his giant Avarice. 
 " I will cause her no unnecessary pain," said his dwarf 
 Conscience. 
 
 So, after first tampering with the seal, and finding 
 there was not a syllable about the deed, he took it to 
 her with his own hand, and made a merit of it to him- 
 self ; a set-off ; and on a scale not uncommon where the 
 self-accuser is the judge. 
 
 The birth of Margaret's child surprised and shocked 
 him, and put his treacherous act in a new light. Should 
 his letter take effect he should cause the dishonor of 
 her, who was the daughter of one friend, the grand- 
 daughter of another, and whose land he was keeping 
 from her too. 
 
 These thoughts preying on him at that period of life, 
 when the strength of body decays, and the memory of 
 old friends revives, filled him with gloomy horrors. Yet 
 he was afraid to confess. For the cure was an honest 
 man, and would have made him disgorge. And with him 
 Avarice was an ingrained habit, Penitence only a senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Matters were thus when, one day, returning from the 
 town hall to his own house, he found a woman waiting 
 for him in the vestibule, with a child in her arms. She 
 was veiled, and so, concluding she had something to be 
 ashamed of, he addressed her magisterially. On this 
 she let down her veil and looked him full in the face. 
 
 It was Margaret Brandt. 
 
 Her sudden appearance and manner startled him, and 
 he could not conceal his confusion. 
 
 " Where is my Gerard ? " cried she, her bosom heav- 
 ing. " Is he alive ? " 
 
 "For aught I know," stammered Ghysbrecht. "I 
 hope so, for your sake. Prithee come into this room. 
 The servants ! " 
 
290 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Not a step," said Margaret, and she took him by the 
 shoulder, and held him with all the energy of an excited 
 woman. " You know the secret of that which is break- 
 iug my heart. Why does not my Gerard come, nor send 
 a line this many months ? Answer me, or all the town 
 is like to hear me ; let alone thy servants. My misery 
 is too great to be sported with." 
 
 In vain he persisted he knew nothing about Gerard. 
 She told him those who had sent her to him told her 
 another tale. " You do know why he neither comes nor 
 sends," said she firmly. 
 
 At this Ghysbrecht turned paler and paler; but he 
 summoned all his dignity, and said, " Would you believe 
 those two knaves against a man of worship ? " 
 
 " What two knaves ? " said she keenly. 
 
 He stammered, " Said ye not ? — There, I am a poor 
 old broken man, whose memory is shaken. And you 
 come here, and confuse me so. I know not what I say." 
 
 " Ay, sir, your memory is shaken, or sure you would 
 not be my enemy. My father saved you from the plague, 
 when none other would come anigh you, and was ever 
 your friend. My grandfather Floris helped you in your 
 early poverty, and loved you, man and boy. Three gen- 
 erations of us you have seen ; and here is the fourth of 
 us ; this is your old friend Peter's grandchild, and your 
 old friend Floris his great-grandchild. Look down on 
 his innocent face, and think of theirs ! " 
 
 "Woman, you torture me," sighed Ghysbrecht, and 
 sank upon a bench. But she saw her advantage, and 
 kneeled before him, and put the boy on his knees. 
 "This fatherless babe is poor Margaret Brandt's, that 
 never did you ill, and comes of a race that loved you. 
 Nay, look at his face. 'Twill melt thee more than any 
 word of mine. Saints of heaven, what can a poor deso- 
 late girl and her babe have done to wipe out all memory 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 291 
 
 of thine own young days, when thou wert guiltless as 
 he is, that now looks up in thy face and implores thee 
 to give him back his father ? " 
 
 And with her arms under the child she held him up 
 higher and higher, smiling under the old man's eyes. 
 
 He cast a wild look of anguish on the child, and 
 another on the kneeling mother, and started up shriek- 
 ing, " Avaunt, ye pair of adders ! " 
 
 The stung soul gave the old limbs a momentary vigor, 
 and he walked rapidly, wringing his hands and clutching 
 at his white hair. " Forget those days ? I forget all 
 else. Oh, woman, woman, sleeping or waking I see but 
 the faces of the dead, I hear but the voices of the dead, 
 and I shall soon be among the dead. There, there, what 
 is done is done. I am in hell. I am in hell." 
 
 And unnatural force ended in prostration. 
 
 He staggered, and but for Margaret would have fallen. 
 With her one disengaged arm she supported him as well 
 as she could, and cried for help. 
 
 A couple of servants came running, and carried him 
 away in a state bordering on syncope. The last Marga- 
 ret saw of him was his old furrowed face, white and 
 helpless as his hair that hung down over the servant's 
 elbow. 
 
 "Heaven forgive me," she said. "1 doubt I have 
 killed the poor old man." 
 
 Then this attempt to penetrate the torturing mystery 
 left it as dark, or darker than before. For when she 
 came to ponder every word, her suspicion was confirmed 
 that Ghysbrecht did know something about Gerard. 
 " And who were the two knaves he thought had done a 
 good deed, and told me ? Oh, my Gerard, my poor 
 deserted babe, you and I are wading in deep waters." 
 
 The visit to Tergou took more money than she could 
 well afford : and a customer ran away in her debt. She 
 
292 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 was once more compelled to unfold Catherine's angel. 
 But, strange to say, as she came down-stairs with it in 
 her hand, she found some loose silver on the table, with 
 a written line, " For Gerard his wyfe." 
 
 She fell with a cry of surprise on the writing ; and 
 soon it rose into a cry of joy. 
 
 "He is alive. He sends me this by some friendly 
 hand." 
 
 She kissed the writing again and again, and put it in 
 her bosom. 
 
 Time rolled on : and no news of Gerard. 
 
 And about every two months a small sum in silver 
 found its way into the house. Sometimes it lay on the 
 table. Once it was flung in through the bedroom window 
 in a purse. Once it was at the bottom of Luke's basket. 
 He had stopped at the public house to talk to a friend. 
 The giver or his agent was never detected. Catherine 
 disowned it. Margaret Van Eyck swore she had no 
 hand in it. So did Eli. And Margaret, whenever it 
 came, used to say to little Gerard, " Oh, my poor deserted 
 child, you and I are wading in deep waters." 
 
 She applied at least half this modest, but useful sup- 
 ply, to dressing the little Gerard beyond his station in 
 life. "If it does come from Gerard, he shall see his 
 boy neat." All the mothers in the street began to sneer, 
 especially such as had brats out at elbows. 
 
 The months rolled on, and dead sickness of heart 
 succeeded to these keener torments. She returned to 
 her first thought : " Gerard must be dead. She should 
 never see her boy's father again, nor her marriage lines." 
 This last grief, which had been somewhat allayed by 
 Eli and Catherine recognizing her betrothal, now revived 
 in full force ; others would not look so favorably on her 
 story. And often she moaned over her boy's illegiti- 
 macy. " Is it not enough for us to be bereaved ? Must 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 293 
 
 we be dishonored too ? Oh, that we had ne'er been 
 born." 
 
 A change took place in Peter Brandt. His mind, 
 clouded for nearly two years, seemed now to be clearing; 
 he had intervals of intelligence ; and then he and Mar- 
 garet used to talk of Gerard, till he wandered again. 
 But one day, returning after an absence of some hours, 
 Margaret found him conversing with Catherine, in a way 
 he had never done since his paralytic stroke. " Ah, girl, 
 why must you be out ? " said she. " But indeed I have 
 told him all ; and we have been a-crying together over 
 thy troubles." 
 
 Margaret stood silent, looking joyfully from one to the 
 other. 
 
 Peter smiled on her, and said, "Come, let me bless 
 thee." 
 
 She kneeled at his feet, and he blessed her most elo- 
 quently. He told her she had been all her life the 
 lovingest, truest, and most obedient daughter Heaven 
 ever sent to a poor old widowed man. " May thy son be 
 to thee what thou hast been to me ! " 
 
 After this he dozed. Then the females whispered 
 together : and Catherine said, " All our talk e'en now was 
 of Gerard. It lies heavy on his mind. His poor head 
 must often have listened to us when it seemed quite 
 dark. Margaret, he is a very understanding man ; he 
 thought of many things : ' He may be in prison,' says 
 he, ' or forced to go fighting for some king, or sent to 
 Constantinople to copy books there, or gone into the 
 Church after all.' He had a bent that way." 
 
 " Ah, mother," whispered Margaret, in reply, " he doth 
 but deceive himself as we do." 
 
 Ere she could finish the sentence, a strange interrup- 
 tion occurred. 
 
 A loud voice cried out, " I see him. I see him." 
 
294 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 And the old man with dilating eyes seemed to be 
 looking right through the wall of the house. 
 
 " In a boat ; on a great river ; coming this way. Sore 
 disfigured : but I knew him. Gone ! gone ! all dark." 
 
 And he sank back, and asked feebly where was 
 Margaret. 
 
 " Dear father, I am by thy side. Oh, mother ! mother, 
 what is this ? " 
 
 " I cannot see thee, and but a moment agone I saw all 
 round the world. Ay, ay. Well, I am ready. Is this 
 thy hand ? Bless thee, my child, bless thee ! Weep 
 not ! The tree is ripe." 
 
 The old physician read the signs aright. These calm 
 words were his last. The next moment he drooped his 
 head, and gently, placidly, drifted away from earth, like 
 an infant sinking to rest. The torch had flashed up, 
 before going out. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 295 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 She who had wept for poor old Martin was not likely 
 to bear this blow so stoically as the death of the old is 
 apt to be borne. In vain Catherine tried to console her 
 with commonplaces ; in vain told her it was a happy 
 release for him ; and that, as he himself had said, the 
 tree was ripe. But her worst failure was, when she 
 urged that there were now but two mouths to feed : and 
 one care the less. 
 
 " Such cares are all the joys I have/' said Margaret. 
 " They fill my desolate heart, which now seems void as 
 well as waste. Oh, empty chair, my bosom it aches to 
 see thee. Poor old man, how could I love him by halves, 
 I that did use to sit and look at him and think 'Bat for 
 me thou wouldst die of hunger.' He, so wise, so learned 
 erst, was got to be helpless as my own sweet babe, and I 
 loved him as if he had been my child instead of my 
 father. Oh, empty chair ! Oh, empty heart ! Well-a- 
 day ! well-a-day ! " 
 
 And the pious tears would not be denied. 
 
 Then Catherine held her peace : and hung her head. 
 And one day she made this confession, " I speak to thee 
 out o' my head, and not out o' my bosom ; thou dost well 
 to be deaf to me. Were I in thy place I should mourn 
 the old man all one as thou dost." 
 
 Then Margaret embraced her, and this bit of true 
 sympathy did her a little good. The commonplaces did 
 none. 
 
 Then Catherine's bowels yearned over her, and she 
 said, " My poor girl, you were not born to live alone. I 
 
296 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 have got to look on you as my own daughter. Waste not 
 thine youth upon my son Gerard. Either he is dead, or 
 he is a traitor. It cuts my heart to say it ; but who can 
 help seeing it ? Thy father is gone ; and I cannot always 
 be aside thee. And here, is an honest lad that loves thee 
 well this many a day. I'd take him and comfort to- 
 gether. Heaven hath sent us these creatures to torment 
 us and comfort us and all ; we are just nothing in the 
 world without 'em." Then seeing Margaret look utterly 
 perplexed, she went on to say, " Why, sure you are not 
 so blind as not to see it ? " 
 
 "What? Who?" 
 
 "Who but this Luke Peterson?" 
 
 " What, our Luke ? The boy that carries my basket ? " 
 
 " Nay, he is over nineteen, and a fine, healthy lad ; and 
 I have made inquiries for you ; and they all do say he is 
 a capable workman, and never touches a drop ; and that 
 is much in a Rotterdam lad, which they are mostly half 
 man half sponge." 
 
 Margaret smiled for the first time this many days. 
 " Luke loves dried puddings dearly," said she ; " and I 
 make them to his mind. 'Tis them he comes a-courting 
 here." Then she suddenly turned red. " But if I 
 thought he came after your son's wife that is, or ought 
 to be, I'd soon put him to the door." 
 
 " Nay, nay ; for Heaven's sake let me not make mis- 
 chief. Poor lad ! Why, girl, fancy will not be bridled. 
 Bless you, I wormed it out of him near a twelvemonth 
 agone." 
 
 " 0 mother ! and you let him ? " 
 
 " Well, I thought of you. I said to myself, 1 If he is 
 fool enough to be her slave for nothing, all the better for 
 her. A lone woman is lost without a man about her to 
 fetch and carry her little matters.' But now my mind is 
 changed, and I think the best use you can put him to, is 
 to marry him." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 297 
 
 u So then his own mother is against him, and would 
 wed me to the first comer. Ah, Gerard, thou hast but 
 me ; I will not believe thee dead till I see thy tomb, nor 
 false till I see thee with another lover in thine hand. 
 Foolish boy, I shall ne'er be civil to him again." 
 
 Afflicted with the busybody's protection, Luke Peter- 
 son met a cold reception in the house where he had 
 hitherto found a gentle and kind one. And by-and-by, 
 finding himself very little spoken to at all, and then 
 sharply and irritably, the great soft fellow fell to whim- 
 pering, and asked Margaret plump if he had done any- 
 thing to offend her. 
 
 " Nothing. I am to blame. I am cursed. If you will 
 take my counsel you will keep out of my way awhile." 
 
 " It is all along of me, Luke," said the busybody. 
 
 " You, Mistress Catherine. Why, what have I done 
 for you to set her against me ? " 
 
 " Nay, I meant all for the best. I told her I saw you 
 were looking towards her through a wedding-ring. But 
 she won't hear of it." 
 
 " There was no need to tell her that, wife, she knows I 
 am courting her this twelvemonth." 
 
 " Not I," said Margaret : "or I should never have 
 opened the street door to you." 
 
 " Why, I come here every Saturday night. And that 
 is how the lads in Eotterdam do court. If we sup with 
 a lass o' Saturdays, that's wooing." 
 
 " Oh, that is Eotterdam, is it ? Then next time you 
 come, let it be Thursday, or Friday. For my part, I 
 thought you came after my puddings, boy." 
 
 " I like your puddings well enough. You make them 
 better than mother does. But I like you still better than 
 the puddings," said Luke, tenderly. 
 
 " Then you have seen the last of them. How dare you 
 talk so to another man's wife, and him far away ? " She 
 
298 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ended gently, but very firmly, "You need not trouble 
 yourself to come here any more, Luke; I can carry my 
 basket myself." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Luke ; and, after sitting silent 
 and stupid for a little while, he rose, and said sadly to 
 Catherine, " Dame, I dare say I have got the sack ; " and 
 went out. 
 
 But the next Saturday Catherine found him seated on 
 the door-step blubbering. He told her he had got used 
 to come there, and every other place seemed strange. 
 She went in, and told Margaret ; and Margaret sighed, 
 and said, "Poor Luke, he might come in for her, if he 
 could know his place, and treat her like a married wife." 
 On this being communicated to Luke, he hesitated. 
 " Pshaw ! " said Catherine, " promises are pie-crusts. 
 Promise her all the world, sooner than sit outside like 
 a fool, when a word will carry you inside. Now you 
 humor her in everything, and then, if poor Gerard come- 
 not home and claim her, you will be sure to have her — 
 in time. A lone woman is aye to be tired out, thou 
 foolish boy." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 299 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE CLOISTER. 
 
 Brother Clement had taught and preached in Basle 
 more than a twelvemonth, when one day Jerome stood 
 before him, dusty, with a triumphant glance in his eye. 
 
 " Give the glory to God, brother Clement ; thou canst 
 now wend to England with me." 
 
 "I am ready, brother Jerome; and, expecting thee 
 these many months, have in the intervals of teaching 
 and devotion studied the English tongue somewhat 
 closely." 
 
 " 'Twas well thought of," said Jerome. He then told 
 him he had but delayed till he could obtain extraordi- 
 nary powers from the Pope to collect money for the 
 Church's use in England, and to hear confession in all 
 the secular monasteries. "So now gird up thy loins, and 
 let us go forth and deal a good blow for the Church, and 
 against the Franciscans." 
 
 The two friars went preaching down the Ehine, for 
 England. In the larger places, they both preached. At 
 the smaller, they often divided, and took different sides 
 of the river, and met again at some appointed spot. 
 Both were able orators, but in different styles. 
 
 Jerome's was noble and impressive, but a little con- 
 tracted in religious topics, and a trifle monotonous in 
 delivery compared with Clement's, though in truth not 
 so, compared with most preachers. 
 
 Clement's was full of variety, and often remarkably 
 colloquial. In its general flow, tender and gently win* 
 
300 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ning, it curled round the reason and the heart. But it 
 always rose with the rising thought; and so at times 
 Clement soared as far above Jerome as his level speak- 
 ing was below him. Indeed, in these noble heats he was 
 all that we have read of inspired prophet or heathen 
 orator : Vehemens ut procella, excitatus ut torrens, incen- 
 sus ut fulmen, tonabat, fulgurabat, et rapidis eloquentice 
 fluctibus cuncta proruebat et porturbabat. 
 
 I would give literal specimens, but for five objections : 
 it is difficult ; time is short ; I have done it elsewhere ; 
 an able imitator has since done it better ; and similarity^ 
 a virtue in peas, is a vice in books. 
 
 But (not to evade the matter entirely) Clement used 
 secretly to try and learn the recent events and the beset- 
 ting sin of each town he was to preach in. 
 
 But Jerome, the unbending, scorned to go out of his 
 way for any people's vices. At one great town some 
 leagues from the Ehine, they mounted the same pulpit 
 in turn. Jerome preached against vanity in dress, a 
 favorite theme of his. He was eloquent and satirical, 
 and the people listened with complacency. It was a 
 vice that they were little given to. 
 
 Clement preached against drunkenness. It was a 
 besetting sin, and sacred from preaching in these parts: 
 for the clergy themselves were infected with it, and 
 popular prejudice protected it. Clement dealt it merci- 
 less blows out of Holy Writ and worldly experience. A 
 crime itself, it was the nursing-mother of most crimes, 
 especially theft and murder. He reminded them of a 
 parricide that had lately been committed in their town 
 by an honest man in liquor; and also how a band of 
 drunkards had roasted one of their own comrades alive 
 at a neighboring village. "Your last prince," said he, 
 "is reported to have died of apoplexy, but well you 
 know he died of drink ; and of your aldermen, one per- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 301 
 
 ished miserably last month dead drunk, suffocated in a 
 puddle. Your children's backs go bare that you may fill 
 your bellies with that which makes you the worst of 
 beasts, silly as calves, yet fierce as boars ; and drives your 
 families to need, and your souls to hell. I tell ye your 
 town, ay, and your very nation would sink to the very 
 bottom of mankind did your women drink as you do. 
 And how long will they be temperate, and, contrary to 
 nature, resist the example of their husbands and fathers? 
 Vice ne'er yet stood still. Ye must amend yourselves, 
 or see them come down to your mark. Already in 
 Bohemia they drink along with the men. How shows a 
 drunken woman ? Would you love to see your wives 
 drunken, your mothers drunken ? " At this there was 
 a shout of horror, for mediaeval audiences had not 
 learned to sit mumchance at a moving sermon. " Ah, 
 that comes home to you," cried the friar. "What! 
 madmen ! think you it doth not more shock the all-pure 
 God to see a man, His noblest work, turned to a drunken 
 beast, than it can shock you creatures of sin and un- 
 reason to see a woman turned into a thing no better nor 
 worse than yourselves ? " 
 
 He ended with two pictures ; a drunkard's house and 
 family, and a sober man's ; both so true and dramatic in 
 all their details, that the wives fell all to " ohing " and 
 " ahing," and " Eh, but that is a true word." 
 
 This discourse caused quite an uproar. The hearers 
 formed knots ; the men were indignant ; so the women 
 flattered them, and took their part openly against the 
 preacher. A married man had a right to a drop ; he 
 needed it, working for all the family. And for their 
 part they did not care to change their men for milksops. 
 
 The double faces ! That very evening a band of men 
 caught near a hundred of them round brother Clement, 
 filling his wallet with, the best, and offering him the verv 
 
302 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 roses off their heads, and kissing his frock, and blessing 
 him "for taking in hand to mend their sots." 
 
 J erome thought this sermon too earthly. 
 
 "Drunkenness is not heresy, Clement, that a whole 
 sermon should be preached against it." 
 
 As they went on, he found to his surprise that 
 Clement's sermons sank into his hearers deeper than 
 his own ; made them listen, think, cry, and sometimes 
 even amend their ways. " He hath the art of sinking to 
 their peg," thought Jerome. " Yet he can soar high 
 enough at times." 
 
 Upon the whole, it puzzled Jerome, who had a secret 
 sense of superiority to his tenderer brother. And, after 
 about two hundred miles of it, it got to displease him as 
 well as puzzle him. But he tried to check this senti- 
 ment as petty and unworthy. "Souls differ like locks," 
 said he, "and preachers must differ like keys, or the 
 fewer should the Church open for God to pass in. And, 
 certes, this novice hath the key to these Northern souls, 
 being himself a Northern man." 
 
 And so they came slowly down the Rhine, sometimes 
 drifting a few miles on the stream ; but in general walk- 
 ing by the banks preaching, and teaching, and confess- 
 ing sinners in the towns and villages ; and they reached 
 the town of Dusseldorf. 
 
 There was the little quay where Gerard and Denys 
 had taken boat up the Rhine. The friars landed on it. 
 There were the streets, there was " The Silver Lion." 
 Nothing had changed but he, who walked through it 
 barefoot, with his heart calm and cold, his hands across 
 his breast, and his eyes bent meekly on the ground, a 
 true son of Dominic and holy Church. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 303 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE HEARTH. 
 
 * Eli," said Catherine, " answer me one question like 
 a man, and I'll ask no more to-day. What is worm- 
 wood ? " 
 
 Eli looked a little helpless at this sudden demand upon 
 his faculties ; but soon recovered enough to say it was 
 something that tasted main bitter. 
 
 " That is a fair answer, my man, but not the one I look 
 for." 
 
 " Then answer it yourself." 
 
 "And shall. Wormwood is — to have two in the house 
 a-doing nought, but waiting for thy shoes and mine." 
 Eli groaned. The shaft struck home. 
 
 " Methinks waiting for their best friend's coffin, that 
 and nothing to do, are enow to make them worse than 
 Nature meant. Why not set them up somewhere, to 
 give 'em a chance ? " 
 
 Eli said he was willing, but afraid they would drink 
 and gamble their very shelves away. 
 
 "Nay," said Catherine. "Dost take me for a simple- 
 ton ? Of course I mean to watch them at starting, and 
 drive them wi' a loose rein, as the saying is." 
 
 " Where did you think of ? Not here ; to divide our 
 own custom." 
 
 "Not likely. I say Rotterdam, against the world. 
 Then I could start them." 
 
 Oh, self deception ! The true motive of all this was 
 to get near little Gerard. 
 
304 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 After many discussions, and eager promises of amend 
 ment on these terms from Cornelis and Sybrandt, Cath- 
 erine went to Rotterdam shop hunting, and took Kate 
 with her, for a change. They soon found one, and in a 
 good street; but it was sadly out of order. However 
 they got it cheaper for that, and instantly set about 
 brushing it up, fitting proper shelves for the business, 
 and making the dwelling-house habitable. 
 
 Luke Peterson was always asking Margaret what he 
 could do for her. The answer used to be in a sad tone. 
 u Nothing, Luke, nothing." 
 
 "What, you that are so clever, can you think of nothing 
 for me to do for you ? " 
 
 "Nothing, Luke, nothing." 
 
 But at last she varied the reply thus : " If you could 
 make something to help my sweet sister Kate about." 
 
 The slave of love consented joyfully, and soon made 
 Kate a little cart, and cushioned it, and }~oked himself 
 into it, and at eventide drew her out of the town, and 
 along the pleasant boulevard, with Margaret and Catherine 
 walking beside. It looked a happier party than it was. 
 
 Kate, for one, enjoyed it keenly, for little Gerard was 
 put in her lap, and she doted on him ; and it was like a 
 cherub carried by a little angel, or a rosebud lying in the 
 cup of a lily. 
 
 So the vulgar jeered, and asked Luke how a thistle 
 tasted, and if his mistress could not afford one with four 
 legs, etc. 
 
 Luke did not mind these jeers ; but Kate minded them 
 for him. 
 
 " Thou hast made the cart for me, good Luke," said 
 she. " Twas much. I did ill to let thee draw me too ; 
 we can afford to pay some poor soul for that. I love my 
 rides, and to carry little Gerard; but I'd liever ride no 
 more than thou be mocked fort." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 305 
 
 " Much I care for their tongues," said Luke ; "if I did 
 care I'd knock their heads together. I shall draw you 
 till my mistress says give over." 
 
 " Luke, if you obey Kate, you will oblige me." 
 
 " Then I will obey Kate." 
 
 An honorable exception to popular humor was Jorian 
 Ketel's wife. " That is strength well laid out, to draw 
 the weak. And her prayers will be your guerdon ; she 
 is not long for this world : she smileth in pain." These 
 were the words of Joan. 
 
 Single-minded Luke answered that he did not want 
 the poor lass's prayers ; he did it to please his mistress, 
 Margaret. 
 
 After that Luke often pressed Margaret to give him 
 something to do — without success. 
 
 But one day, as if tired with his importuning, she 
 turned on him, and said with a look and accent, I should 
 in vain try to convey — 
 
 " Find me my boy's father ! 99 
 
306 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 " Mistress, they all say he is dead." 
 "Not so. They feed me still with hopes." 
 " Ay, to your face, but behind your back they all say 
 he is dead." 
 
 At this revelation Margaret's tears began to flow. 
 
 Luke whimpered for company. He had the body of a 
 man, but the heart of a girl. 
 
 " Prithee, weep not so, sweet mistress," said he. " I'd 
 bring him back to life, an I could, rather than see thee 
 weep so sore." 
 
 Margaret said she thought she was weeping because 
 they were so double-tongued with her. 
 
 She recovered herself, and, laying her hand on his 
 shoulder, said solemnly, "Luke, he is not dead. Dying 
 men are known to have a strange sight. And listen, 
 Luke ! My poor father, when he was a-dying, and I, 
 simple fool, was so happy, thinking he was going to get 
 well altogether, he said to mother and me — he was sit- 
 ting in that very chair where you are now, and mother 
 was as might be here, and I was yonder making a sleeve 
 — said he, 'I see him! I see him!' Just so. Not like 
 a failing man at all, but all o' fire. 'Sore disfigured — 
 on a great river — coming this way.' 
 
 " Ah, Luke, if you were a woman, and had the feeling 
 for me you think you have, you would pity me, and find 
 him for me. Take a thought ! The father of my child ! " 
 
 "Alack, I would if I knew how," said Luke. "But 
 how can I ? " 
 
 "Nay, of course you cannot. I am mad to think it. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 307 
 
 But oh, if any one really cared for me tliey would ; that 
 is all I know." 
 
 Luke reflected in silence for some time. 
 
 " The old folk all say dying men can see more than 
 living wights. Let me think, for my mind cannot gallop 
 like thine. On a great river ! Well, the Maas is a great 
 river." He pondered on. 
 
 " Coming this way ? Then if it was the Maas, he 
 would have been here by this time, so 'tis not the Maas. 
 The Ehine is a great river, greater than the Maas, and 
 very long. I think it will be the Ehine." 
 
 " And so do I, Luke ; for Denys bade him come down 
 the Rhine. But even if it is, he may turn off before he 
 comes anigh his birthplace. He does not pine for me 
 as I for him, that is clear. Luke, do you not think he 
 has deserted me ? " She wanted him to contradict her ; 
 but he said, " It looks very like it ; what a fool he must 
 be!" 
 
 "What do we know?" objected Margaret, imploringly. 
 
 " Let me think again," said Luke. " I cannot gallop." 
 
 The result of this meditation was this. He knew a 
 station about sixty miles up the Khine, where all the 
 public boats put in; and he would go to that station, 
 and try and cut the truant off. To be sure he did not 
 even know him by sight ; but as each boat came in he 
 would mingle with the passengers, and ask if one Gerard 
 was there. "And, mistress, if you were to give me a 
 bit of a letter to him ; for, with us being strangers, may- 
 hap a won't believe a word I say." 
 
 "Good, kind, thoughtful Luke, I will (how I have 
 undervalued thee !). But give me till supper-time to get 
 it writ." At supper she put a letter into his hand with 
 a blush ; it was a long letter tied round with silk, after 
 the fashion of the day, and sealed over the knot. 
 
 Luke weighed it in his hand, with a shade of discon* 
 
308 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 tent, and said to her very gravely, " Say your father was 
 not dreaming, and say I have the luck to fall in with 
 this man, and say he should turn out a better bit of stuff 
 than I think him, and come home to you then and there 
 — what is to become o' me ? " 
 
 Margaret colored to her very brow. "0 Luke, Heaven 
 will reward thee. And I shall fall on my knees and 
 bless thee; and I shall love thee all my days, sweet 
 Luke, as a mother does her son. I am so old by thee : 
 trouble ages the heart. Thou shalt not go : 'tis not fair 
 of me ; love maketh us to be all self." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Luke. " And if," resumed he, in the 
 same grave way, "yon scapegrace shall read thy letter, 
 and hear me tell him how thou pinest for him, and yet, 
 being a traitor, or a mere idiot, will not turn to thee — 
 what shall become of me then ? Must I die a bachelor, 
 and thou fare lonely to thy grave, neither maid, wife, 
 nor widow ? " 
 
 Margaret panted with fear and emotion at this terrible 
 piece of good sense, and the plain question that followed 
 it. But at last she faltered out, " If, which our Lady be 
 merciful to me, and forbid — Oh ! " 
 
 "Well, mistress?" 
 
 " If he should read my letter, and hear thy words — 
 and, sweet Luke, be just and tell him what a lovely babe 
 he hath, fatherless, fatherless. 0 Luke, can he be so 
 cruel ? " 
 
 "I trow not; but if?" 
 
 " Then he will give thee up my marriage lines, and I 
 shall be an honest woman, and a wretched one ; and my 
 boy will not be a bastard ; and, of course, then we could 
 both go into any honest man's house that would be 
 troubled with us ; and even for thy goodness this day, I 
 will — I will — ne'er be so ungrateful as go past thy door 
 to another man's." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 309 
 
 u Ay, but will you come in at mine ? Answer me 
 that!" 
 
 " Oh, ask me not ! Some day, perhaps, when my wounds 
 leave bleeding. Alas, I'll try. If I don't fling myself 
 and my child into the Maas. Do not go, Luke ! do not 
 think of going. 'Tis all madness from first to last." 
 
 But Luke was as slow to forego an idea as to form one. 
 
 His reply showed how fast love was making a man of 
 him. u Well," said he, " madness is something any way ; 
 and I am tired of doing nothing for thee : and I am no 
 great talker. To-morrow, at peep of day, I start. But, 
 hold, I have no money. My mother, she takes care of 
 all mine ; and I ne'er see it again." 
 
 Then Margaret took out Catherine's gold angel, which 
 had escaped so often, and gave it to Luke ; and he set 
 out on his mad errand. 
 
 It did not however seem so mad to him as to us. It 
 was a superstitious age ; and Luke acted on the dying 
 man's dream, or vision, or illusion, or whatever it was, 
 much as we should act on respectable information. 
 
 But Catherine was downright angry when she heard 
 of it. To send the poor lad on such a wild-goose chase ! 
 * But you are like a many more girls ; and, mark my 
 words, by the time you have worn that Luke fairly out, 
 and made him as sick of you as a dog, you will turn as 
 fond on him as a cow on a calf, and ' Too late 9 will be 
 the cry." 
 
 THE CLOISTER. 
 
 The two friars reached Holland from the south just 
 twelve hours after Luke started up the Rhine. 
 
 Thus, wild-goose chase or not, the parties were nearing 
 each other, and rapidly too. For Jerome, unable to 
 preach in low Dutch, now began to push on towards the 
 coast, anxious to get to England as soon as possible. 
 
310 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 And, having the stream with them, the friars would in 
 point of fact have missed Luke by passing him in full 
 stream below his station, but for the incident which I am 
 about to relate. 
 
 About twenty miles above the station Luke was making 
 for, Clement landed to preach in a large village; and 
 towards the end of his sermon he noticed a gray nun 
 weeping. 
 
 He spoke to her kindly, and asked her what was her 
 grief. " Xay," said she, " 'tis not for myself flow these 
 tears ; 'tis for my lost friend. Thy words reminded me 
 of what she was, and what she is, poor wretch. But you 
 are a Dominican, and I am a Franciscan nun.'" 
 
 " It matters little, my sister, if we are both Christians, 
 and if I can aid thee in aught." 
 
 The nun looked in his face, and said, " These are 
 strange words, but methinks they are good: and thy lips 
 are, oh, most eloquent. I will tell thee our grief.' 7 
 
 She then let him know that a young nun, the darling 
 of the convent, and her bosom friend, had been lured 
 away from her vows, and, after various gradations of sin, 
 was actually living in a small inn as chambermaid, in 
 reality as a decoy, and was known to be selling her favors 
 to the wealthier customers. She added, "Anywhere else 
 we might by kindly violence force her away from per- 
 dition. But this innkeeper was the servant of the fierce 
 baron on the height there, and hath his ear still, and he 
 would burn our convent to the ground, were we to take 
 her by force." 
 
 " Moreover, souls will not be saved by brute force," 
 said Clement. 
 
 While they were talking J erome came up, and Clement 
 persuaded him to lie at the convent that night. But 
 when in the morning Clement told him he had had a 
 long talk with the abbess, and that she was very sad, and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 311 
 
 he had promised her to try and win back her nun, Jerome 
 objected, and said, " It was not their business, and was 
 a waste of time." Clement, however, was no longer a 
 mere pupil. He stood firm, and at last they agreed that 
 J erome should go forward, and secure their passage in 
 the next ship for England, and Clement be allowed time 
 to make his well-meant but idle experiment. 
 
 About ten o'clock that day, a figure in a horseman's 
 cloak, and great boots to match, and a large flapping felt 
 hat, stood like a statue near the auberge, where was the 
 apostate nun, Mary. The friar thus disguised was at that 
 moment truly wretched. These ardent natures under- 
 take wonders ; but are dashed when they come hand to 
 hand with the sickening difficulties. But then, as their 
 hearts are steel, though their nerves are anything but 
 iron, they turn not back, but panting and dispirited, 
 struggle on to the last. 
 
 Clement hesitated long at the door, prayed for help 
 and wisdom, and at last entered the inn and sat down 
 faint at heart, and with his body in a cold perspiration. 
 
 But outside he was another man. He called lustily 
 for a cup of wine : it was brought him by the landlord. 
 He paid for it with money the convent had supplied 
 him : and made a show of drinking it. 
 
 " Landlord," said he, " I hear there is a fair chamber- 
 maid in thine house." 
 
 "Ay, stranger, the buxomest in Holland. But she 
 gives not her company to all comers; only to good 
 customers." 
 
 Friar Clement dangled a massive gold chain in the 
 landlord's sight. He laughed and shouted, " Here, 
 J anet, here is a lover for thee would bind thee in chains 
 of gold : and a tall lad into the bargain I promise thee." 
 
 "Then I am in double luck," said a female voice: 
 " send him hither." 
 
312 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Clement rose, shuddered, and passed into the room, 
 where Janet was seated playing with a piece of work, 
 and laying it down every minute, to sing a mutilated 
 fragment of a song. For, in her mode of life, she had 
 not the patience to carry anything out. 
 
 After a few words of greeting, the disguised visitor 
 asked her if they could not be more private somewhere. 
 
 " Why not ? " said she. And she rose and smiled, 
 and went tripping before him. He followed, groaning 
 inwardly, and sore perplexed. 
 
 " There," said she. " Have no fear ! Nobody ever 
 comes here, but such as pay for the privilege." 
 
 Clement looked round the room, and prayed silently 
 for wisdom. Then he went softly, and closed the window- 
 shutters carefully. 
 
 " What on earth is that for ? " said Janet in some 
 uneasiness. 
 
 " Sweetheart," whispered the visitor, with a mysterious 
 air, " it is that God may not see us." 
 
 " Madman," said Janet, " think you a wooden shutter 
 can keep out His eye ? " 
 
 " Nay, I know not. Perchance He has too much on 
 hand to notice us. But I would not the saints and 
 angels should see us. Would you ? " 
 
 " My poor soul, hope not to escape their sight ! The 
 only way is not to think of them ; for if you do, it poisons 
 your cup. For two pins I'd run and leave thee. Art 
 pleasant company in sooth." 
 
 " After all, girl, so that men see us not, what signify 
 God and the saints seeing us ? Feel this chain ! 'Tis 
 virgin gold. I shall cut two of these heavy links off for 
 thee." 
 
 " Ah ! now thy discourse is to the point." And she 
 handled the chain greedily. " Why, 'tis as massy as the 
 chain round the Virgin's neck at the conv — " She did 
 not finish the word. 
 
HELD HIS CRUCIFIX TOWERING OVER HER. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 313 
 
 " Whisht ! whisht ! whisht ! 'Tis it. And thou shalt 
 have thy share. But betray me not." 
 
 " Monster ! " cried Janet, drawing back from him with 
 repugnance, " what ! rob the blessed Virgin of her chain, 
 and give it to an 99 — 
 
 " You are none," cried Clement, exultingly, " or you 
 had not recked for that. — Mary ! " 
 
 "Ah, ah, ah!" 
 
 " Thy patron saint, whose chain this is, sends me to 
 greet thee." 
 
 She ran screaming to the window and began to undo 
 the shutters. 
 
 Her fingers trembled, and Clement had time to de- 
 barrass himself of his boots and his hat, before the light 
 streamed in upon him. He then let his cloak quietly 
 fall, and stood before her, a Dominican friar, calm and 
 majestic as a statue, and held his crucifix towering over 
 her with a loving, sad and solemn look, that somehow 
 relieved her of the physical part of fear, but crushed her 
 with religious terror and remorse. She crouched and 
 cowered against the wall. 
 
 " Mary," said he, gently ; " one word ! Are you 
 happy ? " 
 
 " As happy as I shall be in hell." 
 
 " And they are not happy at the convent ; they weep 
 for you." 
 
 " For me ? " 
 
 " Day and night ; above all the Sister Ursula." 
 
 " Poor Ursula ! " And the strayed nun began to weep 
 herself at the thought of her friend. 
 
 " The angels weep still more. Wilt not dry all their 
 tears in earth and heaven, and save thyself ? " 
 
 " Ah ! would I could : but it is too late." 
 
 "Satan avaunt," cried the monk sternly. "'Tis thy 
 favorite temptation; and thou, Mary, listen not to the 
 
314 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 enemy of man, belying God, and whispering despair. I 
 who come to save thee have been a far greater sinner 
 than thou. Come, Mary, sin, thou seest, is not so sweet 
 e'en in this world, as holiness ; and eternity is at the 
 door." 
 
 " How can they ever receive me again ? 99 
 "'Tis their worthiness thou doubtest now. But in 
 truth they pine for thee. 'Twas in pity of their tears 
 that I, a Dominican, undertook this task ; and broke the 
 rule of my order by entering an inn ; and broke it again 
 by donning these lay vestments. But all is well done, 
 and quit for a light penance, if thou wilt let us rescue 
 thy soul from this den of wolves, and bring thee back to 
 thy vows." 
 
 The nun gazed at him with tears in her eyes. " And 
 thou a Dominican hast done this for a daughter of St. 
 Francis ! Why, the Franciscans and Dominicans hate 
 one another." 
 
 " Ay, my daughter ; but Francis and Dominic love 
 one another." 
 
 The recreant nun seemed struck and affected by this 
 answer. 
 
 Clement now reminded her how shocked she had been 
 that the Virgin should be robbed of her chain. " But 
 see now," said he, " the convent and the Virgin too think 
 ten times more of their poor nun than of golden chains ; 
 for they freely trusted their chain to me a stranger, that 
 peraclventure the sight of it might touch their lost Mary 
 and remind her of their love." Finally he showed her 
 with such terrible simplicity the end of her present 
 course, and on the other hand so revived her dormant 
 memories and better feelings, that she kneeled sobbing 
 at his feet, and owned she had never known happiness 
 nor peace since she betrayed her vows ; and said she 
 would go back if he would go with her; but alone 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 315 
 
 she dared not, could not : even if she reached the gate 
 she could never enter. How could she face the abbess 
 and the sisters ? He told her he would go with her as 
 joyfully as the shepherd bears a strayed lamb to the fold. 
 
 But when he urged her to go at once, up sprung a crop 
 of those prodigiously petty difficulties that entangle her 
 sex, like silken nets, liker iron cobwebs. 
 
 He quietly swept them aside. 
 
 " But how can I walk beside thee in this habit ? " 
 
 " I have brought the gown and cowl of thy holy order. 
 Hide thy bravery with them. And leave thy shoes as I 
 leave these " (pointing to his horseman's boots). 
 
 She collected her jewels and ornaments. 
 
 "What are these for ? " inquired Clement. 
 
 " To present to the convent, father." 
 
 "Their source is too impure." 
 
 " 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 pass 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 gray nun pass 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 ! Keuben ! Carl ! Gavin ! here is a 
 false friar spiriting away our Janet." 
 
316 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 re- 
 turning 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 Eome, and his soul shall roast in 
 eternal tire." 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. " Hush ! 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 God 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 : God 
 chooseth well his fleshly instruments : and with im- 
 perfect hearts doeth His perfect work. Glory be to 
 God!" 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 317 
 
 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 de- 
 sired to see the abbess. 
 
 "My sister, give the glory to God. Mary is at the 
 gate." 
 
 The astonishment and delight of the abbess were un- 
 bounded. 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 opposi- 
 tion, 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 j and 
 
318 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 Eng- 
 land 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 sex 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 disfig- 
 ured. Is't so, perchance ? Have cruel men scarred thy 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 319 
 
 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 passengers of two boats, and 
 could hear nothing of Gerard Eliassoen. 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 Elias- 
 soen ? " 
 
 "Why, father, if he is alive, I have got a letter for 
 him." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Jerome. " I am sorry for it. How- 
 ever, 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 Eliassoen of Tergou — is he alive ? " 
 
 " Humph ! Why, certes, he that went by that name is 
 alive." 
 
 " Well, then, that is settled," said Luke, dryly. But 
 the next moment he found it necessary to run out of 
 sight and blubber. 
 
320 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "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 spite- 
 ful snatch, 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 lass." 
 
 " 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. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 321 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE HEARTH. 
 
 Writing an earnest letter seldom leaves the mind in 
 statu quo. Margaret, in hers, vented her energy and her 
 faith in her dying father's vision, or illusion ; and, when 
 this was done, and Luke gone, she wondered at her cre- 
 dulity, and her conscience pricked her about Luke ; and 
 Catherine came and scolded her, and she paid the price 
 of false hopes, and elevation of spirits, by falling into 
 deeper despondency. She was found in this state by a 
 stanch friend she had lately made ; Joan Ketel. This 
 good woman came in radiant with an idea. 
 
 " Margaret, I know the cure for thine ill : the hermit 
 of Gouda, a wondrous holy man. Why, he can tell what 
 is coming, when he is in the mood." 
 
 " Ay, I have heard of him," said Margaret, hopelessly. 
 Joan with some difficulty persuaded her to walk out as 
 far as Gouda, and consult the hermit. They took some 
 butter and eggs in a basket, and went to his cave. 
 
 What had made the pair such fast friends ? Jorian 
 some six weeks ago fell ill of a bowel disease ; it began 
 with raging pain : and when this went off, leaving him 
 weak, an awkward symptom succeeded ; nothing, either 
 liquid or solid, would stay in his stomach a minute. The 
 doctor said, " He must die if this goes on many hours ; 
 therefore, boil thou now a chicken with a golden angel 
 in the water, and let him sup that." Alas ! Gilt chicken 
 broth shared the fate of the humbler viands, its prede- 
 cessors. Then the cure steeped the thumb of St. Sergius 
 
322 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 in beef broth. Same result. Then Joan ran weeping to 
 Margaret to borrow some linen to make his shroud. 
 "Let me see him/' said Margaret. She came in and 
 felt his pulse. "Ah!" said she, "I doubt they have 
 not gone to the root. Open the window ! Art stifling 
 him ; now change all his linen." 
 
 " Alack, woman, what for ? TVhy foul more linen for 
 a dying man ? " objected the mediaeval wife. 
 
 " Do as thou art bid," said Margaret, dully, and left 
 the room. 
 
 Joan somehow found herself doing as she was bid. 
 Margaret returned with her apron full of a flowering 
 herb. She made a decoction, and took it to the bedside ; 
 and before giving it to the patient, took a spoonful her- 
 self, and smacked her lips hypocritically. "That is 
 fair," said he with a feeble attempt at humor. " Why, 
 'tis sweet, and now 'tis bitter." She engaged him in 
 conversation as soon as he had taken it. This bitter- 
 sweet stayed by him. Seeing which she built on it as 
 cards are built: mixed a very little schiedam in the 
 third spoonful, and a little beaten yolk of egg in the 
 seventh. And so with the patience of her sex she coaxed 
 his body out of Death's grasp ; and finally, Nature, being- 
 patted on the back, instead of kicked under the bed, set 
 Jorian Ketel on his legs again. But the doctress made 
 them both swear never to tell a soul her guilty deed. 
 " They would put me in prison, away from my child." 
 
 The simple that saved Jorian was called sweet fever- 
 few. She gathered it in his own garden. Her eagle eye 
 had seen it growing out of the window. 
 
 Margaret and Joan, then, reached the hermit's cave, 
 and placed their present on the little platform. Marga- 
 ret then applied her mouth to the aperture, made for 
 that purpose, and said, "Holy hermit, we bring thee 
 butter and eggs of the best : and I, a poor deserted girl, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 323 
 
 wife, yet no wife, and mother of the sweetest babe, come 
 to pray thee tell me whether he is quick or dead, true to 
 his vows or false." 
 
 A faint voice issued from the cave : " Trouble me not 
 with the things of earth, but send me a holy friar. I 
 am dying." 
 
 " Alas ! " cried Margaret. " Is it e'en so, poor soul ? 
 Then let us in to help thee." 
 
 " Saints forbid ! Thine is a woman's voice. Send me 
 a holy friar ! " 
 
 They went back as they came. Joan could not help 
 saying, "Are women imps o' darkness, then, that they 
 must not come anigh a dying bed ? " 
 
 But Margaret was too deeply dejected to say anything. 
 Joan applied rough consolation. But she was not lis- 
 tened to till she said, " And J orian will speak out ere 
 long; he is just on the boil. He is very grateful to thee, 
 believe it." 
 
 " Seeing is believing," replied Margaret with quiet 
 bitterness. 
 
 "Not but what he thinks you might have saved him 
 with something more out o' the common than yon. ' A 
 man of my inches to be cured wi' feverfew/ says he. 
 ( Why, if there is a sorry herb/ says he. ( Why, I was 
 thinking o' pulling all mine up/ says he. I up and told 
 him remedies were none the better for being far-fetched ; 
 you and feverfew cured him, when the grand medicines 
 came up faster than they went down. So says I, ' You 
 may go down on your four bones to feverfew.' But, in- 
 deed, he is grateful at bottom ; you are all his thought 
 and all his chat. But he sees Gerard's folk coming 
 around ye, and good friends, and he said only last 
 night " — 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He made me vow not to tell ye." 
 
324 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Prithee, tell me." 
 
 "Well, he said, 1 An' if I tell what little I know, it 
 won't bring him back, and it will set them all by the 
 ears. I wish I had more headpiece,' said he, ' I am sore 
 perplexed. But least said is soonest mended.' Yon is 
 his favorite word ; he comes back to't from a mile off." 
 
 Margaret shook her head. "Ay, we are wading in 
 deep waters, my poor babe and me." 
 
 It was Saturday night : and no Luke. 
 
 " Poor Luke ! " said Margaret. " It was very good of 
 him to go on such an errand." 
 
 "He is one out of a hundred," replied Catherine 
 warmly. 
 
 "Mother, do you think he would be kind to little 
 Gerard ? " 
 
 " I am sure he would. So do you be kinder to him 
 when he comes back ! Will ye now ? " 
 " Ay." 
 
 THE CLOISTER. 
 
 Brother Clement, directed by the nuns, avoided a bend 
 in the river, and, striding lustily forward, reached a sta- 
 tion some miles nearer the coast than that where Luke 
 lay in wait for Gerard Eliassoen. And the next morning 
 he started early, and was in Rotterdam at noon. He 
 made at once for the port, not to keep Jerome waiting. 
 
 He observed several monks of his order on the quay ; 
 he went to them ; but Jerome was not amongst them. 
 He asked one of them whether Jerome had arrived ? 
 " Surely, brother," was the reply. 
 
 " Prithee, where is he ? " 
 
 " Where ? Why, there ! " said the monk, pointing to 
 a ship in full sail. And Clement now noticed that all 
 the monks were looking seaward. 
 
 " What, gone without me ! Oh, Jerome ! Jerome ! " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 325 
 
 cried he in a voice of anguish. Several of the friars 
 turned round and stared. 
 
 " You must be brother Clement," said one of them at 
 length; and on this they kissed him and greeted him 
 with brotherly warmth, and gave him a letter Jerome 
 had charged them with for him. It was a hasty scrawl. 
 The writer told him coldly a ship was about to sail for 
 England, and he was loath to lose time. He (Clement) 
 might follow if he pleased, but he would do much better 
 to stay behind, and preach to his own country folk. 
 " Give the glory to God, brother ; you have a wonderful 
 power over Dutch hearts : but you are no match for 
 those haughty islanders : you are too tender. 
 
 u Know thou that on the way I met one who asked me 
 for thee under the name thou didst bear in the world. 
 Be on thy guard ! Let not the world catch thee again 
 by any silken net. And remember, solitude, fasting, and 
 prayer are the sword, spear, and shield of the soul. 
 Farewell." 
 
 Clement was deeply shocked and mortified at this con- 
 temptuous desertion, and this cold-blooded missive. 
 
 He promised the good monks to sleep at the convent, 
 and to preach wherever the prior should appoint (for 
 Jerome had raised him to the skies as a preacher), and 
 then withdrew abruptly, for he was cut to the quick, and 
 wanted to be alone. He asked himself, was there some 
 incurable fault in him, repulsive to so true a son of Domi- 
 nic ? Or was J erome himself devoid of that Christian 
 love which St. Paul had placed above faith itself ? Ship- 
 wrecked with him, and saved on the same fragment of 
 the wreck ; his pupil, his penitent, his son in the Church, 
 and now for four hundred miles his fellow-traveller in 
 Christ ; and to be shaken off like dirt, the first oppor- 
 tunity, with harsh and cold disdain. "Why, worldly 
 hearts are no colder nor less trusty than this," said he. 
 
326 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " The only one that ever really loved me lies in a grave 
 hard by. Fly me, fly to England, man born without a 
 heart ; I will go and pray over a grave at Sevenbergen." 
 
 Three hours later he passed Peter's cottage. A troop 
 of noisy children were playing about the door, and the 
 house had been repaired, and a new outhouse added. 
 He turned his head hastily away, not to disturb a picture 
 his memory treasured, and went to the churchyard. 
 
 He sought among the tombstones for Margaret's. He 
 could not find it. He could not believe they had grudged 
 her a tombstone, so searched the churchyard all over 
 again. 
 
 " Oh, poverty ! stern poverty ! Poor soul, thou wert 
 like me ; no one was left that loved thee, when Gerard 
 was gone." 
 
 He went into the church, and, after kissing the steps, 
 prayed long and earnestly for the soul of her whose 
 resting-place he could not find. 
 
 Coming out of the church he saw a very old man 
 looking over the little churchyard gate. He went 
 towards him, and asked him did he live in the place. 
 
 "Fourscore and twelve years, man and boy. And I 
 come here every day of late, holy father, to take a peep. 
 This is where I look to bide ere long." 
 
 " My son, can you tell me where Margaret lies ? " 
 
 " Margaret ? There's a many Margarets here." 
 
 "Margaret Brandt. She was daughter to a learned 
 physician." 
 
 " As if I didn't know that," said the old man, pet- 
 tishly. " But she doesn't lie here. Bless you, they left 
 this a longful while ago. Gone in a moment, and the 
 house empty. What, is she dead ? Margaret a Peter 
 dead? Kow only think on't. Like enow; like enow. 
 They great towns do terribly disagree wi' country folk." 
 
 " What great towns, my son ? " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 327 
 
 " Well, 'twas Eotterdain they went to from here, so I 
 heard tell ; or was it Amsterdam ? Nay, I trow 'twas 
 Eotterdam. And gone there to die ! " 
 
 Clement sighed. 
 
 " 'Twas not in her face now, that I saw. And I can 
 mostly tell. Alack, there was a blooming young flower 
 to be cut off so soon, and an old weed like me left stand- 
 ing still. Well, well, she was a May rose, yon; dear 
 heart, what a winsome smile she had, and " — 
 
 " God bless thee, my son," said Clement ; " farewell ! " 
 and he hurried away. 
 
 He reached the convent at sunset, and watched and 
 prayed in the chapel for Jerome and Margaret, till it 
 was long past midnight, and his soul had recovered its 
 cold calm. 
 
328 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE HEARTH. 
 
 The next day, Sunday, after mass, was a bustling day 
 at Catherine's house in the Hoog Straet. The shop was 
 now quite ready, and Cornelis and Sybrandt were to 
 open it next day ; their names were above the door ; also 
 their sign, a white lamb sucking a gilt sheep. Eli had 
 come, and brought them some more goods from his store 
 to give them a good start. The hearts of the parents 
 glowed at what they were doing, and the pair themselves 
 walked in the garden together, and agreed they were 
 sick of their old life, and it was more pleasant to make 
 money than waste it : they vowed to stick to business 
 like wax. Their mother's quick and ever watchful ear 
 overheard this resolution through an open window, and 
 she told Eli. The family supper was to include Mar- 
 garet and her boy, and be a kind of inaugural feast, at 
 which good trade advice was to flow from the elders, and 
 good wine to be drunk to the success of the converts to 
 commerce from agriculture in its unremunerative form, 
 — wild oats. So Margaret had come over to help her 
 mother-in-law, and also to shake off her own deep lan- 
 guor; and both their faces were as red as the fire. 
 Presently in came Joan with a salad from Jorian's 
 garden. 
 
 " He cut it for you, Margaret ; you are all his chat ; I 
 shall be jealous. I told him you were to feast to-day. 
 But oh, lass, what a sermon in the new kerk ! Preach- 
 ing ? I never heard it till this day." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 329 
 
 " Would I had been there then/' said Margaret ; " for 
 I am dried up for want of dew from heaven." 
 
 " Why, he preacheth again this afternoon. But may- 
 hap you are wanted here." 
 
 "Not she," said Catherine. "Come, away ye go, if 
 y'are minded." 
 
 " Indeed," said Margaret, " methinks I should not be 
 such a damper at table if I could come to 't warm from 
 a good sermon." 
 
 "Then you must be brisk," observed Joan. " See, the 
 folk are wending that way, and as I live, there goes the 
 holy friar. Oh, bless us and save us, Margaret : the her- 
 mit ! We forgot." And this active woman bounded out 
 of the house, and ran across the road, and stopped the 
 friar. She returned as quickly. " There, I was bent on 
 seeing him nigh hand." 
 
 "What said he to thee?" 
 
 " Says he, ' My daughter, I will go to him ere sunset, 
 God willing.' The sweetest voice. But, oh, my mis- 
 tresses, what thin cheeks for a young man, and great 
 eyes, not far from your color, Margaret." 
 
 " I have a great mind to go hear him," said Margaret. 
 " But my cap is not very clean, and they will all be there 
 in their snow-white mutches." 
 
 "There, take my handkerchief out of the basket," 
 said Catherine ; " you cannot have the child, I want him 
 for my poor Kate. It is one of her ill days." 
 
 Margaret replied by taking the boy up-stairs. She 
 found Kate in bed. 
 
 "How art thou, sweetheart? Nay, I need not ask. 
 Thou art in sore pain; thou smilest so. See, I have 
 brought thee one thou lovest." 
 
 "Two, by my way of counting," said Kate, with an 
 angelic smile. She had a spasm at that moment would 
 have made some of us roar like bulls. 
 
330 
 
 THE CLOISTEE AND THE HEAETH. 
 
 •• What, in tout lap ? " said Margaret, answering a 
 gesture of the suffering girl. "Xay, he is too heavy, 
 and thou in such pain." 
 
 ••I love him too dear to feel his weight," was the 
 reply. 
 
 Margaret took this opportunity, and made her toilet. 
 "I am for the kerk," said she, "to hear a beautiful 
 preacher." Kate sighed. " And a minute ago, Kate, I 
 was all agog to go : that is the way with me this month 
 past : up and down, up and down, like the waves of the 
 Zuyder Zee. I'd as iieve stay aside thee; say the 
 word ! 99 
 
 ••ZSay." said Kate, "prithee go; and bring me back 
 every word. Well-a-day that I cannot go myself." And 
 the tears stood in the patient's eyes. This decided 
 Margaret, and she kissed Kate, looked under her lashes 
 at the boy, and heaved a little sigh. 
 
 I trow I must not," said she. - 1 never could kiss 
 him a little ; and my father was dead against waking a 
 child by day or night. When 'tis thy pleasure to wake, 
 speak thy aunt Kate the two new words thou hast 
 gotten." And she went out, looking lovingly over her 
 shoulder, and shut the door inaudibly. 
 
 •■•Joan, you will lend me a hand, and peel these?" 
 said Catherine. 
 
 •'That I wilL dame/' And the cooking proceeded 
 with silent vigor. 
 
 ••Xow. Joan, them which help me cook and serve the 
 meat, they help me eat it : that's a rule." 
 
 •'• There's worse laws in Holland than that. Your will 
 is my pleasure, mistress; for my Luke hath got his 
 supper i* the air. He is digging to-day. by good luck." 
 (Margaret came down.) 
 
 •• Eh. woman, yon is an ugly trade. There, she has 
 just washed her face and gi'en her hair a turn, and now 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 331 
 
 who is like her ? Rotterdam, that for you ! " and Cathe- 
 rine snapped her fingers at the capital. " Give us a buss, 
 hussy ! Now mind, Eli won't wait supper for the duke. 
 Wherefore, loiter not after your kerk is over." 
 
 Joan and she both followed her to the door, and stood 
 at it watching her a good way down the street. For 
 among homely housewives going out o' doors is half an 
 incident. Catherine commented on the launch : " There, 
 Joan, it is almost to me as if I had just started my own 
 daughter for kerk, and stood a-looking after ; the which 
 I've done it manys and manys the times. Joan, lass, 
 she won't hear a word against our Gerard; and, be he 
 alive, he has used her cruel; that is why my bowels 
 yearn for the poor wench. I'm older and wiser than 
 she, and so I'll wed her to yon simple Luke, and there 
 an end. What's one grandchild ? " 
 
332 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The sermon had begun when Margaret entered the 
 great church of St. Laurens. It was a huge edifice, far 
 from completed. Churches were not built in a year. 
 The side aisles were roofed, but not the mid aisle nor 
 the chancel ; the pillars and arches were pretty perfect, 
 and some of them whitewashed. But only one window 
 in the whole church was glazed ; the rest were at present 
 great jagged openings in the outer walls. 
 
 But to-day all these uncouth imperfections made the 
 church beautiful. It was a glorious summer afternoon, 
 and the sunshine came broken into marvellous forms 
 through those irregular openings, and played bewitching 
 pranks upon so many broken surfaces. 
 
 It streamed through the gaping walls, and clove the 
 dark, cool, side aisles with rivers of glory, and dazzled 
 and glowed on the white pillars beyond. 
 
 And nearly the whole central aisle was checkered 
 with light and shade in broken outlines ; the shades 
 seeming cooler and more soothing than ever shade was, 
 and the lights like patches of amber diamond, animated 
 with heavenly fire. And above, from west to east the 
 blue sky vaulted the lofty aisle, and seemed quite close. 
 
 The sunny caps of the women made a sea of white, 
 contrasting exquisitely with that vivid vault of blue. 
 
 For the mid aisle, huge as it was, was crammed, yet 
 quite still. The words and the mellow, gentle, earnest 
 voice of the preacher held them mute. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 333 
 
 Margaret stood spellbound at the beauty, the devotion, 
 " the great calm." She got behind a pillar in the north 
 aisle ; and there, though she could hardly catch a word, 
 a sweet devotional languor crept over her at the loveli- 
 ness of the place and the preacher's musical voice ; and 
 balmy oil seemed to trickle over the waves in her heart 
 and smooth them. So she leaned against the pillar with 
 eyes half closed, and all seemed soft and dreamy. She 
 felt it good to be there. 
 
 Presently she saw a lady leave an excellent place 
 opposite, to get out of the sun, which was indeed pouring 
 on her head from the window. Margaret went round 
 softly but swiftly, and was fortunate enough to get the 
 place. She was now beside a pillar of the south aisle, 
 and not above fifty feet from the preacher. She was at 
 his side, a little behind him, but could hear every word. 
 
 Her attention, however, was soon distracted by the 
 shadow of a man's head and shoulders bobbing up and 
 down so drolly she had some ado to keep from smiling. 
 
 Yet it was nothing essentially droll. 
 
 It was the sexton digging. 
 
 She found that out in a moment by looking behind 
 her, through the window, to whence the shadow came. 
 
 Now as she was looking at Jorian Ketel digging, sud- 
 denly a tone of the preacher's voice fell upon her ear 
 and her mind so distinctly, it seemed literally to strike 
 her, and make her vibrate inside and out. 
 
 Her hand went to her bosom, so strange and sudden 
 was the thrill. Then she turned round, and looked at 
 the preacher. His back was turned and nothing visible 
 but his tonsure. She sighed. That tonsure, being all 
 she saw, contradicted the tone effectually. 
 
 Yet she now leaned a little forward with downcast 
 eyes, hoping for that accent again. It did not come. 
 But the whole voice grew strangely upon her. It rose 
 
334 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 and fell as the preacher warmed; and it seemed to 
 waken faint echoes of a thousand happy memories. She 
 would not look to dispel the melancholy pleasure this 
 voice gave her. 
 
 Presently, in the middle of an eloquent period, the 
 preacher stopped. 
 
 She almost sighed : a soothing music had ended. 
 Could the sermon be ended already ? No : she looked 
 round ; the people did not move. 
 
 A good many faces seemed now to turn her way. She 
 looked behind her sharply. There was nothing there. 
 
 Startled countenances near her now eyed the preacher. 
 She followed their looks ; and there, in the pulpit, was 
 a face as of a staring corpse. The friar's eyes, naturally 
 large, and made larger by the thinness of his cheeks, 
 were dilated to supernatural size, and glaring, her way, 
 out of a bloodless face. 
 
 She cringed and turned fearfully round, for she thought 
 there must be some terrible thing near her. No : there 
 was nothing : she was the outside figure of the listening 
 crowd. 
 
 At this moment the church fell into commotion. 
 Figures got up all over the building, and craned forward ; 
 agitated faces by hundreds gazed from the friar to Mar- 
 garet, and from Margaret to the friar. The turning to 
 and fro of so many caps made a loud rustle. Then came 
 shrieks of nervous women, and buzzing of men ; and 
 Margaret, seeing so many eyes levelled at her, shrank 
 terrified behind the pillar, with one scared, hurried 
 glance at the preacher. 
 
 Momentary as that glance was, it caught in that 
 stricken face an expression that made her shiver. 
 
 She turned faint, and sat down on a heap of chips the 
 workmen had left, and buried her face in her hands. 
 The sermon went on again. She heard the sound of it, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 335 
 
 but not the sense. She tried to think, but her mind was 
 in a whirl. Thought would fix itself in no shape but 
 this : that on that prodigy-stricken face she had seen a 
 look stamped. And the recollection of that look now 
 made her quiver from head to foot. 
 
 For that look was " Recognition." 
 
 The sermon, after wavering some time, ended in a 
 strain of exalted, nay, feverish, eloquence, that went far 
 to make the crowd forget the preacher's strange pause 
 and ghastly glare. 
 
 Margaret mingled hastily with the crowd, and went out 
 of the church with them. 
 
 They went their ways home. But she turned at the 
 door, and went into the churchyard to Peter's grave. 
 Poor as she was, she had given him a slab and a head- 
 stone. She sat down on the slab, and kissed it : then 
 threw her apron over her head that no one might dis- 
 tinguish her by her hair. 
 
 "Father," she said, "thou hast often heard me say 
 I am wading in deep waters ; but now I begin to 
 think God only knows the bottom of them. I'll follow 
 that friar round the world, but I'll see him at arm's 
 length. And he shall tell me why he looked towards 
 me like a dead man wakened, and not a soul behind me. 
 0 father ! you often praised me here : speak a word for 
 me there : for I am wading in deep waters." 
 
 Her father's tomb commanded a side view of the 
 church door. 
 
 And on that tomb she sat with her face covered, way- 
 laying the holy preacher. 
 
336 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 The cool church, checkered with sunbeams and crowned 
 with heavenly purple, soothed and charmed Father Clem- 
 ent, as it did Margaret ; and more, it carried his mind 
 direct to the Creator of all good and pure delights. 
 Then his eye fell on the great aisle crammed with his 
 country folk : a thousand snowy caps filigreed with gold. 
 Many a hundred leagues he had travelled, but seen noth- 
 ing like them, except snow. In the morning he had 
 thundered, but this sweet afternoon seemed out of tune 
 with threats. His bowels yearned over that multitude, 
 and he must tell them of God's love. Poor souls, they 
 heard almost as little of it from the pulpit then-a-days 
 as the heathen used ! He told them the glad tidings of 
 salvation. The people hung upon his gentle, earnest 
 tongue. 
 
 He was not one of those preachers who keep gyrating 
 in the pulpit like the weathercock on the steeple. He 
 moved the hearts of others more than his own body. 
 But, on the other hand, he did not entirely neglect those 
 who were in bad places. And presently, warm with this 
 theme, that none of all that multitude might miss the 
 joyful tidings of Christ's love, he turned him towards 
 the south aisle. 
 
 And there, in a stream of sunshine from the window, 
 was the radiant face of Margaret Brandt. He gazed at 
 it without emotion. It just benumbed him soul and 
 body. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 337 
 
 But soon the words died in his throat, and he trembled 
 as he glared at it. 
 
 There, with her auburn hair bathed in sunbeams, and 
 glittering like the gloriola of a saint, and her face glow- 
 ing doubly with its own beauty, and the sunshine it was 
 set in — stood his dead love. 
 
 She was leaning very lightly against a white column. 
 She was listening with tender, downcast lashes. 
 
 He had seen her listen so to him a hundred times. 
 
 There was no change in her. This was the blooming 
 Margaret he had left, only a shade riper and more lovely. 
 
 He stared at her with monstrous eyes and bloodless 
 cheeks. 
 
 The people died out of his sight. He heard, as in a 
 dream, a rustling and rising all over the church, but 
 could not take his prodigy-stricken eyes off that face, 
 all life, and bloom, and beauty, and that wondrous auburn 
 hair glistening gloriously in the sun. 
 
 He gazed, thinking she must vanish. 
 
 She remained. 
 
 All in a moment she was looking at him, full. 
 Her own violet eyes ! 
 
 At this he was beside himself, and his lips parted to 
 shriek out her name, when she turned her head swiftly, 
 and soon after vanished, but not without one more 
 glance, which, though rapid as lightning, encountered 
 his, and left her couching and quivering with her mind 
 in a whirl, and him panting and griping the pulpit con- 
 vulsively ; for this glance of hers, though not recogni- 
 tion, was the startled inquiring, nameless, indescribable 
 look that precedes recognition. He made a mighty 
 effort, and muttered something nobody could understand, 
 then feebly resumed his discourse, and stammered and 
 babbled on a while, till by degrees forcing himself, now 
 she was out of sight, to look on it as a vision from the 
 22 
 
338 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 other world, lie rose into a state of unnatural excitement, 
 and concluded in a style of eloquence that electrified 
 the simple, for it bordered on rhapsody. 
 
 The sermon ended, he sat down on the pulpit-stool 
 terribly shaken. But presently an idea very character- 
 istic of the time took possession of him. He had 
 sought her grave at Sevenbergen in vain. She had now 
 been permitted to appear to him, and show him that she 
 was buried here; probably hard by that very pillar, 
 where her spirit had showed itself to him. 
 
 This idea once adopted soon settled on his mind with 
 all the certainty of a fact ; and he felt he had only to 
 speak to the sexton (whom to his great disgust he had 
 seen working during the sermon), to learn the spot 
 where she was laid. 
 
 The church was now quite empty. He came down 
 from the pulpit and stepped through an aperture in the 
 south wall on to the grass, and went up to the sexton. 
 He knew him in a moment. But Jorian never sus- 
 pected the poor lad, whose life he had saved, in this holy 
 friar. The loss of his shapely beard had wonderfully 
 altered the outline of his face. 1 This had changed him 
 even more than his tonsure, his short hair sprinkled 
 with premature gray, and his cheeks thinned and paled 
 by fasts and vigils. 
 
 " My son," said Friar Clement softly, " if you keep any 
 memory of those whom you lay in the earth, prithee 
 tell me is any Christian buried inside the church, near 
 one of the pillars ? " 
 
 " Nay, father," said Jorian, " here in the churchyard 
 lie buried all that buried be. Why ? " 
 
 1 Pietro Vanucci and Andrea did not recognize him without his beard. 
 The fact is, that the beard which has never known a razor grows in a very 
 picturesque and characteristic form, and becomes a feature in the face, so that 
 its removal may in some cases be an effectual disguise. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 339 
 
 a No matter. Prithee tell me then where lieth Mar- 
 garet Brandt." 
 
 " Margaret Brandt ? " And J orian stared stupidly at 
 the speaker. 
 
 " She died about three years ago, and was buried 
 here." 
 
 u Oh, that is another matter," said Jorian ; " that was 
 before my time. The vicar could tell you, likely, if so 
 be she was a gentlewoman, or at the least rich enough to 
 pay him his fee." 
 
 " Alas, my son ! she was poor (and paid a heavy pen- 
 alty for it), but born of decent folk. Her father, Peter, 
 was a learned physician ; she came hither from Seven- 
 bergen — to die." 
 
 When Clement had uttered these words his head sunk 
 upon his breast, and he seemed to have no power nor 
 wish to question Jorian more. I doubt even if he knew 
 where he was. He was lost in the past. 
 
 Jorian put down his spade, and, standing upright in 
 the grave, set his arms akimbo, and said sulkily, " Are 
 you making a fool of me, holy sir, or has some wag been 
 making a fool of you ? " 
 
 And having relieved his mind thus, he proceeded to 
 dig again with a certain vigor that showed his somewhat 
 irritable temper was ruffled. 
 
 Clement gazed at him with a puzzled bat gently re- 
 proachful eye, for the tone was rude, and the words un- 
 intelligible. 
 
 Good-natured, though crusty, Jorian had not thrown 
 up three spadefuls ere he became ashamed of it himself. 
 « Why, what a base churl am I to speak thus to thee, 
 holy father ; and thou a-standing there looking at me 
 like a lamb. Aha ! I have it ; 'tis Peter Brandt's grave 
 you would fain see, not Margaret's. He does lie here, 
 hard by the west door. There ; I'll show you." And he 
 
340 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 laid down his spade, and put on his doublet and jerkin 
 to go with the friar. 
 
 He did not know there was anybody sitting on Peter's 
 tomb ; still less that she was watching for this holy 
 friar. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 341 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 While Jorian was putting on his doublet and jerkin 
 to go to Peter's tomb, his tongue was not idle. " They 
 used to call him a magician out Sevenbergen way. And 
 they do say he gave 'em a touch of his trade at parting : 
 told 'em he saw Margaret's lad a-coming down Rhine in 
 brave clothes and store o' money, but his face scarred by 
 foreign glaive, and not altogether so many arms and legs 
 as a went away wi\ But, dear heart, nought came on't. 
 Margaret is still wearying for her lad ; and Peter, he 
 lies as quiet as his neighbors ; not but what she hath 
 put a stone slab over him, to keep him where he is, as 
 you shall see." 
 
 He put both hands on the edge of the grave, and was 
 about to raise himself out of it, but the friar laid a 
 trembling hand on his shoulder, and said in a strange 
 whisper, — 
 
 " How long since died Peter Brandt ? 99 
 
 " About two months. Why ? " 
 
 " And his daughter buried him, say you ? " 
 
 " Nay, I buried him, but she paid the fee and reared 
 the stone. Why ? " 
 
 " Then — but he had but one daughter : Margaret ? " 
 
 " No more : leastways, that he owned to." 
 
 " Then you think Margaret is — is alive ? 99 
 
 " Think? Why, I should be dead else. Riddle me 
 that." 
 
 " Alas, how can I ? You love her ! " 
 "No more than reason, being a married man, and 
 father of four more sturdy knaves like myself. Nay, 
 
342 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 the answer is, she saved my life scarce six weeks agone. 
 Now had she been dead, she couldn't ha' kept me alive. 
 Bless your heart ! I couldn't keep a thing on my stomach, 
 nor doctors couldn't make me. My Joan says, ' 'Tis time 
 to buy thee a shroud.' — ' I dare say, so 'tis,' says I, ' but 
 try and borrow one first.' In comes my lady, this Mar- 
 garet, which she died three years ago, by your way on't, 
 opens the windows, makes 'em shift me where I lay, and 
 cures me in the twinkling of a bed-post ; but wi' what ? 
 there pinches the shoe ; with the scurviest herb, and out 
 of my own garden, too ; with sweet feverfew. A herb, 
 quotha, 'tis a weed ; leastways it was a weed till it cured 
 me, but now whene'er I pass my bunch I doff bonnet, 
 and, says I, ' My service t'ye.' Why, how now, father, 
 you look wondrous pale, and now you are red, and now 
 you are white ? Why, what is the matter ? What in 
 Heaven's name is the matter ? " 
 
 "The surprise — the joy — the wonder — the fear," 
 gasped Clement. 
 
 " Why, what is it to thee ? Art thou of kin to Mar- 
 garet Brandt ? " 
 
 " Nay ; but I knew one that loved her well, so well 
 her death nigh killed him, body and soul. And yet thou 
 sayest she lives. And I believe thee." 
 
 Jorian stared, and after a considerable silence, said 
 very gravely, "Father, you have asked me many ques- 
 tions, and I have answered them truly; now, for our 
 Lady's sake, answer me but two. Did you in very sooth 
 know one who loved this poor lass ? Where ? " 
 
 Clement was on the point of revealing himself, but 
 he remembered Jerome's letter, and shrank from being 
 called by the name he had borne in the world. 
 
 " I knew him in Italy," said he. 
 
 "If you knew him you can tell me his name," said 
 Jorian, cautiously. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 343 
 
 "His name was Gerard Eliassoen." 
 
 " Oh, but this is strange. Stay, what made thee say 
 Margaret Brandt was dead ? " 
 
 " I was with Gerard when a letter came from Margaret 
 Van Eyck. The letter told him she he loved was dead 
 and buried. Let me sit down, for my strength fails me. 
 Foul play ! foul play ! " 
 
 "Father," said Jorian, "I thank Heaven for sending 
 thee to me. Ay, sit ye down ; ye do look like a ghost ; 
 ye fast overmuch to be strong. My mind misgives me ; 
 methinks I hold the clew to this riddle, and, if I do, 
 there be two knaves in this town whose heads I would 
 fain batter to pieces as I do this mould ; " and he clenched 
 his teeth and raised his long spade above his head, and 
 brought it furiously down upon the heap several times. 
 " Foul play ? You never said a truer word i' your life ; 
 and, if you know where Gerard is now, lose no time, but 
 show him the trap they have laid for him. Mine is but 
 a dull head, but whiles the slow hound puzzles out the 
 scent — go to. And I do think you and I ha' got hold 
 of two ends o' one stick, and a main foul one." 
 
 Jorian then, after some of those useless preliminaries 
 men of his class always deal in, came to the point of his 
 story. He had been employed by the burgomaster of 
 Tergou to repair the floor of an upper room in his house, 
 and, when it was almost done, coming suddenly to fetch 
 away his tools, curiosity had been excited by some loud 
 words below, and he had lain down on his stomach, and 
 heard the burgomaster talking about a letter, which 
 Cornells and Sybrandt were minded to convey into the 
 place of one that a certain Hans Memling was taking to 
 Gerard : " and it seems their will was good, but their 
 stomach was small ; so to give them courage the old man 
 showed them a drawer full of silver, and if they did the 
 trick they should each put a hand in, and have all the 
 
344 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 silver they could hold in't. Well, father," continued 
 Jorian, " I thought not much on't at the time, except for 
 the bargain itself, that kept me awake mostly all night, 
 Think out ! Next morning at peep of day who should I 
 see but my masters Cornells and Sybrandt come out of 
 their house each with a black eye. ' Oho/ says 1, 1 what, 
 yon Hans hath put his mark on ye ; well now, I hope that 
 is all ye have got for your pains.' Didn't they make for 
 the burgomaster's house ? I to my hiding-place." 
 
 At this part of Jorian's revelation the monk's nostril 
 dilated, and his restless eye showed the suspense he was 
 in. 
 
 "Well, father," continued Jorian, "the burgomaster 
 brought them into that same room. He had a letter in 
 his hand ; but I am no scholar ; however, I have got as 
 many eyes in my head as the Pope hath, and I saw the 
 drawer opened, and those two knaves put in each a hand 
 and draw it out full. And, saints in glory, how they tried 
 to hold more, and more, and more o' yon stuff ! And 
 Sybrandt, he had daubed his hand in something sticky, I 
 think 'twas glue, and he made shift to carry one or two 
 pieces away a-sticking to the back of his hand, he ! he ! 
 he ! 'Tis a sin to laugh. So you see luck was on the 
 wrong side as usual ; they had done the trick ; but how 
 they did it, that, methinks, will never be known till 
 doomsday. Go to, they left their immortal jewels in 
 yon drawer. Well, they got a handful of silver for 
 them ; the devil had the worst o' yon bargain. There, 
 father, that is off my mind; often I longed to tell it 
 some one, but I durst not to the women, or Margaret 
 would not have had a friend left in the world ; for those 
 two black-hearted villains are the favorites. 'Tis always 
 so. Have not the old folk just taken a brave new shop 
 for them in this very town, in the Hoog Straet ? There 
 may you see their sign, a gilt sheep and a lambkin j a 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 345 
 
 brace of wolves sucking their dam would be niglier the 
 mark. And there the whole family feast this day ; oh, 
 'tis a fine world. What, not a word, holy father ; you sit 
 there like stone, and have not even a curse to bestow on 
 them, the stony-hearted miscreants. What, was it not 
 enough the poor lad was all alone in a strange land; 
 must his own flesh and blood go and lie away the one 
 blessing his enemies had left him ? And then think of 
 her pining and pining all these years, and sitting at the 
 window looking adown the street for Gerard ! and so 
 constant, so tender^ and true : my wife says she is sure 
 no woman ever loved a man truer than she loves the lad 
 those villains have parted from her : and the day never 
 passes but she weeps salt tears for him. And, when I 
 think that, but for those two greedy lying knaves, yon 
 winsome lad, whose life I saved, might be by her side 
 this day the happiest he in Holland ; and the sweet lass 
 that saved my life might be sitting with her cheek upon 
 her sweetheart's shoulder, the happiest she in Holland 
 in place of the saddest ; oh, I thirst for their blood, the 
 nasty, sneaking, lying, cogging, cowardly, heartless, bow- 
 elless — how now ! " 
 
 The monk started wildly up, livid with fury and 
 despair, and rushed headlong from the place with both 
 hands clenched and raised on high. So terrible was this 
 inarticulate burst of fury, that Jorian's puny ire died out 
 at sight of it, and he stood looking dismayed after the 
 human tempest he had launched. 
 
 While thus absorbed he felt his arm grasped by a 
 small, tremulous hand. 
 
 It was Margaret Brandt. 
 
 He started : her coming there just then seemed so 
 strange. 
 
 She had waited long on Peter's tombstone, but the 
 friar did not come. So she went into the church to see 
 if he was there still. She could not find him. 
 
34G THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Presently, going up the south aisle, the gigantic shadow 
 of a friar came rapidly along the floor and part of a pillar, 
 and seemed to pass through her. She was near scream- 
 ing : but in a moment remembered J orian's shadow had 
 come in so from the churchyard : and tried to clamber 
 out the nearest way. She did so, but with some diffi- 
 culty ; and by that time Clement was just disappearing 
 down the street : yet, so expressive at times is the body 
 as well as the face, she could see he was greatly agitated. 
 Jorian and she looked at one another, and at the wild 
 figure of the distant friar. 
 
 " Well ? " said she to Jorian, trembling. 
 
 "Well," said he, "you startled me. How come you 
 here of all people ? " 
 
 " Is this a time for idle chat ? What said he to you ? 
 He has been speaking to you ; deny it not." 
 
 "Girl, as I stand here, he asked me whereabout you 
 were buried in this churchyard." 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 " I told him, nowhere, thank Heaven : you were alive 
 and saving other folk from the churchyard." 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well, the long and the short is, he knew thy Gerard 
 in Italy : and a letter came saying you were dead ; and 
 it broke thy poor lad's heart. Let me see ; who was the 
 letter written by ? Oh, by the demoiselle Van Eyck. 
 That was his way of it. But I up and told him nay ; 
 'twas neither demoiselle nor dame that penned yon lie, 
 but Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, and those foul knaves, 
 Cornells and Sybrandt ; these changed the true letter 
 for one of their own ; I told him as how I saw the whole 
 villany done, through a chink ; and now, if I have not 
 been and told you ! " 
 
 " Oh, cruel ! cruel ! But he lives. The fear of fears 
 is gone. Thank God ! " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 347 
 
 " Ay, lass ; and as for thine enemies, I have given 
 them a dig. For yon friar is friendly to Gerard, and he 
 is gone to Eli's house, methinks. For I told him where 
 to find Gerard's enemies and thine, and wow but he will 
 give them their lesson. If ever a man was mad with 
 rage, it's yon. He turned black and white, and parted 
 like a stone from a sling. Girl, there was thunder in his 
 eye and silence on his lips. Made me cold, a did." 
 
 "0 J orian ! what have you done ? " cried Margaret. 
 " Quick ! quick ! help me thither, for the power is gone 
 all out of my body. You know him not as I do. Oh, if 
 you had seen the blow he gave Ghysbrecht ; and heard 
 the frightful crash ! Come, save him from worse mis- 
 chief. The water is deep enow ; but not bloody yet ; 
 come ! " 
 
 Her accents were so full of agony that Jorian sprang 
 out of the grave and came with her, huddling on his 
 jerkin as he went. 
 
 But, as they hurried along, he asked her what on earth 
 she meant. " I talk of this friar, and you answer me of 
 Gerard." 
 
 " Man, see you not, this is Gerard ! " 
 " This Gerard ! what mean ye ? " 
 
 " I mean, yon friar is my boy's father. I have waited 
 for him long, Jorian. Well, he is come to me at last. 
 And thank God for it. Oh, my poor child ! Quicker, 
 Jorian, quicker ! " 
 
 " Why, thou art mad as he. Stay ! By St. Bavon, 
 yon was Gerard's face ; 'twas nought like it ; yet some- 
 how — 'twas it. Come on ! come on ! let me see the 
 end of this." 
 
 " The end ? How many of us will live to see that ? " 
 They hurried along in breathless silence, till they 
 reached Hoog Straet. 
 
 Then Jorian tried to reassure her. " You are making 
 
348 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 your own trouble/ 7 said he ; " who says he has gone 
 thither ? more likely to the convent to weep and pray, 
 poor soul. Oh, cursed, cursed villains ! " 
 
 " Did not you tell him. where those villains bide ? " 
 
 "Ay, that I did." 
 
 " Then quicker, 0 Jorian, quicker ! I see the house. 
 Thank God and all the saints, I shall be in time to calm 
 him. I know what I'll say to him ; Heaven forgive me ! 
 Poor Catherine ! 'tis of her I think : she has been a 
 mother to me." 
 
 The shop was a corner house, with two doors : one in 
 the main street for customers, and a house-door round 
 the corner. 
 
 Margaret and J orian were now within twenty yards of 
 the shop, when they heard a roar inside, like as of some 
 wild animal, and the friar burst out, white and raging, 
 and went tearing down the street. 
 
 Margaret screamed, and sank fainting on Jorian's arm. 
 
 Jorian shouted after him, " Stay, madman, know thy 
 friends." 
 
 But he was deaf, and went headlong, shaking his 
 clenched fists high, high, in the air. 
 
 " Help me in, good Jorian," moaned Margaret, turning 
 suddenly calm. " Let me know the worst, and die." 
 
 He supported her trembling limbs into the house. 
 
 It seemed unnaturally still ; not a sound. 
 
 Jorian's own heart beat fast. 
 
 A door was before him, unlatched. He pushed it 
 softly with his left hand, and Margaret and he stood 
 on the threshold. 
 
 What they saw there you shall soon know. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH- 849 
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 It was supper-time. Eli's family were collected round 
 the board ; Margaret only was missing. To Catherine's 
 surprise, Eli said he would wait a bit for her. 
 
 " Why, I told her you would not wait for the duke." 
 
 " She is not the duke : she is a poor, good lass that 
 hath waited not minutes, but years, for a graceless son 
 of mine. You can put the meat on the board all the 
 same ; then we can fall to, without further loss o' time, 
 when she does come." 
 
 . The smoking dishes smelt so savory that Eli gave way. 
 " She will come if we begin," said he ; " they always do. 
 Come, sit ye down, Mistress Joan; y'are not here for a 
 slave, I trow, but a guest. There, I hear a quick step — 
 off covers, and fall to." 
 
 The covers were withdrawn, and the knives brandished. 
 Then burst into the room, not the expected Margaret, but 
 a Dominican friar, livid with rage. 
 
 He was at the table in a moment, in front of Cornells 
 and Sybrandt, threw his tall body over the narrow table, 
 and, with two hands hovering above their shrinking 
 heads, like eagles over a quarry, he cursed them by 
 name, soul and body, in this world and the next. It 
 was an age eloquent in curses : and this curse was so 
 full, so minute, so blighting, blasting, withering, and 
 tremendous, that I am afraid to put all the words on 
 paper. " Cursed be the lips," he shrieked, " which spoke 
 the lie that Margaret was dead ; may they rot before the 
 grave, and kiss white-hot iron in hell thereafter ; doubly 
 cursed be the hands that changed those letters, and be 
 
350 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 they struck off by the hangman's knife, and handle hell- 
 fire forever ; thrice accursed be the cruel hearts that did 
 conceive that damned lie, to part true love forever ; may 
 they sicken and wither on earth joyless, loveless, hope- 
 less ; and wither to dust before their time ; and burn in 
 eternal fire." He cursed the meat at their mouths, and 
 every atom of their bodies, from their hair to the soles 
 of their feet. Then turning from the cowering, shudder, 
 ing pair, who had almost hid themselves beneath the 
 table, he tore a letter out of his bosom, and flung it 
 down before his father. 
 
 " Read that, thou hard old man, that didst imprison 
 thy son ; read, and see what monsters thou hast brought 
 into the world. The memory of my wrongs and hers, 
 dwell with you all forever ! I will meet you again at 
 the judgment dayj on earth ye will never see me 
 more." 
 
 And in a moment, as he had come, so he was gone, 
 leaving them stiff, and cold, and white as statues, round 
 the smoking board. 
 
 And this was the sight that greeted Margaret's eyes 
 and Jorian's — pale figures of men and women petrified 
 around the untasted food, as Eastern poets feigned. 
 
 Margaret glanced her eye round, and gasped out, " Oh, 
 joy ! all here ; no blood hath been shed. Oh, you cruel, 
 cruel men ! I thank God he hath not slain you." 
 
 At sight of her Catherine gave an eloquent scream; 
 then turned her head away. But Eli, who had just cast 
 his eye over the false letter, and begun to understand it 
 all, seeing the other victim come in at that very moment 
 with her wrongs reflected in her sweet, pale face, started 
 to his feet in a transport of rage, and shouted, " Stand 
 clear, and let me get at the traitors. I'll hang for them." 
 And in a moment he whipped out his short sword, and 
 fell upon them. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 351 
 
 " Fly ! " screamed Margaret. " Fly ! " 
 
 They slipped howling under the table, and crawled 
 out the other side. 
 
 But> ere they could get to the door, the furious old 
 man ran round and intercepted them. Catherine only 
 screamed and wrung her hands ; your notables are gen- 
 erally useless at such a time ; and blood would certainly 
 have flowed, but Margaret and Jorian seized the fiery old 
 man's arms, and held them with all their might, whilst 
 the pair got clear of the house ; then they let him go ; 
 and he went vainly raging after them out into the 
 street. 
 
 They were a furlong off, running like hares. 
 
 He hacked down the board on which their names were 
 written, and brought it in-doors, and flung it into the 
 chimney-place. 
 
 Catherine was sitting rocking herself with her apron 
 over her head. Joan had run to her husband. Margaret 
 had her arms round Catherine's neck ; and, pale and 
 panting, was yet making efforts to comfort her. 
 
 But it was not to be done. " 0 my poor children ! " 
 she cried. "0 miserable mother! 'Tis a mercy Kate 
 was ill up-stairs. There, I have lived to thank God for 
 that ! " she cried, with a fresh burst of sobs. " It would 
 have killed her. He had better have stayed in Italy, as 
 come home to curse his own flesh and blood and set us 
 all by the ears." 
 
 "Oh, hold your chat, woman," cried Eli, angrily ; "you 
 are still on the side of the ill-doer. You are cheap 
 served ; your weakness made the rogues what they are ; 
 I was for correcting them in their youth : for sore ills, 
 sharp remedies ; but you still sided with their faults, and 
 undermined me, and baffled -wise severity. And you, 
 Margaret, leave comforting her that ought rather to com- 
 fort you ; for what is her hurt to yours ? But she never 
 
352 THE CLOISTER AXD THE HEARTH. 
 
 had a grain of justice under her skin ; and never will. 
 So come thou to me ; that am thy father from this 
 hour." 
 
 This was a command ; so she kissed Catherine, and 
 went tottering to him, and he put her on a chair beside 
 him, and she laid her feeble head on his honest breast : 
 but not a tear: it was too deep for that. 
 
 " Poor lamb," said he. After awhile — " Come, good 
 folks," said true Eli, in a broken voice, to Jorian and 
 Joan, " we are in a little trouble, as you see ; but that is 
 no reason you should starve. For our Lady's sake, fall 
 to ; and add not to my grief the reputation of a churl. 
 What the dickens ! " added he, with a sudden ghastly 
 attempt at stout-heartedness, " the more knaves I have 
 the luck to get shut of, the more my need of true men 
 and women, to help me clear the dish, and cheer mine 
 eye with honest faces about me where else were gaps. 
 Fall to, I do entreat ye." 
 
 Catherine, sobbing, backed his request. Poor, simple, 
 antique, hospitable souls ! Jorian, whose appetite, espe- 
 cially since his illness, was very keen, was for acting on 
 this hospitable invitation ; but Joan whispered a word in 
 his ear, and he instantly drew back. "Nay, Fll touch 
 no meat that holy Church hath cursed." 
 
 "In sooth, I forgot," said Eli, apologetically. "My 
 son, who was reared at my table, hath cursed my victuals. 
 That seems strange. Well, what God wills, man must 
 bow to." 
 
 The supper was flung out into the yard. 
 Jorian took his wife home, and heavy sadness reigned 
 in Eli's house that night. 
 
 Meantime, where was Clement ? 
 
 Lying at full length upon the floor of the convent 
 church, with his lips upon the lowest step of the altar, 
 in an indescribable state of terror, misery, penitence, and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 353 
 
 self-abasement: through all which struggled gleams of 
 joy that Margaret was alive. 
 
 Night fell and found him lying there weeping, and 
 praying : and morning would have found him there too ; 
 but he suddenly remembered that, absorbed in his own 
 wrongs and Margaret's, he had committed another sin 
 besides intemperate rage. He had neglected a dying 
 man. 
 
 He rose instantly, groaning at his accumulated wicked- 
 ness, and set out to repair the omission. The weather 
 had changed ; it was raining hard, and, when he got 
 clear of the town, he heard the wolves baying; they 
 were on the foot. But Clement was himself again, or 
 nearly ; he thought little of danger or discomfort, having 
 a shameful omission of religious duty to repair : he went 
 stoutly forward through rain and darkness. 
 
 And, as he went, he often beat his breast, and cried, 
 " Mea culpa / Mea culpa 1 99 
 
354 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 What that sensitive mind, and tender conscience, and 
 loving heart, and religious soul, went through even in a 
 few hours, under a situation so sudden and tremendous, 
 is perhaps beyond the power of words to paint. 
 
 Fancy yourself the man ; and then put yourself in his 
 place ! 
 
 Were I to write a volume on it, we should have to 
 come to that at last. 
 
 I shall relate his next two overt acts. They indicate 
 his state of mind after the first fierce tempest of the 
 soul had subsided. 
 
 After spending the night with the dying hermit in 
 giving and receiving holy consolations, he set out not for 
 Rotterdam, but for Tergou. He went there to confront 
 his fatal enemy the burgomaster, and, by means of that 
 parchment, whose history by-the-by was itself a romance, 
 to make him disgorge ; and give Margaret her own. 
 
 Heated and dusty, he stopped at the fountain, and 
 there began to eat his black bread and drink of the 
 water. But in the middle of his frugal meal a female 
 servant came running, and begged him to come and shrive 
 her dying master. He returned the bread to his wallet, 
 and followed her without a word. 
 
 She took him — to the Stadthouse. 
 
 He drew back with a little shudder when he saw her 
 go in. 
 
 But he almos' instantly recovered himself, and followed 
 her into the house, and up the stairs. And there in bed, 
 propped up by pillows, lay his deadly enemy, looking 
 already like a corpse. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 355 
 
 Clement eyed him a moment from the door, and thought 
 of all — the tower, the wood, the letter. Then he said 
 in a low voice, " Pax vobiscum ! " He trembled a little 
 while he said it. 
 
 The sick man welcomed him as eagerly as his weak 
 state permitted. " Thank Heaven, thou art come in time 
 to absolve me from my sins, father, and pray for my 
 soul, thou and thy brethren." 
 
 " My son," said Clement, " before absolution cometh 
 confession. In which act there must be no reservation, 
 as thou valuest thy soul's weal. Bethink thee, therefore, 
 wherein thou hast most offended God and the Church, 
 while I offer up a prayer for wisdom to direct thee." 
 
 Clement then kneeled and prayed ; and, when he rose 
 from his knees, he said to Ghysbrecht, with apparent 
 calmness, "My son, confess thy sins." 
 
 " Ah, father," said the sick man, " they are many and 
 great." 
 
 " Great then be thy penitence, my son ; so shalt thou 
 find God's mercy great." 
 
 Ghysbrecht put his hands together, and began to con- 
 fess with every appearance of contrition. 
 
 He owned he had eaten meat in mid-Lent. He had 
 often absented himself from mass on the Lord's Day, and 
 saints' days : and had trifled with other religious observ- 
 ances, which he enumerated with scrupulous fidelity. 
 
 When he had done, the friar said quietly, " 'Tis well, 
 my son. These be faults. Now to thy crimes. Thou 
 hadst done better to begin with them." 
 
 " Why, father, what crimes lie to my account if these 
 be none ? " 
 
 " Am I confessing to thee, or thou to me ? " said 
 Clement, somewhat severely. 
 
 " Forgive me, father ! Why, surely, I to you. But I 
 know not what you call crimes." 
 
356 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " The seven deadly sins, art thou clear of them ? n 
 
 " Heaven f orfend I should be guilty of them. I know 
 them not by name." 
 
 " Many do them all, that cannot name them. Begin 
 with that one which leads to lying, theft, and murder." 
 
 " I am quit of that one, any way. How call you it ? " 
 
 "Avarice, my son." 
 
 " Avarice ? Oh, as to that, I have been a saving man 
 all my day ; but I have kept a good table, and not 
 altogether forgotten the poor. But, alas, I am a great 
 sinner. Mayhap the next will catch me. What is the 
 next ? " 
 
 " We have not yet done with this one. Bethink thee, 
 the Church is not to be trifled with." 
 
 " Alas ! am I in a condition to trifle with her now ? 
 Avarice ? Avarice ? " 
 
 He looked puzzled and innocent. 
 
 " Hast thou ever robbed the fatherless ? " inquired the 
 friar. 
 
 " Me ? robbed the fatherless ? " gasped Ghysbrecht ; 
 "not that I mind." 
 
 " Once more, my son, I am forced to tell thee thou art 
 trifling with the Church. Miserable man ! another eva- 
 sion, and I leave thee, and fiends will straightway gather 
 round thy bed, and tear thee down to the bottomless 
 pit." 
 
 " Oh, leave me not ! leave me not ! " shrieked the 
 terrified old man. "The Church knows all. I must 
 have robbed the fatherless. I will confess. Who shall 
 I begin with ? My memory for names is shaken." 
 
 The defence was skilful, but in this case failed. 
 
 " Hast thou forgotten Floris Brandt ? " said Clement, 
 stonily. 
 
 The sick man reared himself in bed in a pitiable state 
 of terror. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 357 
 
 " How knew you that ? " said he. 
 
 "The Church knows many things," said Clement, 
 coldly, " and by many ways that are dark to thee. Mis- 
 erable impenitent, you called her to your side, hoping 
 to deceive her. You said < I will not confess to the cure, 
 but to some friar who knows not my misdeeds. So will 
 I cheat the Church on my death-bed, and die as I have 
 lived/ But God, kinder to thee than thou art to thyself, 
 sent to thee one whom thou couldst not deceive. He has 
 tried thee ; he was patient with thee, and warned thee not 
 to trifle with holy Church ; but all is in vain ; thou canst 
 not confess; for thou art impenitent as a stone. Die, 
 then, as thou hast lived. Methinks I see the fiends 
 crowding round the bed for their prey. They wait but 
 for me to go. And I go." 
 
 He turned his back ; but Ghysbrecht, in extremity of 
 terror, caught him by the frock. " Oh, holy man, mercy ! 
 stay. I will confess all, all. I robbed my friend Floris. 
 Alas, would it had ended there ; for he lost little by me ; 
 but I kept the land from Peter his son, and from Mar- 
 garet, Peter's daughter. Yet I was always going to give 
 it back ; but I couldn't, I couldn't." 
 
 " Avarice, my son, avarice. Happy for thee 'tis not 
 too late." 
 
 " No. I will leave it her by will. She will not have 
 long to wait for it now ; not above a month or two at 
 farthest." 
 
 "For which month's possession thou wouldst damn 
 thy soul forever. Thou fool ! " 
 
 The sick man groaned, and prayed the friar to be 
 reasonable. The friar firmly, but gently and persua- 
 sively, persisted, and with infinite patience detached the 
 dying man's grip from another's property. There were 
 times when his patience was tried, and he was on the 
 point of thrusting his hand into his bosom and produc 
 
358 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ing the deed, which he had brought for that purpose ; 
 but after yesterday's outbreak he was on his guard 
 against choler ; and, to conclude, he conquered his im- 
 patience; he conquered a personal repugnance to the 
 man, so strong as to make his own flesh creep all the 
 time he was struggling with this miser for his soul ; and 
 at last, without a word about the deed, he won upon him 
 to make full and prompt restitution. 
 
 How the restitution was made will be briefly related 
 elsewhere : also certain curious effects produced upon 
 Ghysbrecht by it ; and when and on what terms Ghys- 
 brecht and Clement parted. 
 
 I promised to relate two acts of the latter, indicative 
 of his mind. 
 
 This is one. The other is told in two words. 
 
 As soon as he was quite sure Margaret had her own, 
 and was a rich woman, — 
 
 He disappeared. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 It was the day after that terrible scene ; the" little 
 house in the Hoog Straet was like a grave, and none 
 more listless and dejected than Catherine, so busy and 
 sprightly by nature. After dinner, her eyes red with 
 weeping, she went to the convent to try and soften 
 Gerard, and lay the first stone at least of a reconcilia- 
 tion. It was some time before she could make the 
 porter understand whom she was seeking. Eventually 
 she learned he had left late last night, and was not 
 expected back. She went sighing with the news to 
 Margaret. She found her sitting idle, like one with 
 whom life had lost its savor ; she had her boy clasped 
 so tight in her arms, as if he was all she had left, and 
 she feared some one would take him too. Catherine 
 begged her to come to the Hoog Straet. 
 
 " What for ? " sighed Margaret. " You cannot but say 
 to yourselves, ' she is the cause of all.' " 
 
 "Nay, nay," said Catherine, "we are not so ill-hearted, 
 and Eli is so fond on you ; you will, maybe, soften him." 
 
 " Oh, if you think I can do any good, I'll come," said 
 Margaret, with a weary sigh. 
 
 They found Eli and a carpenter putting up another 
 name in place of Cornelis's and Sybrandt's ; and what 
 should that name be, but Margaret Brandt's. 
 
 With all her affection for Margaret, this went through 
 poor Catherine like a knife. "The bane of one is 
 another's meat," said she. 
 
 " Can he make me spend the money unjustly ? 99 re« 
 plied Margaret coldly. 
 
360 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " You are a good soul," said Catherine. " Ay, so best, 
 sith he is the strongest." 
 
 The next day Giles dropped in, and Catherine told the 
 story all in favor of the black sheep, and invited his 
 pity for them, anathematized by their brother, and turned 
 on the wide world by their father. But Giles's preju- 
 dices ran the other way ; he heard her out, and told her 
 bluntly the knaves had got off cheap ; they deserved to 
 be hanged at Margaret's door into the bargain, and, dis- 
 missing them with contempt, crowed with delight at the 
 return of his favorite. " I'll show him," said he, " what 
 'tis to have a brother at court with a heart to serve a 
 friend, and a head to point the way." 
 
 " Bless thee, Giles," murmured Margaret softly. 
 
 " Thou wast ever his stanch friend, dear Giles," said 
 little Kate ; " but alack, I know not what thou canst do 
 for him now." 
 
 Giles had left them, and all was sad and silent again, 
 when a well-dressed man opened the door softly, and 
 asked was Margaret Brandt here. 
 
 " D'ye hear, lass ? You are wanted," said Catherine 
 briskly. In her the gossip was indestructible. 
 
 "Well, mother," said Margaret listlessly, "and here 
 I am." 
 
 A shuffling of feet was heard at the door, and a color- 
 less, feeble old man was assisted into the room. It was 
 Ghysbrecht Van Swieten. At sight of him, Catherine 
 shrieked, and threw her apron over her head, and Mar- 
 garet shuddered violently, and turned her head swiftly 
 away, not to see him. 
 
 A feeble voice issued from the strange visitor's lips : 
 " Good people, a dying man hath come to ask your 
 forgiveness." 
 
 " Come to look on your work, you mean," said Cathe- 
 rine, taking down her apron, and bursting out sob- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 361 
 
 bing. a There, there, she is fainting ; look to her, Eli, 
 quick." 
 
 " Nay," said Margaret, in a feeble voice, " the sight of 
 him gave me a turn, that is all. Prithee let him say his 
 say, and go ; for he is the murtherer of me and mine." 
 
 " Alas," said Ghysbrecht, " I am too feeble to say it 
 standing, and no one biddeth me sit down." 
 
 Eli, who had followed him into the house, interfered 
 here, and said, half sullenly, half apologetically, "Well, 
 burgomaster, 'tis not our wont to leave a visitor standing 
 whiles we sit. But, man, man, you have wrought us too 
 much ill." And the honest fellow's voice began to shake 
 with anger he fought hard to contain, because it was his 
 own house. 
 
 Then Ghysbrecht found an advocate in one who sel- 
 dom spoke in vain in that family. 
 
 It was little Kate. " Father, mother," said she, " my 
 duty to you, but this is not well. Death squares all 
 accounts. And see you not death in his face ? I shall 
 not live long, good friends ; and his time is shorter than 
 mine." 
 
 Eli made haste and set a chair for their dying enemy 
 with his own hands. Ghysbrecht's attendants put him 
 into it. " Go fetch the boxes," said he. They brought 
 in two boxes, and then retired, leaving their master alone 
 in the family he had so cruelly injured. 
 
 Every eye was now bent on him, except Margaret's. 
 He undid the boxes, with unsteady fingers, and brought 
 out one of the title-deeds of a property at Tergou. 
 " This land and these houses belonged to Floris Brandt, 
 and do belong to thee of right, his granddaughter. 
 These I did usurp for a debt long since defrayed with 
 interest. These I now restore their rightful owner with 
 penitent tears. In this other box are three hundred and 
 forty golden angels, being the rent and fines I have 
 
362 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 received from that land more than Floris Brandt's debt 
 to me. I have kept compt, still meaning to be just one 
 day; but Avarice withheld me. Pray, good people, 
 against temptation ! I was not born dishonest; yet you 
 see." 
 
 " Well, to be sure ! 99 cried Catherine. " And you the 
 burgomaster ! Hast whipt good store of thieves in thy 
 day. However," said she, on second thoughts, "'tis 
 better late than never. What, Margaret, art deaf ? The 
 good man hath brought thee back thine own. Art a rich 
 woman. Alack, what a mountain o' gold ! " 
 
 " Bid him keep land and gold, and give me back my 
 Gerard, that he stole from me with his treason," said 
 Margaret, with her head still averted. 
 
 " Alas ! 99 said Ghysbrecht, " would I could. What I 
 can I have done. Is it nought ? It cost me a sore 
 struggle ; and I rose from my last bed to do it myself, 
 lest some mischance should come between her and her 
 rights." 
 
 " Old man," said Margaret, " since thou, whose idol is 
 pelf, hast done this, God and the saints will, as I hope, 
 forgive thee. As for me, I am neither saint nor angel, 
 but only a poor woman, whose heart thou hast broken. 
 Speak to him, Kate ; for I am like the dead." 
 
 Kate meditated a little while; and then her soft 
 silvery voice fell like a soothing melody upon the air. 
 " My poor sister hath a sorrow that riches cannot heal. 
 Give her time, Ghysbrecht ; 'tis not in nature she should 
 forgive thee all. Her boy is fatherless; and she is 
 neither maid, wife, nor widow; and the blow fell but 
 two days syne, that laid her heart a-bleeding." 
 
 A single heavy sob from Margaret was the comment 
 to these words. 
 
 " Therefore, give her time ! And, ere thou diest, she 
 will forgive thee all, ay, even to pleasure me, that haply 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 363 
 
 shall not be long behind thee, Ghysbrecht. Meantime, 
 we, whose wounds be sore, but not so deep as hers, do 
 pardon thee, a penitent and a dying man ; and I, for one, 
 will pray for thee from this hour ; go in peace ! " 
 
 Their little oracle had spoken ; it was enough. Eli 
 even invited him to break a manchet and drink a stoup 
 of wine to give him heart for his journey. 
 
 But Ghysbrecht declined, and said what he had done 
 was a cordial to him. "Man seeth but a little way 
 before him, neighbor. This land I clung so to, it was a 
 bed of nettles to me all the time. 'Tis gone : and I feel 
 happier and livelier like for the loss on't." 
 
 He called his men and they lifted him into the litter. 
 
 When he was gone, Catherine gloated over the money. 
 She had never seen so much together, and was almost 
 angry with Margaret, for "sitting out there like an 
 image." And she dilated on the advantages of money. 
 
 And she teased Margaret till at last she prevailed on 
 her to come and look at it. 
 
 "Better let her be, mother," said Kate. "How can 
 she relish gold, with a heart in her bosom liker lead ? " 
 But Catherine persisted. 
 
 The result was, Margaret looked down at all her 
 wealth with wondering eyes. Then suddenly wrung her 
 hands and cried with piercing anguish, " Too late ! too 
 late ! " And shook off her leaden despondency, only to 
 go into strong hysterics over the wealth that came too 
 late to be shared with him she loved. 
 
 A little of this gold, a portion of this land, a year or 
 two ago, when it was as much her own as now; and 
 Gerard would have never left her side for Italy or any 
 other place. 
 
 Too late ! Too late I 
 
364 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 Not many days after this came the news that Mar« 
 garet Van Eyck was dead and buried. By a will she 
 had made a year before, she left all her property, after 
 her funeral expenses and certain presents to Eeicht 
 Heynes, to her dear daughter Margaret Brandt, request- 
 ing her to keep Reicht as long as unmarried. By this 
 will Margaret inherited a furnished house, and pictures 
 and sketches that in the present day would be a fortune : 
 among the pictures was one she valued more than a 
 gallery of others. It represented " A Betrothal." The 
 solemnity of the ceremony was marked in the grave 
 face of the man, and the demure complacency of the 
 woman. She was painted almost entirely by Margaret 
 Van Eyck, but the rest of the picture by Jan. The 
 accessories were exquisitely finished, and remain a mar- 
 vel of skill to this day. Margaret Brandt sent word to 
 Reicht to stay in the house till such time as she could 
 find the heart to put foot in it, and miss the face and 
 voice that used to meet her there : and to take special 
 care of the picture " in the little cubboord ; " meaning 
 the diptych. 
 
 The next thing was, Luke Peterson came home, and 
 heard that Gerard was a monk. 
 
 He was like to go mad with joy. He came to Mar- 
 garet and said, — 
 
 "Never heed, mistress. If he cannot marry you, I 
 can." 
 
 " You ? " said Margaret. " Why, I have seen him." 
 " But he is a friar." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 365 
 
 " He was my husband, and my boy's f athei long ere 
 he was a friar. And I have seen him. I've seen him." 
 
 Luke was thoroughly puzzled. " I'll tell you what," 
 said he ; " I have got a cousin a lawyer. I'll go and ask 
 him whether you are married or single." 
 
 " Kay, I shall ask my own heart, not a lawyer. So 
 that is your regard for me ; to go making me the town 
 talk, oh, fie ! " 
 
 " That is done already without a word from me." 
 
 " But not by such as seek my respect. And if you do 
 it, never come nigh me again." 
 
 " Ay," said Luke, with a sigh, " you are like a dove to 
 all the rest ; but you are a hard-hearted tyrant to me." 
 
 "'Tis your own fault, dear Luke, for wooing me. 
 That is what lets me from being as kind to you as I 
 desire. Luke, my bonny lad, listen to me. I am rich 
 now ; I can make my friends happy, though not myself. 
 Look round the street, look round the parish. There is 
 many a quean in it, fairer than I twice told, and not 
 spoiled with weeping. Look high : and take your choice. 
 Speak you to the lass herself, and I'll speak to the 
 mother ; they shall not say thee nay ; take my word 
 fort." 
 
 " I see what ye mean," said Luke, turning very red. 
 "But if I can't have your liking, I will none o' your 
 money. I was your servant when you were poor as I ; 
 and poorer. No ; if you would liever be a friar's leman 
 than an honest man's wife, you are not the woman I 
 took you for ; so part we withouten malice ; seek you 
 your comfort on yon road, where never a she did find it 
 yet, and, for me, I'll live and die a bachelor. Good even, 
 mistress." 
 
 " Farewell, dear Luke ; and God forgive you for say- 
 ing that to me." 
 
 For some days Margaret dreaded, almost as much as 
 
366 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 she desired, the coming interview with Gerard. She 
 said to herself, "I wonder not he keeps away awhile; 
 for so should I." However, he would hear he was a 
 father ; and the desire to see their boy would overcome 
 everything ; " and," said the poor girl to herself, " if so 
 be that meeting does not kill me, I feel I shall be better 
 after it than I am now." 
 
 But when day after day went by, and he was not 
 heard of, a freezing suspicion began to crawl and creep 
 towards her mind. What if his absence was intentional ? 
 What if he had gone to some cold-blooded monks his 
 fellows, and they had told him never to see her more ? 
 The convent had ere this shown itself as merciless to 
 true lovers as the grave itself. 
 
 At this thought the very life seemed to die out of her. 
 
 And now for the first time deep indignation mingled 
 at times with her grief and apprehension. " Can he 
 have ever loved me ? To run from me and his boy with- 
 out a word ! Why this poor Luke thinks more of me 
 than he does." 
 
 While her mind was in this state, Giles came roaring, 
 " I've hit the clout ; our Gerard is Vicar of Gouda." 
 
 A very brief sketch of the dwarf's court life will 
 suffice to prepare the reader for his own account of this 
 feat. Some months before he went to court his intelli- 
 gence had budded. He himself dated the change from a 
 certain 8th of June, when, swinging by one hand along 
 with the week's washing on a tight rope in the drying 
 ground, something went crack inside his head : and lo ! 
 intellectual powers unchained. At court his shrewdness 
 and bluntness of speech, coupled with his gigantic voice 
 and his small stature, made him a power ; without the 
 last item I fear they would have conducted him to that 
 unpopular gymnasium, the gallows. The young Duchess 
 of Burgundy, and Marie, the heiress apparent, both 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 367 
 
 petted him, as great ladies have petted dwarfs in all 
 ages ; and the court poet melted butter by the six-foot 
 rule, and poured enough of it down his back to stew 
 Goliah in. He even amplified, versified, and enfeebled, 
 certain rough and ready sentences dictated by Giles. 
 
 The centipedal prolixity that resulted went to Eli by 
 letter, thus entitled : 
 
 " The high and puissant Princess Marie 
 of Bourgogne her lytel jantilman hys 
 complaynt of ye Coort, and 
 
 praise of a rusticall lyfe, versificated, and empapyred 
 by me the lytel jantilman's right lovynge 
 and obsequious servitor, etc. 1 ' 
 
 But the dwarf reached his climax by a happy mixture 
 of mind and muscle ; thus : 
 
 The day before a grand court joust he challenged the 
 duke's giant to a trial of strength. This challenge made 
 the gravest grin, and aroused expectation. 
 
 Giles had a lofty pole planted ready, and at the ap- 
 pointed hour went up it like a squirrel, and by strength 
 of arm made a right angle with his body, and so re- 
 mained ; then slid down so quickly, that the high and 
 puissant princess squeaked, and hid her face in her 
 hands, not to see the demise of her pocket-Hercules. 
 
 The giant effected only about ten feet, then looked 
 ruefully up and ruefully down, and descended, bathed 
 in perspiration, to argue the matter. 
 
 " It was not the dwarf's greater strength, but his 
 smaller body." 
 
 The spectators received this excuse with loud derision. 
 There was the fact, the dwarf was great at mounting a 
 pole ; the giant only great at excuses. In short Giles 
 had gauged their intellects, — with his own body, no 
 doubt. 
 
368 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Come," said he, " an ye go to that, I'll wrestle ye, 
 my lad, if so be you will let me blindfold your eyne." 
 
 The giant smarting under defeat, and thinking he 
 could surely recover it by this means, readily consented. 
 
 " Madam," said Giles, " see you yon blind Samson ? 
 At a signal from me he shall make me a low obeisance, 
 and unbonnet to me." 
 
 " How may that be, being blinded ? " inquired a maid 
 of honor. 
 
 " That is my affair." 
 
 " I'll wager on Giles for one," said the princess. 
 
 When several wa-gers were laid pro and con, Giles hit 
 the giant in the bread-basket. He went double (the 
 cbeisance), and his bonnet fell off. 
 
 The company yelled with delight at this delicate 
 stroke of wit, and Giles took to his heels. The giant 
 followed as soon as he could recover his breath and tear 
 off his bandage. But it was too late; Giles had pre- 
 pared a little door in the wall, through which he could 
 pass, but not a giant, and had colored it so artfully it 
 looked like wall ; this door he tore open, and went head- 
 long through, leaving no vestige but this posy, written 
 very large upon the reverse of his trick door : 
 
 Long limbs, big body, wanting wit, 
 By wee and wise is bet and bit. 
 
 After this Giles became a force. 
 He shall now speak for himself. 
 
 Finding Margaret unable to believe the good news, 
 and sceptical as to the affairs of holy Church being ad- 
 ministered by dwarfs, he narrated as follows : 
 
 " When the princess sent for me to her bedroom as of 
 custom, to keep her out of languor, I came not mirthful 
 nor full of country diets, as is my wont, but dull as lead. 
 
 " ' Why, what aileth thee ? ' quo' she. ' Art sick ? 9 
 
MADAM," SAID GILES, " SEE YOU YON BLIND SAMSON? 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 389 
 
 — At heart/ quo' I. 'Alas, he is in love/ quo' she. 
 Whereat five brazen hussies, which they call them 
 maids of honor, did giggle loud. ' Not so mad as that,' 
 said I, ' seeing what I see at court of women folk.' 
 
 " ' There, ladies,' quo' the princess, ' best let him a be. 
 >Tis a liberal mannikin, and still giveth more than he 
 taketh of saucy words.' 
 
 " ' In all sadness,' quo' she, ' what is the matter ? ' 
 
 " I told her I was meditating, and what perplexed me 
 was, that other folk could now and then keep their word, 
 but princes never. 
 
 " 'Heyday,' says she, 'thy shafts fly high this morn.' 
 I told her, ' Ay, for they hit the truth.' 
 
 " She said I was as keen as keen ; but it became not 
 me to put riddles to her, nor her to answer them. 
 ' Stand aloof a bit, mesdames,' said she, ' and thou speak 
 withouten fear ; ' for she saw I was in sad earnest. 
 
 "I began to quake a bit; for mind ye, she can doff 
 freedom and don dignity quicker than she can slip out 
 of her dressing-gown into kirtle of state. But I made 
 my voice so soft as honey ; (wherefore smilest ?) and I 
 said, ' Madam, one evening, a matter of five years agone, 
 as ye sat with your mother, the Countess of Charolois, 
 who is now in heaven, worse luck, you wi' your lute, and 
 she wi' her tapestry, or the like ; do ye mind there came 
 in to ye a fair youth — with a letter from a painter body, 
 one Margaret Van Eyck ? ' 
 
 " She said she thought she did. ' Was it not a tall 
 youth, exceeding comely ? 9 
 
 " ' Ay, madam,' said I, ' he was my brother.' 
 
 " ' Your brother ? ' said she, and did eye me like all 
 over. (What dost smile at ?) 
 
 " So I told her all that passed between her and Gerard, 
 and how she was for giving him a bishopric ; but the 
 good countess said, ' Gently, Marie ! He is too young ; 1 
 24 . - 
 
370 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 and with that they did both promise him a living; <Yet, ? 
 said I, 'he hath been a priest a long while, and no living. 
 Hence my bile.' 
 
 " 1 Alas ! ' said she, 1 'tis not by my good will. For all 
 this thon hast said is sooth ; and more, I do remember 
 my dear mother said to me, " See thou to it if I be not 
 here." ' So then she cried out, ' Ay, dear mother, no 
 word of thine shall ever fall to the ground.' 
 
 "I seeing her so ripe, said quickly, ' Madam, the Vicar 
 of Gouda died last week.' (For when ye seek favors 
 of the great, behooves ye know the very thing ye aim 
 at.) 
 
 " ' Then thy brother is Vicar of Gouda,' quo' she, ' so 
 sure as I am heiress of Burgundy and the Netherlands. 
 Nay, thank me not, good Giles,' quo' she ; * but my good 
 mother. And I do thank thee for giving of me some- 
 what to do for her memory.' And doesn't she fall 
 a-weeping for her mother ? and doesn't that set me off 
 a-sniveiling for my good brother that I love so dear, and 
 to think that a poor little elf like me could yet speak in 
 the ear of princes, and make my beautiful brother Vicar 
 of Gouda; eh, lass, it is a bonny place, and a bonny 
 manse, and hawthorn in every bush at spring-tide, and 
 dog-roses and eglantine in every summer hedge. I know 
 what the poor fool affects, leave that to me." 
 
 The dwarf began his narrative strutting to and fro 
 before Margaret ; but he ended it in her arms. For she 
 could not contain herself, but caught him, and embraced 
 him warmly. " 0 Giles," she said, blushing, and kiss- 
 ing him, " I cannot keep my hands off thee, thy body it 
 is so little, and thy heart so great. Thou art his true 
 friend. Bless thee ! bless thee ! bless thee ! Now we 
 shall see him again. We have not set eyes on him since 
 that terrible day." 
 
 "Gramercy, but that is strange," said Giles. "Maybe 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 371 
 
 he is ashamed of having cursed those two vagabones, 
 being our own flesh and blood, worse luck." 
 
 " Think you that is why he hides ? " said Margaret, 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Ay, if he is hiding at all. However, I'll cry him by 
 bell-man." 
 
 " Nay, that might much offend him." 
 
 " What care I ? Is Gouda to go vicarless, and the 
 manse in nettles ? " 
 
 And, to Margaret's secret satisfaction, Giles had the 
 new vicar cried in Eotterdam, and the neighboring 
 towns. He easily persuaded Margaret that, in a day or 
 two, Gerard would be sure to hear, and come to his 
 benefice. She went to look at his manse, and thought 
 how comfortable it might be made for him, and how 
 dearly she should love to do it. 
 
 But the days rolled on, and Gerard came neither to 
 Eotterdam nor Gouda. Giles was mortified, Margaret 
 indignant, and very wretched. She said to herself, 
 " Thinking me dead, he comes home, and now, because 
 I am alive, he goes back to Italy : for that is where he 
 has gone." 
 
 Joan advised her to consult the hermit of Gouda. 
 
 " Why sure he is dead by this time." 
 
 " Yon one, belike. But the cave is never long void ; 
 Gouda ne'er wants a hermit." 
 
 But Margaret declined to go again to Gouda on such 
 an errand. " What can he know, shut up in a cave ? 
 less than I, belike. Gerard hath gone back t' Italy. 
 He hates me for not being dead." 
 
 Presently a Tergovian came in with a word from 
 Catherine that Ghysbrecht Van Swieten had seen 
 Gerard later than any one else. On this Margaret 
 determined to go and see the house and goods that 
 had been left her, and take Eeicht Heynes home to 
 
372 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Rotterdam. And, as may be supposed, her steps took 
 her first to Ghysbrecht's house. She found him in his 
 garden, seated in a chair with wheels. He greeted her 
 with a feeble voice, but cordially ; and when she asked 
 him whether it was true he had seen Gerard since the 
 fifth of August, he replied, " Gerard no more, but Friar 
 Clement. Ay, I saw him; and blessed be the day he 
 entered my house." 
 
 He then related in his own words his interview with 
 Clement. He told her moreover that the friar had 
 afterwards acknowledged he came to Tergou with the 
 missing deed in his bosom on purpose to make him dis- 
 gorge her land ; but that finding him disposed towards 
 penitence, he had gone to work the other way. 
 
 " Was not this a saint ; who came to right thee ; but 
 must needs save his enemy's soul in the doing it ? " 
 
 To her question, whether he had recognized him, he 
 said, " I ne'er suspected such a thing. 'Twas only when 
 he had been three days with me that he revealed him- 
 self. Listen while I speak my shame and his praise. 
 
 "I said to him, 'The land is gone home, and my 
 stomach feels lighter; but there is another fault that 
 clingeth to me still ; ' then told I him of the letter I had 
 writ at request of his brethren, I whose place it was to 
 check them. Said I, ' Yon letter was writ to part true 
 lovers, and, the devil aiding, it hath done the foul work. 
 Land and houses I can give back ; but yon mischief is 
 done forever.' — ' Nay,' quoth he, ' not forever ; but for 
 life. Repent it then while thou livest.' — ' I shall,' said 
 I, ' but how can God forgive it ? I would not,' said I, 
 ' were I He.' 
 
 " ' Yet will He certainly forgive it,' quoth he ; ' for He 
 is ten times more forgiving than I am; and I forgive 
 thee.' I stared at him; and then he said softly, but 
 quavering like, 'Ghysbrecht, look at me closer. I am 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH/ 373 
 
 Gerard the son of Eli.' And I looked, and looked, and 
 at last, lo ! it was Gerard. Verily I had fallen at his 
 feet with shame and contrition ; but he would not suffer 
 me. 'That became not mine years and his, for a par- 
 ticular fault. I say not I forgive thee without a struggle,' 
 said he, ' not being a saint. But these three days, thou 
 hast spent in penitence, I have worn under thy roof in 
 prayer: and I do forgive thee.' Those were his very 
 words." 
 
 Margaret's tears began to flow ; for it was in a broken 
 and contrite voice the old man told her this unexpected 
 trait in her Gerard. He continued, " And even with that 
 he bade me farewell. 
 
 " 1 My work here is done now,' said he. I had not the 
 heart to stay him ; for, let him forgive me ever so, the 
 sight of me must be wormwood to him. He left me in 
 peace, and may a dying man's blessing wait on him, go 
 where he will. 0 girl, when I think of his wrongs, and 
 thine, and how he hath avenged himself by saving this 
 stained soul of mine, my heart is broken with remorse, 
 and these old eyes shed tears by night and day." 
 
 " Ghysbrecht," said Margaret, weeping, " since he hath 
 forgiven thee, I forgive thee too ; what is done, is done ; 
 and thou hast let me know this day that which I had 
 walked the world to hear. But oh, burgomaster, thou 
 art an understanding man, now help a poor woman, 
 which hath forgiven thee her misery." 
 
 She then told him all that had befallen ; " And," said 
 she, " they will not keep the living for him forever. He 
 bids fair to lose that, as well as break all our hearts." 
 
 " Call my servant," cried the burgomaster, with sudden 
 vigor. 
 
 He sent him for a table and writing materials, and dic- 
 tated letters to the burgomasters in all the principal towns 
 in Holland, and one to a Prussian authority, his friend. 
 
374 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 His clerk and Margaret wrote them, and he signed them. 
 "There," said he, "the matter shall be despatched through- 
 out Holland by trusty couriers, and as far as Basle in 
 Switzerland ; and fear not, but we will soon have the 
 Vicar of Gouda to his village." 
 
 She went home animated with fresh hopes, and accus- 
 ing herself of ingratitude to Gerard. "I value my wealth 
 now," said she. 
 
 She also made a resolution never to blame his conduct 
 till she should hear from his own lips his reasons. 
 
 Not long after her return from Tergou, a fresh disaster 
 befell. Catherine, I must premise, had secret interviews 
 with the black sheep, the very day after they were 
 expelled; and Cornelis followed her to Tergou, and lived 
 there on secret contributions; but Sybrandt chose to 
 remain in Kotterdam. Ere Catherine left, she asked 
 Margaret to lend her two gold angels ; " For," said she, 
 " all mine are spent." Margaret was delighted to lend 
 them or give them ; but the words were scarce out of her 
 mouth, ere she caught a look of regret and distress on 
 Kate's face, and she saw directly whither her money was 
 going. She gave Catherine the money, and went and 
 shut herself up with her boy. Now this money was to 
 last Sybrandt till his mother could make some good 
 excuse for visiting Rotterdam again; and then she would 
 bring the idle dog some of her own industrious scrapings. 
 
 But Sybrandt, having gold in his pocket, thought it inex- 
 haustible ; and, being now under no shadow of restraint, 
 led the life of a complete sot ; until one afternoon, in a 
 drunken frolic, he climbed on the roof of the stable at 
 the inn he was carousing in ; and proceeded to walk along 
 it, a feat he had performed many times when sober. But 
 now his unsteady brain made his legs unsteady, and he 
 rolled down the roof and fell with a loud thwack on to 
 a horizontal paling, where he hung a moment in a semi- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 375 
 
 circle, then toppled over and lay silent on the ground, 
 amidst roars of laughter from his boon companions. 
 
 When they came to pick him up he could not stand, 
 but fell down giggling at each attempt. 
 
 On this they went staggering and roaring down the 
 street with him, and carried him at great risk of another 
 fall, to the shop in the Hoog Straet. For he had babbled 
 his own shame all over the place. 
 
 As soon as he saw Margaret he hiccuped out, " Here 
 is the doctor that cures all hurts ; a bonny lass." He 
 also bade her observe he bore her no malice, for he was 
 paying her a visit, sore against his will. "Wherefore, 
 prithee send away these drunkards; and let you and me 
 have t'other glass, to drown all unkindness." 
 
 All this time Margaret was pale and red by turns at 
 sight of her enemy and at his insolence. But one of the 
 men whispered what had happened, and a streaky some- 
 thing in Sybrandt's face arrested her attention. 
 
 " And he cannot stand up, say you ? " 
 
 " A couldn't just now. Try, comrade ! Be a man 
 now ! " 
 
 "I am a better man than thou," roared Sybrandt. 
 " I'll stand up and fight ye all for a crown." 
 
 He started to his feet, and instantly rolled into his 
 attendant's arms with a piteous groan. He then began to 
 curse his boon companions, and declare they had stolen 
 away his legs. " He could feel nothing below the waist." 
 
 " Alas, poor wretch," said Margaret. She turned very 
 gravely to the men, and said, " Leave him here. And if 
 you have brought him to this, go on your knees ; for you 
 have spoiled him for life. He will never walk again: 
 his back is broken." 
 
 The drunken man caught these words, and the foolish 
 look of intoxication fled, and a glare of anguish took its 
 place. " The curse," he groaned, " the curse ! " 
 
376 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Margaret and Reicht Heynes carried him carefully, 
 and laid him on the softest bed. 
 
 "I must do as he would do," whispered Margaret. 
 " He was kind to Ghysbrecht." 
 
 Her opinion was verified. Sybrandt's spine was fatally 
 injured ; and he lay groaning and helpless, fed and tended 
 by her he had so deeply injured. 
 
 The news was sent to Tergou; and Catherine came 
 over. 
 
 It was a terrible blow to her. Moreover she accused 
 herself as the cause. "O false wife, 0 weak mother," 
 she cried. " I am rightly punished for my treason to my 
 poor Eli." 
 
 She sat for hours at a time by his bedside rocking her- 
 self in silence, and was never quite herself again ; and 
 the first gray hairs began to come in her poor head from 
 that hour. 
 
 As for Sybrandt, all his cry was now for Gerard. He 
 used to whine to Margaret like a suffering hound, " 0 
 sweet Margaret, 0 bonny Margaret, for our Lady's sake 
 find Gerard, and bid him take his curse off me. Thou 
 art gentle, thou art good ; thou wilt entreat for me, and 
 he will refuse thee nought." Catherine shared his belief 
 that Gerard could cure him, and joined her entreaties to 
 his. Margaret hardly needed this. The burgomaster 
 and his agents having failed, she employed her own, and 
 spent money like water. And among these agents poor 
 Luke enrolled himself. She met him one day looking 
 very thin, and spoke to him compassionately. On this 
 he began to blubber, and say he was more miserable than 
 ever ; he would like to be good friends again upon almost 
 any terms. 
 
 "Dear heart," said Margaret, sorrowfully, "why can 
 you not say to yourself, Now I am her little brother, and 
 she is my old married sister, worn down with care ? Say 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 377 
 
 so, and I will indulge thee, and pet thee, and make thee 
 happier than a prince." 
 
 " Well, I will," said Luke, savagely, " sooner than keep 
 away from you altogether. But above all give me some- 
 thing to do. Perchance I may have better luck this 
 time." 
 
 "Get me my marriage lines," said Margaret, turning 
 sad and gloomy in a moment. 
 
 " That is • as much as to say, get me him ! for where 
 they are, he is." 
 
 " Not so. He may refuse to come nigh me ; but certes 
 he will not deny a poor woman, who loved him once, her 
 lines of betrothal. How can she go without them into 
 any honest man's house ? " 
 
 " I'll get them you if they are in Holland," said Luke. 
 
 " They are as like to be in Kome," replied Margaret. 
 
 "Let us begin with Holland," observed Luke, prudently. 
 
 The slave of love was furnished with money by his 
 soft tyrant, and wandered hither and thither, coopering 
 and carpentering, and looking for Gerard. " I can't be 
 worse if I find the vagabone," said he, " and I may be a 
 hantle better." 
 
 The months rolled on, and Sybrandt improved in spirit, 
 but not in body ; he was Margaret's pensioner for life ; 
 and a long-expected sorrow fell upon poor Catherine, and 
 left her still more bowed down, and she lost her fine 
 hearty bustling way, and never went about the house 
 singing now ; and her nerves were shaken, and she lived 
 in dread of some terrible misfortune falling on Cornells. 
 The curse was laid on him as well as Sybrandt. 
 
 She prayed Eli, if she had been a faithful partner all 
 these years, to take Cornells into his house again; and 
 let her live awhile at Eotterdam. 
 
 " I have good daughters here," said she ; " but Margaret 
 is so tender and thoughtful, and the little Gerard, he is 
 
378 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 my joy; lie grows liker his father every day, and his 
 prattle cheers my heavy heart ; and I do love children." 
 
 And Eli, sturdy but kindly, consented sorrowfully. 
 
 And the people of Gouda petitioned the duke for a 
 vicar, a real vicar. " Ours cometh never nigh us," said 
 they, " this six months past ; our children they die un- 
 christened, and our folk unburied, except by some chance 
 comer." Giles's influence baffled this just complaint 
 once ; but a second petition was prepared, and he gave 
 Margaret little hope that the present position could be 
 maintained a single day. 
 
 So then Margaret went sorrowfully to the pretty manse 
 to see it for the last time, ere it should pass forever into 
 a stranger's hands. 
 
 " I think he would have been happy here," she said, 
 and turned heartsick away. 
 
 On their return, Eeicht Heynes proposed to her to go 
 and consult the hermit. 
 
 " What," said Margaret, " Joan has been at you. She 
 is the one for hermits. I'll go, if 'tis but to show thee 
 they know no more than we do." And they went to the 
 cave. 
 
 It was an excavation partly natural, partly artificial, 
 in a bank of rock overgrown by brambles. There was a 
 rough stone door on hinges, and a little window high up, 
 and two apertures, through one of which the people 
 announced their gifts to the hermit, and put questions 
 of all sorts to him ; and, when he chose to answer, his 
 voice came dissonant and monstrous out at another small 
 aperture. 
 
 On the face of the rock this line was cut : — 
 
 Felix qui in Domino nixus ab orbe fugit. 
 
 Margaret observed to her companion that this was new 
 since she was here last. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 379 
 
 * Ay," said Reicht, "like enough," and looked up at it 
 with awe. Writing even on paper she thought no trifle ; 
 but on rock ! 
 
 She whispered, " 'Tis a far holier hermit than the last ; 
 he used to come in the town now and then ; but this one 
 ne'er shows his face to mortal man." 
 
 " And that is holiness ? " 
 
 "Ay, sure." 
 
 " Then what a saint a dormouse must be ! " 
 
 "Out, fie, mistress. Would ye even a beast to a man ? " 
 
 "Come, Keicht," said Margaret, "my poor father taught 
 me overmuch. So I will e'en sit here, and look at the 
 manse once more. Go thou forward and question thy 
 solitary, and tell me whether ye get nought or nonsense 
 out of him ; for 'twill be one." 
 
 As Reicht drew near the cave, a number of birds flew 
 out of it. She gave a little scream, and pointed to the 
 cave to show Margaret they had come thence. On this 
 Margaret felt sure there was no human being in the cave, 
 and gave the matter no further attention. She fell into 
 a deep reverie while looking at the little manse. 
 
 She was startled from it by Reicht's hand upon her 
 shoulder, and a faint voice saying, " Let us go home." 
 
 "You got no answer at all, Reicht," said Margaret, 
 calmly. 
 
 "No, Margaret," said Reicht, despondently. And 
 they returned home. 
 
 Perhaps after all Margaret had nourished some faint 
 secret hope in her heart, though her reason had rejected 
 it; for she certainly went home more dejectedly. 
 
 Just as they entered Rotterdam, Reicht said, " Stay ! 
 0 Margaret, I am ill at deceit ; but 'tis death to utter ill 
 news to thee ; I love thee so dear." 
 
 "Speak out, sweetheart," said Margaret. "I have 
 gone through so much, I am almost past feeling any 
 fresh trouble." 
 
380 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Margaret, the hermit did speak to me." 
 
 " What, a hermit there ? among all those birds." 
 
 " Ay ; and doth not that show him a holy man ? 99 
 
 " V God's name, what said he to thee, Keicht ? 99 
 
 " Alas ! Margaret, I told him thy story, and I prayed 
 
 him for our Lady's sake, tell me where thy Gerard is. 
 
 And I waited long for an answer, and presently a voice 
 
 came like a trumpet : ' Pray for the soul of Gerard, the 
 
 son of Eli ! 9 99 
 « Ah ! " 
 
 " Oh, woe is me that I have this to tell thee, sweet 
 Margaret ! bethink thee thou hast thy boy to live for 
 yet." 
 
 " Let me get home," said Margaret faintly. 
 Passing down the Brede Kirk Straet they saw Joan 
 at the door. 
 
 Reicht said to her, " Eh, woman, she has been to your 
 hermit, and heard no good news." 
 
 " Come in," said Joan, eager for a gossip. 
 
 Margaret would not go in. But she sat down discon- 
 solate on the lowest step but one of the little external 
 staircase that led into Joan's house; and let the other 
 two gossip their fill at the top of it. 
 
 " Oh," said Joan, " what yon hermit says is sure to be 
 sooth. He is that holy, I am told, that the very birds 
 consort with him." 
 
 " What does that prove ? " said Margaret, deprecat- 
 ingly. " I have seen my Gerard tame the birds in winter 
 till they would eat from his hand." 
 
 A look of pity at this parallel passed between the 
 other two. But they were both too fond of her to say 
 what they thought. Joan proceeded to relate all the 
 marvellous tales she had heard of this hermit's sanctity. 
 How he never came out but at night, and prayed among 
 the wolves, and they never molested him : and how he 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 381 
 
 bade the people not bring him so much food to pamper 
 his body, but to bring him candles. 
 
 " The candles are to burn before his saint," whispered 
 Keicht solemnly. 
 
 " Ay, lass ; and to read his holy books wi\ A neigh- 
 bor o' mine saw his hand come out, and the birds sat 
 thereon and pecked crumbs. She went for to kiss it ; 
 but the holy man whippit it away in a trice. They can't 
 abide a woman to touch 'em, or even look at 'em, saints 
 can't." 
 
 " What like was his hand, wife ? Did you ask her ? " 
 
 " What is my tongue for, else ? Why, dear heart, all 
 one as ourn ; by the same token a had a thumb and four 
 fingers." 
 
 " Look ye there now." 
 
 " But a deal whiter nor yourn and mine." 
 
 "Ay, ay." 
 
 "And main skinny." 
 "Alas." 
 
 " What could ye expect ? Why, a live upon air, and 
 prayer : and candles." 
 
 "Ah, well," continued Joan, "poor thing, I whiles 
 think 'tis best for her to know the worst. And now she 
 hath gotten a voice from heaven, or almost as good : and 
 behooves her pray for his soul. One thing, she is not so 
 poor now as she was ; and never fell riches to a better 
 hand ; and she is only come into her own for that mat- 
 ter : so she can pay the priest to say masses for him, 
 and that is a great comfort." 
 
 In the midst of their gossip, Margaret, in whose ears 
 it was all buzzing, though she seemed lost in thought, 
 got softly up; and crept away with her eyes on the 
 ground, and her brows bent. 
 
 " She hath forgotten I am with her," said Keicht 
 Heynes ruefully. 
 
382 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 She had her gossip out with Joan, and then went 
 home. 
 
 She found Margaret seated cutting out a pelisse of 
 gray cloth, and a cape to match. Little Gerard was 
 standing at her side, inside her left arm, eying the work, 
 and making it more difficult by wriggling about, and fin- 
 gering the arm with which she held the cloth steady ; to 
 all which she submitted with imperturbable patience 
 and complacency. Fancy a male workman so entangled, 
 impeded, worried ! 
 
 " Ot's that, mammy ? " 
 
 " A pelisse, my pet." 
 
 " Ot's a p'lisse ? " 
 
 " A great frock. And this is the cape to't." 
 " Ot's it for ? " 
 
 " To keep his body from the cold ; and the cape is for 
 his shoulders, or to go over his head like the country 
 folk. 'Tis for a hermit." 
 
 " Ot's a 'ermit?" 
 
 11 A holy man that lives in a cave all by himself." 
 " In de dark ? " 
 " Ay, whiles." 
 "Oh." 
 
 In the morning Eeicht was sent to the hermit with 
 the pelisse, and a pound of thick candles. 
 
 As she was going out of the door, Margaret said to her, 
 " Said you whose son Gerard was ? " 
 
 " Nay, not I." 
 
 " Think, girl ! How could he call him, Gerard, son of 
 Eli, if you had not told him ? " 
 
 Eeicht persisted she had never mentioned him but as 
 plain Gerard. But Margaret told her flatly she did not 
 believe her; at which Eeicht was affronted, and went 
 out with a little toss of the head. However she deter- 
 mined to question the hermit again, and did not doubt 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 383 
 
 he would be more iiberal in his communication, when he 
 saw his nice new pelisse and the candles. 
 
 She had not been gone long when Giles came in with 
 ill news. The living of Gouda would be kept vacant no 
 longer. 
 
 Margaret was greatly distressed at this. " 0 Giles," 
 said she, " ask for another month. They will give thee 
 another month, maybe." 
 
 He returned in an hour to tell her he could not get a 
 month. " They have given me a week," said he. " And 
 what is a week ? " 
 
 " Drowning bodies catch at strawen," was her reply. 
 " A week ? a little week ? " 
 
 Eeicht came back from her errand out of spirits. Her 
 oracle had declined all further communication. So at 
 least its obstinate silence might fairly be interpreted. 
 
 The next day Margaret put Eeicht in charge of the 
 shop, and disappeared all day. So the next day ; and so 
 the next. Nor would she tell any one where she had 
 been. Perhaps she was ashamed. The fact is, she spent 
 ?J1 those days on one little spot of ground. When they 
 thought her dreaming, she was applying to every word 
 that fell from Joan and Eeicht the whole powers of a 
 far acuter mind than either of them possessed. 
 
 She went to work on a scale that never occurred to 
 either of them. She was determined to see the hermit, 
 and question him face to face, not through a wall. She 
 found that by making a circuit she could get above the 
 cave, and look down without being seen by the solitary. 
 But when she came to do it, she found an impenetrable 
 mass of brambles. After tearing her clothes, and her 
 hands and feet, so that she was soon covered with blood, 
 the resolute, patient girl took out her scissors and steadily 
 snipped and cut till she made a narrow path through the 
 enemy. But so slow was the work, that she had to leave 
 
384 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 it half done. The next day she had her scissors fresh 
 ground, and brought a sharp knife as well ; and gently, 
 silently, cut her way to the roof of the cave. There 
 she made an ambush of some of the cut brambles, so 
 that the passers-by might not see her, and couched with 
 watchful eye till the hermit should come out. She heard 
 him move underneath her. But he never left his cell. 
 She began to think it was true that he only came out at 
 night. The next day she came early, and brought a 
 jerkin she was making for little Gerard, and there she 
 sat all day, working and watching with dogged patience. 
 
 At four o'clock the birds began to feed ; and a great 
 many of the smaller kinds came fluttering round the 
 cave, and one or two went in. But most of them, taking 
 a preliminary seat on the bushes, suddenly discovered 
 Margaret, and went off with an agitated flirt of their 
 little wings. And although they sailed about in the air, 
 they would not enter the cave. Presently, to encourage 
 them, the hermit, all unconscious of the cause of their 
 tremors, put out a thin white hand with a few crumbs in 
 it, Margaret laid down her work softly, and gliding her 
 body forward like a snake, looked down at it from above : 
 it was but a few feet from her. It was as the woman 
 described it, a thin, white hand. 
 
 Presently the other hand came out with a piece of 
 bread, and the two hands together broke it and scattered 
 the crumbs. 
 
 But that other hand had hardly been out two seconds 
 ere the violet eyes that were watching above, dilated ; 
 and the gentle bosom heaved, and the whole frame quiv- 
 ered like a leaf in the wind. 
 
 What her swift eye had seen, I leave the reader to 
 guess. She suppressed the scream that rose to her lips; 
 but the effort cost her dear. Soon the left hand of the 
 hermit began to swim indistinctly before her gloating- 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 385 
 
 eyes : and with a deep sigh her head drooped, and she 
 lay like a broken lily. 
 
 She was in a deep swoon, to which perhaps her long 
 fast to-day, and the agitation and sleeplessness of many 
 preceding days contributed. 
 
 And there lay beauty, intelligence, and constancy: 
 pale and silent. And little that hermit guessed who 
 was so near him. The little birds hopped on her now : 
 and one nearly entangled his little feet in her rich auburn 
 hair. 
 
 She came back to her troubles. The sun was set. She 
 was very cold. She cried a little ; but I think it was 
 partly from the remains of physical weakness. And 
 then she went home, praying God and the saints to 
 enlighten her and teach her what to do for the best. 
 
 When she got home she was pale and hysterical, and 
 would say nothing in answer to all their questions but 
 her favorite word, " We are wading in deep waters." 
 
 The night seemed to have done wonders for her. 
 
 She came to Catherine, who was sitting sighing by the 
 fireside, and kissed her, and said, " Mother, what would 
 you like best in the world ? " 
 
 "Eh, dear," replied Catherine, despondently. "I 
 know nought that would make me smile now ; I have 
 parted from too many that were dear to me. Gerard 
 lost again as soon as found. Kate in heaven; and 
 Sybrandt down for life." 
 
 "Poor mother! Mother dear, Gouda manse is to be 
 furnished, and cleaned, and made ready all in a hurry. 
 See, here be ten gold angels. Make them go far, good 
 mother ; for I have ta'en over many already from my 
 boy, for a set of useless loons that were aye going to find 
 him for me." 
 
 Catherine and Eeicht stared at her a moment in 
 silence ; and then out burst a flood of questions, to none 
 
386 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 of which would she give a reply. " Nay," said she, " 1 
 have lain on rny bed, and thought, and thought, and 
 thought, whiles you were all sleeping ; and methinks I 
 have got the clew to all. I love you, dear mother ; but 
 I'll trust no woman's tongue. If I fail this time, I'll 
 have none to blame but Margaret Brandt." 
 
 A resolute woman is a very resolute thing. And there 
 was a deep, dogged determination in Margaret's voice 
 and brow, that at once convinced Catherine it would be 
 idle to put any more questions at that time. She and 
 Reicht lost themselves in conjectures ; and Catherine 
 whispered Reicht, " Bide quiet ; then 'twill leak out ; " 
 a shrewd piece of advice, founded on general observation. 
 
 Within an hour Catherine was on the road to Gouda 
 in a cart, with two stout girls to help her, and quite a 
 siege artillery of mops, and pails, and brushes. She 
 came back with heightened color, and something of the 
 old sparkle in her eye, and kissed Margaret with a silent 
 warmth that spoke volumes ; and at five in the morning 
 was off again to Gouda. 
 
 That night as Reicht was in her first sleep, a hand 
 gently pressed her shoulder, and she awoke, and was 
 going to scream. 
 
 "Whisht," said Margaret, and put her finger to her 
 lips. 
 
 She then whispered, " Rise softly, don thy habits, and 
 come with me ! " 
 
 When she came down, Margaret begged her to loose 
 Dragon and bring him along. Now Dragon was a great 
 mastiff, who had guarded Margaret Van Eyck and 
 Reicht, two lone women, for some years, and was de- 
 votedly attached to the latter. 
 
 Margaret and Reicht went out, with Dragon walking 
 majestically behind them. They came back long after 
 midnight, and retired to rest. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 387 
 
 Catherine never knew. 
 
 Margaret read her friends. She saw the sturdy, 
 faithful Frisian could hold her tongue, and Catherine 
 could not. Yet I am not sure she would have trusted 
 even Eeicht, had her nerve equalled her spirit ; but with 
 all her daring and resolution, she was a tender, timid 
 woman, a little afraid of the dark, very afraid of being 
 alone in it, and desperately afraid of wolves. Now 
 Dragon could kill a wolf in a brace of shakes ; but then 
 Dragon would not go with her, but only with Eeicht. 
 So altogether she made one confidante. 
 
 The next night they made another moonlight recon- 
 noissance, and, as I think, with some result. For not 
 the next night (it. rained that night and extinguished 
 their courage), but the next after, they took with them 
 a companion ; the last in the world Eeicht Heynes 
 would have thought of ; yet she gave her warm approval 
 as soon as she was told he was to go with them. 
 
 Imagine how these stealthy assailants trembled and 
 panted, when the moment of action came; imagine, if 
 you can, the tumult in Margaret's breast, the thrilling 
 hopes chasing, and chased by, sickening fears ; the 
 strange and perhaps unparalleled mixture of tender 
 familiarity and distant awe, with which a lovely and 
 high-spirited, but tender, adoring woman, wife in the 
 eye of the law, and no wife in the eye of the Church, 
 trembling, blushing, paling, glowing, shivering, stole at 
 night, noiseless as the dew, upon the hermit of Gouda. 
 
 And the stars above seemed never so bright and calm. 
 
388 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 Yes, the hermit of Gouda was the vicar of Gouda, and 
 knew it not, so absolute was his seclusion. 
 
 My reader is aware that the moment the frenzy of his 
 passion passed, he was seized with remorse for having 
 been betrayed into it. But perhaps only those who have 
 risen as high in religious spirit as he had, and suddenly 
 fallen, can realize the terror at himself that took posses- 
 sion of him. He felt like one whom self-confidence had 
 betrayed to the very edge of a precipice. "Ah, good 
 Jerome," he cried, " how much better you knew me than 
 I knew myself ! How bitter yet wholesome was your 
 admonition ! " 
 
 Accustomed to search his own heart, he saw at once 
 that the true cause of his fury was Margaret. u I love 
 her, then, better than God," said he, despairingly; 
 "better than the Church. From such a love what can 
 spring to me, or to her ? " He shuddered at the thought. 
 " Let the strong battle temptation ; 'tis for the weak to 
 flee. And who is weaker than I have shown myself ? 
 What is my penitence, my religion ? A pack of cards 
 built by degrees into a fair-seeming structure ; and, lo ! 
 one breath of earthly love, and it lies in the dust. I 
 must begin again, and on a surer foundation." He 
 resolved to leave Holland at once, and spend years of 
 his life in some distant convent before returning to it. 
 By that time the temptations of earthly passion would 
 be doubly baffled ; an older and a better monk, he should 
 be more master of his earthly affections, and Margaret, 
 seeing herself abandoned, would marry, and love another. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 389 
 
 The very anguish this last thought cost him showed the 
 self-searcher and self-denier, that he was on the path of 
 religious duty. 
 
 But in leaving her for his immortal good and hers, he 
 was not to neglect her temporal weal. Indeed, the sweet 
 thought, he could make her comfortable for life, and rich 
 in this world's goods, which she was not bound to 
 despise, sustained him in the bitter struggle it cost him 
 to turn his back on her without one kind word or look. 
 " Oh, what will she think of me ? " he groaned. " Shall 
 I not seem to her of all creatures the most heartless, 
 inhuman ? but so best ; ay, better she should hate me, 
 miserable that I am. Heaven is merciful, and giveth 
 my broken heart this comfort ; I can make that villain 
 restore her own, and she shall never lose another true 
 lover by poverty. Another ? Ah me ! ah me ! God and 
 the saints to mine aid ! " 
 
 How he fared on this errand has been related. But 
 first, as you may perhaps remember, he went at night to 
 shrive the hermit of Gouda. He found him dying, and 
 never left him till he had closed his eyes and buried him 
 beneath the floor of the little oratory attached to his cell. 
 It was the peaceful end of a stormy life. The hermit 
 had been a soldier, and even now carried a steel corselet 
 next his skin, saying he was now Christ's soldier as he 
 had been Satan's. When Clement had shriven him and 
 prayed by him, he, in his turn, sought counsel of one 
 who was dying in so pious a frame. The hermit advised 
 him to be his successor in this peaceful retreat. " His 
 had been a hard fight against the world, the flesh, and 
 the devil, and he had never thoroughly baffled them till 
 he retired into the citadel of Solitude." 
 
 These words and the hermit's pious and peaceful 
 death, which speedily followed, and set as it were the 
 seal of immortal truth on them, made a deep impression 
 
390 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 upon Clement. Nor in his case had they any prejudice 
 to combat; the solitary recluse was still profoundly 
 revered in the Church, whether immured as an anchorite, 
 or anchoress, in some cave or cell belonging to a monas- 
 tery, or hidden in the more savage but laxer seclusion of 
 the independent hermitage. And Clement knew more 
 about the hermits of the Church than most divines at 
 his time of life ; he had read much thereon at the monas- 
 tery near Tergou ; had devoured their lives with wonder 
 and delight in the manuscripts of the Vatican, and con- 
 versed earnestly about them with the mendicant friars 
 of several nations. Before printing, these friars were 
 the great circulators of those local annals and biographies 
 which accumulated in the convents of every land. Then 
 his teacher, Jerome, had been three years an anchorite 
 on the heights of Camaldoli, where for more than four 
 centuries the Thebaid had been revived; and Jerome, 
 cold and curt on most religious themes, was warm with 
 enthusiasm on this one. He had pored over the annals 
 of St. John Baptist's abbey, round about which the 
 hermits' caves were scattered, and told him the names 
 of many a noble, and many a famous warrior, who had 
 ended his days there a hermit, and of many a bishop 
 and archbishop who had passed from the see to the her- 
 mitage, or from the hermitage to the see. Among the 
 former the archbishop of Bavenna; among the latter 
 Pope Victor the Ninth. He told him too, with grim 
 delight, of their multifarious austerities, and how each 
 hermit set himself to find where he was weakest, and 
 attacked himself without mercy or remission till there, 
 even there, he was strongest. And how seven times in 
 the twenty-four hours, in thunder, rain, or snow, by day- 
 light, twilight, moonlight, or torchlight, the solitaries 
 flocked from distant points, over rugged precipitous 
 ways, to worship in the convent church; at matins, at 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 391 
 
 prime, tierce, sexte, nones, vespers, and complin. He 
 even, under eager questioning, described to him the 
 persons of famous anchorites he had sung the Psalter 
 and prayed with there ; the only intercourse their vows 
 allowed, except with special permission. Moncata, Duke 
 of Moncata and Cardova, and Hidalgo of Spain, who in 
 the flower of his youth had retired thither from the 
 pomps, vanities, and pleasures of the world; Father 
 John Baptist of Novara, who had led armies to battle, 
 but was now a private soldier of Christ; Cornelius, 
 Samuel, and Sylvanus. This last, when the great Duchess 
 de J Medici obtained the Pope's leave, hitherto refused, 
 to visit Camaldoli, went down and met her at the first 
 wooden cross, and there, surrounded as she was with 
 courtiers and flatterers, remonstrated with her and per- 
 suaded her, and warned her, not to profane that holy 
 mountain, where no woman for so many centuries had 
 placed her foot ; and she, awed by the place and the man, 
 retreated with all her captains, soldiers, courtiers, and 
 pages, from that one hoary hermit. At Basle Clement 
 found fresh materials, especially with respect to German 
 and English anchorites; and he had even prepared a 
 Catena Eremitarum from the year of our Lord 250, when 
 Paul of Thebes commenced his ninety years of solitude, 
 down to the year 1470. He called them Angelorum 
 amid et animalium, i.e., "Friends of Angels and 
 animals." 
 
 Thus, though in those days he never thought to be a 
 recluse, the road was paved, so to speak ; and when the 
 dying hermit of Gouda blessed the citadel of Solitude, 
 where lie had fought the good fight and won it, and 
 invited him to take up the breastplate of faith, that now 
 fell off his own shrunken body, Clement said within 
 himself : " Heaven itself led my foot hither to this end." 
 It struck him too, as no small coincidence, that his 
 
392 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 patron, St. Bavon, was a hermit, and an austere one, a 
 cuirassier 1 of the solitary cell. 
 
 As soon as he was reconciled to Ghysbrecht Van 
 Swieten, he went eagerly to his new abode, praying 
 Heaven it might not have been already occupied in these 
 three days. The fear was not vain ; these famous dens 
 never wanted a human tenant long. He found the rude 
 stone door ajar; then he made sure he was too late; he 
 opened the door and went softly in. No ; the cell was 
 vacant, and there were the hermit's great ivory crucifix, 
 his pens, ink, seeds, and memento mori, a skull ; his cilice 
 of hair, and another of bristles ; his well-worn sheep- 
 skin pelisse and hood, his hammer, chisel, and psaltery, 
 etc. Men and women had passed that way, but none 
 had ventured to intrude, far less to steal. Faith and 
 simplicity had guarded that keyless door more securely 
 than the houses of the laity were defended by their 
 gates like a modern jail, and thick iron bars at every 
 window, and the gentry by moat, bastion, chevaux de 
 frise, and portcullis. 
 
 As soon as Clement was fairly in the cell there was a 
 loud flap, and a flutter, and down came a great brown 
 owl from a corner, and whirled out of the window, 
 driving the air cold on Clement's face. He started, and 
 shuddered. 
 
 Was this seeming owl something diabolical ? trying to 
 deter him from his soul's good ? On second thoughts, 
 might it not be some good spirit the hermit had 
 employed to keep the cell for him, perhaps the hermit 
 himself ? Finally he concluded that it was just. an owl; 
 and that he would try and make friends with it. 
 
 He kneeled down and inaugurated his new life with 
 prayer. 
 
 Clement had not only an earthly passion to quell, the 
 
 * " Loricatus," vide Ducange, in voce. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 393 
 
 power of which made him tremble for his eternal weal, 
 but he had a penance to do for having given way to ire, 
 his besetting sin, and cursed his own brothers. 
 
 He looked round this roomy cell furnished with so 
 many comforts, and compared it with the pictures in his 
 mind of the hideous place, eremus in eremo, a desert in a 
 desert, where holy Jerome, hermit, and the Plutarch of 
 hermits, had wrestled with sickness, temptation, and 
 despair, four mortal years ; and with the inaccessible 
 and thorny niche, a hole in a precipice, where the boy 
 hermit Benedict buried himself, and lived three years 
 on the pittance the good monk Komanus could spare him 
 from his scanty commons ; and subdivided that mouthful 
 with his friend, a raven ; and the hollow tree of his 
 patron St. Bavon, and the earthly purgatory at Fribourg, 
 where lived a nameless saint in a horrid cavern, his eyes 
 chilled with perpetual gloom, and his ears stunned with 
 an eternal waterfall ; and the pillar on which St. Simeon 
 Stylita existed forty -five years, and the destina, or stone 
 box, of St. Dunstan, where, like Hilarion in his bulrush 
 hive, sepulchro potius quam domu, he could scarce sit, 
 stand, or lie ; and the living tombs, sealed with lead, of 
 Thais, and Christina, and other recluses ; and the damp 
 dungeon of St. Aired. These and scores more of the 
 dismal dens in which true hermits had worn out their 
 wasted bodies on the rock, and the rock under their 
 sleeping bodies, and their praying knees, all came into 
 his mind, and he said to himself, " This sweet retreat is 
 for safety of the soul ; but what for penance ? Jesu, aid 
 me against faults to come ; and for the fault I rue, face 
 of man I will not see for a twelvemonth and a day." 
 He had famous precedents in his eye even for this last 
 and unusual severity. In fact, the original hermit of 
 this very cell was clearly under the same vow. Hence 
 the two apertures through which he was spoken to, and 
 replied. 
 
394 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Adopting, in other respects, the uniform rule of her« 
 mits and anchorites, he divided his day into the seven 
 offices, ignoring the petty accidents of light and dark, 
 creations both of Him to whom he prayed so unceas- 
 ingly. He learned the Psalter by heart, and in all the 
 intervals of devotion, not occupied by broken slumbers, 
 he worked hard with his hands. No article of the 
 hermit's rule was more strict or more ancient than this. 
 And here his self-imposed penance embarrassed him, for 
 what work could he do, without being seen, that should 
 benefit his neighbors? for the hermit was to labor for 
 himself in those cases only where his subsistence 
 depended on it. Now Clement's modest needs were 
 amply supplied by the villagers. 
 
 On moonlight nights he would steal out like a thief, 
 and dig some poor man's garden on the outskirts of the 
 village. He made baskets and dropped them slyly at 
 humble doors. 
 
 And since he could do nothing for the bodies of those 
 who passed by his cell in daytime, he went out in the 
 dead of the night with his hammer and his chisel, and 
 carved moral and religious sentences all down the road 
 upon the sandstone rocks. " Who knows ? 99 said he, 
 " often a chance shaft striketh home. 0 sore heart, 
 comfort thou the poor and bereaved with holy words of 
 solace in their native tongue ; for he said well, 'tis 
 ' clavls ad corda plebis? 99 Also he remembered the 
 learned Colonna had told him of the written mountains 
 in the East where kings had inscribed their victories. 
 " What," said Clement, " are they so wise, those Eastern 
 monarchs, to engrave their warlike glory upon the rock, 
 making a blood bubble endure so long as earth ; and shall 
 I leave the rocks about me silent on the King of Glory, 
 at whose word they were, and at whose breath they shall 
 be dust ? Nay, but these stones shall speak to weary 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 395 
 
 wayfarers of eternal peace, and of the Lamb whose frail, 
 and afflicted, yet happy servant worketh them among." 
 
 Now at this time the inspired words that have con- 
 soled the poor and the afflicted for so many ages, were 
 not yet printed in Dutch, so that these sentences of gold 
 from the holy Evangelists came like fresh oracles from 
 heaven, or like the dew on parched flowers ; and the 
 poor hermit's written rocks softened a heart or two, and 
 sent the heavy laden singing on their way. 1 
 
 These holy oracles that seemed to spring up around 
 him like magic; his prudent answers through his window 
 to such as sought ghostly counsel ; and, above all, his 
 invisibility, soon gained him a prodigious reputation. 
 This was not diminished by the medical advice they 
 now and then extorted from him, sore against his will, 
 by tears and entreaties ; for if the patients got well, they 
 gave the holy hermit the credit, and, if not, they laid all 
 the blame on the devil. I think he killed nobody, for 
 his remedies were " womanish and weak." Sage, and 
 wormwood, sion, hyssop, borage, spikenard, dog's-tongue, 
 our Lady's mantle, feverfew, and faith, and all in small 
 quantities except the last. 
 
 Then his abstinence, sure sign of a saint. The eggs 
 and milk they brought him at first he refused with 
 horror. Know ye not the hermit's rule is bread, or 
 herbs, and water ? Eggs, they are birds in disguise ; for 
 when the bird dieth then the egg rotteth. As for milk, 
 it is little better than white blood. And when they 
 brought him too much bread he refused it. Then they 
 used to press it on him. " Nay, holy father ; give the 
 overplus to the poor." 
 
 " You who go among the poor can do that better. Ts 
 
 1 It requires nowadays 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," etc. 
 
396 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 bread a thing to fling hap-hazard from an hermit's 
 window ? " And to those who persisted after this : "To 
 live on charity, yet play Sir Bountiful, is to lie with the 
 right hand. Giving another's to the poor, I should beguile 
 them of their thanks, and cheat thee the true giver. 
 Thus do thieves, whose boast it is they bleed the rich 
 into the lap of the poor. Occasio avaritice nomen pau- 
 perum." 
 
 When nothing else would convince the good souls, this 
 piece of Latin always brought them round. So would a 
 line of Virgil's Mneid. 
 
 This great reputation of sanctity was all external. 
 Inside the cell was a man who held the hermit of Gouda 
 as cheap as dirt. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, " I cannot deceive myself ; I cannot 
 deceive God's animals. See the little birds, how coy 
 they be ! I feed and feed them and long for their friend- 
 ship, yet will they never come within, nor take my hand, 
 by lighting on't. For why ? No Paul, no Benedict, no 
 Hugh of Lincoln, no Columba, no Guthlac, bides in this 
 cell. Hunted doe flieth not hither, for here is no Fructu- 
 osus, nor Aventine, nor Albert of Suabia ; nor e'en a 
 pretty squirrel cometh from the wood hard by for the 
 acorns I have hoarded ; for here abideth no Columban. 
 The very owl that was here hath fled. They are not to 
 be deceived; I have a Pope's word for that; Heaven 
 rest his soul." 
 
 Clement had one advantage over her, whose image in 
 his heart he was bent on destroying. 
 
 He had suffered and survived the pang of bereave- 
 ment ; and the mind cannot quite repeat such anguish. 
 Then he had built up a habit of looking on her as dead. 
 After that strange scene in the church and churchyard 
 of St. Laurens, that habit might be compared to a 
 structure riven by a thunderbolt. It was shattered, but 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 397 
 
 stones enough stood to found a similar habit on ; to look 
 on her as dead to him. 
 
 And, by severe subdivision of his time and thoughts, 
 by unceasing prayers, and manual labor, he did, in about 
 three months, succeed in benumbing the earthly half of 
 his heart. 
 
 But lo ! within a day or two of this first symptom of 
 mental peace returning slowly, there descended upon his 
 mind a horrible despondency. 
 
 Words cannot utter it ; for words never yet painted a 
 likeness of despair. Voices seemed to whisper in his 
 ear, " Kill thyself ! kill ! kill ! kill ! " 
 
 And he longed to obey the voices ; for life was intol- 
 erable. He wrestled with his dark enemy with prayers 
 and tears; he prayed God but to vary his temptation. 
 " Oh, let mine enemy have power to scourge me with red- 
 hot whips, to tear me leagues and leagues over rugged 
 places by the hair of my head, as he has served many a 
 holy hermit, that yet baffled him at last ; to fly on me 
 like a raging lion ; to gnaw me with a serpent's fangs : 
 any pain, any terror, but this horrible gloom of the soul 
 that shuts me from all light of Thee and of the saints." 
 
 And now a freezing thought crossed him. What if 
 the triumphs of the powers of darkness over Christian 
 souls in desert places, had been suppressed ; and only 
 their defeats recorded, or at least in full : for dark hints 
 were scattered about antiquity that now first began to 
 grin at him with terrible meaning. 
 
 "They wandered in the desert and perished by ser- 
 pents," said an ancient father, of hermits that went into 
 solitude, "and were seen no more." And another at a 
 more recent epoch, wrote : " Vertuntur ad melancholiam ;" 
 " they turn to gloomy madness." These two statements 
 were they not one ? for the ancient fathers never spoke 
 with regret of the death of the body. No, the hermits 
 
398 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 so lost were perished souls, and the serpents were dia- 
 bolical 1 thoughts, the natural brood of solitude. 
 
 St. Jerome went into the desert with three companions', 
 one fled in the first year ; two died : how ? The single 
 one that lasted, was a gigantic soul with an iron 
 body. 
 
 The contemporary who related this made no comment : 
 expressed no wonder. TThat then if here was a glimpse 
 of the true proportion in every age. and many souls had 
 always been lost in solitude for one gigantic mind and 
 iron body that survived this terrible ordeal ? 
 
 The darkened recluse now cast his despairing eyes 
 over antiquity to see what weapons the Christian arsenal 
 contained, that might befriend him. The greatest of all 
 was prayer. Alas ! it was a part of his malady to be 
 unable to pray with true fervor. The very system of 
 mechanical supplication he had for months carried out 
 so severely by rule had rather checked than fostered his 
 power of originating true prayer. 
 
 He prayed louder than ever, but the heart hung back 
 cold and gloomy, and let the words go up alone. 
 
 '•'Poor wingless prayers,"'' he cried ; "you will not get 
 half way to heaven.'' 
 
 A fiend of this complexion had been driven out of 
 King Saul by music. 
 
 Clement took up the hermit's psaltery, and with much 
 trouble mended the strings and tuned it. 
 
 Nb 3 he could not play it. His soul was so out of tune. 
 The sounds jarred on it, and made him almost mad. 
 
 " Ah, wretched me ! " he cried. " Saul had a saint to 
 play to him. He was not alone with the spirits of dark- 
 ness ; but here is no sweet bard of Israel to play to me ; 
 
 1 The primitive writer was so interpreted by others besides Clement ; and, 
 in particular by Peter of Blois, a divine of the twelfth century, whose com- 
 ment is noteworthy, as he himself was a forty-year hermit. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 399 
 
 I, lonely, with crushed heart, on which a black fiend 
 sitteth mountain high, must make the music to uplift 
 that heart to heaven ; it may not be." And he grovelled 
 on the earth weeping and tearing his hair. 
 Vertebatur ad melancholiam. 
 
400 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTJSK XL1V. 
 
 One day as he lay there sighing, and groaning, prayer* 
 less, 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 God 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 labor'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 mass 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 
 chinks 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 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 401 
 
 plied, with sighs and groans, his bloodless weapon, be- 
 tween working and fighting. 
 
 Kyrie Eleeison. 
 Christe Eleeison. 
 
 Tov Zaxavav ovvtqiyov tino jovg nodag fifmv. 1 
 Sursum corda. 2 
 
 Deus Refugium nostrum et virtus. 3 
 
 Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere mihi. 4 
 
 Sancta Trinitas unus Deus, miserere nobis. 5 
 
 Ab infestationibus Daemonum, a ventura ira, a damnatione 
 perpetua, — Libera nos Domine. 6 
 
 Deus, qui miro ordine Angelorum ministeria, etc. (the whole 
 collect). 7 
 
 Quern quserimus 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 : — 
 
 0 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 fixus est in cruce. Nam, si passio 
 Christi ad memoriam revocetur, nihil est tarn durum quod non 
 aequo animo toleretur. 
 
 1 Beat down Satan under our feet. 
 
 3 Up, hearts ! 
 
 8 O God our refuge and strength. 
 
 4 O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon 
 me! 
 
 6 O Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy upon us. 
 
 6 From the assaults of demons, — from the wrath to come,— -from ever, 
 lasting damnation — Deliver us, O Lord ! 
 
 » See the English collect, St. Michael and all Angels. 
 
 8 Of whom may we seek succor, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins 
 art justly displeased (and that torrent of prayer, the following verse). 
 
402 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 low 
 stool near his feet, ruffling all his feathers with a single 
 pull, and smoothing them as suddenly, and cocking 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 astute- 
 ness ; and then, pirn, pirn, pirn, 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 vis- 
 itor. 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 busybody was on the breviary again. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 403 
 
 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 slyly got a crumb between a finger and thumb and 
 shot it as boys do marbles, keeping the hand quite still. 
 
 Cock-robin 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. Cock-robin 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 sol- 
 itary ; " thy wings are music, and thou a feathered ray 
 camedst to light my darkened soul." 
 
 And from that to his orisons j and then to his tools 
 with a little bit of courage ; and this was his day's 
 work : — 
 
 Veni Creator Spiritus 
 M entes tuorum visita 
 linple superna gratia 
 Quae ru 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 
 
404 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 illu- 
 minated 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 God to his tuneful 
 psaltery, and his hollow cave rang forth the holy psal- 
 mody upon the night, as if that cave itself was Tubal' s 
 sounding shell, or David's harp, he heard a clear whine, 
 not unmelodious ; it became louder and less in tune. He 
 peeped through the chinks 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 God are owning me, one after an- 
 other. 1 ' 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 inter- 
 vals. 
 
 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 antelope's he had 
 seen at Eome, and fanned him with broad wings hued 
 like the rainbow, and their gentle voices bade him speed 
 upon his course. 
 
 He had not long enjoyed this felicity when his dreams 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 405 
 
 began to take another and a strange complexion. He 
 wandered with Fra Colonna over the relics of antique 
 nations, and the friar was lame and had a staff, and this 
 staff he waved over the mighty ruins, and were they 
 Egyptian, Greek, or Koman, straightway the temples 
 and palaces whose wrecks they were, rose again like an 
 exhalation, and were thronged with the famous dead. 
 Songsters that might have eclipsed both Apollo and his 
 rival, poured forth their lays : women, godlike in form, 
 and draped like Minerva, swam round the marble courts 
 in voluptuous but easy and graceful dances. Here sculp- 
 tors carved away amidst admiring pupils, and forms of 
 supernatural beauty grew out of Parian marble in a quar- 
 ter of an hour; and grave philosophers conversed on high 
 and subtle matters, with youth listening reverently : it 
 was a long time ago. And still beneath all this wonder- 
 ful panorama a sort of suspicion or expectation lurked 
 in the dreamer's mind. " This is a prologue, a flourish, 
 there is something behind ; something that means me no 
 good, something mysterious, awful." 
 
 And one night that the wizard Colonna had tran- 
 scended himself, he pointed with his stick, and there 
 was a swallowing up of many great ancient cities, and 
 the pair stood on a vast sandy plain with a huge crimson 
 sun sinking to rest. There were great palm-trees ; and 
 there were bulrush hives, scarce a man's height, dotted 
 all about to the sandy horizon, and the crimson sun. 
 
 " These are the anchorites of the Theban desert," said 
 Colonna, calmly ; " followers not of Christ and his apos- 
 tles, and the great fathers, but of the Greek pupils of 
 the Egyptian pupils of the Brachmans and Gymnoso- 
 phists." 
 
 And Clement thought that he burned to go and embrace 
 the holy men and tell them his troubles, and seek their 
 advice. But he was tied by the feet somehow, and could 
 
406 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEABTH. 
 
 not move, and the crimson sun sank ; and it got dusk, 
 and the hives scarce visible. And Colonna's figure be- 
 came shadowy and shapeless, but his eyes glowed ten 
 times brighter : and this thing all eyes spoke and said : 
 " Xay, let them be, a pack of fools ! see how dismal it 
 all is." Then with a sudden sprightliness, " But I hear 
 one of them has a manuscript of Petronius, on papyrus ; 
 I go to buy it, farewell forever, forever, forever." 
 
 And it was x>itch dark, and a light came at Clement's 
 back like a gentle stroke ; a glorious roseate light. It 
 warmed as well as brightened. It loosened his feet 
 from the ground ; he turned round, and there, her face 
 irradiated with sunshine, and her hair glittering like the 
 gloriola of a saint, was ^Margaret Brandt. 
 
 She blushed and smiled and cast a look of ineffable 
 tenderness on him. "'Gerard," she murmured, "be 
 whose thou wilt by day, but at night be mine ! " 
 
 Even as she spoke, the agitation of seeing her so sud- 
 denly awakened him, and he found himself lying trem- 
 bling from head to foot. 
 
 That radiant figure, and mellow voice, seemed to have 
 struck his nightly keynote. 
 
 Awake he could pray and praise and worship God ; he 
 was master of his thoughts. But, if he closed his eyes 
 in sleep, ^Margaret, or Satan in her shape, beset him a 
 seeming angel of light. He might dream of a thousand 
 different things, wide as the poles asunder, ere he woke 
 the imperial figure was sure to come and extinguish all 
 the rest in a moment, stellas exortus uti cetherius sol : for 
 she came glowing with two beauties never before united, 
 an angel's radiance and a woman's blushes. 
 
 Angels cannot blush. So he knew it was a fiend. 
 
 He was alarmed, but not so much surprised as at the 
 demon's last artifice. From Anthony to Nicholas of the 
 Bock scarce a hermit that had not been thus beset; 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 407 
 
 sometimes with gay voluptuous visions, sometimes with 
 lovely phantoms, warm, tangible, and womanly without, 
 demons within, nor always baffled even by the saints. 
 Witness that "angel form with a devil's heart," that 
 came hanging its lovely head, like a bruised flower, to 
 St. Macarius, with a feigned tale : and wept, and wept, 
 and wept, and beguiled him first of his tears and then of 
 half his virtue. 
 
 But with the examples of Satanic power and craft had 
 come down copious records of the hermits' triumphs and 
 the weapons by which they had conquered. 
 
 Domandum est corpus; the body must be tamed ; this 
 had been their watchword for twelve hundred years. It 
 was a tremendous war-cry ; for they called the earthly 
 affections, as well as appetites, body ; and crushed 
 the whole heart through the suffering and mortified 
 flesh. 
 
 Clement then said to himself that the great enemy of 
 man had retired but to spring with more effect, and had 
 allowed him a few days of true purity and joy only to 
 put him off his guard against the soft blandishments he 
 was pouring over the soul, that had survived the buffet- 
 ing of his black wings. He applied himself to tame the 
 body : he shortened his sleep, lengthened his prayers, 
 and increased his severe temperance to abstinence. 
 Hitherto, following the ordinary rule, he had eaten 
 only at sunset. Now he ate but once in forty-eight 
 hours, drinking a little water every day. 
 
 On this the visions became more distinct. 
 
 Then he flew to a famous antidote; to "the grand 
 febrifuge " of anchorites — cold water. 
 
 He found the deepest part of the stream that ran by 
 his cell ; it rose not far off at a holy well ; and, clearing 
 the bottom of the large stones, made a hole where he 
 could stand in water to the chin, and, fortified by so 
 
408 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 many examples, he sprang from his rude bed upon the 
 next diabolical assault, and entered the icy water. 
 
 It made him gasp and almost shriek with the cold. It 
 froze his marrow. " I shall die," he cried, " I shall die : 
 but better this than fire eternal." And the next day he 
 was so stiff in all his joints he could not move, and he 
 seemed one great ache. And even in sleep he felt that 
 his very bones were like so many raging teeth, till the 
 phantom he dreaded came and gave one pitying smile, 
 and all the pain was gone. 
 
 Then, feeling that to go into the icy water again, 
 enfeebled by fasts, as he was, might perhaps carry the 
 guilt of suicide, he scourged himself till the blood ran, 
 and so lay down smarting. 
 
 And when exhaustion began to blunt the smart down 
 to a throb, that moment the present was away, and the 
 past came smiling back. He sat with Margaret at the 
 duke's feast, the minstrels played divinely, and the pur- 
 ple fountains gushed. Youth and love reigned in each 
 heart, and perfumed the very air. 
 
 Then the scene shifted, and they stood at the altar 
 together man and wife. And no interruption this time, 
 and they wandered hand in hand, and told each other 
 their horrible dreams. As for him, "he had dreamed 
 she was dead, and he was a monk ; and really the dream 
 had been so vivid, and so full of particulars, that only 
 his eyesight could even now convince him it was only a 
 dream, and they were really one." 
 
 And this new keynote once struck, every tune ran 
 upon it. Awake he was Clement the hermit, risen from 
 unearthly visions of the night, as dangerous as they 
 were sweet; asleep he was Gerard Eliassoen, the happy 
 husband of the loveliest and best and truest girl in 
 Holland : all the happier that he had been for some time 
 the sport of hideous dreams, in which he had lost her. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 409 
 
 His constant fasts, coupled with other austerities, and 
 the deep mental anxiety of a man fighting with a super- 
 natural foe, had now reduced him nearly to a skeleton ; 
 but still on those aching bones hung flesh unsubdued, 
 and quivering with an earthly passion ; so, however, he 
 thought : " or why had ill spirits such power over him ? " 
 His opinion was confirmed, when one day he detected 
 himself sinking to sleep actually with a feeling of com- 
 placency, because now Margaret would come, and he 
 should feel no more pain, and the unreal would be real, 
 and the real unreal, for an hour. 
 
 On this he rose hastily with a cry of dismay, and 
 stripping to the skin climbed up to the brambles above 
 his cave, and flung himself on them, and rolled on them 
 writhing with the pain : then he came into his den a 
 mass of gore, and lay moaning for hours ; till, out of 
 sheer exhaustion he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. 
 
 He awoke to bodily pain, and mental exultation ; he 
 had broken the fatal spell. Yes, it was broken ; another 
 and another day passed, and her image molested him no 
 more. But he caught himself sighing at his victory. 
 
 The birds got tamer and tamer ; they perched upon 
 his hand. Two of them let him gild their little claws. 
 Eating but once in two days, he had more to give them. 
 
 His tranquillity was not to last long. 
 
 A woman's voice came in from the outside, told him 
 his own story in a very few words, and asked him to tell 
 her where Gerard was to be found. 
 
 He was so astounded he could only say, with an in- 
 stinct of self-defence, " Pray for the soul of Gerard the 
 son of Eli ! " meaning that he was dead to the world. 
 And he sat wondering. 
 
 When the woman was gone, he determined, after an 
 inward battle, to risk being seen, and he peeped after 
 her to see who it could be ; but he took so many precau* 
 
410 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 tions, and she ran so quickly back to her friend, that the 
 road was clear. 
 
 " Satan ! " said he directly. 
 
 And that night back came his visions of earthly love 
 and happiness so vividly, he could count every auburn 
 hair in Margaret's head, and see the pupils of her eyes. 
 
 Then he began to despair, and said, " I must leave 
 this country ; here I am bound fast in memory's chain;" 
 and began to dread his cell. He said, " A breath from 
 hell hath infected it, and robbed even these holy 
 words of their virtue." And unconsciously imitating 
 St. Jerome, a victim of earthly hallucinations, as over- 
 powering and coarser, he took his warmest covering out 
 into the wood hard by, and there flung down under a 
 tree that torn and wrinkled leather bag of bones, which 
 a little ago might have served a sculptor for Apollo. 
 
 Whether the fever of his imagination intermitted, as 
 a master mind of our day has shown that all things 
 intermit, 1 or that this really broke some subtle link, I 
 know not, but his sleep was dreamless. 
 
 He awoke nearly frozen, but warm with joy within. 
 
 " I shall yet be a true hermit, Dei gratia" said he. 
 
 The next day some good soul left ononis little plat- 
 form a new lamb's-wool pelisse and cape, warm, soft, and 
 ample. 
 
 He had a moment's misgiving on account of its deli- 
 cious softness and warmth ; but that passed. It was the 
 right skin, 2 and a mark that Heaven approved his pres- 
 ent course. 
 
 It restored warmth to his bones after he came in from 
 his short rest. 
 
 And now, at one moment he saw victory before him if 
 
 1 Dr. Dickson, author of Fallacies of the Faculty, etc. 
 
 2 It is related of a mediaeval hermit, that being offered a garment made of 
 cats' skins, he rejected it, saying, "I have heard of a lamb of God, but I 
 never heard of a cat of God." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 411 
 
 he could but live to it ; at another, he said to himself, 
 " 'Tis but another lull ; be on thy guard, Clement." 
 
 And this thought agitated his nerves, and kept him in 
 continual awe. 
 
 He was like a soldier within the enemy's lines. 
 
 One night, a beautiful clear frosty night, he came 
 back to his cell, after a short rest. The stars were won- 
 derful. Heaven seemed a thousand times larger as well 
 as brighter than earth, and to look with a thousand eyes 
 instead of one. 
 
 " Oh, wonderful," he cried, " that there should be men 
 who do crimes by night; and others scarce less mad, 
 who live for this little world, and not for that great and 
 glorious one, which nightly, to all eyes not blinded by 
 custom, reveals its glowing glories. Thank God I am a 
 hermit." 
 
 And in this mood he came to his cell door. 
 He paused at it ; it was closed. 
 
 "Why, methought I left it open," said he. "The 
 wind ! There is not a breath of wind. What means 
 this ? " 
 
 He stood with his hand upon the rugged door. He 
 looked through one of the great chinks, for it was much 
 smaller in places than the aperture it pretended to close, 
 and saw his little oil wick burning just where he had 
 left it. 
 
 "How is it with me," he sighed, "when I start and 
 tremble at nothing ? Either I did shut it, or the fiend 
 hath shut it after me to disturb my happy soul. Retro 
 Sathanas ! " 
 
 And he entered his cave rapidly, and began with some- 
 what nervous expedition to light one of his largest 
 tapers. While he was lighting it, there was a soft sigh 
 in the cave. 
 
 He started and dropped the candle just as it was 
 lighting, and it went out. 
 
412 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 He stooped for it hurriedly and lighted it, listening 
 intently. When it was lighted he shaded it with his 
 hand from behind, and threw the faint light all round 
 the cell. 
 
 In the farthest corner the outline of the wall seemed 
 broken. 
 
 He took a step towards the place with his heart 
 beating. 
 
 The candle at the same time getting brighter, he saw 
 it was the figure of a woman. 
 
 Another step with his knees knocking together. 
 It was Margaret Brandt. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 413 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 Her attitude was one to excite pity rather than terror, 
 in eyes not blinded by a preconceived notion. Her 
 bosom was fluttering like a bird, and the red and white 
 coming and going in her cheeks, and she had her hand 
 against the wall by the instinct of timid things, she 
 trembled so ; and the marvellous mixed gaze of love, 
 and pious awe, and pity, and tender memories, those 
 purple eyes cast on the emaciated and glaring hermit, 
 was an event in nature. 
 
 "Aha!" he cried. "Thou art come at last in flesh 
 and blood ; come to me as thou earnest to holy Anthony. 
 But I am ware of thee ; I thought thy wiles were not 
 exhausted. I am armed." With this he snatched up 
 his small crucifix and held it out at her, astonished, and 
 the- candle in the other hand, both crucifix and candle 
 shaking violently, " Exorcizo te." 
 
 " Ah, no ! " cried she piteously ; and put out two 
 pretty deprecating palms. "Alas ! work me no ill. It 
 is Margaret." 
 
 " Liar ! " shouted the hermit. " Margaret was fair, 
 but not so supernatural fair as thou. Thou didst shrink 
 at that sacred name, thou subtle hypocrite. In Nomine 
 Dei exorcizo vos." 
 
 " Ah, J esu ! " gasped Margaret, in extremity of terror, 
 a curse me not ! I will go home. I thought / might 
 come. For very manhood be-Latin me not ! 0 Gerard, 
 is it thus you and I meet after all ; after all ? " 
 
 And she cowered almost to her knees, and sobbed with 
 superstitious fear and wounded affection. 
 
414 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Impregnated as lie was with Satanophobia, he might 
 perhaps have doubted still whether this distressed 
 creature, all woman, and nature, was not all art, and 
 fiend. But her spontaneous appeal to that sacred name 
 dissolved his chimera ; and let him see with his eyes, 
 and hear with his ears. 
 
 He uttered a cry of self-reproach, and tried to raise 
 her ; but what with fasts, what with the overpowering 
 emotion of a long solitude so broken, he could not. 
 " What," he gasped, shaking over her, " and is it thou ? 
 And have I met thee with hard words ? Alas ! " And 
 they were both choked with emotion, and could not 
 speak for awhile. 
 
 "I heed it not much," said Margaret bravely, strug- 
 gling with her tears ; " you took me for another ; for a 
 devil : oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! oh ! " 
 
 " Forgive me, sweet soul!" And as soon as he could 
 speak more than a word at a time, he said, " I have been 
 much beset by the evil one since I came here." 
 
 Margaret looked round with a shudder. " Like enow. 
 Then, oh take my hand, and let me lead thee from this 
 foul place." 
 
 He gazed at her with astonishment. 
 
 " What, desert my cell, and go into the world again ? 
 Is it for that thou hast come to me ? " said he, sadly and 
 reproachfully. 
 
 " Ay, Gerard. I am come to take thee to thy pretty 
 vicarage : art vicar of G-ouda, thanks to Heaven and thy 
 good brother Giles : and mother and I have made it so 
 neat for thee, Gerard. 'Tis well enow in winter, I prom- 
 ise thee. But bide a bit till the hawthorn bloom, and 
 anon thy walls put on their kirtle of brave roses, and 
 sweet woodbine. Have we forgotten thee, and the fool- 
 ish things thou lovest ? And, dear Gerard, thy mother 
 is waiting ; and 'tis late for her to be out of her bed 5 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 415 
 
 prithee, prithee, come ! And the moment we are out 
 of this foul hole, I'll show thee a treasure thou hast 
 gotten, and knowest nought on't, or sure hadst never 
 fled from us so. Alas ! what is to do ? What have I 
 ignorantly said ; to be regarded thus ? " 
 
 For he had drawn himself all up into a heap, and was 
 looking at her with a strange gaze of fear and suspicion 
 blended. 
 
 " Unhappy girl," said he solemnly, yet deeply agitated, 
 " would you have me risk my soul and yours for a miser- 
 able vicarage and the flowers that grow on it ? But this 
 is not thy doing: the bowelless fiend sends thee, poor 
 simple girl, to me with this bait. But oh, cunning fiend, 
 I will unmask thee even to this thine instrument, and 
 she shall see thee, and abhor thee as I do. Margaret, my 
 lost love, why am I here ? Because I love thee." 
 
 " Oh, no, Gerard, you love me not, or you would not 
 have hidden from me ; there was no need." 
 
 " Let there be no deceit between us twain : that hath 
 loved so true ; and after this night, shall meet no more 
 on earth." 
 
 "Now God forbid ! " said she. 
 
 " I love thee, and thou hast not forgotten me, or thou 
 hadst married ere this, and hadst not been the one to 
 find me, buried here from sight of man. I am a priest, 
 a monk : what but folly or sin can come of you and me 
 living neighbors, and feeding a passion innocent once, 
 but now (so Heaven wills it) impious and unholy ? No, 
 though my heart break, I must be firm. 'Tis I that am 
 the man, 'tis I that am the priest. You and I must 
 meet no more, till I am schooled by solitude, and thou 
 art wedded to another." 
 
 " I consent to my doom but not to thine. I would ten 
 times liever die ; yet I will marry, ay, wed misery itself 
 sooner than let thee lie in this foul dismal place, with 
 
416 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 yon sweet manse a-waiting for thee." Clement groaned^ 
 at each word she spoke out stood clearer and clearer two 
 things — his duty, and the agony it must cost. 
 
 " My beloved," said he, with a strange mixture of ten- 
 derness and dogged resolution, " I bless thee for giving 
 me one more sight of thy sweet face, and may God for- 
 give thee, and bless thee, for destroying in a minute the 
 holy peace it hath taken six months of solitude to build. 
 No matter. A year of penance will, Dei gratia, restore 
 me to my calm. My poor Margaret, I seem cruel : yet 
 I am kind. 'Tis best we part ; ay, this moment." 
 
 " Part, Gerard ? Never ; we have seen what comes of 
 parting. Part ? Why, you have not heard half my 
 story ; no, nor the tithe. 'Tis not for thy mere comfort 
 I take thee to Gouda manse. Hear me ! " 
 
 " I may not. Thy very voice is a temptation with its 
 music, memory's delight." 
 
 " But I say you shall hear me, Gerard, for forth this 
 place I go not unheard." 
 
 " Then must we part by other means," said Clement, 
 sadly. 
 
 " Alack ! what other means ? Wouldst put me to thine 
 own door, being the stronger ? " 
 
 "Nay, Margaret, well thou knowest I would suffer 
 many deaths rather than put force on thee ; thy sweet 
 body is dearer to me than my own : but a million times 
 dearer to me are our immortal souls, both thine and 
 mine. I have withstood this direst temptation of all 
 long enow. Now I must fly it : farewell ! farewell ! " 
 
 He made to the door, and had actually opened it and 
 got half out, when she darted after and caught him by 
 the arm. 
 
 " Nay, then another must speak for me. I thought to 
 reward thee for yielding to me : but unkind that thou 
 art, I need his help I find j turn then this way one 
 moment." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 417 
 
 "Nay, nay." 
 
 "But I say ay! And then turn thy back on as an 
 thou canst." She somewhat relaxed her grasp, thinking 
 he would never deny her so small a favor. But at this 
 he saw his opportunity and seized it. 
 
 "Fly, Clement, fly!" he almost shrieked, and his 
 religious enthusiasm giving him for a moment his old 
 strength, he burst wildly away from her, and after a few 
 steps bounded over the little stream and ran beside it, 
 but finding he was not followed, stopped, and looked 
 back. 
 
 She was lying on her face, with her hands spread 
 out. 
 
 Yes, without meaning it, he had thrown her down and 
 hurt her. 
 
 When he saw that, he groaned and turned back a step ; 
 but suddenly, by another impulse, flung himself into the 
 icy water instead. 
 
 " There, kill my body ! " he cried, " but save my 
 soul ! " 
 
 Whilst he stood there, up to his throat in liquid ice, so 
 to speak, Margaret uttered one long, piteous moan, and 
 rose to her knees. 
 
 He saw her as plain almost as in midday. Saw her 
 pale face and her eyes glistening ; and then in the still 
 night he heard these words : 
 
 " 0, God ! thou that knowest all, thou seest how I 
 am used. Forgive me then ! For I will not live another 
 day." With this she suddenly started to her feet, and 
 flew like some wild creature, wounded to death, close by 
 his miserable hiding-place, shrieking : " Cruel ! — cruel ! 
 — cruel ! — cruel ! " 
 
 What manifold anguish may burst from a human heart 
 in a single syllable ! There were wounded love, and 
 wounded pride, and despair, and coming madness, all in 
 
418 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 that piteous cry. Clement heard, and it froze his heart 
 with terror and remorse, worse than the icy water chilled 
 the marrow of his bones. 
 
 He felt he had driven her from him forever, and in 
 the midst of his dismal triumph, the greatest he had 
 won, there came an almost uncontrollable impulse to 
 curse the Church, to curse religion itself, for exacting 
 such savage cruelty from mortal man. At last he 
 crawled half dead out of the water, and staggered to 
 his den. " I am safe here," he groaned ; " she will never 
 come near me again ; unmanly, ungrateful wretch that I 
 am." And he flung his emaciated, frozen body down on 
 the floor, not without a secret hope that it might never 
 rise thence alive. 
 
 But presently he saw by the hour-glass that it was 
 past midnight. On this, he rose slowly and took off his 
 wet things, and, moaning all the time at the pain he had 
 caused her he loved, put on the old hermit's cilice of 
 bristles, and over that his breastplate. He had never 
 worn either of these before, doubting himself worthy to 
 don the arms of that tried soldier. But now he must 
 give himself every aid : the bristles might distract his 
 earthly remorse by bodily pain, and there might be holy 
 virtue in the breastplate. 
 
 Then he kneeled down and prayed God humbly to 
 release him that very night from the burden of the flesh. 
 Then he lighted all his candles, and recited his psalter 
 doggedly : each word seemed to come like a lump of lead 
 from a leaden heart, and to fall leaden to the ground ; 
 and in this mechanical office every now and then he 
 moaned with all his soul. In the midst of which he 
 suddenly observed a little bundle in the corner he had 
 not seen before in the feebler light, and at one end of it 
 something like gold spun into silk. 
 
 He went to see what it could bej and he had no 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 419 
 
 sooner viewed it closer, than he threw up his hands with 
 rapture. "It is a seraph/' he whispered, "a lovely 
 seraph. Heaven hath witnessed my bitter trial, and 
 approves my cruelty ; and this flower of the skies is sent 
 to cheer me, fainting under my burden." 
 
 He fell on his knees, and gazed with ecstasy on its 
 golden hair, and its tender skin, and cheeks like a 
 peach. 
 
 " Let me feast my sad eyes on thee ere thou leavest 
 me for thine ever-blessed abode, and my cell darkens 
 again at thy parting, as it did at hers." 
 
 With all this, the hermit disturbed the lovely visitor. 
 He opened wide two eyes, the color of heaven; and 
 seeing a strange figure kneeling over him, he cried, 
 piteously, " Mum — ma ! Mum — ma ! " And the tears 
 began to run down his little cheeks. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, Clement, who for more than six 
 months had not looked on the human face divine, esti- 
 mated childish beauty more justly than we can ; and, in 
 truth, this fair Northern child, with its long golden hair, 
 was far more angelic than any of our imagined angels. 
 But now the spell was broken. 
 
 Yet not unhappily. Clement, it may be remembered, 
 was fond of children, and true monastic life fosters this 
 sentiment. The innocent distress on the cherubic face, 
 the tears that ran so smoothly from those transparent 
 violets, his eyes, and his pretty, dismal cry for his only 
 friend, his mother, went through the hermit's heart. He 
 employed all his gentleness and all his art to soothe 
 him ; and, as the little soul was wonderfully intelligent 
 for his age, presently succeeded so far that he ceased to 
 cry out, and wonder took the place of fear ; while, in 
 silence, broken only in little gulps, he scanned, with 
 great tearful eyes, this strange figure that looked so 
 wild, but spoke so kindly, and wore armor, yet did not 
 
420 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 kill little boys, but coaxed them. Clement was equally- 
 perplexed to know how this little human flower came to 
 lie sparkling and blooming in his gloomy cave. But he 
 remembered he had left the door wide open, and he was 
 driven to conclude that, owing to this negligence, some 
 unfortunate creature of high or low degree had seized 
 this opportunity to get rid of her child forever. 1 At this 
 his bowels yearned so over the poor deserted cherub, that 
 the tears of pure tenderness stood in his eyes, and still, 
 beneath the crime of the mother, he saw the divine good- 
 ness, which had so directed her heartlessness as to com- 
 fort his servant's breaking heart. 
 
 "Now bless thee, bless thee, bless thee, sweet inno- 
 cent, I would not change thee for e'en a cherub in 
 heaven." 
 
 "At's pooty," replied the infant, ignoring contempt- 
 uously, after the manner of infants, all remarks that did 
 not interest him. 
 
 " What is pretty here, my love, besides thee ? " 
 
 " Ookum-gars," 2 said the boy, pointing to the hermit's 
 breastplate. 
 
 " Quot liberi, tot sententinnculce I " Hector's child 
 screamed at his father's glittering casque and nodding 
 crest : and here was a mediaeval babe charmed with a 
 polished cuirass, and his griefs assuaged. 
 
 "There are prettier things here than that," said 
 Clement, " there are little birds ; lovest thou birds ? " 
 
 " Nay. Ay. En um ittle, ery ittle ? Not ike torks. 
 Hate torks ; um bigger an baby." 
 
 He then confided, in very broken language, that the 
 storks, with their great flapping wings, scared him, and 
 were a great trouble and worry to him, darkening his 
 existence more or less. 
 
 1 More than one hermit had received a present of this kind. 
 8 Query ? " looking-glass." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 421 
 
 u Ay, but my birds are very little, and good, and oh, so 
 pretty ! " 
 
 " Den I ikes 'm," said the child, authoritatively. " I 
 ont my mammy." 
 
 " Alas, sweet dove ! I doubt I shall have to fill her 
 place as best I may. Hast thou no daddy as well as 
 mammy, sweet one ? " 
 
 Now not only was this conversation from first to last, 
 the relative ages, situations, and all circumstances of the 
 parties considered, as strange a one as ever took place 
 between two mortal creatures, but at or within a second 
 or two of the hermit's last question, to turn the strange 
 into the marvellous, came an unseen witness, to whom 
 every word that passed carried ten times the force it did 
 to either of the speakers. 
 
 Since, therefore, it is with her eyes you must now see, 
 and hear with her ears, I go back a step for her. 
 
 Margaret, when she ran past Gerard, was almost mad. 
 She was in that state of mind in which affectionate 
 mothers have been known to kill their children, some- 
 times along with themselves, sometimes alone, which last 
 is certainly maniacal. She ran to Eeicht Heynes pale 
 and trembling, and clasped her round the neck. "O 
 Eeicht ! 0 Eeicht ! " and could say no more. Eeicht 
 kissed her, and began to whimper; and, would you 
 believe it, the great mastiff uttered one long whine ; 
 even his glimmer of sense taught him grief was afoot. 
 
 " 0 Eeicht ! " moaned the despised beauty, as soon 
 as she could utter a word for choking, " see how he has 
 served me ; " and she showed her hands, that were bleed- 
 ing with falling on the stony ground. "He threw me 
 down, he was so eager to fly from me. He took me for a 
 devil ; he said I came to tempt him. Am I the woman 
 to tempt a man ? you know me, Eeicht." 
 
422 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Nay, in sooth, sweet Mistress Margaret, the last i' 
 the world." 
 
 "And he would not look at my child. I'll fling myself 
 and him into the Rotter this night." 
 
 " Oh, fie ! fie ! eh, my sweet woman, speak not so. Is 
 any man that breathes worth your child's life ? " 
 
 " My child ! where is he ? Why, Reicht, I have left 
 him behind. Oh, shame ! is it possible I can love him 
 to that degree as to forget my child ? Ah ! I am rightly 
 served for it." 
 
 And she sat down, and faithful Reicht beside her, and 
 they sobbed in one another's arms. 
 
 After awhile, Margaret left off sobbing, and said, 
 doggedly, " Let us go home." 
 
 " Ay, but the bairn ? " 
 
 " Oh ! he is well where he is. My heart is turned 
 against my very child. He cares nought for him; 
 wouldn't see him, nor hear speak of him ; and I took 
 him there so proud, and made his hair so nice I did, and 
 put his new frock and cowl on him. Nay, turn about ; 
 it's his child as well as mine ; let him keep it awhile : 
 mayhap that will learn him to think more of its mother 
 and his own." 
 
 "High words off an empty stomach," said Reicht. 
 
 "Time will show. Come thou home." 
 
 They departed, and time did show quicker than he 
 levels abbeys, for at the second step Margaret stopped, 
 and could neither go one way nor the other, but stood 
 stock still. 
 
 " Reicht," said she, piteously, " what else have I on 
 earth ? I cannot." 
 
 " Who ever said you could ? Think you I paid atten- 
 tion ? Words are woman's breath. Come back for him 
 without more ado ; 'tis time we were in our beds, much 
 more he." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 423 
 
 Reicht led the way, and Margaret followed readily 
 enough in that direction; but, as they drew near the 
 cell, she stopped again. 
 
 " Reicht, go you and ask him, will he give me back my 
 boy ; for I could not bear the sight of him." 
 
 " Alas ! mistress, this do seem a sorry ending after all 
 that hath been betwixt you twain. Bethink thee now, 
 doth thine heart whisper no excuse for him ? dost verily 
 hate him for whom thou hast waited so long ? Oh, weary 
 world ! " 
 
 " Hate him, Reicht ? I would not harm a hair of his 
 head for all that is in nature ; but look on him I cannot ; 
 I have taken a horror of him. Oh ! when I think of all 
 I have suffered for him, and what I came here this night 
 to do for him, and brought my own darling to kiss him 
 and call him father. Ah, Luke, my poor chap, my 
 wound showeth me thine. I have thought too little of 
 thy pangs, whose true affection I despised : and now my 
 own is despised. Reicht, if the poor lad was here now, 
 he Avould have a good chance." 
 
 "Well, he is not far off," said Reicht Heynes; but, 
 somehow, she did not say it with alacrity. 
 
 " Speak not to me of any man," said Margaret, 
 bitterly, "I hate them all." 
 
 "For the sake of one." 
 
 " Flout me not, but prithee go forward, and get me what 
 is my own, my sole joy in the world. Thou knowest I 
 am on thorns till I have him to my bosom again." 
 
 Reicht went forward. Margaret sat by the roadside 
 and covered her face with her apron, and rocked herself 
 after the manner of her country, for her soul was full of 
 bitterness and grief. So severe, indeed, was the inter- 
 nal conflict, that she did not hear Reicht running back to 
 her, and started violently when the young woman laid a 
 hand upon her shoulder. 
 
424 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Mistress Margaret,'' said Reicht quietly, "take a 
 fool's advice that loves ye. Go softly to yon cave, wi ? 
 all the ears and eyes your mother ever gave you." 
 
 " Why ? — what — Reicht ? " stammered Margaret. 
 
 " I thought the cave was afire, 'twas so light inside ; 
 and there were voices." 
 
 " Voices ? " 
 
 " Ay, not one, but twain, and all unlike, — a man's and 
 a little child's, talking as pleasant as you and me. I am 
 no great hand at a keyhole for my part, 'tis paltry work ; 
 but if so be voices were a-talking in yon cave, and them 
 that owned those voices were so near to me as those are 
 to thee, I'd go on ail fours like a fox, and I'd crawl on 
 my belly like a serpent, ere I'd lose one word that passes 
 atwixt those twain.' 1 '' 
 
 " Whisht, Reicht ! Bless thee ! Bide thou here. Buss 
 me ! Pray for me." 
 
 And almost ere the agitated words had left her lips, 
 Margaret was flying towards the hermitage as noise- 
 lessly as a lapwing. Arrived near it, she crouched, and 
 there was something truly serpentine in the gliding, 
 flexible, noiseless movements by which she reached the 
 very door ; and there she found a chink, and listened. 
 And often it cost her a struggle not to burst in upon 
 them ; but, warned by defeat, she was cautious, and reso- 
 lute to let well alone. And, after awhile, slowly and 
 noiselessly she reared her head, like a snake its crest, 
 to where she saw the broadest chink of all, and looked 
 with all her eyes and soul, as well as listened. 
 
 The little boy then being asked whether he had no 
 daddy, at first shook his head, and would say nothing, 
 but, being pressed, he suddenly seemed to remember 
 something, and said he, "Dad — da ill man; run away 
 and leave poor mum — ma." 
 
 She who heard this winced. It was as new to her as 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 425 
 
 to Clement. Some interfering foolish woman had gone 
 and said this to the boy, and now out it came in Gerard's 
 very face. His answer surprised her. He burst out, 
 " The villain ! the monster ! he must be born without 
 bowels to desert thee, sweet one. Ah ! he little knows 
 the joy he hath turned his back on. Well, my little 
 dove, I must be father and mother to thee, since the one 
 runs away, and t'other abandons the to my care. Now 
 to-morrow I shall ask the good people that bring me nij 
 food to fetch some nice eggs and milk for thee as well ; 
 for bread is good enough for poor old good-for-nothing 
 me, but not for thee. And I shall teach thee to read." 
 " I can yead, I can yead." 
 
 " Ay, verily, so young ? all the better. We will read 
 good books together, and I shall show thee the way to 
 heaven. Heaven is a beautiful place, a thousand times 
 fairer and better than earth, and there be little cherubs 
 like thyself, in white, glad to welcome thee and love 
 thee. Wouldst like to go to heaven one day ? " 
 
 " Ay, along wi' — my — mammy." 
 
 " What, not without her then ? " 
 
 " Nay. I ont my mammy. Where is my mammy ? " 
 
 (Oh ! what it cost poor Margaret not to burst in and 
 clasp him to her heart !) 
 
 " Well, fret not, sweetheart, mayhap she will come 
 when thou art asleep. Wilt thou be good now and 
 sleep ? " 
 
 " I not eepy. Ikes to talk." 
 
 " Well, talk we then : tell me thy pretty name." 
 
 "Baby." And he opened his eyes with amazement 
 at this great hulking creature's ignorance. 
 
 "Hast none other?" 
 
 " Nay." 
 
 " What shall I do to pleasure thee, baby ? Shall I 
 tell thee a story ? 99 
 
426 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " I ikes tories," said the boy, clapping his hands. 
 
 " Or sing thee a song ? " 
 
 " I ikes tongs ; " and he became excited. 
 
 " Choose then, a song or a story." 
 
 " Ting I a tong. Nay, tell I a tory. Nay, ting I a 
 tong. Nay — " And the corners of his little mouth 
 turned down, and he had half a mind to weep because 
 he could not have both, and 30uld not tell which to fore- 
 go. Suddenly his little face cleared, " Ting I a tory," 
 said he. 
 
 " Sing thee a story, baby ? Well, after all, why not ? 
 And wilt thou sit o' my knee and hear it ? " 
 "Yea." 
 
 "Then I must e'en doff this breastplate : 'tis too hard 
 for thy soft cheek. So. And now I must doff this 
 bristly cilice : they would prick thy tender skin, perhaps 
 make it bleed, as they have me, I see. So. And now I 
 put on my best pelisse, in honor of thy worshipful visit. 
 See how soft and warm it is ; bless the good soul that 
 sent it ; and now I sit me down ; so. And. I take thee 
 on my left knee, and put my arm under thy little head ; 
 so. And then the psaltery, and play a little tune ; so, 
 not too loud." 
 
 " I ikes dat.' 
 
 " I am right glad on't. Now list the story." 
 
 He chanted a child's story in a sort of recitative, 
 singing a little moral refrain now and then. The boy 
 listened with rapture. 
 
 " I ikes oo," said he. " Ot is oo ? is oo a man ? " 
 
 " Ay, little heart, and a great sinner to boot." 
 
 " I ikes great tingers. Ting one other tory." 
 
 Story No. 2 was chanted. 
 
 "I ubbs oo," cried the child, impetuously. "Ot caft 1 
 is oo ? " 
 
 1 Craft. He means trade or profession 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 427 
 
 " I am a hermit, love." 
 
 "I ubbs vermins. Ting other one." 
 
 But during this final performance, Nature suddenly 
 held out her leaden sceptre over the youthful eyelids. 
 " I is not eepy," whined he very faintly, and succumbed. 
 
 Clement laid down the psaltery softly and began to 
 rock his new treasure in his arms, and to croon over him 
 a little lullaby well known in Tergou, with which his 
 own mother had often set him off. 
 
 And the child sank into a profound sleep upon his 
 arm. And he stopped crooning and gazed on him with 
 infinite tenderness, yet sadness ; for, at that moment, he 
 could not help thinking what might have been but for a 
 piece of paper with a lie in it. 
 
 He sighed deeply. 
 
 The next moment the moonlight burst into his cell, 
 and with it, and in it, and almost as swift as it, Margaret 
 Brandt was down at his knee with a timorous hand upon 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Gerard, you do not reject us. You cannot." 
 
428 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 The startled hermit glared from his nursling to Mar< 
 garet, and from her to him, in amazement equalled only 
 by his agitation at her so unexpected return. The child 
 lay asleep on his left arm, and she was at his right knee : 
 no longer the pale, scared, panting girl he had overpow- 
 ered so easily an hour or two ago, but an imperial beauty 
 with blushing cheeks and sparkling eyes, and lips sweetly 
 parted in triumph, and her whole face radiant with a 
 look he could not quite read; for he had never yet seen 
 it on her ; maternal pride. 
 
 He stared and stared from the child to her, in throb- 
 bing amazement. 
 
 " Us ? " he gasped at last. And still his wonder- 
 stricken eyes turned to and fro. 
 
 Margaret was surprised in her turn. It was an age of 
 impressions, not facts. " What ! " she cried, " doth not 
 a father know his own child ? and a man of God, too ? 
 Fie, Gerard, to pretend ! nay, thou art too wise, too 
 good, not to have — why, I watched thee ; and e'en now 
 look at you twain ! J Tis thine own flesh and blood thou 
 holdest to thine heart." 
 
 Clement trembled. " What words are these," he stam- 
 mered, " this angel mine ? " 
 
 " Whose else ? since he is mine." 
 
 Clement turned on the sleeping child with a look 
 beyond the power of the pen to describe, and trembled 
 all over as his eyes seemed to absorb the little love. 
 
 Margaret's eyes followed his. " He is not a bit like 
 me," said she proudly ; " but oh ! at whiles he is thy 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 429 
 
 very image in little ; and see this golden hair. Thine 
 was the very color at his age ; ask mother else. And 
 see this mole on his little finger : now look at thine own ; 
 there ! 'Twas thy mother let me weet thou wast marked 
 so before him ; and, 0 Gerard, 'twas this our child 
 found thee for me ; for by that little mark on thy finger 
 I knew thee for his father, when I watched above thy 
 window and saw thee feed the birds." Here she seized 
 the child's hand and kissed it eagerly, and got half of it 
 into her mouth, Heaven knows how. " Ah, bless thee ! 
 thou didst find thy poor daddy for her, and now thou 
 hast made us friends again after our little quarrel : the 
 first, the last. Wast very cruel to me but now, my poor 
 Gerard, and I forgive thee, for loving of thy child." 
 
 " Ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! ah ! " sobbed Clement choking. 
 
 And lowered by fasts, and unnerved by solitude, the 
 once strong man was hysterical, and nearly fainting. 
 
 Margaret Avas alarmed, but, having experience, her 
 pity was greater than her fear. " Nay, take not on so," 
 she murmured soothingly, and put a gentle hand upon 
 his brow. "Be brave! So, so. Dear heart, thou art 
 not the first man that hath gone abroad, and come back 
 richer by a lovely little self than he went forth. Being 
 a man of God, take courage, and say He sends thee this 
 to comfort thee for what thou hast lost in me ; and that 
 is not so very much, my lamb, for sure the better part of 
 love shall ne'er cool here to thee, though it may in thine, 
 and ought, being a priest, and parson of Gouda." 
 
 " I ? priest of Gouda ? Ne ver ! " murmured Clement 
 in a faint voice. " I am a friar of St. Dominic ; yet 
 speak on, sweet music, tell me all that has happened 
 thee, before we are parted again." 
 
 Now some would on this have exclaimed against part- 
 ing at all, and raised the true question in dispute. But 
 sueh women as Margaret do not repeat their mistakes. 
 
430 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 It is very hard to defeat thern twice, where their hearts 
 are set on a thing. 
 
 She assented, and turned her back on Gouda manse as 
 a thing not to be recurred to ; and she told him her tale, 
 dwelling above all on the kindness to her of his parents ; 
 and, while she related her troubles, his hand stole to hers, 
 and often she felt him wince and tremble with ire, and 
 often press her hand, sympathizing with her in every vein. 
 
 " Oh, piteous tale of a true heart battling alone against 
 such bitter odds ! " said he. 
 
 "It all seems small, when I see thee here again, and 
 nursing my boy. We have had a warning, Gerard. 
 True friends like you and me are rare, and they are mad 
 to part ere death divideth them." 
 
 " And that is true," said Clement off his guard. 
 
 And then she would have him tell her what he had 
 suffered for her, and he begged her to excuse him, and 
 she consented, but by questions quietly revoked her con- 
 sent and elicited it all ; and many a sigh she heaved for 
 him, and more than once she hid her face in her hands 
 with terror at his perils, though past. 
 
 And to console him for all he had gone through, she 
 kneeled down and put her arms under the little boy, and 
 lifted him gently up. " Kiss him softly," she whis- 
 pered. " Again, again ; kiss thy fill if thou canst ; he 
 is sound. ; Tis all I can do to comfort thee till thou art 
 out of this foul den and in thy sweet manse yonder." 
 
 Clement shook his head. 
 
 " Well," said she, " let that pass. Know that I have 
 been sore affronted for want of my lines." 
 " Who hath dared affront thee ? " 
 
 " No matter ; those that will do it again if thou hast 
 lost them, which the saints forbid." 
 
 " I lose them ? nay, there they lie, close to thy hand." 
 " Where, where, oh where ? " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 431 
 
 Clement hung his head. "Look in the Vulgate. 
 Heaven forgive me : I thought thou wert dead, and a 
 saint in heaven." 
 
 She looked, and on the blank leaves of the poor soul's 
 Vulgate she found her marriage lines. 
 
 "Thank God!" she cried, "thank God! Oh, bless 
 thee, Gerard, bless thee ! Why, what is here, Gerard ? " 
 
 On the other leaves were pinned every scrap of paper 
 she had ever sent him, and their two names she had once 
 written together in sport, and the lock of her hair she 
 had given him, and half a silver coin she had broken 
 with him, and a straw she had sucked her soup with the 
 first day he ever saw her. 
 
 When Margaret saw these proofs of love and signs of 
 a gentle heart bereaved, even her exultation at getting 
 back her marriage lines was overpowered by gushing ten- 
 derness. She almost staggered, and her hand went to 
 her bosom, and she leaned her brow against the stone 
 cell and wept so silently that he did not see she was 
 weeping ; indeed, she would not let him, for she felt 
 that to befriend him now she must be the stronger ; and 
 emotion weakens. 
 
 " Gerard," said she, " I know you are wise and good. 
 You must have a reason for what you are doing, let it 
 seem ever so unreasonable. Talk we like old friends. 
 Why are you buried alive ? " 
 
 "Margaret, to escape temptation. My impious ire 
 against those two had its root in the heart ; that heart, 
 then, I must deaden ; and, Dei gratia, I shall. Shall I, 
 a servant of Christ and of the Church, court temptation ? 
 Shall I pray daily to be led out on't, and walk into it 
 with open eyes ? " 
 
 " That is good sense any way," said Margaret, with a 
 consummate affectation of candor. 
 
 " 'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh. 
 
432 
 
 THE CLOISTEK ASD THE HEARTH. 
 
 " We shall see. Tell me, have you escaped temptation 
 here ? Why I ask is, when / am alone, my thoughts are 
 far more wild and foolish than in company. Nay, speak 
 sooth ; come ! " 
 
 " I must needs own I have been worse tempted here 
 with evil imaginations than in the world." 
 
 " There now." 
 
 " Ay, but so were Anthony and Jerome, Macarius and 
 Hilarion, Benedict, Bernard, and all the saints. 'Twill 
 wear off." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I feel sure it will." 
 
 " Guessing against knowledge. Here 'tis men-folk are 
 sillier than us that be but women. Wise in their own 
 conceits, they will not let themselves see ; their stomachs 
 are too high to be taught by their eyes. A woman, if she 
 went into a hole in a bank to escape temptation, and there 
 found it, would just lift her farthingale and out on't, and 
 not e'en know how wise she was, till she watched a man 
 in like plight." 
 
 " Nay, I grant humility and a teachable spirit are the 
 roads to wisdom ; but, when all is said, here I wrestle 
 but with imagination. At Gouda she I love as no priest 
 or monk must love any but the angels, she will tempt a 
 weak soul, unwilling, yet not loath, to be tempted." 
 
 " Ay, that is another matter ; / should tempt thee, 
 then ? to what, i' God's name ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? The flesh is weak." 
 
 " Speak for yourself, my lad. Why, you are thinking 
 of some other Margaret, not Margaret a Peter. Was ever 
 my mind turned to folly and frailty ? Stay, is it because 
 you were my husband once, as these lines avouch ? Think 
 you the road to folly is beaten for you more than for an- 
 other ? Oh ! how shallow are the wise, and how little 
 able are you to read me, who can read you so well from 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 433 
 
 top to toe. Come, learn thy ABC. Were a stranger to 
 proffer me unchaste love, I should shrink a bit, no doubt, 
 and feel sore, but I should defend myself without making 
 a coil ; for men, I know, are so, the best of them some- 
 times. But if you, that have been my husband, and are 
 my child's father, were to offer to humble me so in mine 
 own eyes, and thine, and his, either I should spit in thy 
 face, Gerard, or, as I am not a downright vulgar woman, 
 I should snatch the first weapon at hand and strike thee 
 dead." 
 
 And Margaret's eyes flashed fire, and her nostrils 
 expanded, that it was glorious to see ; and no one that 
 did see her could doubt her sincerity. 
 
 "I had not the sense to see that," said Gerard, quietly. 
 And he pondered. 
 
 Margaret eyed him in silence, and soon recovered her 
 composure. 
 
 " Let not you and I dispute," said she, gently j " speak 
 we of other things. Ask me of thy folk." 
 "My father?" 
 
 " Well, and warms to thee and me. Poor soul, a drew 
 glaive on those twain that day, but Jorian Ketel and I 
 we mastered him, and he drove them forth his house for- 
 ever." 
 
 " That may not be ; he must take them back." 
 
 " That he will never do for us. You know the man ; 
 he is dour as iron : yet would he do it for one word from 
 one that will not speak it." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "The Vicar of Gouda. The old man will be at the 
 manse to-morrow, I hear." 
 
 "How you come back to that." 
 
 "Forgive me : I am but a woman. It is us for nagging ; 
 shouldst keep me from it wi' questioning of me." 
 "My sister Kate?" 
 28 
 
434 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 "Alas!" 
 
 " What, hath ill befallen e'en that sweet lily ? Out 
 and alas ! " 
 
 " Be calm, sweetheart ; no harm hath her befallen. 
 Oh, nay, nay, far fro' that." Then Margaret forced 
 herself to be composed, and in a low, sweet, gentle 
 voice she murmured to him thus: "My poor Gerard, 
 Kate hath left her trouble behind her. For the manner 
 on't, 'twas like the rest. Ah ! such as she saw never 
 thirty, nor ever shall while earth shall last. She smiled 
 in pain too. A well, then, thus 'twas : she was took wi' 
 a langour and a loss of all her pains." 
 
 "A loss of her pains ? I understand you not." 
 
 "Ay, you are not experienced ; indeed, e'en thy mother 
 almost blinded herself, and said, ''tis maybe a change for 
 the better.' But Joan Ketel, which is an understanding 
 woman, she looked at her and said, 'Down sun, down 
 wind ! ' And the gossips sided and said, 'Be brave, you 
 that are her mother, for she is half way to the saints.' 
 And thy mother wept sore, but Kate would not let her ; 
 and one very ancient woman, she said to thy mother, 
 1 She will die as easy as she lived hard.' And she lay 
 painless best part of three days, a-sipping of heaven 
 aforehand. And, my dear, when she was just parting, 
 she asked for ' Gerard's little boy,' and I brought him 
 and set him on the bed, and the little thing behaved as 
 peaceably as he does now. But by this time she was 
 past speaking : but she pointed to a drawer, and her 
 mother knew what to look for : it was two gold angels 
 thou hadst given her years ago. Poor soul ! she had 
 kept them till thou shouldst come home. And she 
 nodded towards the little boy, and looked anxious : but 
 we understood her, and put the pieces in his two hands ; 
 and, when his little fingers closed on them, she smiled 
 content. And so she gave her little earthly treasures to 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 435 
 
 her favorite's child — for you were her favorite — and her 
 immortal jewel to God, and passed so sweetly we none of 
 us knew justly when she left us. Well-a-day, well-a-day ! " 
 Gerard wept. 
 
 " She hath not left her like on earth/' he sobbed. " Oh, 
 how the affections of earth curl softly round my heart ! 
 I cannot help it : God made them after all. Speak on, 
 sweet Margaret ; at thy voice the past rolls its tides 
 back upon me ; the loves and the hopes of youth come 
 fair and gliding into my dark cell, and darker bosom, on 
 waves of memory and music." 
 
 " Gerard, I am loath to grieve you, but Kate cried a 
 little when she first took ill, at you not being there to 
 close her eyes." 
 
 Gerard sighed. 
 
 "You were within a league, but hid your face from 
 her." 
 
 He groaned. 
 
 " There, forgive me for nagging ; I am but a woman : 
 you would not have been so cruel to your own flesh and 
 blood knowingly, would you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no." 
 
 "Well then, know that thy brother Sybrandt lies in 
 my charge with a broken back, fruit of thy curse." 
 "Mea culpa / mea culpa ! " 
 
 " He is very penitent ; be yourself and forgive him 
 this night." 
 
 "I have forgiven him long ago." 
 
 " Think you he can believe that from any mouth but 
 yours ? Come ! he is but two butts' length hence." 
 " So near ? Why, where ? " 
 
 " At Gouda manse. I took him there yestreen. For 
 I know you ; the curse was scarce cold on your lips when 
 you repented it (Gerard nodded assent), and I said to 
 myself, Gerard will thank me for taking Sybrandt to die 
 
436 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 under his roof ; he will not beat his breast and cry mea 
 culpa, yet grudge three footsteps to quiet a withered 
 brother on his last bed. He may have a bee in his 
 bonnet, but he is not a hypocrite : a thing all pious 
 words and uncharitable deeds." 
 
 Gerard literally staggered where he sat at this tremen- 
 dous thrust. 
 
 "Forgive me for nagging,' 7 said she. "Thy mother, 
 too, is waiting for thee. Is it well done to keep her on 
 thorns so long ? She will not sleep this night. Bethink 
 thee, Gerard, she is all to thee that I am to this sweet 
 child. Ah, I think so much more of mothers since I had 
 my little Gerard ! She suffered for thee, and nursed thee, 
 and tended thee from boy to man. Priest, monk, hermit, 
 call thyself what thou wilt, to her thou art but one thing : 
 her child." 
 
 " Where is she ? " murmured Gerard, in a quavering 
 voice. 
 
 "At Gouda manse, wearing the night in prayer and 
 care." 
 
 Then Margaret saw the time was come for that appeal 
 to his reason she had purposely reserved till persuasion 
 should have paved the way for conviction. So the smith 
 first softens the iron by fire ; and then brings down the 
 sledge hammer. 
 
 She showed him, but in her own good straightforward 
 Dutch, that his present life was only a higher kind of 
 selfishness ; spiritual egotism. Whereas a priest had no 
 more right to care only for his own soul than only for his 
 own body. That was not his path to heaven. " But," 
 said she, " who ever yet lost his soul by saving the souls 
 of others ? the Almighty loves him who thinks of others, 
 and when He shall see thee caring for the souls of the 
 folk the duke hath put into thine hand, He will care ten 
 times more for thy soul than He does now/' 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 437 
 
 Gerard was struck by this remark. " Art shrewd in 
 dispute," said he. 
 
 " Far from it," was the reply ; " only my eyes are not 
 bandaged with conceit. 1 So long as Satan walks the 
 whole earth, tempting men, and so long as the sons of 
 Belial do never lock themselves in caves, but run like 
 ants, to and fro, corrupting others, the good man that 
 skulks apart, plays the devil's game, or at least gives him 
 the odds. Thou a soldier of Christ ? ask thy comrade 
 Denys, who is but a soldier of the duke, ask him if ever 
 he skulked in a hole and shunned the battle because for- 
 sooth in battle is danger as well as glory and duty. For 
 thy sole excuse is fear ; thou makest no secret on't. Go 
 to ; no duke nor king hath such cowardly soldiers as 
 Christ hath. What was that you said in the church at 
 Rotterdam about the man in the parable, that buried his 
 talent in the earth and so offended the giver ? Thy won- 
 derful gift for preaching, is it not a talent, and a gift 
 from thy Creator ? " 
 
 " Certes ; such as it is." 
 
 " And hast thou laid it out, or buried it ? To whom 
 hast thou preached these seven months ? to bats and 
 owls ? Hast buried it in one hole with thyself and thy 
 once good wits ? 
 
 "The Dominicans are the friars preachers. ? Tis for 
 preaching they were founded ; so thou art false to Dom- 
 inic as well as to his Master. 
 
 "Do you remember, Gerard, when we were young 
 together, which now are old before our time, as we 
 walked handed in the fields, did you but see a sheep 
 cast, ay, three fields off, you would leave your sweet- 
 heart (by her good will), and run and lift the sheep for 
 charity ? Well then, at Gouda is not one sheep in evil 
 plight, but a whole flock ; some cast, some strayed, some 
 
 1 I think she means prejudice. 
 
438 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 sick, some tainted, some a being devoured, and all for the 
 want of a shepherd. Where is their shepherd ? lurking 
 in a den like a wolf ; a den in his own parish. Out, fie ! 
 out, fie ! 
 
 " I scented thee out, in part, by thy kindness to the 
 little birds. Take note, you Gerard Eliassoen must love 
 something ; 'tis in your blood ; you were born to't. Shun- 
 ning man, you do but seek earthly affection a peg lower 
 than man." 
 
 Gerard interrupted her. " The birds are God's creat- 
 ures, His innocent creatures, and I do well to love them, 
 being God's creatures." 
 
 " What, are they creatures of the same God that we 
 are, that he is who lies upon thy knee ? " 
 
 " You know they are." 
 
 " Then what pretence for shunning us and being kind 
 to them ? Sith man is one of the animals, why pick him 
 out to shun ? Is't because he is of animals the paragon ? 
 What, you court the young of birds, and abandon your 
 own young ? Birds need but bodily food, and, having 
 wings, deserve scant pity if they cannot fly and find it. 
 But that sweet dove upon thy knee, he needeth not carnal 
 only, but spiritual food. He is thine as well as mine : 
 and I have done my share. He will soon be too much 
 for me, and I look to Gouda's parson to teach him true 
 piety and useful lore. Is he not of more value than 
 many sparrows ? " 
 
 Gerard started and stammered an affirmation. For 
 she waited for his reply. 
 
 " You wonder," continued she, " to hear me quote Holy 
 W T rit so glib. I have pored over it this four years, and 
 why ? Not because God wrote it, but because I saw it 
 often in thy hands ere thou didst leave me. Heaven 
 forgive me ; I am but a woman. What thinkest thou of 
 this sentence ? 1 Let your light so shine before men 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, 439 
 
 that they may see your good works and glorify your 
 Father which is in heaven ! ' What is a saint in a sink 
 better than i a light under a bushel ' ? 
 
 " Therefore, since the sheep committed to thy charge 
 bleat for thee and cry : 1 Oh, desert us no longer, but 
 come to Gouda manse ; ' since I, who know thee ten 
 times better than thou knowest thyself, do pledge my 
 soul it is for thy soul's weal to go to Gouda manse, — 
 since duty to thy child, too long abandoned, calls thee to 
 Gouda manse, — since thy sovereign, whom Holy Writ 
 again bids thee honor, sends thee to Gouda manse, — 
 since the Pope, whom the Church teaches thee to re- 
 vere, hath absolved thee of thy monkish vows, and orders 
 thee to Gouda manse " — 
 
 "Ah?" 
 
 "Since thy gray-haired mother watches for thee in 
 dole and care, and turneth oft the hour-glass and sigheth 
 sore that thou comest so slow to her at Gouda manse, — 
 since thy brother, withered by thy curse, awaits thy for- 
 giveness and thy prayers for his soul, now lingering in 
 his body, at Gouda manse, — take thou up in thine arms 
 the sweet bird wi' crest of gold that nestles to thy bosom, 
 and give me thy hand ; thy sweetheart erst and wife, 
 and now thy friend, the truest friend to thee this night 
 that ere man had ; and come with me to Gouda manse ! " 
 
 " It is the voice of an angel ! " cried Clement loudly. 
 
 " Then hearken it, and come forth to Gouda manse ! " 
 
 The battle was won. 
 
 Margaret lingered behind, cast her eye rapidly round 
 the furniture, and selected the Vulgate and the psaltery. 
 The rest she sighed at and let it lie. The breastplate 
 and the cilice of bristles she took and dashed with feeble 
 ferocity on the floor. Then, seeing Gerard watch her 
 with surprise from the outside, she colored and said : " J 
 am but a woman : < little ' will still be 1 spiteful/ " 
 
440 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " Why encumber thyself with those ? They are safe." 
 " Oh, she had a reason." 
 
 And with this they took the road to Gouda parsonage. 
 The moon and stars were so bright, it seemed almost as 
 light as day. 
 
 Suddenly Gerard stopped. " My poor little birds ! " 
 " What of them ? " 
 
 " They will miss their food. I feed them every day." 
 
 "The child hath a piece of bread in his cowl. Take 
 that and feed them now, against the morn." 
 
 " I will. Nay, I will not. He is as innocent, and 
 nearer to me and to thee." 
 
 Margaret drew a long breath. "Tis well. Hadst 
 taken it, I might have hated thee ; I am but a woman." 
 
 When they had gone about a quarter of a mile, Gerard 
 sighed. " Margaret," said he, " I must e'en rest ; he is 
 too heavy for me." 
 
 " Then give him me, and take thou these. Alas, alas ! 
 I mind when thou wouldst have run with the child on 
 one shoulder, and the mother on t'other." 
 
 And Margaret carried the boy. 
 
 " I trow," said Gerard, looking down, " overmuch fast- 
 ing is not good for a man." 
 
 " A many die of it each year, winter time," replied 
 Margaret. 
 
 Gerard pondered these simple words, and eyed her 
 askant, carrying the child with perfect ease. When 
 they had gone nearly a mile, he said, with considerable 
 surprise : " You thought it was but two butts' length." 
 
 " Not I." 
 
 " Why, you said so." 
 
 " That is another matter." She then turned on him 
 the face of a Madonna. "I lied," said she sweetly. 
 " And to save your soul and body, I'd maybe tell a worse 
 lie than that, at need. I am but a woman. Ah, well, it 
 is but two butts' length from here at any rate." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 441 
 
 « Without a lie ? " 
 " Humph ! Three, without a lie." 
 And sure enough, in a few minutes they came up to 
 the manse. 
 
 A candle was burning in the vicar's parlor. " She is 
 waking still," whispered Margaret. 
 
 " Beautiful ! beautiful ! " said Clement, and stopped to 
 look at it. 
 
 " What, in Heaven's name ? " 
 
 "That little candle, seen through the window at night. 
 Look an it be not like some fair star of size prodigious : 
 it delighteth the eyes and warmeth the heart of those 
 outside." 
 
 "Come, and I'll show thee something better," said 
 Margaret, and led him on tiptoe to the window. 
 
 They looked in, and there was Catherine kneeling on 
 the hassock, with her " hours " before her. 
 
 "Folk can pray out of a cave," whispered Margaret. 
 " Ay, and hit heaven with their prayers. For 'tis for a sight 
 of thee she prayeth ; and thou art here. Now, Gerard, 
 be prepared : she is not the woman you knew her ; her 
 children's troubles have greatly broken the brisk, light- 
 hearted soul. And I see she has been weeping e'en now 5 
 she will have given thee up, being so late." 
 
 " Let me get to her," said Clement, hastily, trembling 
 all over. 
 
 " That door ! I will bide here." 
 
 When Gerard was gone to the door, Margaret, fearing 
 the sudden surprise, gave one sharp tap at the window 
 and cried : " Mother ! " in a loud, expressive voice that 
 Catherine read at once. She clasped her hands together 
 and had half risen from her kneeling posture, when the 
 door burst open and Clement flung himself wildly on his 
 knees at her knees, with his arms out to embrace her. 
 She uttered a cry such as only a mother could. " Ah ! 
 
442 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 my darling, my darling ! " And clung sobbing round 
 his neck. And true it was, she saw neither a hermit, a 
 priest, nor a monk, but just her child, lost, and despaired 
 of, and in her arms. And after a little while Margaret 
 came in, with wet eyes and cheeks, and a holy calm of 
 affection settled by degrees on these sore troubled ones. 
 And they sat all three together, hand in hand, murmur- 
 ing sweet and loving converse ; and he who sat in the 
 middle drank right and left their true affection and their 
 humble but genuine wisdom, and was forced to eat a good 
 nourishing meal, and at daybreak was packed off to a 
 snowy bed, and by-and-by awoke, as from a hideous 
 dream, friar and hermit no more, Clement no more, but 
 Gerard Eliassoen, parson of Gouda. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 443 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 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 gray 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 her- 
 self, " 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's 
 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 elo- 
 quence and sagacity ; and to anchor his father forever to 
 humanity. 
 
 But this generous stroke of policy cost her heart dear. 
 She had never yet been parted from her boy an hour j 
 
444 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 Eeicht Heynes in the kitchen alone. 
 Then she tapped softly at the window and said, "Eeicht, 
 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. 
 
 Eeicht 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 Eeicht should take him half 
 way to Eotterdam 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 : 
 
 " Eeicht," 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, Eeicht, you have not ever been so simple as to 
 cast an eye of affection on the boy, that you take his 
 part ? " 
 
 " Me ? " said Eeicht, 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. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 445 
 
 Two women plotting against one boy ? Oh, you great 
 cowardly serpents ! 
 
 But when these stolen meetings had gone on 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 bands white as snow, and a little color in 
 his pale face, sat the vicar of Gouda in the gray frock 
 and large felt hat she had sent him. 
 
 She ran up-stairs directly and washed away all trace 
 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 and 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." 
 
446 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " 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 
 heart-strings, but what is my title to him compared to 
 thine ? Confess now, thou hast 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 ! 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 churchwardens ? 
 And they have handed me the parish seal ; see, here it 
 is. Nay 'tis a real vicar inviting a true friend to Gouda 
 manse." 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 447 
 
 u 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 sunlight, and could not go abroad (owl !) ; but that is 
 passed ; and good Beicht 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.'" 
 
448 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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, approv- 
 ing 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 G-ouda 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 afoot 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 quicksilver. 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 ! looking on thee, 
 sir baby, I see what awkward, lopsided, ungainly toads 
 I and my fellows painted missals with, and called them 
 oherubs and seraphs." Finally he threw the paper away 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 449 
 
 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 comeli- 
 ness 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 gray 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 comeliness 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 Keicht Heynes and Catherine interchanged a look 
 which said, " We two have an amiable maniac to super- 
 intend ; calls everything beautiful." 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and they heard him preach 
 in his own church. It was crammed with persons, who 
 
450 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 came curious, but remained devout. Never was his won- 
 derful 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 Script- 
 ure ; he terrified the impenitent and thoughtless, con- 
 firmed the wavering, consoled the bereaved and the 
 afflicted, uplifted the hearts 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. 
 
 Header, did you ever stand by the seashore after a 
 storm, when the wind happens to have gone down sud- 
 denly ? 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 
 
ME CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 451 
 
 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 mar- 
 riage 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." Tor 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. Cath- 
 erine, in these days, was nearly always with her, and Eli 
 very often. Tergou had so little to tempt them, com- 
 pared 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 Bur- 
 
 1 Let me not be understood to apply this to the bare outline of the relation. 
 Many bishops and priests, and not a few popes, had wives and children as lay- 
 men; and entering orders were parted from the wives and not from the 
 children. But in the case before the reader are the additional features of a 
 strong surviving attachment on both sides, and of neighborhood, besides that 
 here the man had been led into holy orders by a false statement of the woman's 
 death. On a summary of all the essential features, the situation was, to the 
 best of my belief, unique. 
 
452 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 gundy 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 honor 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 con- 
 sidered, 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. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 453 
 
 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 in- 
 structed Reicht to be always kind and good-humored 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." 
 
 Eeicht 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 sun- 
 shine ; 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 Gray Friars in their 
 determination to swamp every palpable distinction be- 
 
454 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 tween 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 original 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 Fran- 
 ciscans, 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 she 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 unself- 
 ishness, 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 j this was 
 
The cloister and the hearth. 455 
 
 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 Eeicht 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, sub- 
 jected 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 cent- 
 ury, 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 unre- 
 strained 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 pen- 
 siveness; bat 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 
 
456 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 was the greatest peacemaker, 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 peace- 
 making 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, hares, 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 honor 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 ut- 
 most 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. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 457 
 
 " How lucky you thought of me ! " said Gerard. 
 u 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 parlor, 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 humor 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 j overstay not thy market. Wouldst 
 
458 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 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 these 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 liim?" 
 " 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. Xo 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. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 459 
 
 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. 0 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 mon- 
 ster that I am." 
 
 So the next day they both went to Gouda. And Gerard, 
 who had been praying for resignation all this time, re- 
 ceived 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. And as 
 she was going away she murmured, " Forgive ! and for- 
 get ! I am but a woman." 
 
 He misunderstood her, and said, " All I bargain for is, 
 
460 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 let me see thee content ; for pity's sake, let me not see 
 thee unhappy as I have this while." 
 
 " My darling, you never shall again," said Margaret, 
 with streaming eyes, and kissed his hand. 
 
 He misunderstood this too at first ; but when month 
 after month passed, and he heard no more of her mar- 
 riage, and she came to Gouda comparatively cheerful, 
 and was even civil to Father Ambrose, a mild benevolent 
 monk from the Dominican convent hard by — then he 
 understood her; and one day he invited her to walk 
 alone with him in the sacred paddock ; and before I re- 
 late what passed between them, I must give its history. 
 
 When Gerard had been four or five days at the manse, 
 looking out of the window he uttered an exclamation of 
 joy. " Mother, Margaret, here is one of my birds ; an- 
 other, another ; four, six, nine. A miracle ! a miracle ! 99 
 
 " Why, how can you tell your birds from their fel- 
 lows ? " said Catherine. 
 
 " I know every feather in their wings. And see ; 
 there is the little darling whose claw I gilt, bless it ! " 
 
 And presently his rapture took a serious turn, and he 
 saw Heaven's approbation in this conduct of the birds as 
 he did in the fall of the cave. This wonderfully kept 
 alive his friendship for animals : and he enclosed a pad- 
 dock, and drove all the sons of Cain from it with threats 
 of excommunication. " On this little spot of earth we'll 
 have no murder," said he. He tamed leverets and par- 
 tridges, and little birds, and hares, and roe-deer. He 
 found a squirrel with a broken leg; he set it with infi- 
 nite difficulty and patience ; and during the cure showed 
 it repositories of acorns, nuts, chestnuts, etc. And this 
 squirrel got well and went off, but visited him in hard 
 weather, and brought a mate, and next year little squir- 
 rels were found to have imbibed their parents' senti- 
 ments : and of all these animals each generation was 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 461 
 
 tamer than the last. This set the good parson thinking, 
 and gave him the true clew to the great successes of 
 mediaeval hermits in taming wild animals. 
 
 He kept the key of this paddock, and never let any 
 man but himself enter it : nor would he even let little 
 Gerard go there without him or Margaret. "Children 
 are all little Cains," said he. 
 
 In this oasis then he spoke to Margaret, and said, 
 " Dear Margaret, I have thought more than ever of thee 
 of late, and have asked myself why I am content, and 
 thou unhappy." 
 
 " Because thou art better, wiser, holier than I ; that is 
 all," said Margaret, promptly. 
 
 "Our lives tell another tale," said Gerard, thought- 
 fully. " I know thy goodness and thy wisdom too well 
 to reason thus perversely. Also I know that I love thee 
 as dear as thou, I think, lovest me. Yet am I happier 
 than thou. Why is this so ? " 
 
 " Dear Gerard, I am as happy as a woman can hope to 
 be this side the grave." 
 
 " Not so happy as I. Now for the reason. First then 
 I am a priest, and this, the one great trial and disap- 
 pointment God giveth me along with so many joys, why, 
 I share it with a multitude. For, alas ! I am not the 
 only priest by thousands that must never hope for 
 entire earthly happiness. Here then thy lot is harder 
 than mine." 
 
 "But, Gerard, I have my child to love. Thou canst 
 not fill thy heart with him as his mother can. So you 
 may set this against you." 
 
 " And I have ta'en him from thee ; it was cruel ; but 
 he would have broken thy heart one day if I had not. 
 Well then, sweet one, I come to where the shoe pincheth, 
 methinks. I have my parish, and it keeps my heart in 
 a glow from morn till night. There is scarce an emotion 
 
462 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 that my folk stir not up in me many times a day. Often 
 their sorrows make me weep, sometimes their perversity 
 kindles a little wrath, and their absurdity makes me 
 laugh, and sometimes their flashes of unexpected good- 
 ness do set me all of a glow : and I could hug 'em. 
 Meantime thou, poor soul, sittest with heart " — 
 " Of lead, Gerard, of very lead." 
 
 " See now, how unkind thy lot compared with mine. 
 Now how if thou couldst be persuaded to warm thyself 
 at the fire that warmeth me ? 99 
 
 "Ah, if I could?" 
 
 " Hast but to will it. Come among my folk. Take in 
 thine hand the alms I set aside, and give it with kind 
 words ; hear their sorrows : they shall show you life is 
 full of troubles, and, as thou sayest truly, no man or 
 woman without their thorn this side the grave. In-doors 
 I have a map of G-ouda parish. Not to o'erburden thee 
 at first, I will put twenty housen under thee with their 
 folk. What sayest thou ? but for thy wisdom I had 
 died a dirty maniac, and ne'er seen Gouda manse, nor 
 pious peace. Wilt profit in turn by what little wisdom 
 / have to soften her lot to whom I do owe all ? " 
 
 Margaret assented warmly ; and a happy thing it was 
 for the little district assigned to her ; it was as if an 
 angel had descended on them. Her fingers were never 
 tired of knitting or cutting for them, her heart of sym- 
 pathizing with them. And that heart expanded and 
 waved its drooping wings ; and the glow of good and 
 gentle deeds began to spread over it : and she was re- 
 warded in another way, by being brought into more con- 
 tact with Gerard, and also with his spirit. All this time 
 malicious tongues had not been idle. " If there is nought 
 between them more than meets the eye, why doth she 
 not marry ? " etc. And I am sorry to say our old friend 
 Joan Ketel was one of these coarse sceptics. And now, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 463 
 
 one winter evening she got on a hot scent. She saw 
 Margaret and Gerard talking earnestly together on the 
 Boulevard. She whipped behind a tree. "Now I'll 
 hear something," said she : and so she did. It was win- 
 ter ; there had been one of those tremendous floods, fol- 
 lowed by a sharp frost, and Gerard in despair as to 
 where he should lodge forty or fifty houseless folk out 
 of the piercing cold. And now it was, "0 dear, dear 
 Margaret, what shall I do ? The manse is full of them, 
 and a sharp frost coming on this night." 
 
 Margaret reflected, and Joan listened. 
 
 u You must lodge them in the church," said Margaret, 
 quietly. 
 
 " In the church ? Profanation." 
 
 " No : charity profanes nothing ; not even a church : 
 soils nought, not even a church. To-day is but Tuesday. 
 Go save their lives ; for a bitter night is coming. Take 
 thy stove into the church : and there house them. We 
 will dispose of them here and there ere the Lord's day." 
 
 " And I could not think of that : bless thee, sweet 
 Margaret ; thy mind is stronger than mine, and readier." 
 
 " Nay, nay, a woman looks but a little way ; therefore 
 she sees clear. I'll come over myself to-morrow." 
 
 And on this they parted with mutual blessings. 
 
 Joan glided home remorseful. 
 
 And after that she used to check all surmises to their 
 discredit. "Beware," she would say, "lest some angel 
 should blister thy tongue. Gerard and Margaret para- 
 mours ? I tell ye they are two saints which meet in 
 secret to plot charity to the poor." 
 
 In the summer of 1481 Gerard determined to provide 
 against similar disasters recurring to his poor. Accord- 
 ingly he made a great hole in his income, and bled his 
 friends (zealous parsons always do that) to build a large 
 Xenodochium to receive the victims of flood or fire. 
 
464 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 Giles and all his friends were kind, but all was not 
 enough ; when lo ! the Dominican monks of Gouda, to 
 whom his parlor and heart had been open for years, 
 came out nobly and put down a handsome sum to aid 
 the charitable vicar. 
 
 "The dear good souls," said Margaret, "who would 
 have thought it ! " 
 
 " Any one who knows them," said Gerard. " Who 
 more charitable than monks ? " 
 
 " Go to ! They do but give the laity back a pig of 
 their own sow." 
 
 " And what more do I ? What more doth the duke ? " 
 
 Then the ambitious vicar must build almshouses for 
 decayed true men in their old age, close to the manse, 
 that he might keep and feed them, as well as lodge 
 them. And, his money being gone, he asked Margaret 
 for a few thousand bricks, and just took off his coat and 
 turned builder; and as he had a good head, and the 
 strength of a Hercules, with the zeal of an artist, up 
 rose a couple of almshouses parson built. 
 
 And at this work Margaret would sometimes bring 
 him his dinner, and add a good bottle of Ehenish. And 
 once, seeing him run up a plank with a wheelbarrow full 
 of bricks, which really most bricklayers would have gone 
 staggering under, she said, " Times are changed since I 
 had to carry little Gerard for thee." 
 
 " Ay, dear one, thanks to thee." 
 
 When the first home was finished, the question was 
 who they should put into it ; and being fastidious over 
 it like a new toy, there was much hesitation. But an 
 old friend arrived in time to settle this question. 
 
 As Gerard was passing a public house in Eotterdam 
 one day, he heard a well-known voice. He looked up, 
 and there was Denys of Burgundy ; but sadly changed : 
 his beard stained with gray, and his clothes worn and 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 465 
 
 ragged ; he had a cuirass still, and gauntlets, but a staff 
 instead of an arbalest. To the company he appeared to 
 be bragging and boasting ; but in reality he was giving 
 a true relation of Edward the Fourth's invasion of an 
 armed kingdom with two thousand men, and his march 
 through the country with armies capable of swallowing 
 him, looking on, his battles at Tewkesbury and Barnet, 
 and re-occupation of his capital and kingdom in three 
 months after landing at the Humber with a mixed hand- 
 ful of Dutch, English, and Burgundians. 
 
 In this, the greatest feat of arms the century had 
 seen, Denys had shone ; and whilst sneering at the war- 
 like pretensions of Charles the Bold, a duke with an 
 itch, but no talent, for fighting, and proclaiming the 
 English king the first captain of the age, did not forget 
 to exalt himself. 
 
 Gerard listened with eyes glittering affection and fun. 
 "And now," said Denys, "after all these feats, patted 
 on the back by the gallant young Prince of Gloucester, 
 and smiled on by the great captain himself, here I am 
 lamed for life ; by what ? by the kick of a horse, and 
 this night I know not where I shall lay my tired bones. 
 I had a comrade once in these parts, that would not 
 have let me lie far from him. But he turned priest and 
 deserted his sweetheart ; so 'tis not likely he would re- 
 member his comrade. And ten years play sad havoc 
 with our hearts, and limbs, and all." Poor Denys sighed, 
 and Gerard's bowels yearned over him. 
 
 " What words are these ? " he said, with a great gulp 
 in his throat. " Who grudges a brave soldier supper and 
 bed ? Come home with me ! " 
 
 " Much obliged ; but I am no lover of priests." 
 
 " Nor I of soldiers j but what is supper and bed between 
 two true men ? " 
 
 * Not much to you ; but something to me. 1 will come." 
 
466 THE CLOISTER AKD THE HEARTH. 
 
 " In one hour," said Gerard, and went in high spirits 
 to Margaret, and told her the treat in store, and she must 
 come and share it. She must drive his mother in his 
 little carriage up to the manse with all speed, and make 
 ready an excellent supper. 
 
 Then he himself borrowed a cart, and drove Denys up 
 rather slowly, to give the women time. 
 
 On the road Denys found out this priest was a kind 
 soul ; so told him his trouble, and confessed his heart was 
 pretty near broken. " The great use our stout hearts, 
 and arms, and lives, till we are worn out, and then 
 fling us away like broken tools." He sighed deeply : 
 and it cost Gerard a great struggle not to hug him then 
 and there, and tell him. But he wanted to do it all like 
 a story-book. Who has not had this fancy once in his 
 life ? Why, Joseph had it ; all the better for us. 
 
 They landed at the little house. It was as clean as a 
 penny ; the hearth blazing, and supper set. 
 
 Denys brightened up. " Is this your house, reverend 
 sir ? " 
 
 " Well, 'tis my work, and with these hands ; but 'tis 
 your house." 
 
 " Ah, no such luck," said Denys, with a sigh. 
 
 " But I say ay," shouted Gerard. " And what is more, 
 I " — (gulp) " say " — (gulp) " Courage, camarade, le 
 (Liable est mort / " 
 
 Denys started, and almost staggered. " Why, what ? " 
 he stammered, " w — wh — who art thou, that bringest me 
 back the merry words and merry days of my youth ? " 
 and he was greatly agitated. 
 
 " My poor Denys, I am one whose face is changed, but 
 nought else : to my heart, dear, trusty comrade, to my 
 heart." And he opened his arms, with the tears in his 
 eyes. But Denys came close to him, and peered in his 
 face, and devoured every feature ; and when he was sure 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 467 
 
 it was really Gerard, he uttered a cry so vehement it 
 brought the women running from the house, and fell 
 upon Gerard's neck, and kissed him again and again, 
 and sank on his knees, and laughed and sobbed with joy 
 so terribly that Gerard mourned his folly in doing dramas. 
 But the women with their gentle soothing ways soon 
 composed the brave fellow ; and he sat smiling, and hold- 
 ing Margaret's hand and Gerard's. And they all supped 
 together, and went to their beds with hearts warm as a 
 toast ; and the broken soldier was at peace, and in his 
 own house, and under his comrade's wing. 
 
 His natural gayety returned, and he resumed his con- 
 signe after eight years' disuse, and hobbled about the 
 place, enlivening it; but offended the parish mortally, 
 by calling the adored vicar comrade, and nothing but 
 comrade. 
 
 When they made a fuss about this to Gerard, he just 
 looked in their faces, and said, " What does it matter ? 
 Break him of swearing, and you shall have my thanks." 
 
 This year Margaret went to a lawyer to make her will, 
 for without this, she was told, her boy might have trouble 
 some day to get his own, not being born in lawful wed- 
 lock. The lawyer, however, in conversation, expressed a 
 different opinion. 
 
 " This is the babble of churchmen," said he. " Yours 
 is a perfect marriage, though an irregular one." 
 
 He then informed her that throughout Europe, except- 
 ing only the southern part of Britain, there were three 
 irregular marriages, the highest of which was hers, viz., 
 a betrothal before witnesses. 
 
 " This," said he, " if not followed by matrimonial inter- 
 course, is a marriage complete in form, but incomplete in 
 substance. A person so betrothed can forbid any other 
 banns to all eternity. It has, however, been set aside, 
 where a party so betrothed contrived to get married reg- 
 
468 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ularly, and children were born thereafter. But such a 
 decision was for the sake of the offspring, and of doubtful 
 justice. However, in your case, the birth of your child 
 closes that door, and your marriage is complete both in 
 form and substance. Your course, therefore, is to sue 
 for your conjugal rights : it will be the prettiest case of 
 the century. The law is all on our side, the Church all 
 on theirs. If you come to that, the old Batavian law, 
 which compelled the clergy to marry, hath fallen into 
 disuse, but was never formally repealed." 
 
 Margaret was quite puzzled. " What are you driving 
 at, sir ? Who am I to go to law with ? " 
 
 " Who is the defendant ? Why, the vicar of Gouda." 
 
 " Alas, poor soul ! And for what shall I law him V " 
 
 " Why, to make him take you into his house, and 
 share bed and board with you, to be sure." 
 
 Margaret turned red as fire. " Gramercy for your 
 rede," said she. " What, is yon a woman's part ? Con- 
 strain a man to be hers by force ? That is men's way of 
 wooing, not ours. Say I were so ill a woman as ye think 
 me, I should set myself to beguile him, not to law him ; " 
 and she departed, crimson with shame and indignation. 
 
 " There is an impracticable fool for you," said the 
 man of art. 
 
 Margaret had her will drawn elsewhere, and made her 
 boy safe from poverty, marriage or no marriage. 
 
 These are the principal incidents that in ten whole 
 years befell two peaceful lives, which in a much shorter 
 period had been so thronged with adventures and emo- 
 tions. 
 
 Their general tenor was now peace, piety, the mild 
 content that lasts, not the fierce bliss ever on tiptoe to 
 depart, and, above all, Christian charity. 
 
 On this sacred ground these two true lovers met with 
 an uniformity and a kindness of sentiment which went 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 469 
 
 far to soothe the wound in their own hearts. To pity 
 the same bereaved; to hunt in couples all the ills in 
 Gouda, and contrive and scheme together to remedy all 
 that were remediable; to use the rare insight into 
 troubled hearts which their own troubles had given 
 them, and use it to make others happier than them- 
 selves, this was their daily practice. And in this blessed 
 cause their passion for one another cooled a little, but 
 their affection increased. From the time Margaret en- 
 tered heart and soul into Gerard's pious charities, that 
 affection purged itself of all mortal dross. And as it 
 had now long outlived scandal and misapprehension, one 
 would have thought that so bright an example of pure 
 self-denying affection was to remain long before the 
 world, to show men how nearly religious faith, even when 
 not quite reasonable, and religious charity, which is 
 always reasonable, could raise two true lovers' hearts to 
 the loving hearts of the angels of heaven. But the 
 great Disposer of events ordered otherwise. 
 
 Little Gerard rejoiced both his parents' hearts by the 
 extraordinary progress he made at Alexander Haaghe's 
 famous school at Deventer. 
 
 The last time Margaret returned from visiting him, 
 she came to Gerard flushed with pride. " O Gerard, 
 he will be a great man one day, thanks to thy wisdom 
 in taking him from us silly women. A great scholar, 
 one Zinthius, came to see the school and judge the 
 scholars, and didn't our Gerard stand up, and not a 
 line in Horace or Terence could Zinthius cite, but the 
 boy would follow him with the rest. 'Why, 'tis a 
 prodigy/ says that great scholar ; and there was his poor 
 mother stood by and heard it. And he took our Gerard 
 in his arms, and kissed him; and what think you he 
 said?" 
 
 " Nay, I know not." 
 
470 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 " ' Holland will hear of thee one day : and not Holland 
 only, but all the world.' Why, what a sad brow ! " 
 
 " Sweet one, I am as glad as thou ; yet am I uneasy 
 to hear the child is wise before his time. I love him 
 dear : but he is thine idol ; and Heaven doth often break 
 our idols." 
 
 " Make thy mind easy," said Margaret. " Heaven 
 will never rob me of my child. What I was to suffer in 
 this world I have suffered. For if any ill happened my 
 child or thee, I should not live a week. The Lord He 
 knows this, and He will leave me my boy." 
 
 A month had elapsed after this ; but Margaret's words 
 were yet ringing in his ears, when, going his daily 
 round of visits to his poor, he was told quite incidentally 
 and as mere gossip that the plague was at Deventer, 
 carried thither by two sailors from Hamburgh. 
 
 His heart turned cold within him. News did not 
 gallop in those days. The fatal disease must have been 
 there a long time before the tidings would reach Gouda. 
 He sent a line by a messenger to Margaret, telling her 
 that he was gone to fetch little Gerard to stay at the 
 manse a little while ; and would she see a bed prepared, 
 for he should be back next day. And so he hoped she 
 would not hear a word of the danger till it was all 
 happily over. He borrowed a good horse, and scarce 
 drew rein till he reached Deventer, quite late in the 
 afternoon. He went at once to the school. The boy 
 had been taken away. 
 
 As he left the school he caught sight of Margaret's 
 face at the window of a neighboring house she always 
 lodged at when she came to Deventer. 
 
 He ran hastily in to scold her and pack both her and 
 the boy out of the place. 
 
 To his surprise the servant told him with some hesita- 
 tion that Margaret had been there, but was gone. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 471 
 
 " Gone, woman ? " said Gerard, indignantly. " Art 
 not ashamed to say so ? Why, I saw her but now at the 
 window." 
 
 " Oh, if you saw her " — 
 
 A sweet voice above said, "Stay him not, let him 
 enter." It was Margaret. 
 
 Gerard ran up the stairs to her, and went to take her 
 hand. 
 
 She drew back hastily. 
 He looked astounded. 
 
 "I am displeased," said she, coldly. "What makes 
 you here ? Know you not the plague is in the town ? " 
 
 " Ay, dear Margaret : and came straightway to take 
 our boy away." 
 
 " What, had he no mother ? " 
 
 " How you speak to me ! I hoped you knew not." 
 
 " What, think you I leave my boy unwatched ? I pay 
 a trusty woman that notes every change in his cheek 
 when I am not here, and lets me know. I am his 
 mother." 
 
 " Where is he ? " 
 
 " In Eotterdam, I hope, ere this." 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! And why are you not there ? " 
 
 " I am not fit for the journey : never heed me ; go you 
 home on the instant : I'll follow. For shame of you 
 to come here risking your precious life." 
 
 " It is not so precious as thine," said Gerard. " But let 
 that pass ; we will go home together, and on the instant." 
 
 " Nay, I have some matters to do in the town, Go thou 
 at once ; and I will follow forthwith." 
 
 " Leave thee alone in a plague-stricken town ? To 
 whom speak you, dear Margaret ? " 
 
 " Nay, then we shall quarrel, Gerard." 
 
 "Methinks I see Margaret and Gerard quarrelling! 
 Why, it takes two to quarrel, and we are but one." 
 
472 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 With this Gerard smiled on her sweetly. But there 
 was no kind responsive glance. She looked cold, gloomy, 
 and troubled. He sighed, and sat patiently down oppo- 
 site her with his face all puzzled and saddened. He said 
 nothing : for he felt sure she would explain her capri- 
 cious conduct, or it would explain itself. 
 
 Presently she rose hastily, and tried to reach her 
 bedroom : but on the way she staggered and put out her 
 hand. He ran to her with a cry of alarm. She swooned 
 in his arms. He laid her gently on the ground, and beat 
 her cold hands, and ran to her bedroom, and fetched 
 water, and sprinkled her pale face. His own was scarce 
 less pale ; for in a basin he had seen water stained with 
 blood : it alarmed him, he knew not why. She was a 
 long time ere she revived, and when she did she found 
 Gerard holding her hand, and bending over her with a 
 look of infinite concern and tenderness. She seemed at 
 first as if she responded to it, but the next moment her 
 eyes dilated, and she cried, " Ah, wretch, leave my hand ; 
 how dare you touch me?" 
 
 "Heaven help her!" said Gerard. "She is not 
 herself." 
 
 " You will not leave me, then, Gerard ? " said she, 
 faintly. " Alas ! why do I ask ? Would I leave thee if 
 thou wert — At least touch me not, and then I will let 
 thee bide, and see the last of poor Margaret. She ne'er 
 spoke harsh to thee before, sweetheart; and she never 
 will again." 
 
 " Alas ! what mean these dark words, these wild and 
 troubled looks ? " said Gerard, clasping his hands. 
 
 " My poor Gerard," said Margaret, " forgive me that I 
 spoke so to thee. I am but a woman, and would have 
 spared thee a sight will make thee weep." She burst 
 into tears. "Ah, me!" she cried, weeping, "that I 
 cannot keep grief from thee : there is a great sorrow 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 473 
 
 before my darling, and this time I shall not be able to 
 come and dry his eyes." 
 
 " Let it come, Margaret, so it touch not thee," said 
 Gerard, trembling. 
 
 " Dearest," said Margaret, solemnly, " call now religion 
 to thine aid and mine. I must have died before thee 
 one day, or else outlived thee and so died of grief." 
 
 " Died ? thou die ? I will never let thee die. Where 
 is thy pain ? What is thy trouble ? " 
 
 " The plague," said she calmly. Gerard uttered a cry 
 of horror, and started to his feet : she read his thought. 
 " Useless," said she, quietly. " My nose hath bled ; none 
 ever yet survived to whom that came along with the 
 plague. Bring no fools hither to babble over the body 
 they cannot save. I am but a woman ; I love not to be 
 stared at ; let none see me die but thee." 
 
 And even with this a convulsion seized her, and she 
 remained sensible but speechless a long time. 
 
 And now for the first time Gerard began to realize the 
 frightful truth, and he ran wildly to and fro, and cried to 
 Heaven for help as drowning men cry to their fellow- 
 creatures. She raised herself on her arm, and set her- 
 self to quiet him. 
 
 She told him she had known the torture of hopes and 
 fears, and was resolved to spare him that agony. " I let 
 my mind dwell too much on the danger," said she, "and 
 so opened my brain to it ; through which door when this 
 subtle venom enters it makes short work. I shall not be 
 spotted or loathsome, my poor darling ; God is good and 
 spares thee that ; but in twelve hours I shall be a dead 
 woman. Ah, look not so, but be a man : be a priest ! 
 Waste not one precious minute over my body; it is 
 doomed ; but comfort my parting soul." 
 
 Gerard sick and cold at heart kneeled down, and 
 prayed for help from Heaven to do his duty. 
 
474 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 When he rose from his knees his face was pale and 
 old, but deadly calm and patient. He went softly and 
 brought her bed into the room, and laid her gently down 
 and supported her head with pillows. Then he prayed 
 by her side the prayers for the dying, and she said Amen 
 to each prayer. Then for some hours she wandered, but 
 when the fell disease had quite made sure of its prey, 
 her mind cleared ; and she begged Gerard to shrive her j 
 " For oh, my conscience it is laden," said she, sadly. 
 
 " Confess thy sins to me, my daughter ; let there be no 
 reserve." 
 
 " My father," said she sadly, " I have one great sin on 
 my breast this many years. E'en now that death is at 
 my heart, I can scarce own it. But the Lord is debonair: 
 if thou wilt pray to Him, perchance He may forgive me." 
 
 " Confess it first, my daughter." 
 
 "I — alas!" 
 
 "Confess it!" 
 
 " I deceived thee. This many years I have deceived 
 thee." 
 
 Here tears interrupted her speech. 
 
 " Courage, my daughter, courage," said Gerard, kindly, 
 overpowering the lover in the priest. 
 
 She hid her face in her hands, and with many sighs 
 told him it was she who had broken down the hermit's 
 cave with the help of Jorian Ketel. " I, shallow, did it 
 but to hinder thy return thither ; but when thou sawest 
 therein the finger of God, I played the traitress, and 
 said, 'While he thinks so he will ne'er leave Gouda 
 manse ; ' and I held my tongue. 0 false heart ! " 
 
 " Courage, my daughter ; thou dost exaggerate a trivial 
 fault." 
 
 "Ah, but 'tis not all. The birds." 
 "Well?" 
 
 " They followed thee not to Gouda by miracle but by 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 475 
 
 my treason. I said, he will ne'er be quite happy with- 
 out his birds that visited him in his cell ; and I was 
 jealous of them, and cried, and said, these foul little 
 things, they are my child's rivals. And I bought loaves 
 of bread, and Jorian and me we put crumbs at the cave 
 door, and thence went sprinkling them all the way tc 
 the manse, and there a heap. And my wiles succeeded, 
 and they came, and thou wast glad, and I was pleased to 
 see thee glad ; and when thou sawest in my guile the 
 finger of Heaven, wicked, deceitful, I did hold my 
 tongue. But die deceiving thee ? ah, no. I could not. 
 Forgive me if thou canst ; I was but a woman ; I knew 
 no better at the time. 'Twas writ in my bosom with a 
 very sunbeam, 'Tis good for him to bide at Gouda 
 manse.' " 
 
 " Forgive thee, sweet innocent ? " sobbed Gerard, 
 " what have / to forgive ? Thou hadst a foolish f ro- 
 ward child to guide to his own weal, and didst all this 
 for the best. I thank thee and bless thee. But as thy 
 confessor, all deceit is ill in Heaven's pure eye. There- 
 fore thou hast done well to confess and report it ; and 
 even on thy confession and penitence the Church through 
 me absolves thee. Pass to thy graver faults." 
 
 " My graver faults ? Alas ! alas ! Why, what have I 
 done to compare ? I am not an ill woman, not a very ill 
 one. If He can forgive me deceiving thee, He can well 
 forgive me all the rest ever I did." 
 
 Being gently pressed, she said she was to blame not to 
 have done more good in the world. "I had just begun 
 to do a little," she said ; " and now I must go. But I 
 repine not, since 'tis Heaven's will. Only I am so afeard 
 thou wilt miss me." And at this she could not restrain 
 her tears, though she tried hard. 
 
 Gerard struggled with his as well as he could ; and, 
 knowing her life of piety, purity, and charity, and see- 
 
476 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 ing that she could not, in her present state, realize any 
 sin but her having deceived him, gave her full absolu- 
 tion. Then he put the crucifix in her hand, and, while 
 he consecrated the oil, bade her fix her mind neither on 
 her merits nor her demerits, but on Him who died for 
 her on the tree. 
 
 She obeyed him, with a look of confiding love and 
 submission. 
 
 And he touched her eyes with the consecrated oil, and 
 prayed aloud beside her. 
 Soon after she dozed. 
 
 He watched beside her, more dead than alive himself. 
 
 When the day broke she awoke, and seemed to acquire 
 some energy. She begged him to look in her box for her 
 marriage lines, and for a picture, and bring them both to 
 her. He did so. She then entreated him by all they had 
 suffered for each other, to ease her mind by making a 
 solemn vow to execute her dying requests. 
 
 He vowed to obey them to the letter. 
 
 "Then, Gerard, let no creature come here to lay me 
 out. I could not bear to be stared at ; my very corpse 
 would blush. Also, I would not be made a monster of 
 for the worms to sneer at as well as feed on. Also, my 
 very clothes are tainted, and shall to earth with me. I 
 am a physician's daughter : and ill becomes me kill folk, 
 being dead, which did so little good to men in the days 
 of health ; wherefore lap me in lead the way I am, and 
 bury me deep ! yet not so deep but what one day thou 
 mayst find the way, and lay thy bones by mine. 
 
 " Whiles I lived I went to Gouda but once or twice a 
 week. It cost me not to go each day. Let me gain this 
 by dying, to be always at dear Gouda — in the green 
 kirkyard. 
 
 " Also, they do say the spirit hovers where the body 
 lies : I would have my spirit hover near thee, and the 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 477 
 
 kirkyard is not far from the manse. I am so afeard 
 some ill will happen thee, Margaret being gone. 
 
 "And see, with mine own hands I place my marriage 
 lines in my bosom. Let no living hand move them, on 
 pain of thy curse and mine. Then, when the angel comes 
 for me at the last day, he shall say, this is an honest 
 woman ; she hath her marriage lines (for you know I am 
 your lawful wife, though holy Church hath come between 
 us), and he will set me where the honest women be. I 
 will not sit among ill women, no, not in heaven ; for their 
 mind is not my mind, nor their soul my soul. I have 
 stood, unbeknown, at my window, and heard their talk." 
 
 For some time she was unable to say any more, but 
 made signs to him that she had not done. 
 
 At last she recovered her breath, and bade him look at 
 the picture. 
 
 It was the portrait he had made of her when they were 
 young together, and little thought to part so soon. He 
 held it in his hands and looked at it, but could scarce see 
 it. He had left it in fragments, but now it was whole. 
 
 " They cut it to pieces, Gerard. But see, Love mocked 
 at their knives. 
 
 " I implore thee with my dying breath, let this picture 
 hang ever in thine eye. 
 
 "I have heard that such as die of the plague, unspotted, 
 yet after death spots have been known to come out ; and, 
 oh, I could not bear thy last memory of me to be so ! 
 Therefore, as soon as the breath is out of my body, cover 
 my face with this handkerchief, and look at me no more 
 till we meet again ; 'twill not be so very long. Oh, 
 promise ! " 
 
 " I promise," said Gerard, sobbing. 
 
 " But look on this picture instead. Forgive me ; I am 
 but a woman. I could not bear my face to lie a foul 
 thing in thy memory. Nay, I must have thee still think 
 
478 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 me as fair as I was true. Hast called me an angel once 
 or twice ; but be just ! did I not still tell thee I was no 
 angel, but only a poor simple woman, that whiles saw 
 clearer than thou because she looked but a little way, 
 and that loves thee dearly, and never loved but thee, and 
 now with her dying breath prays thee indulge her in this, 
 thou that art a man." 
 
 "I will, I will. Each word, each wish is sacred." 
 
 " Bless thee ! bless thee ! So then the eyes that now 
 can scarce see thee, they are so troubled by the pest, and 
 the lips that shall not touch thee to taint thee, will still 
 be before thee, as they were when we were young, and 
 thou didst love me." 
 
 " When I did love thee, Margaret ! Oh, never loved I 
 thee as now." 
 
 " Hast not told me so of late." 
 
 "Alas ! hath love no voice but words ? I was a priest ; 
 I had charge of thy soul ; the sweet offices of a pure love 
 were lawful ; words of love imprudent at the least. But 
 now the good fight is won, ah me ! Oh, my love, if thou 
 hast lived doubting of thy Gerard's heart, die not so : for 
 never was woman loved so tenderly as thou this ten years 
 past." 
 
 " Calm thyself, dear one," said the dying woman, with 
 a heavenly smile. " I know it : only, being but a woman, 
 I could not die happy till I had heard thee say so. Ah, I 
 have pined ten years for those sweet words. Hast said 
 them ; and this is the happiest hour of my life. I had 
 to die to get them ; well, I grudge not the price." 
 
 From this moment a gentle complacency rested on her 
 fading features, but she did not speak. 
 
 Then Gerard, who had loved her soul so many years, 
 feared lest she should expire with a mind too fixed on 
 earthly affection. "0 my daughter," he cried, "my 
 dear daughter, if indeed thou lovest me as I love thee, 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 479 
 
 give me not the pain of seeing thee die with thy pious 
 soul fixed on mortal things. 
 
 " Dearest lamb of all my f old, for whose soul I must 
 answer, oh, think not now of mortal love, but of His who 
 died for thee on the tree. Oh, let thy last look be heaven- 
 wards, thy last word a word of prayer." 
 
 She turned a look of gratitude and obedience on 
 him. "What saint?" she murmured: meaning, doubt- 
 less, " what saint should she invoke as an intercessor." 
 
 "He to whom the saints themselves do pray." 
 
 She turned on him one more sweet look of love and 
 submission, and put her pretty hands together in prayer 
 like a child. 
 
 "Jesu/" 
 
 This blessed word was her last. She lay with her 
 eyes heavenwards, and her hands put together. 
 
 Gerard prayed fervently for her passing spirit. And 
 when he had prayed a long time with his head averted, 
 not to see her last breath, all seemed unnaturally still. 
 He turned his head fearfully. It was so. 
 
 She was gone. 
 
 Nothing left him now but the earthly shell of as 
 constant, pure, and loving a spirit as ever adorned the 
 earth. 
 
480 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 A priest is never more thoroughly a priest than in 
 the chamber of death. Gerard did the last offices of the 
 Church for the departed, just as he should have done 
 them for his smallest parishioner. He did this mechan- 
 ically, then sat down stupefied by the sudden and tre- 
 mendous blow ; and not yet realizing the pangs of 
 bereavement. Then in a transport of religious enthu- 
 siasm he kneeled and thanked Heaven for her Christian 
 end. 
 
 And then all his thought was to take her away from 
 strangers, and lay her in his 'own churchyard. That very 
 evening a covered cart with one horse started for Gouda, 
 and in it was a coffin, and a broken-hearted man lying 
 with his arms and chin resting on it. 
 
 The mourner's short-lived energy had exhausted itself 
 in the necessary preparations, and now he lay crushed, 
 clinging to the cold lead that held her. 
 
 The man of whom the cart was hired walked by the 
 horse's head, and did not speak to him, and when he 
 baited the horse, spoke but in a whisper respecting that 
 mute agony. But, when he stopped for the night, he 
 and the landlord made a well-meaning attempt to get the 
 mourner away to take some rest and food. But Gerard 
 repulsed them, and, when they persisted, almost snarled 
 at them, like a faithful dog, and clung to the cold lead 
 all night. So then they drew a cloak over him, and left 
 him in peace. 
 
 And at noon the sorrowful cart came up to the manse, 
 and there were full a score of parishioners collected with 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 48l 
 
 one little paltry trouble or another. They had missed 
 the parson already. And when they saw what it was, 
 and saw their healer so stricken down, they raised a loud 
 wail of grief, and it roused him from his lethargy of woe, 
 and he saw where he was, and their faces, and tried to 
 speak to them. " O my children ! my children ! " he 
 cried ; but choked with anguish could say no more. 
 
 Yet the next day, spite of all remonstrances, he buried 
 her himself, and read the service with a voice that only 
 trembled now and then. Many tears fell upon her grave. 
 And when the service ended, he stayed there standing 
 like a statue, and the people left the churchyard out of 
 respect. 
 
 He stood like one in a dream, till the sexton, who was, 
 as most men are, a fool, began to fill in the grave with- 
 out giving him due warning. 
 
 But at the sound of earth falling on her, Gerard uttered 
 a piercing scream. 
 
 The sexton forbore. 
 
 Gerard staggered and put his hand to his breast. The 
 sexton supported him, and called for help. 
 
 Jorian Ketel, who lingered near, mourning his bene- 
 factress, ran into the churchyard, and the two supported 
 Gerard into the manse. 
 
 " Ah, Jorian ! good Jorian ! " said he, " something 
 snapped within me ; I felt it, and I heard it : here, 
 Jorian, here : " and he put his hand to his breast. 
 
482 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 A fortnight after this a pale, bowed figure entered 
 the Dominican convent in the suburbs of Gouda, and 
 sought speech with Brother Ambrose, who governed the 
 convent as deputy, the prior having lately died, and his 
 successor, though appointed, not having arrived. 
 
 The sick man was Gerard, come to end life as he began 
 it. He entered as a novice, on probation ; but the truth 
 was, he was a failing man, and knew it, and came there 
 to die in peace, near kind and gentle Ambrose, his friend, 
 and the other monks, to whom his house and heart had 
 always been open. 
 
 His manse was more than he could bear ; it was too 
 full of reminiscences of her. 
 
 Ambrose, who knew his value and his sorrow, was not 
 without a kindly hope of curing him, and restoring him 
 to his parish. With this view he put him in a comfort- 
 able cell over the gateway, and forbade him to fast or 
 practise any austerities. 
 
 But in a few days the new prior arrived, and proved a 
 very Tartar. At first he was absorbed in curing abuses, 
 and tightening the general discipline ; but one day hear- 
 ing the vicar of Gouda had entered the convent as a 
 novice, he said, " 'Tis well ; let him first give up his 
 vicarage, then, or go : Fll no fat parsons in my house." 
 The prior then sent for Gerard, and he went to him ; and 
 the moment they saw one another they both started. 
 
 " Clement ! " 
 
 " Jerome ! " 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 483 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 Jerome was as morose as ever in his general charac- 
 ter, but he had somewhat softened towards Gerard. All 
 the time he was in England he had missed him more 
 than he thought possible, and since then had often won- 
 dered what had become of him. What he heard in 
 Gouda raised his feeble brother in his good opinion; 
 above all, that he had withstood the Pope and the Minor- 
 ites on "the infernal heresy of the immaculate con- 
 ception," as he called it. But when one of his young 
 monks told him with tears in his eyes the cause of 
 Gerard's illness, all his contempt revived. " Dying for 
 a woman ? " 
 
 He determined to avert this scandal : he visited Clem- 
 ent twice a day in his cell, and tried all his old influence 
 and all his eloquence to induce him to shake off this 
 unspiritual despondency, and not rob the Church of his 
 piety and his eloquence at so critical a period. 
 
 Gerard heard him, approved his reasoning, admired 
 his strength, confessed his own weakness, and continued 
 visibly to wear away to the land of the leal. One day 
 Jerome told him he had heard his story, and heard it 
 with pride. "But now," said he, "you spoil it all, 
 Clement; for this is the triumph of earthly passion. 
 Better have yielded to it, and repented, than resist it 
 while she lived, and succumb under it now, body and 
 soul." 
 
 " Dear Jerome," said Clement, so sweetly as to rob his 
 remonstrance of the tone of remonstrance, "here, I 
 think, you do me some injustice. Passion there is none, 
 
484 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 but a deep affection, for which I will not blush here, 
 since I shall not blush for it in heaven. Bethink thee, 
 J eroine ; the poor dog that dies of grief on his master's 
 grave, is he guilty of passion ? Neither am I. Passion 
 had saved my life, and lost my soul. She was my good 
 angel: she sustained me in my duty and charity: her 
 face encouraged me in the pulpit : her lips soothed me 
 under ingratitude. She intertwined herself with all 
 that was good in my life ; and after leaning on her so 
 long, I could not go on alone. And, dear J erome, believe 
 me, I am no rebel against heaven. It is God's will to 
 release me. When they threw the earth upon her poor 
 coffin, something snapped within my bosom here that 
 mended may not be. I heard it and I felt it. And 
 from that time, Jerome, no food that I put in my 
 mouth had any savor. With my eyes bandaged now I 
 could not tell thee which was bread, and which was flesh, 
 by eating of it." 
 "Holy saints!" 
 
 " And again, from that same hour my deep dejection 
 left me, and I smiled again. I often smile — why ? I 
 read it thus : He in whose hands are the issues of life 
 and death gave me that minute the great summons; 
 'twas some cord of life snapped in me. He is very piti- 
 ful. I should have lived unhappy ; but He said, ' No ; 
 enough is done, enough is suffered ; poor, feeble, loving 
 servant, thy shortcomings are forgiven, thy sorrows 
 touch thine end ; come thou to thy rest ! ' I come, 
 Lord, I come ! " 
 
 Jerome groaned. " The Church had ever her holy but 
 feeble servants," he said. " Now would I give ten 
 years of my life to save thine j but I see it may not be. 
 Die in peace." 
 
 And so it was that in a few days more, Gerard lay 
 a-dying in a frame of mind so holy and happy that more 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 485 
 
 than one aged saint was there to garner his dying words. 
 In the evening he had seen Giles, and begged him not 
 to let poor Jack starve, and to see that little Gerard's 
 trustees did their duty, and to kiss his parents for him, 
 and to send Denys to his friends in Burgundy : " Poor 
 thing, he will feel so strange here without his comrade." 
 And after that he had an interview with Jerome alone. 
 What passed between them was never distinctly known ; 
 but it must have been something remarkable, for Jerome 
 went from the door with his hands crossed on his breast, 
 his high head lowered, and sighing as he went. 
 
 The two monks that watched with him till matins, 
 related that all through the night he broke out from time 
 to time in pious exclamations, and praises, and thanksgiv- 
 ings ; only once they said he wandered, and thought he 
 saw her walking in green meadows with other spirits 
 clad in white, and beckoning him ; and they all smiled 
 and beckoned him. And both these monks said (but it 
 might have been fancy) that just before dawn there came 
 three light taps against the wall, one after another, very 
 slow ; and the dying man heard them, and said, " I come, 
 love, I come." 
 
 This much is certain, that Gerard did utter these 
 words, and prepare for his departure, having uttered 
 them. He sent for all the monks who at that hour were 
 keeping vigil. They came, and hovered like gentle 
 spirits round him with holy words. Some prayed in 
 silence for him with their faces touching the ground, 
 others tenderly supported his head. But when one of 
 them said something about his life of self-denial and 
 charity, he stopped him, and, addressing them all, said, 
 " My dear brethren, take note that he, who here dies so 
 happy, holds not these new-fangled doctrines of man's 
 merit. Oh, what a miserable hour were this to me an if 
 I did! Nay, but I hold with the apostles, and their 
 
486 
 
 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 pupils in the Church, the ancient fathers, that ' we are 
 justified not by our own wisdom, or piety, or the works 
 we have done in holiness of heart, but by faith.' " 1 
 
 Then there was a silence, and the monks looked at one 
 another significantly. 
 
 " Please you sweep the floor," said the dying Christian 
 in a voice to which all its clearness and force seemed 
 supernaturally restored. 
 
 They instantly obeyed, not without a sentiment of awe 
 and curiosity. 
 
 "Make me a great cross with wood ashes." 
 
 They strewed the ashes in form of a great cross upon 
 the floor. 
 
 " Now lay me down on it ; for so will I die." 
 
 And they took him gently from his bed, and laid him 
 on the cross of wood ashes. 
 
 " Shall we spread out thine arms, dear brother ? " 
 
 "Now God forbid ! Am I worthy of that ? " 
 
 He lay silent, but with his eyes raised in ecstasy. 
 
 Presently he spoke half to them, half to himself. 
 " Oh," he said with a subdued but concentrated rapture, 
 "I feel it buoyant. It lifts me floating in the sky whence 
 my merits had sunk me like lead." 
 
 Day broke, and displayed his face cast upward in 
 silent rapture, and his hands together, like Margaret's. 
 
 And just about the hour she died he spoke his last 
 word in this world : 
 
 "Jesu." 
 
 And even with that word — he fell asleep. 
 They laid him out for his last resting-place. 
 Under his linen they found a horse-hair shirt. " Ah ! " 
 cried the young monks, " behold a saint ! " 
 
 1 He was citing from Clement of Rome : 
 
 " Qv 6i £<zvt(i>v SiKatov/jieda ovdz Sia rr\i ^/i£r£pa? (rorpias, rj svo£0£ia;, rj epywi 
 tv KaT£(»)ya<jan£da zv haioir\Ti icapdias, a\\a Sta rr)s T«mwj." — Epist. ad Corinth 
 i. 32. 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH, 
 
 487 
 
 Under the hair-cloth they found a long thick tress 
 of auburn hair. 
 
 They started, and were horrified ; and a babel of voices 
 arose, some condemning, some excusing. 
 
 In the midst of which Jerome came in, and, hearing 
 the dispute, turned to an ardent young monk called 
 Basil, who was crying scandal the loudest. " Basil," 
 said he, " is she alive or dead that owned this hair ? " 
 
 " How may I know, father ? " 
 
 " Then for aught you know it may be the relic of a 
 saint ?" 
 
 " Certes it may be," said Basil sceptically. 
 
 "You have then broken our rule, which saith, 'Put ill 
 construction on no act done by a brother which can be 
 construed innocently.' Who are you to judge such a 
 man as this was ? go to your cell, and stir not out for a 
 week by way of penance." 
 
 He then carried off the lock of hair. 
 
 And when the coffin was to be closed, he cleared the 
 ce^l, and put the tress upon the dead man's bosom. 
 " There, Clement," said he to the dead face. And set 
 himself a penance for doing it, and nailed the coffin up 
 himself. 
 
 The next day Gerard was buried in Gouda churchyard. 
 The monks followed him in procession from the convent. 
 Jerome, who was evidently carrying out the wishes of 
 the deceased, read the service. The grave was a deep 
 one, and at the bottom of it was a lead coffin. Poor 
 Gerard's, light as a feather (so wasted was he), was low- 
 ered, and placed by the side of it. 
 
 After the service Jerome said a few words to the 
 crowd of parishioners that had come to take the last 
 look at their best friend. When he spoke of the virtues 
 of the departed, loud wailing and weeping burst forth, 
 and tears fell upon the coffin like rain. 
 
488 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH 
 
 The monks went home. Jerome collected them in the 
 refectory and spoke to them thus : " We have this day- 
 laid a saint in the earth. The convent will keep his 
 trentals, but will feast, not fast ; for our good brother is 
 freed from the burden of the flesh : his labors are over, 
 and he has entered into his joyful rest. I alone shall 
 fast and do penance ; for, to my shame I say it, I was 
 unjust to him, and knew not his worth till it was too 
 late. And you, young monks, be not curious to inquire 
 whether a lock he bore on his bosom was a token of pure 
 affection, or the relic of a saint; but remember the 
 heart he wore beneath. Most of all, fix your eyes upon 
 his life and conversation, and follow them an ye may, 
 for he was a holy man." 
 
 Thus after life's fitful fever these true lovers were at 
 peace. The grave, kinder to them than the Church, 
 united them forever ; and now a man of another age 
 and nation, touched with their fate, has labored to build 
 their tombstone, and rescue them from long and un- 
 merited oblivion. 
 
 He asks for them your sympathy, but not your pity. 
 
 No, put this story to a wholesome use. 
 
 Fiction must often give false views of life and death. 
 Here as it happens, curbed by history, she gives you 
 true ones. Let the barrier that kept these true lovers 
 apart prepare you for this, that here on earth there will 
 nearly always be some obstacle or other to your perfect 
 happiness ; to their early death apply your reason and 
 your faith, by way of exercise and preparation. For, if 
 you cannot bear to be told that these died young, who, 
 had they lived a hundred years, would still be dead, how 
 shall you bear to see the gentle, the loving, and the true, 
 glide from your own bosom to the grave, and fly from 
 your house to heaven ? 
 
THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 489 
 
 Yet this is in store for you. In every age the Master 
 of life and death, who is kinder as well as wiser than we 
 are, has transplanted to heaven young, earth's sweetest 
 flowers. 
 
 I ask your sympathy, then, for their rare constancy, 
 and pure affection, and their cruel separation by a vile 
 heresy 1 in the bosom of the Church, but not your pity 
 for their early but happy end. 
 
 Beati sunt qui in Domino moriuntur. 
 
 1 Celibacy of the Clergy, an invention truly fiendish. 
 
490 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 In compliance with a custom I despise, but have not 
 the spirit to resist, I linger on the stage to pick up the 
 smaller fragments of humanity I have scattered about : 
 i.e., some of them, for the wayside characters have no 
 claim on me : they have served their turn if they have 
 persuaded the reader that Gerard travelled from Holland 
 to Rome through human beings, and not through a popu- 
 lation of dolls. 
 
 Eli and Catherine lived to a great age : lived so long 
 that both Gerard and Margaret grew to be dim memo- 
 ries. Giles also was longevous ; he went to the court of 
 Bavaria, and was alive there at ninety, but had somehow 
 turned into bones and leather, trumpet toned. 
 
 Cornells, free from all rivals, and forgiven long ago 
 by his mother, who clung to him more and more now all 
 her brood was scattered, waited, and waited, and waited, 
 for his parents' decease. But Catherine's shrewd word 
 came true : ere she and her mate wore out, this worthy 
 rusted away. At sixty-five he lay dying of old age in 
 his mother's arms, a hale woman of eighty-six. He had 
 lain unconscious awhile, but came to himself in articulo 
 mortis, and seeing her near him, told her how he would 
 transform the shop and premises as soon as they should 
 be his. " Yes, my darling," said the poor old woman 
 soothingly ; and in another minute he was clay ; and that 
 clay was followed to the grave by all the feet whose 
 shoes he had waited for. 
 
 Denys, broken-hearted at his comrade's death, was glad 
 to return to Burgundy, and there a small pension the 
 
THE CLOISTER AKD THE HEARTH. 491 
 
 court allowed him kept him until unexpectedly he in- 
 herited a considerable sum from a relation. He was 
 known in his native place for many years as a crusty old 
 soldier, who could tell good stories of war, when he 
 chose, and a bitter railer against women. 
 
 Jerome, disgusted with modern laxity, retired to Italy, 
 and, having high connections, became at seventy a mitred 
 abbot. He put on the screw of discipline : his monks 
 revered and hated him. He ruled with iron rod ten 
 years. And one night he died alone, for he had not 
 found the way to a single heart. The Vulgate was on 
 his pillow, and the crucifix in his hand, and on his lips 
 something more like a smile than was ever seen there 
 while he lived ; so that, methinks, at that awful hour he 
 was not quite alone. Requiescat in pace. The Master 
 he served has many servants, and they have many minds, 
 and now and then a faithful one will be . a surly one, as 
 it is in these our mortal mansions. 
 
 The yellow-haired laddie, Gerard Gerardson, belongs 
 not to Fiction but to History. She has recorded his birth 
 in other terms than mine. Over the tailor's house in the 
 Brede Kirk Straet she has inscribed: 
 
 Ecec est parva domus natus qud magnus Erasmus ; 
 
 and she has written half a dozen lives of him. But 
 there is something left for her yet to do. She has no 
 more comprehended magnum Erasmum, than any other 
 pygmy comprehends a giant, or partisan a judge. 
 
 First scholar and divine of his epoch, he was also the 
 heaven-born dramatist of his century. Some of the best 
 scenes in this new book are from his mediaeval pen, and 
 illumine the pages where they come ; for the words of 
 a genius so high as his are not born to die : their imme- 
 diate work upon mankind fulfilled, they may seem to lie 
 
492 THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH. 
 
 torpid, but, at each fresh shower of intelligence Time 
 pours upon their students, they prove their immortal 
 race ; they revive, they spring from the dust of great 
 libraries ; they bud, they flower, they fruit, they seed- 
 from generation to generation, and from age to age. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF, 
 AND OTHER STORIES. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 The readers of " It is Never too Late to Mend " may 
 remember that in Vol. II. the chaplain set the thief to 
 write his life honestly. He was not to whitewash and 
 then gild himself, nor yet to vent one long self-deceiving 
 howl of general and therefore sham penitence, but he was 
 to be, with God's help, his own historian and sober critic. 
 Accordingly Thomas Eobinson wrote this autobiography 
 
 in Jail : and my readers may have noticed that at 
 
 first I intended to print it with the novel. 
 
 It cost me a struggle to resign this intention ; for it 
 was the central gem of my little coronet. But the novel, 
 without the autobiography, was five ordinary volumes by 
 printers' calculation, and a story within a story is a fright- 
 ful flaw in art. 
 
 Moreover, I was attacking settled, long-standing prej- 
 udices. Prejudice is a giant, against whom truth and 
 humanity need to be defended with great spirit, and, in 
 some desperate cases, with a tiger-like ferocity : " A dur 
 due dur aiguillon : " but there must be some judgment 
 too ; and, take my word for it, there always has been 
 some judgment used, wherever so hard a battle is won. 
 I feared then to multiply paradoxes, and to draw once 
 too often on the faith of the public, as well as on its 
 good heart, I, who carried no personal weight with me- 
 
4 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 But I think my readers are now ripe for this strange 
 but true story, and I dedicate it in particular to such as 
 will deign to accept this clew to my method in writing : — 
 
 I feign probabilities ; I record improbabilities : the 
 former are conjectures, the latter truths : mixed, they 
 make a thing not so true as gospel nor so false as 
 history ; viz., fiction. 
 
 When I startle you most, think twice before you 
 disbelieve me. What able deceiver aims at shocking 
 credulity ? Distrust rather my oily probabilities. They 
 should be true too if I could make them ; but I can't : 
 they are guesses. 
 
 You have seen Thomas Bobinson, alias Hie, alias Ille, 
 alias Tste, tinted in water-colors by me : now see him 
 painted in oils by himself, and retouched by Mr. Eden. 
 
 A thief is a man : and a man's life is like those 
 geographical fragments children learn "the contagious 
 countries " by. The pieces are a puzzle : but put them 
 together carefully, and lo ! they are a map. 
 
 The thief then mapped his puzzle; and I think his 
 work will stand. 
 
 These caged autobiographers have a great advantage 
 as writers over other autobiographers that sing false 
 notes of egotism in London squares, and American villas 
 built cere alieno. 
 
 Carceravis has been publicly convicted. Mavis and 
 Philomele have not met with so much justice. They 
 could eclipse the novelist and the historian; but they 
 don't even rival them. An alternative lies before them : 
 to chronicle themselves and their acts, and so add great 
 instructive pictures of man to the immortal part of 
 literature, or to idealize, as our pedants call it, to slur, 
 falsify, color themselves up here and tone themselves 
 down there. Unfortunately for letters they invariably 
 choose the liedeal : and instead of coming out bright as 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 5 
 
 stars, the interesting, curious, instructive, valuable 
 rogues, humbugs, and courtesans they are, and so being 
 the darlings of posterity, they go mincing to trunkerity, 
 tame, negative, insipid, characterless creatures, not good 
 enough for example, not bad enough for a warning, but 
 excellent lining for a band-box. 
 
 No. It is to the detected part of the community we 
 must look for an honest autobiography. Not that self- 
 deception ever retires wholly from a human heart, but 
 that in these there is no good opinion of the world to 
 back their self-deception. It is not so with many an 
 unconvicted rogue, who is far below an average felon : 
 the banker who steals not from strangers but friends ; 
 steals from those who have a claim to his gratitude as 
 well as his honesty : the rector who preaches Christ, 
 and swindles the young curate out of every halfpenny 
 contrary to law, because the poor boy must get a title 
 though he buy it and begin life with debt : how will he 
 end it ? The anonymous assassin, the cowardly caitiff 
 of a scribbler who, with no temptation but mere envy, 
 stabs the great in the dark and truckles to them face to 
 face. A felon is a man, and often a resolute one ; but 
 what is this thing that stabs and runs away into a hole ? 
 
 The shopkeeping assassin who puts red-lead (a deadly 
 poison) into red pepper, and sells death to those by 
 whom he lives. 
 
 The shopkeeping assassin who puts copper, a deadly 
 and cumulative poison, into pickles and preserves ; and 
 poisons those by whom he lives. The English assassin 
 who poisons the young children wholesale in their sugar- 
 plums, and then reads with virtuous indignation of the 
 sepoys who bayoneted them in their rage instead of kill- 
 ing them cannily. 
 
 The miller, abandoned of God, and awaiting here on 
 earth his eternal damnation, who, king of all these 
 15 
 
6 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 Borgias, thief and murderer at once, poisons young and 
 old at life's fountain, breaks life's very staff, mixes 
 plaster of Paris with the flour that is the food of all 
 men, the only food, alas ; of more than half the world. 
 
 These and a score more respectables are the hope- 
 less cases. A cracksman or a swell mobsman is terribly 
 hard to cure. But these are incurable. The world's 
 good opinion fortifies their delusion. They open their 
 eyes for the first time in hell. A pickpocket now and 
 then opens them in jail. 
 
 We owe to Jail this slippery one who paints 
 
 himself a slipperyish one, and does not falsify as well 
 as filch. 
 
 It is important to observe that this is the man's his- 
 tory not after the events recorded in the novel, but 
 before. His foundation, not his roof. On this autobi- 
 ographer the benign influences of religion, the solidify- 
 ing effect of property, and the guardianship of a shrewd 
 but honest wife, have since been bestowed by Heaven. 
 
 Add then this autobiography to his character as drawn 
 by me in the novel, and you possess the whole portrait : 
 and now it will be for you to judge whether for once 
 we have taken a character that exists on a large scale 
 in nature, and added it to fiction, or, here too, have 
 printed a shadow, and called it a man. 
 
 AUTOBIOGBAPHY. 
 
 I did nothing that I particularly remember until I 
 was fifteen, except learn my lessons, with now and then 
 a fight. I lived with my mother in Edinburgh. One 
 day a person of gentlemanly appearance met a band of 
 us as we were going to school, and inquired for me by 
 name. He took me aside into a tavern, and, after treat- 
 ing me, revealed himself to me as my father. He also 
 
REVEALED HIMSELF TO ME AS MY FATHER. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 7 
 
 gave me a crown, and promised to see me again: but 
 was unfortunately prevented, or perhaps forgot. 
 
 My education being now considered complete, I went 
 to receive lessons in anatomy, at which I remained for 
 the space of nine months. 
 
 I now formed an acquaintance with a young lady. 
 (At this time I was staying with my godfather upon my 
 mother's decease.) But she was unfortunately a Eoman- 
 ist, and on this account my godfather ordered me to 
 leave off her acquaintance, which I refusing, he ordered 
 me out of the house. I complied with this harsh man- 
 date, but first collected « all the money I could find, 
 which amounted to about fifty pounds — and with this 
 I went to Dunfermline, and from there to the Bumbling 
 Brigg, where I lodged with a couple well to do : I paid 
 my board while my money lasted — but being now 
 empty, and my host finding I was a scholar, I agreed to 
 give him three lessons a day upon the sly, for which he 
 privately contracted to give me secretly the money to 
 pay his wife my board. 
 
 This lasted three months ; but one evening as we were 
 at our studies, and having neglected to lock the door, 
 being become too bold by past impunity, the wife, who 
 had discovered our retreat, having listened a moment or 
 two, burst suddenly in upon us, and falling & on her 
 knees, exclaimed, — 
 
 " Good heavens ! am I married to a man who does not 
 know that three times five make fifteen ? " and burst 
 into a flood of tears and reproaches. 
 
 This was the line of the table he was unfortunately 
 repeating to me at the time. 
 
 His wife's conduct raising a counter-excitement in 
 my pupil, and finding I had lighted a flame which would 
 not easily be extinguished, I thought proper to retire 
 and go back to Dunfermline. Here I learned my first 
 trade of the many I have practised. 
 
8 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 I engaged myself to a master weaver and petty manu- 
 facturer. Besides learning to take drafts of patterns, 
 etc., I used to cast his accounts ; but one day he sent me 
 to the bank to draw some money ; on this I absconded 
 with the money and went to Edinburgh. 
 
 He pursued me so closely, that with the aid of the 
 police he apprehended me before I had time to spend 
 it ; to avoid punishment I gave him back the money, all 
 but seventeen shillings, and he, who was a good-natured 
 man, wished me to go back to my place ; but having 
 borne a good name in the place until then, I thought 
 shame to go back; so I went to Newcastle, after bor- 
 rowing of my c late master fifteen shillings for the 
 journey. 
 
 At Newcastle I went into a chemist's shop for some 
 cough-lozenges : now it happened that a woman in the 
 shop asked for some medicine. I forget just now what 
 it was, but the shop-boy took down the wrong ; he took 
 down a bottle containing camomile, I remember that — 
 so I told the boy that he mistook the Latin term ; thiy 
 naturally attracted the master's attention, and he looked 
 up and saw I was correct ; so then he asked me several 
 questions, and finding me fit for his purpose, he took me 
 into his service — and here for a long while all my sor- 
 rows were at an end : for I took a delight in studying 
 my master's interests and laying up knowledge. 
 
 He favored me with his instructions, and I enjoyed 
 at times the company of his daughter, which was to me 
 a comfort above all, and with whom I felt myself soon 
 deep in love, and with her I spent many a happy hour 
 after the business of the day was over, walking out in 
 the evenings, while the moon with her bright and gentle 
 rays gave to all things a delightful appearance, and 
 seemed to lift up our minds to something above the grov- 
 elling cares of Time — or we heard the plaintive notes of 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 9 
 
 the nightingale breaking the silence of the night, and 
 calling us to join him in his songs of praise to the God 
 ^of Nature. But sweeter still than the voice of the 
 nightingale was the voice of my companion, which was 
 sweetest of all when its topic d would run to that 
 portion which forms the golden part of Cupid's dart. 
 
 In these innocent joys I spent four years. 
 
 But one unfortunate evening, having a drop too much 
 at the time, I met Miss B. as usual, and opportunity and 
 temptation unfortunately occurring, I was guilty of a 
 felony that has always remained on my conscience more 
 than any of those acts I have been guilty of, which the 
 law describes to be the highest crimes. 
 
 From that night our walks beneath the moon by the 
 river-side were no longer innocent, and we were no 
 longer happy. 
 
 0 e cursed night and place that robbed a virgin of 
 her purity ! and 0 cursed Tyne, why did not thou over- 
 flow thy banks and drive me away ? — if now thy fount- 
 ain-spring was to pour out streams of flaming lava, it 
 would not purge the disgrace out of thy dark banks — 
 nay, if thy banks themselves were to become gold, they 
 would not ransom the character lost on that night nor 
 restore the rest and quiet that now fled from my pillow. 
 
 Four months had scarce elapsed before I learned that 
 consequences of a serious kind were to be expected. 
 
 1 was in great perplexity : at last, taking a desperate 
 course, I with much hesitation asked my master for his 
 daughter's hand. 
 
 My master, who, though a good-natured was a hasty 
 man, turned black and red at the idea, but recovering 
 himself soon he turned it off as a jest. I saw by this 
 that he would never consent, and, dreading discovery, I 
 got a friend of mine to write to me/ from Edinburgh 
 that my sister lay at the point of death and begged to 
 see me. 
 
10 THE AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A THTEF. 
 
 Showing this letter to my master, I got leave of 
 absence and a present for the journey, with which I 
 started, promising to return in a week, but with no such 
 intention. 
 
 I arrived at Edinburgh, and found my sister, whom I 
 had spoken of as dying, just on the eve of marriage. 
 I was at the wedding, but the nuptial feast was no feast 
 to me, for it only recalled the thoughts of my own guilt. 
 
 I now began the world again. 
 
 I went to Stirling and obtained a situation with a 
 baker ; but the work was much too hard for me, so I left 
 him in two days, and took « with me three pounds ten 
 shillings ; was apprehended in Glasgow, and got sixty 
 days. 
 
 On receiving my liberty I enlisted in Her Majesty's 
 service and was marched on board the Pique frigate 
 bound for the West Indies. 
 
 Here I remained until we got to Plymouth, where I 
 made my escape, but was retaken in the town and brought 
 back to the ship and put in irons on the spar-deck under 
 cover of a tarpaulin — this was my prison till we 
 reached St. Vincent : we anchored here for two days, and 
 in the confusion of getting under weigh again I watched 
 my opportunity, and having broken my padlock the day 
 before, I stole into the captain's cabin, he being on deck, 
 and took away a suit of his clothes, and dropped into the 
 water ; and the weather being calm, and I being an ex- 
 cellent swimmer, I swam alongside a brigantine that lay 
 at anchor in the bay, and hailing her from the surface 
 of the water, sang out, " Hallo ! are you short of hands ? " 
 
 " We are," was the reply, " where do you hail from ? " 
 
 "What has that to do with it?" said I. So they 
 hauled me on board. 
 
 The master, finding I had been educated, sent me on 
 shore to his brother who kept a store ; and so now I was 
 his shopman. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 11 
 
 I lived with my new master : we used to come to the 
 shop in the morning and go home at night. We lived a 
 mile and a half out of the town in a pretty Gothic 
 house, which stood in the middle of a delightful garden 
 bordered by sugar-canes ; in front of the house was 
 an avenue of orange and lemon trees mixed ; their 
 branches bent with the exuberance of the fruit ; and the 
 ground glittered with great shaddocks and limes, that 
 lay like lumps of gold, unheeded and rotting for abun- 
 dance. The air too was filled with the scent of thou- 
 sands of rich flowers that were scattered about, some by 
 nature, some by the hand of man — in short, it was an 
 earthly paradise, in which I might have ended my days 
 if the demon of change had not filled my mind with the 
 desire to behold once more my native country — stupid 
 fool. 
 
 I set sail, and after a stormy passage reached the 
 port of London. 
 
 I lodged in the Commercial Eoad till my money was 
 nearly gone, and then I became disconsolate. 
 
 Wandering one day in the Eatcliffe highway it was 
 my luck to fall in with an old acquaintance, whom I had 
 known through being in trouble together ; he introduced 
 me to a lodging-house keeper in the neighborhood, who, 
 after a few words with my companion, told me " it was 
 all right, we should find means of settling." 
 
 I went to bed, and when I wanted to get up, my clothes 
 were stolen, with the few shillings I had left. Kemon- 
 strating with the landlord, he said, " Oh, it is a mistake," 
 and disappearing for a few minutes, during which I 
 heard high words and a bit of a tussle, he returned with 
 my clothes and money. 
 
 The next day, seeing me very dull, and concluding by 
 that I was ripe for business, he inquired the cause of 
 my uneasiness. 
 
12 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 I told him my last shilling was melting. 
 
 He laughed at this cause of trouble. 
 
 " You don't know," said he, " you are in the mint." 
 
 " In the mint ? " said I. 
 
 " Yes/' was his reply ; " in the mint, my boy ; " and 
 with that he took up a chisel and went to the chimney 
 and carefully removed a loose brick, and took out of the 
 gap a tin box : he opened the box, and coins of every 
 sort in profusion flashed upon my bewildered eyes — and 
 not only coins, but dies and metal of all sorts for making 
 them. 
 
 " Now," said Croesus, " having gone so far you must 
 take the oath at once." 
 
 Four men and four females were then summoned, and 
 standing in the middle of them, I took a solemn oath to 
 this effect : — 
 
 " I hereby swear never to tell any one how to make 4 shoffle, 1 
 nor where I learned it, nor yet to use any kind of language 
 that may lead to the same, upon pain of death." 
 
 Here followed imprecations upon my eyes and limbs, if 
 broken, such as are used among Freemasons, etc., but not 
 being fit for your reverence's ears, I suppress that part. 
 
 The next process was to go and change a base sover- 
 eign, which I did accordingly, returning with nineteen 
 and sixpence, and of which sixpence went for the gin. 
 
 Behold me now a shoffie-pitcher. But it was never my 
 way to remain at the bottom of any business that I found 
 worth studying. I therefore in the course of six months 
 learned to coin first a shilling, then a sovereign, then the 
 most difficult of all, a crown ; and last of all to make the 
 moulds for each of these coins ; and as soon as I found I 
 could make a mould for a crown, I dissolved partnership, 
 and went to Gravesend on my own bottom. 
 
 Your reverence will blame me less for this revolt if I 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 13 
 
 tell you the terms on which we worked with him whom 
 I have called Croesus, and his name did begin with a C. 
 
 He had the half of every coin we uttered — he had the 
 cost of the metal besides, and the half of every article 
 purchased in the process of uttering. 
 
 Now this was not fair : at least I think not, because 
 he did not share the risk. 
 
 I pitched on my own account about a month ; then 
 finding the trade stale, and having once or twice nar- 
 rowly missed being apprehended, I returned to London 
 and betook myself to the diligent study of housebreak- 
 ing. I learned from a master how to make false keys — 
 and having money by me, and courting the company of 
 the best cracksmen, and listening to all they said with 
 respect and attention, I attracted notice, and was made 
 a member of the body, and soon after permitted to take 
 part in a job. It was a doctor's shop in the Commercial 
 Eoad, and my share came to fifty pounds. And this was 
 only the first of many transactions of the kind. 
 
 And as it becomes every one that is in a business to 
 master it if possible, I will tell your reverence how I 
 attended to mine, trusting you will not make it generally 
 public, as it is not considered honorable among us to 
 reveal the secrets of business, but only on account of 
 your goodness I am willing to put you on your guard, and 
 also your own friends — that is to say, such of them as 
 have got anything to lose : but hope it will go no farther 
 than the jail. 
 
 Now as the chief work of practitioners in our line is 
 to find out where the money or valuables are kept, this 
 was my plan : — 
 
 If it was a shop, I would go in and buy something, 
 give the shopman a sovereign, and notice where he put 
 it, and from whence he took the change, and at the same 
 time how the door was fastened, whether with a lock 01 
 
14 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 bar, or while my pal (for we always went in pairs) was 
 engaging the shopman, I would take the dimensions of 
 the same. 
 
 Or, if it was a dwelling-house, I would go and present 
 the mistress with a card stating I was a china or glass 
 mender, a French-polisher, a teacher of music or dancing ; 
 and try every move to get admittance into the parlor, and 
 then you may be sure my eyes were not shut. 
 
 Or else I would go and offer the servant some article 
 for sale as a hawker, and would chaff and flatter her, and 
 so perhaps get a notion where the plate was kept, and 
 the next week come and fetch it away. 
 
 In the course of a few weeks I had collected some- 
 where about one hundred pounds in money and valuables, 
 and finding the police had scent of me, I left London and 
 went down by the Leith smack to Edinburgh. 
 
 Here I visited my friends, and passed myself off in 
 their society for a thriving tradesman. 
 
 I also sent some money to Miss B., — not that money 
 could repay the injury I had done her, but still it would 
 make her friends more civil to see that she wanted for 
 nothing. 
 
 If my real character had not got wind in Newcastle, 
 I think at this time they would have let me marry 
 her, and I think, bad as I am, I should have mended 
 for her sake, for she was the only woman I ever really 
 loved A r . 
 
 It is an old saying that " The money which comes by 
 the wind goes by the water." 
 
 I have made thousands, but never could keep as much 
 as a five-pound note. 
 
 In about a month nearly all my money was melted, and 
 I set out on a cruise again. 
 
 Falling into some of my old haunts in Yorkshire, I 
 met with a friend who manufactured base coin, and, 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 15 
 
 having passed a quantity of this and being now at my 
 ease, I determined to study a new profession. 
 
 I therefore secluded myself from all my idle compan- 
 ions, took a quiet lodging, bought several medical books, 
 and studied the human frame and the disorders to which 
 it is subject. 
 
 I studied night and day with the same diligence I 
 had given to coining, housebreaking, and my other pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 In about a month I considered myself fit to start, 
 which I accordingly did with as much pomp as I could 
 command, having seen how far that goes towards success 
 in the learned professions. 
 
 I engaged a servant with a handsome livery to deliver 
 my bills at the most respectable doors, and attend upon 
 me when I addressed the public. 
 
 I had a thousand bills printed, representing myself 
 as Dr. Scott from Edinburgh, and I furnished myself 
 with testimonials from respectable parties ; I mean, that 
 would have been, but who, in point of fact, had no 
 existence : and printed them at the foot of my bills. 
 
 My plan was, on entering a town, first to go for the 
 more respectable customers by putting up at a good inn, 
 making friends with the landlord, and sending my foot- 
 man round with my bills — but before leaving I used to 
 appear in my true colors, as an itinerant quack. 
 
 In this capacity I used to harangue the people and 
 sell my drugs. 
 
 In my public discourses I always ran down the regu- 
 lar practitioner, as we are all obliged to do, and the 
 plan I used to follow was cool irony — I found this went 
 farther than pretending to get into a heat. 
 
 Unlike most quacks, I did not apply one or two 
 remedies to every disorder, and I met with wonderful 
 success, especially with the women j partly, I think, 
 
16 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 because with them imagination goes far, and my patter 
 inspired them with more confidence than the regular 
 doctors could, not having the gift of the gab. 
 
 While travelling as a doctor, I never would accept 
 money from any of my patients until the disease, what- 
 ever it might be, took "a turn for the better; and even 
 then, my charges were always low ; but to make up I 
 did pass a deal of base coin wherever I travelled. 
 
 The following were some of my most remarkable 
 cures : — 
 
 The landlady of a public-house at York, of a dysen- 
 tery. 
 
 At Wakefield I reduced an imposthume, which the 
 proprietor was going to have cut, if it had not been for 
 me. 
 
 At Hull I actually cured a respectable woman of a 
 cataract, and was praised in the public journals. 
 
 These and a hundred ordinary cures are the benefits 
 I rendered the public in return for the many wrongs I 
 have done it. 
 
 I had been practising pharmacy some three months, 
 when one day I received a letter from Newcastle. 
 
 It was from Miss B.'s uncle, telling me I might visit 
 her now. 
 
 The letter was very short, and there was something 
 about it I did not understand ; so that, instead of filling 
 me with delight as such a letter would a while ago, I 
 set out for Newcastle flush of cash but full of per- 
 plexity. 
 
 I reached Newcastle, and lest her friends should have 
 changed their mind again, and receive me with an 
 affront, I went to an ale-house convenient to her resi- 
 dence, and sent for her younger brother, who had never 
 been so much against me as the others. 
 
 He came directly, and I began to put a dozen ques- 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 17 
 
 tions to him : but he maintained silence ; he hung his 
 head and said, " Don't ask me — you will soon know — 
 and since you are here, come without loss of time," and 
 he led the way in gloomy silence. 
 
 I was taken into the house, and after some little delay 
 was allowed to go up into her room — I shall never 
 forget it. 
 
 Her cheeks that used to be like two roses, were now 
 pale and ghastly, and her beaming eyes were dull and 
 sunk in her head ; only her voice and her smile were as 
 sweet as ever. 
 
 Her first word was, " I have only waited for this " — 
 then she stretched out her hand and thanked me in a 
 sweet and composed tone of voice, " for coming to per- 
 form the last part of a husband's duty " — but here her 
 feelings overcame her, and the poor thing burst into a 
 flood of tears, and I fell on my knees and sobbed and 
 cried with her, and her relations somehow felt that they 
 were not to come between us any more now, and they 
 looked at one another and left the room without any 
 noise, and we were alone a little while. 
 
 And then I kneeled down again, and prayed her to 
 forgive the injury I had done her person and character 
 
 — and then she answered, like a woman, that she was 
 to blame, and not I — and this answer from her, and she 
 dying, went through me like a knife, and I prayed to 
 die for her, or at least to die with her ; and bursting into 
 unmanly and useless grief, and grovelling in anguish 
 and remorse upon the floor, some of them came in and 
 interfered for her sake, and very properly led me away 
 
 — and not in an unkind manner, for which may God 
 bless them any way. 
 
 I hope your reverence may never feel as I did — I 
 had no acute sense of grief or pain — bodily or mental 
 pain would have been a relief — I felt dead — my body 
 seemed dead, my heart seemed dead. 
 
18 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 I crawled to my inn, and crawled into bed, and lay- 
 sleepless but motionless till daybreak. Then I rose and 
 went down to the river-side and walked up and down — 
 and at about nine, when I thought the family would be 
 up, I went to the house. 
 
 The moment I came in sight of the house, I saw all 
 the shutters were up. But it gave me scarcely any 
 shock, for I was stone, and I seemed to know before this 
 that all was over. 
 
 They wished me to see her, but I was unable then 
 — but the day before she was buried I took a last look 
 at her — it did not seem to be her, but only some shell 
 or frame she had once inhabited — now a ruinous heap 
 of corruption : and that is an awful word. 
 
 Is it a castle, — there was a time when the heart of 
 the bold soldier burned with ardor to defend it. 
 
 Is it a senate, — there was a time when the loud 
 applause of eloquence thundered from its roof. 
 
 Or is it a temple, — there was a time when the white- 
 stoled priest called down the fire from heaven to bless 
 the sacrifice. 
 
 But here is a temple, one not made with hands, the 
 architecture of which is too sublime for our minds to 
 conceive, a temple that was erected to be the seat of its 
 Maker, one in which dwelt not only the image but the 
 spirit of its Creator : let me ask then why was it thus 
 left desolate, and whither has its tenant gone ? 
 
 Tell me, ye seas, whose waves roll and ripple at our 
 feet or thunder on our vessels, tell me have ye seen the 
 airy stranger float along your surface, and whither has 
 it winged its way ? 
 
 Tell me, ye winds, harpers of the mountain forest ; 
 methinks ye could ; for there are times ye whisper 
 gently and seem as if ye were holding communion with 
 departed spirits ; tell me, have ye seen this airy stranger, 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 19 
 
 and whither has she gone ? Tell me, ye dazzling worlds 
 that perform your regular but mystic dance upon the 
 airy surface; tell me, have ye seen this airy stranger 
 wing her way through your aerial canopy, and whither 
 has it gone ? 
 
 Such thoughts as these followed the first anguish at 
 losing her, and to all these inquiries one answer seemed 
 to come back to me from all creation — 
 
 " The body returns to the dust, and the soul to God 
 who gave it." 
 
 And when I compared this answer with my own con- 
 duct, I felt I was far behind ; and over my poor sweet- 
 heart's grave I vowed to amend my life — that one day 
 I might hope to meet her again. The first three days 
 after the funeral I tried in every direction for an honest 
 situation. 
 
 The fourth, I fell from all my good resolutions. 
 
 In my despair I had recourse to drink, and was undone. 
 I was drunk for a whole week, and by the end of that 
 time was penniless. 
 
 Let mankind take warning by my fate, and not fancy 
 the habit of drink can be formed with safety. Up to 
 this time, though like all the world I had wasted a large 
 portion of my gains upon drink, yet I had never gone at 
 it like a madman. But what of that ? the habit was 
 formed, it was there waiting like a lion for its prey, 
 waiting for a great opportunity, your reverence — one 
 came — I was in despair, — my appetite was gone, and 
 drink comforted my stomach : my heart was dead, and 
 drink made it beat. I had recourse to this solace, 
 and became a beast. As I said before, for a whole week 
 I was never not to say sober. 
 
 No man and no woman is safe that has once formed 
 the fatal habit of looking to drink for solace — or cheer- 
 fulness — or comfort ^. While the world goes well 
 
•20 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 they will likely be temperate : but the habit is built, 
 the railroad to destruction is cut ready for use, the trams 
 are laid down, and the station-houses erected ; and the 
 train is on the line waiting only for the locomotive. 
 Well, the first great trouble or hopeless grief is the loco- 
 motive : it comes to us, it grapples us, and away we go 
 in a moment down the line we have been years construct- 
 ing like a flash of lightning to the devil. 
 
 I woke one afternoon sober and penniless. 
 
 From drunkenness to thieving is not a very wide leap 
 even to those who are beginning an evil career — to me 
 it was no more than crossing a gutter. I pawned my 
 watch and got on board the steamer for London, and 
 back to my old haunts. 
 
 I soon fell in with an old pal and borrowed ten pounds 
 of him and began first to pass and after that to coin 
 " shoffle ; " and, when that was not quick work enough, 
 took to housebreaking and shoplifting again. 
 
 But in the early part of this chapter of my career, 
 having very little cash, for part of the ten pounds went 
 for clothes, I was obliged to be moderate in my expenses, 
 and I accordingly spent a week in a lodging-house kept 
 by an old friend of mine, which I will try to describe. 
 
 The house itself is divided into two separate compart- 
 ments beside the bed-chambers. 
 
 The first, or state apartment, is for professional 
 thieves. 
 
 The back room is for those street trades that lie 
 between thieving and commerce. 
 
 My friend ushered me in here, and there were more 
 than a score of them all gazing with their mouths open 
 at the new-comer — all engaged at various labors, and 
 talking a dozen different branches of cant. 
 
 Some were making mats, some arranging articles for 
 sale in their baskets or on their trays, some making 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 21 
 
 matches, the " askers " selling their begged bread at 
 three halfpence the pound, another tuning up his riddle, 
 the whole lot comparing notes to the detriment of the 
 public, the beggar telling the match-maker at what house 
 they gave him meat or money, the hawker and mat- 
 maker exchanging the same sort of profitable informa- 
 tion, by which many an easy-going gentleman, that 
 thinks himself obscure, gets his habits published among 
 the dregs of society, and perhaps a nickname tacked on 
 to him, and more people knowing him by it than know 
 him by his own. 
 
 Then there was the "buzzer" practising his necro- 
 mancy ; presently in came a " sneaker " with half a firkin 
 of butter for sale at fourpence per pound, on which the 
 women fell to abusing their men because they had not 
 enough money to buy ten or twelve pounds ; children 
 crying, and all in a mighty way because the fountain is 
 not boiling. 
 
 In the corner was a handsome young female evidently 
 a stranger, biting the end of her apron-string, her mind 
 not being able to comprehend the fulness of the scene. 
 
 " Here is a sweetheart for you and all," said my friend. 
 u She is waiting for her husband to come back," added 
 he, winking to me. 
 
 Her husband, as she had called the man who had 
 enticed her from her friends, never came back, and 
 indeed nobody except herself ever thought he would. 
 
 Then to amuse her mind I requested her to go an 
 errand for me — she agreed — I gave her a base sov- 
 ereign and sent her to buy groceries, which when she 
 had done, I invited her to take tea with me, and over 
 our tea she told me her story without reserve. 
 
 Finding she was a decent girl, and apparently had 
 never made but this one slip, I determined to enter into 
 partnership with her if she would consent. 
 16 
 
22 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 Strange as it may appear, I felt the want of a female 
 companion now in a way I never had until Miss B.'s 
 death. I believe my nerves were shaken by that sad 
 event, and I began to want to see a woman's face opposite 
 me, and to hear the soft notes of a female voice. 
 
 Three days after our first meeting we were married 
 according to the custom of the house ; i.e., a traveller 
 dressed in a white sheet, with holes cut for his arms, 
 read a few sentences of the marriage-service to us — he 
 then drew a line on the floor with a piece of chalk and 
 made us leap over it in succession, while he recited in a 
 solemn voice the following : — 
 
 " Leap rogue, and follow jade, 
 Man and wife for evermore." 
 
 Which concluded the ceremony, and we were man and 
 wife in the eyes of all the lodgers, unless we should 
 agree to be untied, which could only be done by the 
 same party, or his successor, and with other ceremonies, 
 and above all — fees ! We soon left this house and set 
 up a lodging of our own. She made me very com- 
 fortable when I was at home, and I let her want for 
 nothing. 
 
 I lived nearly three years in London this bout, and, 
 owing to the company I kept, I got the cockney phrase 
 and twang, so that I fear I will never entirely get rid of 
 them. Indeed, I am commonly taken for a cockney, 
 which is a sad disgrace to a man born north of the 
 Tweed k 
 
 At the end of this time my wife's friends sent to beg 
 her to come home, which she asked my leave to do — I 
 consented, and we were untied, and parted with mutual 
 expressions of esteem. Finding London rather dull 
 after she was gone, I agreed to join a gang of us that 
 were about to make a provincial trip. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 23 
 
 We went to Mortimer, a village in Berkshire — the 
 scene of our business was Reading and its neighbor- 
 hood — we committed some very daring robberies in 
 Reading and Caversham, that will not soon be for- 
 gotten. 
 
 We broke into one house in Reading in open day — 
 it was Sunday, and the whole family were gone to 
 church — we rifled the house, and left a paper on the 
 table, on which, I am ashamed j to tell your reverence, 
 I wrote, — 
 
 " Watch as well as pray ! " 
 
 But this could not last forever. I had been out fish- 
 ing all day (a sport I am very fond of) when returning 
 towards dusk I saw a strange face at one of the windows 
 of our house. 
 
 Not quite understanding this, I turned back and went 
 a mile round, to where I could see the back of the house 
 without being recognized — and my caution was not 
 wasted. 
 
 I soon found that the house was in the possession of 
 the police, and that all or most of my comrades were 
 nabbed. 
 
 Having some money about me I decamped, and re- 
 turning to town, found two of my companions about to 
 start for California, dazzled by the accounts we heard 
 of the fortunes made there by digging and levying the 
 roadside tax on those who dug. 
 
 I joined them, and after a voyage of six months we 
 landed at San Francisco. 
 
 Your reverence has often heard me talk of my adven- 
 tures in that country, and you have often forbade me to 
 be always thinking and talking about gold — I will 
 therefore abstain from relating my adventures in the 
 New World — in fact they would of themselves fill a 
 
24 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 volume — suffice it to say I had at one time twelve 
 hundred pounds in money and gold-dust, but I wasted 
 the greater part, and by a just retribution was robbed 
 of the rest. 
 
 I returned to London with ten pounds and a nugget 
 which I sold for twenty-five pounds in Threadneedle 
 Street. 
 
 And now, not liking the smoke of London, after one 
 or two successful jobs, which swelled my stock to a mat- 
 ter of sixty pounds, I bought some new clothes, and 
 went down to Beading, but not thinking it prudent to 
 remain there long, I crossed the river and went into 
 Oxfordshire. 
 
 I heard of a farmer who sometimes took a lodger, 
 and as I was well dressed, and he too honest to be 
 suspicious, we soon came to terms. 
 
 The farmer was George Fielding, of whom your 
 reverence has often heard me speak. 
 
 I never met with such a character as his : he did not 
 seem to know anything about lying, far less taking 
 anything without paying for it. 
 
 When I first lodged with him, I had, of course, an 
 eye to business, but I got so fond of him & I could 
 not take anything of his — and he was attached to me 
 too, until one unlucky day he found out my real charac- 
 ter ; and then he insulted me — and now he despises me. 
 
 I spent four innocent months here, and I often 
 thought, if I could have such an honest man as George 
 Fielding always close to my side all day, I could keep 
 from taking anything all the rest of my life — but un- 
 luckily my money gradually melted; in which state I 
 went to a fair in the neighborhood. I saw a rich farmer 
 take out some notes and make a payment, and put the 
 rest back into a side pocket — almost before it reached 
 the bottom of his pocket it was in mine. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 25 
 
 The country banks close at three o'clock, and it was 
 near four at the time — I got rid therefore of the Bank 
 of England notes, meaning to change the others when a 
 good opportunity should occur. 
 
 But meantime I suppose measures were taken against 
 me — any way the police came down from London, and 
 I was seized, identified, and put to an open shame. 
 
 This, the last passage of my life, went nearer to drive 
 me to despair than all the rest ; for I had begun to taste 
 the sweets of innocence, and to love honesty under the 
 name of George Fielding. 
 
 I was convicted at the assizes, and being recognized as 
 having been seven times in prison, and notoriously guilty 
 of many felonies besides, they sentenced me to twelve 
 months imprisonment, and transportation for ten years. 
 
 I have been six months in this jail, where I have met 
 with most cruel treatment, being forced to labor beyond 
 my strength even when weakened by sickness ; and 
 punished for mere inability : and, besides the harm this 
 wrought my body, it hardened my heart and made me 
 look on mankind as my enemy. 
 
 But, after that, your reverence was sent here by 
 Heaven to our relief. 
 
 It was my good-fortune to find in you a gentleman 
 whose heart was large enough to feel for all who suffer, 
 and whose understanding could comprehend that a con- 
 vict is a man, and this has been a godsend to me, and 
 may the Almighty bless you for all your goodness, and 
 above all for your constant battle to save us poor fellows' 
 souls, and, when you stand one day at the great tribunal, 
 may many a black sheep stand round you that the world 
 perhaps took for goats to the last ! 
 
 Well, sir, when I look back upon my past life, of 
 which what I have written here is no more than a single 
 page out of volumes and volumes, when I think of the 
 
26 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 many opportunities I have had of doing good to myself 
 and others, and then think of how it all ends — a con- 
 victed felon, doomed to pass the remainder of my life in 
 shame and exile, debarred from situations where I could 
 execute my talents, and felon printed upon me, I am 
 whiles tempted to put the gas-pipe that is in my cell 
 into my mouth and suck the poisonous vapor into my 
 lungs, and thus with crime to end a life of crime. But 
 then your face rises up before me and expostulates with 
 a look, and bids me be patient and hope, also your words 
 that I ought to be thankful to God for His mercy in 
 giving me time to reflect on the enormity of my crimes, 
 and not cutting me down as a cumberer of the ground. 
 
 But, above all, I feel it would be ungrateful to you 
 and grieve you if I was to make away with myself under 
 your eye ; or even to despair. 
 
 I will try my best to be somebody yet if only for your 
 reverence's sake ; for it is a shame a gentleman like you 
 should give his days and his nights, and all the blood in 
 his heart, to saving us poor fellows from perdition, and 
 be continually disappointed. 
 
 So once more thanking your reverence for all kind- 
 ness, and for setting me to write this, which has amused 
 and whiled away some weary hours, and begging you to 
 excuse all faults and blunders, for in my busy life writ- 
 ing is an art I have had no time to give my mind to, I 
 close this record of the disgraceful past, and, here in my 
 cell, envying the cripple round whom the free air plays 
 and on whom the sun shines, I await the gloomy future. 
 
 Thomas * 
 
 — alias Wilkinson, 
 
 — alias Lyox, 
 
 — alias McPherson, 
 
 — alias Scott, 
 
 — alias Howard, 
 
 — alias Bobixson. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 27 
 
 a. " Collected " and " took with me." No such thing. 
 ¥ Stole 99 is the word that represents the transactions. 
 Always be precise ! Never tamper with words ; call a 
 spade a spade and a picklock a picklock — that is the 
 first step towards digging instead of thieving. 
 
 b. She did not fall on her knees ; you put that in for 
 stage effect, and it produces none, the gesture is so 
 manifestly inappropriate. 
 
 c. And he lent it you. Pause a moment and look at 
 yourself by the side of this honest (irascible ? ) and 
 magnanimous, honest man, whose hand a single para- 
 graph of yours made me long to grasp in mine. 
 
 d. " When its topic would run to that portion which 
 forms the golden part of Cupid's dart." — This sentence 
 is rank nonsense — no more of this, or I shall fear I have 
 warmed a poetaster. 
 
 e. " 0 cursed night and place that robbed a virgin of 
 her purity. And 0 cursed Tyne " that did not turn 
 policeman — and oh blessed Eobinson that was alone to 
 blame. Why, what bombast is this ? Always put the 
 saddle on the right horse ! and don't be so fond of curs- 
 ing — believe me, it is a bad habit. You cursed Mr. 
 Hawes who needed all our prayers — you cursed him in 
 earnest : and now you are off at a tangent evading those 
 just expressions of serious self-reproach proper to the 
 situation, and cursing in jest the coaly Tyne, benefactor 
 of a province, and the night, a blessing wide as the world. 
 Bless and curse not ! 
 
 /. The turning-point of your life. Had you stayed at 
 Newcastle and faced it out like a man, there would have 
 been a storm, I grant you, the old chemist would have 
 raved : but nature is strong ; for his daughter's sake he 
 would have ended by marrying you to her, and you 
 would be master of the shop now — an honest citizen of 
 Newcastle ; but though you had given up theft you had 
 not forgotten how to lie. 
 
28 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 Observe ! — this is a new starting-point ; all the rest 
 of your life will be a consequence of that single false- 
 hood — so now we shall see whether the Bible is wrong 
 in its hatred and terror of a lie. 
 
 g. You did not love her, don't flatter yourself ; if a 
 thief loved a woman he would steal her ; if a five-pound 
 note had been as easy to filch from the old chemist as 
 this poor girl, I know who would have taken it, collected 
 it, removed it, abstracted it, and changed its relative 
 situation. You never loved her. But I fear she loved 
 you. 
 
 h. Eeal wisdom and observation in this remark. 
 
 i. Why is a twang worse than a brogue ? and why 
 should it disgrace the native of a small nation to be 
 taken for the native of a great nation ? Is a sucker 
 nobler than its tree ? 
 
 j. " Ashamed ? " — The little humbug could not resist 
 showing me his wit, of which he says he is ashamed. 
 
 k. That I can readily believe of you, and it is by your 
 affections we must try and save you with God's help. 
 
 I sum up your career as Dr. Johnson did the " Beggar's 
 Opera." 
 
 Here is a labefaction of all principle. 
 
 Many good impulses — dug in sand. 
 
 Many good feelings — unstable as water. 
 
 Many good resolves — written in air. 
 
 But not the thousandth part of a grain of principle. 
 
 But how human your sad story is in every part ; yet 
 there are people who will dream that you and your 
 fellows are monsters, and prescribe monstrous remedies 
 for your souls. 
 
 I thank you for the general candor of your narrative : 
 it renders my task a little easier. 
 
 I have many things to say to you seriously and sadly 
 about points in this story : above all, I must show you 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 29 
 
 that you are not innocent of poor Miss B.'s death, whose 
 unhappy fate has made me very sad — my poor fellow, 
 you have not yet comprehended how much this poor giri 
 loved you : nor the variety of tortures she was enduring 
 all the while you were jaunting it at your ease all over 
 the world. These killed her — I will make you see this 
 and repent far more deeply than you have done. Half 
 the cruelty in the world comes by want of intelligence. 
 
 I must compliment you on your literary powers : this 
 is really an astonishing composition for a complete 
 novice : I observe that towards the close of it, short as 
 it is, you have already become a better writer than you 
 were at starting — your style more disengaged, fewer 
 Sir Ablative Absolutes, polysyllables, involved sentences, 
 and less ungrammatical eloquence. 
 
 If it will give you any pleasure to hear it, know that 
 in a pretty large experience of scholars, artists, lawyers, 
 and men of business, I never encountered a man with 
 livelier and more versatile powers than yourself. You 
 ought to be leading the House of Commons ; and you are 
 here ! 
 
 I do not, however, admire most the passages on which 
 you probably pride yourself ; for instance, the sublime 
 passage beginning " Is it a castle ? " 
 
 Here rhetoric intruded unseasonably upon feeling. 
 The plain narrative of your poor sweetheart's death-bed, 
 of her telling you woman-like that she was more to 
 blame for being tempted than you for tempting her, her 
 death and your remorse, moistened my eyes as I read : 
 but your sublime reflections dried them on the spot. 
 
 Your eloquence reminded me that you are a humbug, 
 and never really loved this poor girl ; all the worse for 
 you. 
 
 You felt, and feel remorse, and shall feel more, but 
 you never loved Miss B. : do not flatter yourself. 
 
30 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 It is hardly fair to dissect the sublime ; still permit 
 me with due timidity and respect to suggest that you 
 have taken similitudes and called them distinctions — 
 contrasted where you should have compared. A mould- 
 ering castle, a mute senate house, and a ruined temple 
 are not unlike, but like, an inanimate body. 
 
 What says the poet, writing of a skull ? 
 
 " Can all that saint, sage, sophist, ever writ, 
 People this lonely hall, this tenement refit?" 
 
 In matters literary, begin with logic; build on that 
 rhetoric or what ornaments you will. 
 
 In matters moral, begin with a grain of sense and prin- 
 ciple, and on them raise the ingenuity and versatile 
 talents of Mr. Thomas Robinson ! Thus you shall not 
 sublimely stumble in letters, nor in conduct be an in- 
 genious, able, versatile, gifted, clever, blockhead and 
 fool. 
 
 You called the nightingale " him." 
 
 This shocks an innocent prejudice. 
 
 In science, it is to be feared there are cock nightin- 
 gales. But you are favoring us with a poetic touch, and 
 in poetry nightingales are all hens. 
 
 Remind me some day to tell you the story of Philo- 
 mele. 
 
 Your closing sentences are sad, and would make me 
 sad or sadder if I saw your real mind in them : but this 
 is only a temporary despondency, the effect of separate 
 confinement, which is beginning to tell on you spite of 
 all we can do. 
 
 I shall get your sentence shortened, and you will soon 
 cross the water : so you see there is nothing to despond 
 about — your prospects were never so bright — you are 
 now master of one craft and well advanced in others; 
 you are at no man's mercy ; your own hands avail to 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 31 
 
 reed, and keep, and clothe you. Be honest, and you will 
 always be well off. Consecrate your talents to God's 
 service, and you will most likely be happy even in this 
 world. And for the short time you have to remain in 
 confinement we will find you all the occupation and 
 amusement the law permits ; and if you ever feel greatly 
 depressed, ring that moment for Evans or me, and we 
 will chase the foul fiend away. 
 
 So cheer up, and don't fancy you are alone, when by 
 putting out your hand you can bring an honest fellow to 
 your side who pities you, and me who love you. 
 
 F. E. 
 
 PRISON THOUGHTS. 
 
 Caged in a prison cell, how sad, yet true, 
 
 Does the lone heart bring former scenes to view, 
 
 Till the racked mind with bitter frensy driven, 
 
 Maligns the just decrees of Man and Heaven. 
 
 The grated barrs, and iron studded door, 
 
 The cold bare walls, and chilly pavement floor, 
 
 The hammock, table, stool, and pious book, 
 
 The jailors stealthy tread, and jealous look, 
 
 Force back the maddened thoughts to other days, 
 
 When joyous youth was crowned with hopeful bays : 
 
 E'er rank luxuriant Folly reigned supreme, 
 
 As if this Life was nothing but a dream, 
 
 Or the dire Cup had seared the unblighted heart,, 
 
 And caused all holy feelings to depart, — 
 
 E'er Each sweet hour so innocently gay, 
 
 Passed like a mellow Summers' eve away. 
 
 Cursed be the hour, when first I turned astray. 
 
 From keeping sacred Gods own hallowed day — 
 
 When first I learned to sip the poisoned bowl, 
 
 That kills the body and corrupts the soul. 
 
 'Twas then my godly lessons, one by one, 
 
 Fled from my giddy heart till all were gone, 
 
 And left behind a waste and dreary wild, 
 
 A conscience hardened ; and a soul defiled. 
 
32 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 — Oh ! when I think on what I've been ; and see, 
 My present state, and think what I may be, 
 Dispair, and horror, burns and boils within, 
 
 For years of Folly and continued sin ; 
 Until my brain seems bursting with the dread, 
 Of Heaven s just judgments falling on my head. 
 No banefull passions fired my tranquil! mind, 
 No wild unruly thoughts raged unconfined, 
 But all was fair, and gladsome as the grove, 
 Where warbling songsters live in artless love — . 
 
 — How changed my lot, — No Sister, Mother, Sire, 
 Now fondly sit, around the wintry fire : 
 
 No household song beguiles the lengthened night, 
 
 No homely jest creates a fond delight, 
 
 No sabbath morning sees us now engage, 
 
 In rap't attention on the holy page, 
 
 Or hears the swelling notes of praise and prayer, 
 
 Borne on the breese, & floating on the Air. 
 
 Oh ! could my parents shades but bend on earth, 
 
 They'd mourn like me the morning of my birth, . 
 
 — Almighty Father ! — God of Life and Death, ! 
 Give, oh ! give me, a true and living Faith, 
 Bestow Thy quickening Spirit, and impart 
 Thy saving Grace to tranquillize my heart, 
 That I may better live, for time to come, 
 
 And rear my spirit for Thy heavenly home. ! 
 
 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 
 
 A Sermon preached in the Chapel of * Jail, on Sunday, 
 9th January, 1849, from Matthew 5th and 17th, by the Rev. 
 Francis Eden and versified 
 
 BY ONE OF THE PRISONERS. 
 
 'Mid rolling clouds of fearfull smoke, 
 'Mid lightnings flash, and thunders roar, 
 
 'Mid loud continued sounds, which shook, 
 The startled earth from shore to shore, ! 
 
 'Mid volumes of devouring flame, 
 
 Unseen, yet felt, the Almighty came, ! 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 Lo ! on Mount Sinia's giddy height, 
 Is reared Jehovahs awfull throne, 
 
 Pregnant with Heavens ethereal light, 
 Too glorious to be gazed upon, 
 
 While beams of dazzling brightness bound 
 
 The Circuit of the hallowed ground ; 
 
 Hark ! as the Appalling voice of God, 
 Proclaims the Law of Life and Death, 
 
 Nature, o'erburdened with the load, 
 Holds hard her almost fleeting breath. 
 
 While sunless heaven, and darkened air 
 
 Are hung with blackness of dispair, ! 
 
 Offspring of Gentile, and of Jew, 
 Descendants of a common stock, 
 
 These great eternal Laws for you 
 
 Were thundered from Mount Sinia's rock ; 
 
 And ill or good on him shall fall, 
 
 Who breaks but one, or keeps them all. 
 
 But oh ! weak man can n'eer obey, 
 
 Laws with such f earf ull justice fraught. 
 
 For every moment of the day 
 
 He sins in Word or deed, or thought. 
 
 The Law of Death would thus enslave him, 
 
 Did not a pardoning Gospel save him,, 
 
 From Calvary's hill a stream proceeds, 
 Whose cleansing merits all may share, 
 
 Aye, even although their guilt exceeds 
 The weight of what the earth can bear. 
 
 For Christs atoning blood can clean. 
 
 A hell deserving world from sin. 
 
 No lightnings flash, no scowling sky, 
 No trembling mount of smoke and flame, 
 
 No crashing thunder boomed from high. 
 When our Great Mediator came : 
 
 But Seraphs sounds announced to earth 
 
 Glad tidings of a Saviours birth. 
 
34 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A THIEF. 
 
 No chosen consecrated priest, 
 
 No heaps of slain or seas of blood, 
 Nor solemn Fast, nor stated Feast, 
 
 Can now appease a Jealous God, 
 Or open up a Fount of Grace, 
 To Adams unregenerate race, 
 
 An humble heart, a lowly mind, 
 
 A contrite and believing soul, 
 Where Truth and Mercy are enshrined, 
 
 Beyond a sinfull world's controul, 
 Is all the God of Heaven will claim, 
 For those who own Immanuels name ; ! 
 
 How goodly are the steps of those, 
 
 Who walk in humbleness of heart, 
 And with well grounded hopes have chose 
 
 The Gospels sure and better part. 
 To such the Law of works is dead, 
 Through Faith in Christ, their living head. 
 
 But, as Jehovahs dread decree, 
 
 Does with a Saviours Love unite, 
 So let our Faith and Works agree, 
 
 In one continued bond of Light : 
 For Faith, and Works, if used alone, 
 Can n'eer for guilty deeds atone. 
 
 Then fly ye Sinners to the Cross, 
 
 There let your eager hopes be bound, 
 
 Count all things else but dung and dross, 
 To win Christ, and in him be found, 
 
 So shall your Christian race be blest, 
 
 With Heavens prepared Eternal Rest ! 
 
 * Jail, 3rd Feby 1848. 
 
 Prisoner's name — Thomas Robinson. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 A MATTER-OF-FACT ROMANCE. 
 
 There are nobs in the world, and there are snobs. 
 
 I regret to say I belong to the latter department. 
 
 There are men that roll through life, like a fine new 
 red ball going across Mr. Lord's cricket-ground on a 
 sunshiny day ; there is another sort that have to rough 
 it in general, and above all to fight tooth and nail for 
 the quartern-loaf — and not always win the battle ; I am 
 one of this lot. 
 
 One comfort, folk are beginning to take an interest in 
 us ; I see nobs of the first water looking with a fatherly 
 eye into our affairs, our leaden taxes and feather in- 
 comes, our fifteen per cent on undeniable security when 
 the rich pay but three and a half ; our privations and 
 vexations ; our dirt and distresses ; and one day a liter- 
 ary gent, that knows my horrible story, assured me that 
 my ups and downs would entertain the nobility, gentry, 
 and commonalty of these realms. 
 
 " Instead of grumbling to me," says he, " print your ' 
 troubles ; and I promise you all the world will read 
 them, and laugh at them." 
 
 " No doubt, sir," said I rather ironical, " all the world 
 is at leisure for that." 
 
 "Why, look at the signs of the times," says he, "can't 
 you see workmen are up ? so take us while we are in the 
 
36 
 
 JACK OF ALL TEADES. 
 
 humor, and that is now. We shall not always be for 
 squeezing honey out of weeds, shall we?" — " Not 
 likely, sir," says L Says he, " How nice it will be to 
 growl wholesale to a hundred thousand of your country- 
 men (which they do love a bit of a growl), instead of 
 growling retail to a small family that has got hardened 
 to you ! " And there he had me ; for I am an English- 
 man, and proud of it, and attached to all the national 
 habits, except delirium tremens. In short, what with 
 him inflaming my dormant conceit, and me thinking, 
 " Well, I can but say my say and then relapse into befit- 
 ting silence," I did one day lay down the gauge and 
 take up the pen, in spite of my wife's sorrowful looks. 
 
 She says nothing, but you may see she does not be- 
 lieve in the new tool, and that is cheerful and inspiriting 
 to a beginner. 
 
 However, there is a something that gives me more con- 
 fidence than all my literary friend says about " workmen 
 being up in the literary world," and that is, that I am 
 not the hero of my own story. 
 
 Small as I sit here behind my wife's crockery, and my 
 own fiddles, in this thundering hole, Wardour Street, I 
 was for many years connected with one of the most 
 celebrated females of modern times ; her adventures run 
 side by side with mine ; she is the bit of romance that 
 colors my humble life, and my safest excuse for intrud- 
 ing on the public. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 37 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Father and mother lived in King Street, Soho : he 
 was a fiddle-maker, and taught me the A B C of that 
 science — at odd times ; for I had a regular education, 
 and a very good one, at a school in West Street. This 
 part of my life was as smooth as glass ; my troubles 
 did not begin till I was thirteen : at that age my mother 
 died, and then I found out what she had been to me : 
 that was the first and the worst grief ; the next I 
 thought bad enough; coming in from school one day, 
 about nine months after her death, I found a woman 
 sitting by the fire opposite father. 
 
 I came to a stand in the middle of the floor, with two 
 eyes like saucers staring at the pair, so my father 
 introduced me. 
 
 " This is your new mother. Anne, this is John." 
 
 "Come and kiss me, John," says the lady. Instead 
 of which John stood stock-still, and burst out roaring 
 and crying without the least leaving off staring, which, 
 to be sure, was a cheerful, encouraging reception for a 
 lady just come into the family. I roared pretty hard 
 for about ten seconds, then stopped dead short, and says 
 I, with a sudden calm, the more awful for the storm that 
 had raged before, " I'll go and tell Mr. Paley ! " and out 
 I marched. 
 
 Mr. Paley was a little hump-backed tailor with the 
 heart of a dove and the spirit of a lion or two. I made 
 his acquaintance through pitching into two boys, that 
 were queering his protuberances all down Princes Street, 
 Soho — a kind of low humor he detested ; and he had 
 17 
 
38 
 
 JACK OF ALL TKADES. 
 
 taken quite a fancy to me $ we were hand and glove, the 
 old man and me. 
 
 I ran to Paley and told him what had befallen upon 
 the house ; he was not struck all of a heap as I thought 
 he would be : and he showed me it was legal, of which 
 I had not an idea, and his advice was, " Put a good face 
 on it, or the house will soon be too hot to hold you, boy." 
 
 He was right : I don't know whether it was my fault 
 or hers, or both's, but we could never mix. I had seen 
 another face by that fireside and heard another voice in 
 the house that seemed to me a deal more melodious 
 than hers, and the house did become hotter, and the in- 
 mates' looks colder than agreeable ; so one day I asked 
 my father to settle me in some other house not less than 
 a mile from King Street, Soho. He and stepmother 
 jumped at the offer, and apprenticed me to Mr. Dawes. 
 Here I learned more mysteries of guitar-making, violin- 
 making, etc., and lived in tolerable comfort nearly four 
 years ; there was a ripple on the water though. My 
 master had a brother, a thick-set, heavy fellow, that used 
 to bully my master, especially when he was groggy, and 
 less able to take his own part. My master being a good 
 fellow, I used to side with him, and this brought me a 
 skinful of sore bones more than once, I can tell you. But 
 one night after some months of peace, I heard a terrible 
 scrimmage, and running down into the shop-parlor I 
 found Dawes junior pegging into Dawes senior, no 
 allowance, and him crying blue murder. 
 
 I was now an able-bodied youth between sixteen and 
 seventeen years of age, and, having a little score of my 
 own with the attacking party, I opened quite silent and 
 business-like with a one, two, and knocked him into a 
 corner flat, perpendicular. He was dumfoundered for a 
 moment, but the next he came out like a bull at me. I 
 stepped on one side and met him with a blow on the 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 39 
 
 side of the temple and knocked him flat horizontal ; and 
 when he offered to rise I shook my fist at him and 
 threatened him he should come to grief if he dared to 
 move. 
 
 At this he went on quite a different lay : he lay still 
 and feigned dissolution with considerable skill, to 
 frighten us ; and I can't say I felt easy at all, but my 
 master, who took cheerful views of everything in his 
 cups, got the enemy's tumbler of brandy-and-water, and, 
 with hiccups and absurd smiles and a teaspoon, deposited 
 the contents gradually on the various parts of his body. 
 
 " Lez revive 'm ! " said he. 
 
 This was low life to come to pass in a respectable 
 tradesman's back-parlor. But when grog comes in at 
 the door, good manners walk to the window, ready to 
 take leave if requested. Where there is drink there is 
 always degradation of some sort or degree ; put that in 
 your tumblers and sip it ! 
 
 After this no more battles. The lowly apprentice's 
 humble efforts (pugilistic) restored peace to his master's 
 family. 
 
 Six months of calm industry now rolled over, and 
 then I got into trouble by my own fault. 
 
 Looking back upon the various fancies, and opinions, 
 and crotchets that have passed through my head at one 
 time or another, I find that, between the years of seven- 
 teen and twenty-four, a strange notion beset me ; it was 
 this : that women are all angels. 
 
 For this chimera I now began to suffer, and continued 
 to at intervals till the error was rooted out — with 
 their assistance. 
 
 There were two women in my master's house, his 
 sister aged twenty-four, and his cook aged thirty-seven ; 
 with both these I fell ardently in love ; and so, with my 
 sentiments, I should have with six, had the house held 
 
40 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 half a dozen. Unluckily my affections were not 
 accompanied with the discretion so ticklish a situation 
 called for. The ladies found one another out, and I fell 
 a victim to the virtuous indignation that fired three 
 bosoms. 
 
 The cook, in virtuous indignation that an apprentice 
 should woo his master's sister, told my master. 
 
 The young lady, in virtuous indig. that a boy should 
 make a fool of " that old woman," told my master, who, 
 unluckily for me, was now the quondam Dawes junior ; 
 Dawes senior having retired from the active business and 
 turned sleeping and drinking partner. 
 
 My master, whose v. i. was the strongest of the three, 
 since it was him I had leathered, took me to Bow Street, 
 made his complaint, and forced me to cancel my indent- 
 ures ; the cook with tears packed up my Sunday suit ; 
 the young lady opened her bedroom-door three inches 
 and shut it with a don't-come-anigh-me slam ; and I 
 drifted out to London with eighteen-pence and my tools. 
 
 On looking back on this incident of my life, I have a 
 regret ; a poignant one ; it is that some good Christian 
 did not give me a devilish good hiding into the bargain 
 then and there. I did not feel quite strong enough in 
 the spirits to go where I was sure to be blown up ; so I 
 skirted King Street and entered the Seven Dials, and 
 went to Mr. Paley and confessed my sins. 
 
 How differently the same thing is seen by different 
 eyes ! all the morning I had been called a young villain, 
 first by one, then by another, till at last I began to see 
 it : Mr. Paley viewed me in the light of martyr, and I 
 remember I fell into his views on the spot. 
 
 Paley was a man that had his little theory about 
 women, and it differed from my juvenile one. 
 
 He held that women are at bottom the seducers, men 
 the seduced. " The men court the women, I grant you, 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 41 
 
 but so it is the fish that runs after the bait," said he. 
 " The women draw back ? yes, and so does the angler 
 draw back the bait when the fish are shy, don't he ? 
 and then the silly gudgeons misunderstand the move, 
 and make a rush at it, and get hooked — like you." 
 
 Holding such vile sentiments he shifted all the blame 
 off my shoulders ; he turned to and abused the whole 
 gang, as he called the family in Litchfield Street I had 
 just left, instead of reading me the lesson for the day, 
 which he ought, and I should have listened to from him 
 — perhaps. 
 
 " Now then, don't hang your head like that," shouted 
 the spunky little fellow, "snivelling and whimpering 
 at your time of life ! we are going to have a jolly good 
 supper, you and I, that is what we are going to do ; and 
 you shall sleep here : my daughter is at school ; you 
 shall have her room. I am in good work — thirty shil- 
 lings a week — that is plenty for three, Lucy and you 
 and me (himself last). Your father isn't worth a 
 bone button, and your mother isn't worth the shank to 
 it : I'm your father, and your mother into the bargain, 
 for want of a better : you live with me and snap your 
 fingers at Dawes and all his crew — ha, ha! — a fine loss 
 to be sure — the boy is a fool — cooks and coquettes and 
 fiddle-touters, rubbish not worth picking up out of a 
 gutter — they be d- d ! " 
 
 And so I was installed in Miss Paley's apartment, 
 Seven Dials ; and nothing would have made my adopted 
 parent happier than for me to be put my hands in my 
 pockets, and live upon goose and cabbage. But down- 
 right laziness was never my character. I went round to 
 all the fiddle-shops and offered, as bold as brass, to make 
 a violin, a tenor or a bass, and bring it home. Most of 
 them looked shy at me, for it was necessary to trust me 
 with the wood, and to lend me one or two of the higher 
 
42 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 class of tools, such as a turning-saw, and a jointing- 
 plane. 
 
 At last I came to Mr. Dodd in Berners Street ; here 
 my father's name stood me in stead. Mr. Dodd risked 
 his wood and the needful tools, and in eight days I 
 brought him, with conceit and trepidation mixed in 
 equal part, a violin, which I had sometimes feared it 
 would frighten him, and sometimes hoped it would 
 charm him. He took it up, gave it one twirl round, sat- 
 isfied himself it was a fiddle, good, bad, or indifferent, 
 put it in the window along with the rest, and paid for it 
 as he would for a penny roll. I timidly proposed to 
 make another for him ; he grunted a consent, which it 
 did not seem to me a rapturous one. 
 
 Mr. Metzler also ventured to give me work of this 
 kind. For some months I wrought hard all day, and 
 amused myself with my companions all the evening, 
 selecting my pals from the following classes : small 
 actors, showmen, pedestrians, and clever, discontented 
 mechanics ; one lot I never would have at any price, and 
 that was the stupid ones, that could only booze and 
 could not tell me anything I did not know about pleas- 
 ure, business, and life. 
 
 This was a bright existence : so it came to a full stop. 
 
 At one and the same time Miss Paley came home, and 
 the fiddle-trade took one of those chills all fancy trades 
 are subject to. 
 
 No work — no lodging without paying for it — no 
 wherewithal. 
 
JACK OF ALL TKADES, 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 John Beard, a friend of mine, was a painter and 
 grainer. His art was to imitate oak, maple, walnut, 
 satin-wood, etc., upon vulgar deal, beech, or what not, 
 
 This business works thus : first, a coat of oil-color is 
 put on with a brush, and this color imitates what may 
 be called the background of the wood that is aimed at : 
 on this oil-background the champ, the fibre, the grain, 
 and figure, and all the incidents of the superior wood, 
 are imitated by various manoeuvres in water-colors ; or 
 rather in beer-colors, for beer is the approved medium. 
 A coat of varnish over all gives a look of unity to the 
 work. 
 
 Beard was out of employ ; so was I ; bitter against 
 London ; so was I. He sounded me about trying the 
 country, and I agreed ; and this was the first step of my 
 many travels. 
 
 We started the next day ; he with his brushes and a 
 few colors and one or two thin panels, painted by way of 
 advertisement ; and I with hope, inexperience, and three- 
 pence. On the road we spent this and his fivepence, 
 and entered the town of Brentford towards nightfall as 
 empty as drums, and as hungry as wolves. 
 
 | What was to be done ? After a long discussion we 
 agreed to go to the mayor of the town and tell him our 
 
 'case, and offer to paint his street-door in the morning, if 
 he would save our lives for the night. 
 
 We went to the mayor ; luckily for us, he had risen 
 from nothing, as we were going to do ; and so he knew 
 
44 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 exactly what we meant when we looked up in his face 
 and laid our hands on our sausage-grinders. He gave 
 us eighteen-pence and an order on a lodging-house, and 
 put bounds to our gratitude by making us promise to let 
 his street-door alone ; we thanked him from our hearts, 
 supped, and went to bed, and agreed the country (as we 
 two cockneys called Brentford) was chock-full of good 
 fellows. 
 
 The next day up early in the morning, and away to 
 Hounslow ; here Beard sought work all through the 
 town: and just when we were in despair he got one 
 door. We dined and slept on this door, but we could 
 not sup off it : we had twopence over though for the 
 morning, and walked on a penny-roll each to Maiden- 
 head. 
 
 Here, as we entered the town, we passed a little house 
 with the door painted oak, and a brass plate announcing 
 a plumber, and glazier, and house-painter. Beard pulled 
 up before this door in sorrowful contempt. "Now look 
 here, John," says he, " here is a fellow living among the 
 woods, and you would swear he never saw an oak plank 
 in his life, to look at his work." 
 
 Before so very long we came to another specimen; 
 this was maple, and farther from nature than a lawyer 
 from heaven, as the saying is. " There, that will do," 
 says Beard. " I'll tell you what it is, we must try a dif- 
 ferent move ; it is no use looking for work ; folks will 
 only employ their own tradesmen ; we must teach the 
 professors of the art at so much a panel." 
 
 " Will they stomach that ? " said I. 
 
 "I think they will, as we are strangers and from 
 London. You go and see whether there is a fiddle to be 
 doctored in the town, and meet me again in the market- 
 place at twelve o'clock." 
 
 I did meet him, and forlorn enough I was ; my trade 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 45 
 
 had broke down in Maidenhead; not a job of any 
 sort. 
 
 " Come to the public-house ! " was his first word : 
 that sounded well, I thought. 
 
 We sat down to bread and cheese and beer, and he 
 told his tale. 
 
 It seems he went into a shop, told the master he was 
 a painter and grainer from a great establishment in 
 London, and was in the habit of travelling and instruct- 
 ing provincial artists in the business. The man was a 
 pompous sort of a customer, and told Beard he knew the 
 business as well as he did, better belike. 
 
 Beard answered, "Then you are the only one here 
 that does ; for I've been all through the town, and any- 
 thing wider from the mark than their oak and maple 
 I never saw." Then he quietly took down his panels 
 and spread them out, and looking out sharp he noticed 
 a sudden change come over the man's face. 
 
 "Well," says the man, "we reckon ourselves pretty 
 good at it in this town. However, I shouldn't mind see- 
 ing how you London chaps do it. What do you charge 
 for a specimen ? " 
 
 "My charge is two shillings a panel. What wood 
 should you like to gain a notion of ? " said Beard, as dry 
 as a chip. 
 
 " Well — satin-wood." 
 
 Beard painted a panel of satin-wood before his eyes ; 
 and of course it was done with great ease, and on a bet- 
 ter system than had reached Maidenhead up to that 
 time. " Now," says Beard, " I must go to dinner." 
 
 "Well, come back again, my lad," says the man, "and 
 we will go in for something else." So Beard took his 
 two shillings and met me as aforesaid. 
 
 After dinner he asked for a private room. " A private 
 room," said I ; " hadn't you better order our horse and 
 gig out, and go and call on the rector ? " 
 
46 
 
 JACK OF ALL TKADES. 
 
 " None of your chaff," says he. 
 
 When we got into the room, he opened the business. 
 
 " Your trade is no good ; you must take to mine." 
 
 "What, teach painters how to paint, when I don't 
 know a stroke myself ! " 
 
 " Why not ? You've only got it to learn : they have 
 got to unlearn all they know ; that is the only long pro- 
 cess about it. I'll teach you in five minutes," says he ; 
 "look here." He then imitated oak before me, and 
 made me do it. He corrected my first attempt : the 
 second satisfied him ; we then went on to maple, and so 
 through all the woods he could mimic. He then returned 
 to his customer, and I hunted in another part of the 
 town ; and before nightfall I actually gave three lessons 
 to two professors : it is amazing but true, that I, who 
 had been learning ten minutes, taught men who had 
 been all their lives at it — in the country. 
 
 One was so pleased with his tutor, that he gave me a 
 pint of beer besides my fee. I thought he was poking 
 fun when he first offered it me. 
 
 Beard and I met again triumphant : we had a rousing 
 supper and a good bed, and the next day started for 
 Henley, where we both did a small stroke of business ; 
 and on to Reading for the night. 
 
 Our goal was Bristol. Beard had friends there. But 
 as we zigzagged for the sake of the towns, we were 
 three weeks walking to that city ; but we reached it at 
 last, having disseminated the science of graining in many 
 cities, and got good clothes and money in return. 
 
 At Bristol we parted. He found regular employment 
 the first day, and I visited the fiddle-shops and offered 
 my services. At most I was refused ; at one or two T 
 got trifling jobs ; but at last I went to the right one. 
 The master agreed with me for piece-work on a large 
 scale, and the terms were such that by working quick 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 47 
 
 and very steady, I could make about twenty-five shil- 
 lings a week. At this I kept two years, and might have 
 longer, no doubt — but my employer's niece came to live 
 with him. 
 
 She was a woman : and my theory being in full career 
 at this date, mutual ardor followed, and I asked her hand 
 of her uncle, and instead of that he gave me what the 
 Turkish ladies get for the same offence — the sack. Of£ 
 to London again, and the money I had saved by my 
 industry just landed me in the Seven Dials and sixpence 
 over. 
 
 I went to Paley, crestfallen as usual. He heard my 
 story, complimented me on my energy, industry, and 
 talent, regretted the existence of woman, and inveighed 
 against her character and results. 
 
 We went that evening to private theatricals in Berwick 
 Street, and there I fell in with an acquaintance in the 
 firework line ; on hearing my case, he told me I had just 
 fallen from the skies in time, his employer wanted a 
 fresh hand. 
 
 The very next day behold me grinding and sifting and 
 ramming powder at Somers Town, and at it ten months. 
 
 My evenings, when I was not undoing my own work 
 to show its brilliancy, were often spent in private 
 theatricals. 
 
 I hear a row made just now about a dramatic school. 
 " We have no dramatic schools," is the cry. Well, in 
 the day I speak of there were several ; why, I belonged 
 to two. We never brought to light an actor ; but we 
 succeeded so far as -to ruin more than one lad who had 
 brains enough to make a tradesman, till we heated those 
 brains and they boiled all away. 
 
 The way we destroyed youth was this ; of course 
 nobody would pay a shilling at the door to see us run- 
 ning wild among Shakespeare's lines like pigs broken into 
 
48 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 a garden : so the expenses fell upon the actors ; and they 
 paid according to the value of the part each played. 
 Richard the Third cost a puppy two pounds ; Richmond, 
 fifteen shillings ; and so on, so that with us, as in the 
 big world, dignity went by wealth, not merit. I remem- 
 ber this made me sore at the time ; still there are two 
 sides to everything : they say poverty urges men to 
 crime ; mine saved me from it. If I could have afforded, 
 I would have murdered one or two characters that have 
 lived with good reputation from Queen Bess to Queen 
 Victoria ; but as I couldn't afford it, others that could 
 did it for me. 
 
 Well, in return for his cash, Richard or Hamlet 
 or Othello commanded tickets in proportion ; for the 
 tickets are only gratuitous to the spectators. 
 
 Consequently at night each important actor played not 
 only to a most merciful audience, but a large band of 
 devoted friendly spirits in it, who came not to judge 
 him, but express to carry him through triumphant, like 
 an election. Now, when a vain, ignorant chap hears a 
 lot of hands clapping, he has not the sense to say to him- 
 self " paid for ! " No, it is applause, and applause stamps 
 his own secret opinion of himself : he was off his balance 
 before, and now he tumbles heel over tip into the notion 
 that he is a genius ; throws his commercial prospects 
 after the two pounds that went in Richard or Beverley, 
 and crosses Waterloo Bridge spouting, — 
 
 " A fico for the shop and poplins base ! 
 Counter, avaunt ! I on his southern bank 
 Will lire the Thames!" 
 
 Noodle thus singing goes over the water. But they 
 won't have him at the Surrey or the Vic. : so he takes 
 to the country : and, while his money lasts, and he can 
 pay the mismanager of a small theatre, he gets leave to 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 49 
 
 play with Bichard and Hamlet. But when the money 
 is gone and he wants to be paid for Eichard & Co., they 
 laugh at him, and put him in his right place, and that 
 is a utility, and perhaps ends a " super. ; " when, if he 
 had not been a coxcomb, he might have sold ribbon like 
 a man to his dying day. 
 
 We, and our dramatic schools, ruined more than one 
 or two of this sort by means of his vanity in my young 
 days. 
 
 My poverty saved me. The conceit was here in vast 
 abundance, but not the funds to intoxicate myself with 
 such choice liquors as Hamlet & Co. Nothing above old 
 Gobbo (five shillings) ever fell to my lot and by my 
 talent. 
 
 When I had made and let off fireworks for a few 
 months, I thought I could make more as a rocket-master, 
 than a rocket-man. I had saved a pound or two. Most 
 of my friends dissuaded me from the attempt ; but Paley 
 said, " Let him alone now — don't keep him down — he 
 is born to rise. I'll risk a pound on him." So, by dint 
 of several small loans, I got the materials and made a 
 set of fireworks myself, and agreed with the keeper of 
 some tea-gardens at Hampstead for the spot. 
 
 At the appointed time, attended by a trusty band of 
 friends, I put them up : and, when I had taken a tolera- 
 ble sum at the door, I let them all off. 
 
 But they did not all profit by the permission. Some 
 went, but others whose supposed destination was the 
 sky, soared about as high as a house, then returned and 
 forgot their wild nature, and performed the office of our 
 household fires upon the clothes of my visitors ; and 
 some faithful spirits, like old domestics, would not leave 
 their master at any price : would not take their discharge. 
 Then there was a row, and I should have been mauled, 
 but my guards rallied round me and brought me off with 
 
50 
 
 JACK OF ALL TKADES. 
 
 whole bones, and marched back to London with me, 
 quizzing me and drinking at my expense. The publican 
 refused to give me my promised fee, and my loss by 
 ambition was twenty-eight shillings, and my reputation 
 — if you would call that a loss. 
 
 Was not I quizzed up and down the Seven Dials ! 
 Paley alone contrived to stand out in my favor. " Non- 
 sense, a first attempt," said he, "they mostly fail: don't 
 you give in for those fools ! I'll tell you a story. There 
 was a chap in prison — I forget his name : he lived in 
 the old times a few hundred years ago, I can't justly say 
 how many : he had failed — at something or other — I 
 don't know how many times — and there he was. Well, 
 Jack, one day he notices a spider climbing up a thunder- 
 ing great slippery stone in the wall. She got a little way 
 — then down she fell — up again and tries it on again — 
 down again. Ah, says the man, you will never do it. But 
 the spider was game — she got six falls, but, by George ! 
 the seventh trial she got up. So the gentleman says, ' A 
 man ought to have as much heart as a spider : I won't 
 give in till the seventh trial.' Bless you, long before 
 the seventh he carried all before him, and got to be king 
 of England — or something." 
 
 " King of England ! " said I, " that was a move up- 
 wards out of the stone jug." 
 
 " Well," said Paley the hopeful, " you can't be king of 
 England ; but you may be the fire-king, he ! he ! if you 
 are true to powder. How much money do you want to 
 try again ? " 
 
 I was nettled at my failure, and fired by Paley and his 
 spider, I scraped together a few pounds once more, and 
 advertised a display of fireworks for a certain Monday 
 night. 
 
 On the Sunday afternoon Paley and I happened to 
 walk on the Hampstead Road, and near the Adam and 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 51 
 
 Eve we fell in with an announcement of fireworks. On 
 the bill appeared in enormous letters the following: — 
 
 " No CONNECTION WITH THE DISGRACEFUL EXHIBI- 
 TION THAT TOOK PLACE LAST FRIDAY WEEK ! " 
 
 Paley was in a towering passion. " Look here, John," 
 says he, " but never you mind — it won't be here long, 
 for I'll tear it down in about half a moment." 
 
 " No, you must not do that," said I, a little nervous. 
 
 " Why not, you poor-spirited muff ? " shouts the little 
 fellow — " let me alone — let me get at it — what are you 
 holding me for ? " 
 
 " No ! no ! no ! well then " — 
 
 " Well then, what ? " 
 
 " Well then, it is mine." 
 
 "What is yours ?" 
 
 " That advertisement." 
 
 " How can it be yours when it insults you ? 99 
 " Oh ! business before vanity." 
 
 "Well, I am blest! Here's a go — look here now," 
 and he began to split his sides laughing ; but all of a 
 sudden he turned awful grave ; "you will rise, my lad: 
 this is a genuine talent : they might as well try to keep 
 a balloon down." In short, my friend, who was as hon- 
 est as the day in his own sayings and doings, admired 
 this bit of rascality in me and augured the happiest 
 results. 
 
 That district of London which is called the Seven 
 Dials was now divided into two great parties ; one 
 augured for me a brilliant success next day : the other a 
 dead failure. The latter party numbered many names 
 unknown to fame : the former consisted of Paley. I 
 was neuter, distrusting, not my merits, but what I called 
 my luck. 
 
 On Monday afternoon I was busy putting out the fire* 
 works, nailing them to their posts, etc. Towards even- 
 
52 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 ing it began to rain so heavily that £hey had to be taken 
 in, and the whole thing given np : it was postponed to 
 Thursday. 
 
 On Thursday night we had a good assembly : the sum 
 taken at the doors exceeded my expectation. I had my 
 misgivings on account of the rain that had fallen on my 
 kickshaws Monday evening ; so I began with those arti- 
 cles I had taken in first out of the rain ; they went off 
 splendidly, and my personal friends were astounded ; but 
 soon my poverty began to tell : instead of having many 
 hands to save the fireworks from wet, I had been alone, 
 and of course much time had been lost in getting them 
 under cover ; we began now to get along the damp lot, 
 and science was lost in chance : some would and some 
 wouldn't, and the people began to goose me. 
 
 A rocket or two that fizzed themselves out without 
 rising a foot inflamed their angry passions : so I an- 
 nounced two fiery pigeons. 
 
 The fiery pigeon is a pretty firework enough : it is of 
 the nature of a rocket, but being on a string it travels 
 backwards and forwards between two termini, to which 
 the string is fixed : when there are two strings and two 
 pigeons, the fiery wings race one another across the 
 ground, and charm the gazing throng. One of my ter- 
 mini was a tree at the extremity of the gardens ; up this 
 tree I mounted in my shirt-sleeves with my birds : the 
 people surrounded the tree and were dead silent : I 
 could see their final verdict, and my fate hung on these 
 pigeons ; I placed them and with a beating heart lighted 
 their matches. To my horror one did not move. I 
 might as well have tried to explode green sticks. The 
 other started and went off with great resolution and ac- 
 companying cheers towards the opposite side. But mid- 
 way it suddenly stopped and the cheers with it : it did 
 not come to an end all at once j but the fire oozed gradu* 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 53 
 
 ally out of it like water — a howl of derision was hurled 
 up into the tree at me : but, worse than that, looking 
 down I saw in the moonlight a hundred stern faces with 
 eyes like red-hot emeralds, in which I read my fate : 
 they were waiting for me to come down, like terriers for 
 a rat in a trap, and I felt by the look of them that they 
 would kill me or near it ; I crept along a bough the end 
 of which cleared the wall and overhung the road : I de- 
 termined to break my neck sooner than fall into the 
 hands of an insulted public. An impatient orange 
 whizzed by my ear, and an apple knocked my hat out of 
 the premises. I crouched and clung — luckily I was on 
 an ash-bough, long, tapering and tough ; it bent with me 
 like a rainbow. A stick or two now whizzed past my 
 ear, and it began to hail fruit. I held on like grim 
 death till the road was within six feet of me, and then 
 dropped and ran off home, like a dog with a kettle at his 
 tail ; meantime a rush was made to the gate to cut me 
 off ; but it was too late : the garden meandered, and rny 
 executioners, when they got to the outside, saw nothing 
 but a flitting spectre : me in my shirt-sleeves making for 
 the Seven Dials. 
 
 Mr. and Miss Paley were seated by their fire, and, as 
 I afterwards learned, Paley was recommending her to 
 me for a husband, and explaining to her at some length, 
 why I was sure to rise in the world, when a figure in 
 shirt-sleeves begrimed with powder, and no hat, burst 
 into the room, and shrank without a word into the cor- 
 ner by the fire. 
 
 Miss Paley looked up, and then began to look down 
 and snigger. Her father stared at me, and after awhile 
 I could see him set his teeth and nerve his obstinate old 
 heart for the coming struggle. 
 
 " Well, how did it happen ? " said he, at last. " Where 
 is your coat ? " 
 
54 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 I told him the whole story. 
 
 Miss Paley had her hand to her mouth all the time, 
 afraid to give vent to the feelings proper to the occasion 
 because of her father. 
 
 " Now answer me one question. Have you got their 
 money ? " says Paley. 
 
 " Yes, I have got their money for that matter." 
 
 " Well then, what need you care ? You are all right ; 
 and if they had gone off they would have been all over 
 by now just the same : he wants his supper, Lucy — 
 give us something hot to make us forget our squibs and 
 crackers, or we shall die of a broken heart, all of us 
 poor fainting souls — such a calamity ! The rain wetted 
 them through — that is all — you couldn't fight against 
 the elements, could you ? Lay the cloth, girl.' 7 
 
 " But, Mr. Paley," whined I, " they have got my new 
 coat ; and you may be sure they have torn it limb from 
 jacket." 
 
 " Have they ? " cried he, " well, that is a comfort any 
 way. Your new coat, eh ? Lucy, it hung on the boy's 
 back like an old sack. Do you see this bit of cloth ? I 
 shall make you a Sunday coat with this, and then you'll 
 sell. Fetch a quart to-night, girl, instead of a pint : the 
 fire-king is going to do us the honor. Che-er up ! " 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was now time that Miss Paley should suffer the 
 penalty of her sex. She was a comely, good-humored, 
 and sensible girl. We used often to walk out together 
 on Sundays, and very friendly we were. I used to tell 
 her she was the flower of her sex, and she used to laugh 
 at that. One Sunday I spoke more plainly, and laid my 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 55 
 
 heart, my thirteen shillings, the fruit of my last impost- 
 ure on the public, and my various arts, at her feet, out 
 walking. 
 
 A proposal of this sort, if I may trust the stories I 
 read, produces thrilling effects ; if agreeable, the ladies 
 either refuse in order to torment themselves, which act 
 of virtue justifies them, they think, in tormenting the 
 man they love, or else they show their rapturous assent 
 by bursting out crying or by fainting away, or their lips 
 turning cold, and other signs proper to a disordered 
 stomach; if it is to be "no," they are almost as much 
 cut up about it, and say no like yes, which has the 
 happy result of leaving him hope and prolonging his 
 pain. Miss Paley did quite different. She blushed a 
 little, and smiled archly, and said, " Now, John, you and 
 I are good friends, and I like you very much ; and I will 
 walk with you and laugh with you as much as you like ; 
 but I have been engaged these two years to Charles 
 Hook, and I love him, John." 
 
 " Do you, Lucy ? " 
 
 " Yes," under her breath a bit. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " So if we are to be friends you must not put that 
 question to me again, John. What do you say ? we are 
 to be friends, are we not ? " And she put out her 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes, Lucy." 
 
 " And, John, you need not go for to tell my father. 
 What is the use vexing him ? He has got a notion ; 
 but it will pass away in time." 
 
 I consented, of course, and Lucy and I were friends. 
 
 Mr. Paley somehow suspected which way his daugh- 
 ter's heart turned, and not long after a neighbor told me 
 he heard him quizzing her unmerciful for her bad judg- 
 ment. As for harshness or tyranny, that was not under 
 
5G 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 his skin, as the saying is. He wound up with telling 
 her that John was a man safe to rise. 
 
 " I hope he may, father, I am sure," says Lucy. 
 
 " Well, and can't you see he is the man for you ? " 
 
 " No, father, I can't see that ; he, he I " 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I don't think I have been penniless not a dozen times 
 in my life. When I get down to twopence or three- 
 pence, which is very frequent indeed, something is apt 
 to turn up and raise me to silver once more, and there 
 I stick. But about this time I lay out of work a long 
 time, and was reduced to the lowest ebb. In this condi- 
 tion a friend of mine took me to the " Harp " in Little 
 Russell Street, to meet Mr. Webb, the manager of a 
 strolling company. Mr. Webb was beating London for 
 recruits to complete his company which lay at Bishops 
 Stortford, but which, owing to desertions, was not numer- 
 ous enough to massacre five-act plays. I instantly 
 offered to go as carpenter and scene-shifter : to this he 
 demurred — he was provided with them already — he 
 wanted actors ; to this I objected, not that I cared to 
 what sort of work I turned my hand, but in these com- 
 panies a carpenter is paid for his day's work according 
 to his agreement, but the actors are remunerated by a 
 share in the night's profits, and the profits are often 
 written in the following figures : £0. Os. Od. 
 
 However, Mr. Webb was firm, he had no carpenter's 
 place to offer me, so I was obliged to lower my preten- 
 sions. I agreed then to be an actor. I was cast as 
 Father Philip in the "Iron Chest "next evening. My 
 share of the profits to be one-eighth. I borrowed a 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 57 
 
 shilling, and my friend Johnstone and I walked all the 
 way to Bishops Stortf ord. We played the " Iron Chest/ 7 
 and divided the profits. Hitherto I had been in the 
 mechanical arts. This was my first step into the fine 
 ones. Father Philip's share of the " Chest " was two 
 and a half pence. 
 
 Now this might be a just remuneration for the per- 
 formance ; I almost think it was : but it left the walk, 
 thirty miles, not accounted for. 
 
 The next night I was cast in " Jerry Sneak." I had 
 no objection to the part ; only, under existing circum- 
 stances, the place to play it seemed to me to be the 
 road to London, not the boards of Bishops Stortford; 
 so I sneaked off towards the Seven Dials. Johnstone, 
 though cast for the hero, was of Jerry's mind, and 
 sneaked away along with him. 
 
 We had made but twelve miles when the manager and 
 a constable came up with us. Those were peremptory 
 days ; they offered us our choice of the fine arts again, 
 or prison. After a natural hesitation we chose the arts, 
 and were driven back to them like sheep. Night's 
 profits, fivepence. In the morning the whole company 
 dissolved away like a snowball. Johnstone and I had 
 a meagre breakfast and walked on it twenty-six miles. 
 He was a stout fellow — shone in brigands — he encour- 
 aged and helped me along ; but at last I could go no 
 farther. 
 
 My slighter frame was quite worn out with hunger 
 and fatigue. "Leave me," I said; "perhaps some char- 
 itable hand will aid me, and if not, why then I shall die : 
 and I don't care if I do ; for I have lost all hope." 
 
 " Nonsense," cried the fine fellow. " I'll carry you 
 home on my back sooner than leave you — die ? That 
 is a word a man should never say. Come, courage, only 
 four miles more." 
 
58 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 No. I could not move from the spot. I was what I 
 believe seldom really happens to any man, dead beat, 
 body and soul. 
 
 I sank down on a heap of stones. Johnstone sat 
 down beside me. 
 
 The sun was just setting. It was a bad lookout. 
 Starving people to lie out on stones all night. A man 
 can stand cold, and he can fight with hunger : but put 
 those two together, and life is soon exhausted. 
 
 At last a rumble was heard, and presently an empty 
 coal-wagon came up. A coal-heaver sat on the shaft, 
 and another walked by the side. Johnstone went to 
 meet them — they stopped — I saw him pointing to me, 
 and talking earnestly. 
 
 The men came up to me : they took hold of me and 
 shot me into the cart like a hundred- weight of coal. 
 " Why, he is starving with cold," said one of them, and 
 he flung half a dozen empty sacks over me, and on we 
 went. At the first public the wagon stopped, and 
 soon one of my new friends with a cheerful voice 
 brought a pewter flagon of porter to me : I sipped it. 
 "Don't be afraid of it," cried he, "down with it; it is 
 meat and drink, that is." And indeed so I found it. It 
 was a heavenly solid liquid to me : it was " stout " by 
 name, and " stout " by nature. 
 
 These good fellows, whom men do right to call black 
 diamonds, carried me safe into the Strand, and thence, 
 being now quite my own man again, I reached the Seven 
 Dials. Paley was in bed. He came down directly in 
 his nightgown, and lighted a fire and pulled a piece of 
 cold beef out of the cupboard, and cheered me as usual, 
 but in a fatherly way this time ; and of course at my age 
 I was soon all right again, and going to take the world 
 by storm to-morrow morning. He left me for awhile 
 and went up-stairs : presently he came down again. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 59 
 
 "Your bed is ready, John." 
 
 "Why," said I, "you have not three rooms." 
 
 " Lucy is on a visit," said he ; then he paused. " Stop 
 a bit, "I'll warm your bed." 
 
 He took me up-stairs to my old room and warmed the 
 bed. I, like a thoughtless young fool, rolled into it, half 
 gone with sleep, and never woke till ten next morning. 
 
 I don't know what the reader will think of me when 
 I tell him that the old man had turned Lucy out of her 
 room into his own, and sat all night by the fire that I 
 might lie soft after my troubles. Ah — he was a bit of 
 steel. And have you left me, and can I share no more 
 sorrow or joy with you in this world ! Eh, dear, it 
 makes me misty to think of the old man — after all 
 these years. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 I used often to repair and doctor a violin for a gent 
 whom I shall call Chaplin : he played in the orchestra 
 of the Adelphi Theatre. Mr. Chaplin was not only a 
 customer but a friend ; he saw how badly off I was, and 
 had a great desire to serve me : now it so happened that 
 Mr. Yates the manager was going to give an entertain- 
 ment he called his " At Homes," and this took but a 
 small orchestra, of which Mr. Chaplin was to be the 
 leader : so he was allowed to engage the other instru- 
 ments ; and he actually proposed to me to be a second 
 violin. 
 
 I stared at him. " How can I do that ? " 
 " Why, I often hear you try a violin." 
 " Yes, and I always play the same notes, perhaps yon 
 have observed that too ? " 
 
60 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 " I notice it is always a slow movement — eh ? Never 
 mind, this is the only thing I can think of to serve you 
 — you must strum out something — it will be a good 
 thing for you, you know." 
 
 "Well," said I, "if Mr. Yates will promise to sing 
 nothing faster than ' Je-ru-sa-lem my hap-py home/ 
 I'll accompany him." 
 
 No — he would not be laughed out of it. He was 
 determined to put money in my pocket, and would take 
 no denial. " Next Monday you will have the goodness 
 to meet me at the theatre at six o'clock with your fiddle. 
 Play how you like, play inaudible for what I care, but 
 play and draw your weekly salary you must and shall." 
 
 "Play inaudible." These words sunk to the very 
 bottom of me. " Play inaudible." 
 
 I fell into a brown study ; it lasted three days and 
 three nights. Finally, to my good patron's great con- 
 tent, I consented to come up to the scratch ; and Monday 
 night I had the hardihood to present myself in the 
 music-room of the Adelphi. My violin was a ringing 
 one, I tuned up the loudest of them all, and Mr. 
 Chaplin's eye rested on me with an approving glance. 
 
 Time was called. We played an overture, and accom- 
 panied Mr. Yates in his recitatives and songs, and per- 
 formed pieces and airs between the acts, etc. The 
 leader's eye often fell on me, and, when it did, he saw 
 the most conscientious workman of the crew ploughing 
 every note with singular care and diligence. 
 
 In this same little orchestra was James Bates, another 
 favorite of Mr. Chaplin, and an experienced fiddler. 
 
 This young man was a great chum of mine. He was 
 a fine honest young fellow, but of rather a saturnine 
 temper. He was not movable to mirth at any price. 
 He would play without a smile to a new pantomime — 
 stuck there all night like Solomon cut in black marble 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 61 
 
 with a white choker, as solemn as a tomb, with hundreds 
 laughing all around. 
 
 Once or twice while we were at work I saw Mr. 
 Chaplin look at Bates, knowing we two were chums, 
 and whenever he did it seems the young one bit his lips 
 and turned as red as a beetroot. After the lights were 
 out Mr. Chaplin congratulated me before Bates. 
 " There, you see, it is not so very hard. Why, hang 
 me, if you did not saw away as well as the best ! " At 
 these words Bates gave a sort of yell, and ran home. 
 Mr. Chaplin looked after him with surprise. " There's 
 some devil's delight up between you two," said he. " I 
 shall find it out." 
 
 Next night in the tuning-room my fiddle was so 
 resinant it attracted attention, and one or two asked 
 leave to try it. " Why not ? " said I. 
 
 During work Mr. Chaplin had one eye on me, and one, 
 on Bates, and caught the perspiration running down my 
 face, and him simpering for the first time in the history 
 of the Adelphi. 
 
 " What has come over Jem Bates ? " said Mr. Chaplin 
 to me. " The lad is all changed. You have put some of 
 your late gunpowder into him ; there is something up 
 between you two." After the play he got us together, 
 and he looked Bates in the face and just said to him, 
 "Eh?" 
 
 At this wholesale interrogatory Bates laid hold of 
 himself tight. " No, Mr. Chaplin, sir ; I can't. It will 
 kill me when it does come out of me." 
 
 " When what comes out ? You young rascals, if you 
 don't both of you tell me, I'll break my fiddle over 
 Bates, and Jack shall mend it free of expense gratis for 
 nothing. That is how I'll serve mutineers. Come ; out 
 with it." 
 
 " Tell him, John," said Bates, demurely. 
 
62 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 "No," said I, "tell him yourself if you think it will 
 gratify him." I had my doubts. 
 
 "Well," said Bates, "it is ungrateful to keep you out 
 of it, sir — so — he ! he ! — I'll tell you, sir — this second 
 violin has two bows in his violin-case." 
 
 "Well, stupid, what is commoner than that for a 
 fiddler ? " 
 
 " But this is not a fiddler," squeaked Bates, " he's only 
 a bower. Oh, oh, oh ! " 
 " Only a bower ? " 
 
 "No! Oh! Oh! I shall die, it will kill me." I 
 gave a sort of ghastly grin myself. 
 
 " You unconscionable scoundrels ! " shouted Mr. Chap- 
 lin. " There, look at this Bates, he is at it again, a fellow 
 that the very clown could never raise a laugh out of, 
 and now I see him all night smirking and grinning and 
 looking down like a jackdaw that has got his claw on a 
 thimble. If you don't speak out, I'll knock" your two 
 tormenting skulls together till they roll off down the 
 gutter side by side, chuckling and giggling all day and 
 all night." At this direful, mysterious threat, Bates 
 composed himself. " The power is all out of my body, 
 sir, so now I can tell you." 
 
 He then in faint tones gave this explanation, which 
 my guilty looks confirmed. " One of his bows is resined, 
 sir ; that one is the tuner. I don't know whether you 
 have observed, but he tunes rather louder than any two 
 of us. Oh, dear, it is coming again." 
 
 " Don't be a fool now. Yes, I have noticed that." 
 
 " The other bow, Mr. Chaplin, sir, the other bow is 
 soaped, well soaped, sir, for orchestral use. Ugh. Ugh." 
 
 " Oh, the varmint ! " 
 
 Bates continued. " You take a look at him, you see 
 him fingering and bowing like mad, but as for sound, 
 you know what a greasy bow is ? " 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 03 
 
 " Of course I do. I don't wonder at your laughing — 
 ha, ha, ha ! Oh, the thief ! when I think of his diligent 
 face and him shaking his right wrist like Viotti." 
 
 " Mind your pockets though, he knows too much." 
 
 It was now my turn to speak. " I am glad you like 
 the idea, sir," said I, " for it comes from you." 
 
 " How can you say that ? " 
 
 "What did you tell me to do ? " 
 
 " I didn't tell you to do that. I don't remember what 
 I told him, Bates, not to the letter." 
 
 " Told me to play inaudible ! " 
 
 " Well, I never," said Mr. Chaplin. 
 
 " Those were your words, sir ; they did not fall to the 
 ground, you see." 
 
 My position in this orchestra and the situations that 
 arose out of it were meat and drink to my two friends. 
 With the gentry, whose lives are a succession of amuse- 
 ments, a joke soon wears out, no doubt ; but we poor 
 fellows can't let one go cheap. How do we know how 
 long it may be before Heaven sends us another ? A 
 joke falling among us is like a rat in a kennel of 
 terriers. 
 
 At intricate passages the first violin used to look at 
 the tenor and then at me, and wink, and they both 
 swelled with innocent enjoyment, till at last unknown 
 powers of gayety budded in Bates : with quizzing his 
 friend he learned to take a jest ; so much so that one 
 night, Mr. Yates being funnier than usual if possible, a 
 single horse-laugh suddenly exploded among the fiddles. 
 This was Bates gone off all in a moment after his trigger 
 being pulled so many years to no purpose. Mr. Yates 
 looked down with gratified surprise. 
 
 "Halloo ! Brains got in the orchestra; after that any- 
 thing ! " 
 
 But do you think it was fun to me, all this ? I declare 
 
64 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 I suffered the torture of the — you know what. I never 
 felt safe a moment. I had placed myself next to an old 
 fiddler who was deaf, but he somehow smelt at times 
 that I was shirking, and then he used to cry, " Pull out, 
 pull out, you don't pull out." 
 
 " How can you say so ? " I used to reply, and then saw 
 away like mad : when, so connected are the senses of 
 sight and hearing apparently, the old fellow used to 
 smile and be at peace. He saw me pull, and so he heard 
 me pull out. Then sometimes friends of the other per- 
 formers would be in the orchestra, and peep over me 
 and say civil things, and I wish them further, civilities 
 and all. But it is a fact that for two months I gesticu- 
 lated in that orchestra without a soul finding out that I 
 was not suiting the note to the action. 
 
 At last we broke up, to my great relief, but I did not 
 leave the theatre. Mr. Widger, Mr. Yates's dresser, got 
 me a place behind the scenes at nine shillings per week. 
 
 I used to dress Mr. Eeeve and run for his brandies 
 and waters, which kept me on the trot, and do odd jobs. 
 
 But I was now to make the acquaintance that colored 
 all my life, or the cream of it. My time was come to 
 move in a wider circle of men and things, and really to 
 do what so many fancy they have done — to see the 
 world. 
 
 In the month of April, 1828, Mr. Yates, theatrical 
 manager, found his nightly receipts fall below his nightly 
 expenses. In this situation a manager falls upon one of 
 two things ; a spectacle or a star. Mr. Yates preferred 
 the latter, and went over to Paris and engaged Made- 
 moiselle Djek. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek was an elephant of great size, and 
 unparalleled sagacity. She had been for some time per- 
 forming in a play at Franconi's, and created a great 
 sensation in Paris. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 65 
 
 Of her previous history little is known. But she was 
 first landed from the East in England, and was shown 
 about merely as an elephant by her proprietor, an Italian 
 called Polito. The Frenchmen first found out her talent. 
 Her present owner was a M. Huguet, and with him Mr. 
 Yates treated. She joined the Adelphi company at a 
 salary of forty pounds a week and her grub. 
 
 There was great expectation in the theatre for some 
 days; the play in which she was to perform "The 
 Elephant of the King of Siam," was cast and rehearsed 
 several times j a wooden house was built for her at the 
 back of the stage, and one fine afternoon sure enough she 
 arrived with all her train, one or two of each nation ; viz., 
 her owner, M. Huguet (French), her principal keeper, 
 Tom Elliot (English), her subordinates, Bernard (French), 
 and an Italian nicknamed Pippin. She arrived at the 
 stage-door in Maiden Lane, and soon after the messenger 
 was sent to Mr. Yates's house. 
 
 "Elephant's come, sir." 
 
 " Well, let them put her in the place built for her, and 
 I'll come and see her." 
 "They can't do that, sir." 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "La bless you, sir, she might get her foot into the 
 theatre : but how is her body to come through the stage- 
 door ? why, she is almost as big as the house." 
 
 Down comes Mr. Yates, and there was the elephant 
 standing all across Maiden Lane — all traffic interrupted 
 except what could pass under her belly — and such a 
 crowd, my eye ! 
 
 Mr. Yates put his hands in his pockets and took a 
 quiet look at the state of affairs. 
 
 " You must make a hole in the wall," said he. 
 
 Pickaxes went to work and made a hole or rather a 
 frightful chasm in the theatre, and when it looked about 
 
66 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 two-thirds her size, Elliot said, " Stop ! " He then gave 
 her a sharp order, and the first specimen we saw of her 
 cleverness was her doubling herself together and creep- 
 ing in through that hole, bending her fore-knees, and 
 afterwards rising and dragging her hind-legs horizontally, 
 and so she disappeared like an enormous mole burrowing 
 into the theatre. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek's bills were posted all over the 
 town, and everything done to make her take, and on the 
 following Tuesday the theatre was pretty well filled by 
 the public ; the manager also took care to have a strong 
 party in the pit. In short, she was nursed as other stars 
 are upon their debut. 
 
 Night came : all was anxiety behind the lights and 
 expectation in front. 
 
 The green curtain drew up, and Mr. Yates walked on 
 in black dress-coat and white kid gloves, like a private 
 gentleman just landed out of a bandbox at the Queen's 
 ball. He was the boy to talk to the public : soft sawder, 
 dignified reproach, friendly intercourse, he had them 
 all at his fingers' ends. This time it was the easy tone 
 of refined conversation upon the intelligent creature he 
 was privileged to introduce to them. I remember his 
 discourse as well as if it was yesterday. 
 
 "The elephant," said Mr. Yates, "is a marvel of 
 nature. We are iioav to have the pleasure of showing 
 her to you as taking her place in art." Then he praised 
 the wisdom and beneficence of creation. "Among the 
 small animals, such as cats and men, there is to be 
 found such a thing as spite ; treachery ditto, and love of 
 mischief, and even cruelty at odd times : but here is a 
 creature with the power to pull down our houses about 
 our ears like Samson, but a heart that will not let her 
 hurt a fly. Properly to appreciate her moral character 
 consider what a thing power is, see how it tries us, how 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 67 
 
 often in history it has turned men to demons. The ele- 
 phant," added he, " is the friend of man by choice, not 
 by necessity or instinct : it is born as wild as a lion or 
 buffalo, but the moment an opportunity arrives, its kin- 
 dred intelligence allies it to man, its only superior or 
 equal in reasoning power. We are about," said Mr. 
 Yates, " to present a play in which an elephant will act 
 a part, and yet act but herself, for the intelligence and 
 affectionate disposition she will display on these boards 
 as an actress are merely her own private and domestic 
 qualities. Not every one of us actors, gentlemen, can 
 say as much." 
 
 Then there was a laugh in which Mr. Yates joined. 
 In short, Mr. Yates, who could play upon the public ear 
 better than some fiddles (I name no names), made his 
 debutante popular before ever she stepped upon the 
 scene. He then bowed with intense gratitude to the 
 audience for the attention they had honored him with, 
 retired to the prompter's side, and, as he reached it, the 
 act drop flew up and the play began : it commenced 
 on two legs : the . elephant did not come on until the 
 second scene of the act. 
 
 The drama was a good specimen of its kind : it was a 
 story of some interest and length and variety, and the 
 writer had been sharp enough not to make the elephant 
 too common in it ; she came on only three or four times, 
 and always at a nick of time, and to do good business 
 — as theatricals say, i.e., for some important purpose in 
 the story. 
 
 A king of Siam had lately died, and the elephant was 
 seen taking her part in the funeral obsequies. She de- 
 posited his sceptre, etc., in the tomb of his fathers, and 
 was seen no more in that act. The rightful heir to this 
 throne was a young prince to whom the elephant be- 
 longed. An usurper opposed him, and a battle took 
 
68 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 place, the rightful heir was worsted and taken prisoner, 
 the usurper condemned him to be thrown into the sea. 
 In the next act, this sentence was being executed : four 
 men were discovered passing through a wood carrying 
 no end of a box. Suddenly a terrific roar was heard, 
 the men put down the box rather more carefully than 
 they would in real life, and fled, and the elephant walked 
 on to the scene alone like any other actress. She smelt 
 about the box, and presently tore it open with her pro- 
 boscis, and there was her master, the rightful heir, but 
 in a sad exhausted state. When the good soul sees this 
 what does she do but walk to the other side and tear 
 down the bough of a fruit-tree and hand it to the suf- 
 ferer : he sucked it, and it had the effect of stout on 
 him — it made a man of him, and they marched away 
 together, the elephant trumpeting to show her satisfac- 
 tion. 
 
 In the next act the rightful heir's friends were dis- 
 covered behind the bars of a prison at a height from the 
 ground. The order for their execution arrived, and they 
 were down upon their luck terribly. In marched the 
 elephant, tore out the iron bars, and squeezed herself 
 against the wall half-squatting in the shape of a tri- 
 angle : so then the prisoners glided down her to the 
 ground slantindicular one after another. 
 
 When the civil war had lasted long enough to sicken 
 both sides, and enough widows and orphans had been 
 made, the Siamese began to ask themselves, " But what 
 is it all about ? " The next thing was, they said, " What 
 asses we have been ! Was there no other way of deciding 
 between two men but bleeding the whole tribe ? " Then 
 they reflected and said, "We are asses, that is clear; 
 but we hear there is one animal in the nation that is not 
 an ass : why of course, then, she is the one to decide 
 our dispute." Accordingly a grand assembly was held, 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 69 
 
 the rival claimants were compelled to attend, and the 
 elephant was led in. Then the high priest, or some 
 such article, having first implored Heaven to speak 
 through the quadruped, bade her decide according to 
 justice. No sooner were the words out of his mouth 
 than the elephant stretched out her proboscis, seized a 
 little crown that glittered on the usurper's head, and, 
 waving it gracefully in the air, deposited it gently and 
 carefully on the brows of the rightful heir. So then 
 there was a rush made on the wrongful heir, he was 
 taken out guarded and warned off the premises : the 
 rightful heir mounted the throne and grinned and bowed 
 all round, the elephant trumpeted, Siam hurrahed, 
 Djek's party in the house echoed the sound, and down 
 came the curtain in thunders of applause. Though the 
 curtain was down, the applause continued most vehe- 
 mently, and after awhile a cry arose at the back of the 
 pit, " Elephant, elephant ! " That part of the audience 
 that had paid at the door laughed at this, but their 
 laughter turned to curiosity when in answer to the cry 
 the curtain was raised, and the stage discovered empty. 
 Curiosity in turn gave way to surprise ; for the elephant 
 walked on from the third grooves alone, and came slap 
 down to the float. At this, the astonished public liter- 
 ally roared at her. But how can I describe the effect, 
 the amazement, when, in return for the compliment, the 
 debutante slowly bent her knees and courtesied twice to 
 the British public, and then retired backwards as the 
 curtain once more fell ? People looked at one another 
 and seemed to need to read in their neighbor's eyes 
 whether such a thing was real ; and then followed that 
 buzz which tells the knowing ones behind the curtain 
 that the nail has gone home, that the theatre will be 
 crammed to the ceiling to-morrow night, and perhaps 
 for eighty nights after. 
 
70 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 Mr. Yates fed Mademoiselle Djek with his own hand 
 that night, crying, " Oh, you duck ! " 
 
 The fortunes of the Adelphi rose from that hour — 
 full houses without intermission. 
 
 Mr. Yates shortened his introductory address, and 
 used to make it a brief, neat, and I think elegant eulogy 
 of her gentleness and affectionate disposition ; her talent 
 " the public are here to judge for themselves," said Mr. 
 Yates, and exit P. S. 
 
 A theatre is a little world; and Djek soon became the 
 hero of ours. Everybody must have a passing peep at 
 the star that was keeping the theatre open all summer, 
 and providing bread for a score or two of families con- 
 nected with it. Of course a mind like mine was not 
 among the least inquisitive. But her head keeper Tom 
 Elliot, a surly fellow, repulsed our attempts to scrape 
 acquaintance. " Mind your business, and I'll mind 
 mine," was his chant. He seemed to be wonderfully 
 jealous of her. He could not forbid Mr. Yates to visit 
 her, as he did us, but he always insisted on being one of 
 the party even then. He puzzled us : but the strongest 
 impression he gave us was that he was jealous of her ; 
 afraid she would get as fond of some others as of him, 
 and so another man might be able to work her, and his 
 own nose lose a joint as the saying is ; later on we 
 learned to put a different interpretation on his conduct. 
 Pippin the Italian, and Bernard the Frenchman, used to 
 serve her with straw and water, etc., but it was quite a 
 different thing from Elliot. They were like a fine lady's 
 grooms and running footmen, but Elliot was her body- 
 servant, groom of the bed-chamber, or what not. He 
 used always to sleep in the straw close to her : some- 
 times, when he was drunk, he would roll in between her 
 legs, and if she had not been more careful of him than 
 any other animal ever was (especially himself), she must 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 71 
 
 have crushed him to death three nights in the week. 
 Next to Elliot, but a long way below him, M. Huguet 
 seemed her favorite. He used to come into her box and 
 caress her and feed her and make much of her : but she 
 never went on the stage without Elliot in sight, and in 
 point of fact all she did upon our stage was done at a 
 word of command given then and there at the side by 
 this man and no other — going down to the float — 
 courtesying and all. 
 
 Being mightily curious to know how he had gained 
 such influence with her, I made several attempts to 
 sound him, but drunk or sober he was equally unfathom- 
 able on this point. 
 
 I then endeavored to slake my curiosity at No. 2. I 
 made bold to ask M. Huguet how he had won her affec- 
 tions. The Frenchman was as communicative as the 
 native was reserved : he broke plenty of English over 
 me : it came to this, that the strongest feeling of an 
 elephant was gratitude, and that he had worked on this 
 for years ; was always kind to her, and seldom ap- 
 proached her without giving her lumps of sugar — 
 carried a pocket full on purpose. This tallied with 
 what I had heard and read of an elephant : still the 
 problem remained, why is she fonder still of this Tom 
 Elliot, whose manner is not ingratiating, and who never 
 speaks to her but in a harsh, severe voice ? 
 
 She stood my friend any way : a good many new 
 supers were engaged to play with her, and I was set 
 over these, looked out their dresses, and went on with 
 them and her as a slave : nine shillings a week for this 
 was added to my other nine, which I drew for dressing 
 an actor or two of the higher class. 
 
 The more I was about her the more I felt that we were 
 not at the bottom of this quadruped, nor even of her 
 bipeds. There were gestures and glances and shrugs 
 always passing to and fro among them. 
 
72 
 
 jack : f all ilai els. 
 
 One day at the rehearsal of a farce there was no Mr. 
 Yates. Somebody inquired loudly for him. 
 
 Hush." says another, " haven't you heard ? n 
 "No." 
 
 u Ton mustn't talk of it out of doors." 
 
 "Mo!" 
 
 •• Half killed by the elephant this morning." 
 
 It seems he was feeding and coaxing her. as he had 
 often done before, when all in a moment she laid hold of 
 him with her trunk, and gave him a squeeze. He lay in 
 bed six weeks with it. and there was nobody to deliver 
 her eulogy at night. Elliot was at the other end of the 
 
 ST.iCr ~Lr7. 7Lr ZLL.irLZ L2.ZZ~7.ri. Hr Lr2.IL Mr. Yit-S 
 
 cry out. and ran in. and the elephant let Mr. Yates go, 
 
 wanted to caress so kind a manager, who was always 
 feeding and courting her, and had embraced him too 
 
 The play went on. and the elephants reputation 
 increased. But her popularity was destined to receive 
 a shock, as far as we little ones behind the curtain were 
 CLiLZLr 
 
 One day, while Pippin was spreading her straw, she 
 
 kzilkri 'ZLLL i:-WTL ~LL LrZ ZLL1L. ZLL'l ZZrSSlLZ LrZ 
 
 tooth against him, bored two frightful holes in his skull, 
 before Elliot could interfere. Pippin was carried to St. 
 Go r ise's H: si — e c-rgsz. :: L:ok .l :Lr workers 
 
 Pippin's situation was in the market. 
 
 One or two declined it. It came down to me. I 
 
 Z-.LrL.ii. }.Li ?L:rZZri 17 fiHOtkrl 111: sklkkngS. tOtal 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 73 
 
 That night two supers turned tail. An actress also, 
 whose name I have forgotten, refused to go on with her. 
 " I was not engaged to play with a brute," said this 
 lady, " and I won't." Others went on as usual, but 
 were not so sweet on it as before. The rightful heir 
 lost all relish for his part, and above all, when his turn 
 came to be preserved from harm by her, I used to hear 
 him crying out of the box to Elliot, " Are you there ? 
 are you sure you are there ? 99 and, when she tore open 
 his box, Garrick never acted better than this one used 
 to now ; for you see his cue was to exhibit fear and ex- 
 haustion, and he did both to the life, because for the last 
 five minutes he had been thinking, " Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! 
 suppose she should do the foot business on my box, 
 instead of the proboscis business." 
 
 These, however, were vain fears : she made no mistake 
 before the public. 
 
 Nothing lasts forever in this world, and the time came 
 that she ceased to fill the house. Then Mr. Yates re- 
 engaged her for the provinces, and, having agreed with 
 the country managers, sent her down to Bath and Bristol 
 first. He had a good opinion of me, and asked me to 
 go with her and watch his interests. I should not cer- 
 tainly have applied for the place, but it was not easy to 
 say no to Mr. Yates, and I felt I owed him some repara- 
 tion for the wrong I had done that great artist in 
 accompanying his voice with my gestures. 
 
 In short, we started, Djek, Elliot, Bernard, I, and 
 Pippin, on foot (he was just out of St. George's). 
 Messrs. Huguet and Yates rolled in their carriage to 
 meet us at the principal towns where we played. 
 
 As we could not afford to make her common, our 
 walking was all night-work, and introduced me to a 
 rough life. 
 
 The average of night weather is wetter and windiei 
 
74 
 
 JACK OF ALL TEADES. 
 
 than day, and many a vile night we tramped through 
 when wise men were abed ; and we never knew for cer- 
 tain where we should pass the night : for it depended 
 on Djek. She was so enormous that half the inns could 
 not find us a place big enough for her. Our first evening 
 stroll was to Bath and Bristol : thence we crossed to 
 Dublin, thence we returned to Plymouth. We walked 
 from Plymouth to Liverpool, playing with good success 
 at all these places. At Liverpool she laid hold of Ber- 
 nard, and would have settled his hash, but Elliot came 
 between them. 
 
 That same afternoon in walks a young gentleman 
 dressed in the height of Parisian fashion, — glossy hat, 
 satin tie, trousers puckered at the haunches, — sprucer 
 than any poor Englishman will be while the world lasts ; 
 and who was it but Monsieur Bernard come to take leave. 
 We endeavored to dissuade him : he smiled and shook 
 his head, treated us, flattered us, and showed us his 
 preparations for France. 
 
 All that day and the next he sauntered about us, 
 dressed like a gentleman, with his hands in his pockets 
 and an ostentatious neglect of his late affectionate 
 charge. Before he left he invited me to drink some- 
 thing at his expense, and was good enough to say I was 
 what he most regretted leaving. 
 
 " Then why go ? " said I. 
 
 " I will tell you, monpauvre gargon" said Monsieur Ber- 
 nard. " We old hands have all got our orders to say she 
 is a duck. Ah ! you have found that out of yourself. 
 Well, now, as I have done with her, I will tell you a 
 part of her character, for I know her well. Once she 
 injures you she can never forgive you. So long as she 
 has never hurt you, there's a fair chance she never will. 
 I have been about her for years, and she never molested 
 me till yesterday. But — if she once attacks a man, 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 75 
 
 that man's death-warrant is signed — I can't altogether 
 account for it : but trust my experience it is so. I 
 would have stayed with you all my life if she had not 
 shown me my fate ; but not now : merci / I have a wife 
 and two children in France. I have saved some money 
 out of her : I return to the bosom of my family : and if 
 Pippin stays with her after the hint she gave him in 
 London, why, you will see the death of Pippin, my lad, 
 voila tout, that is, if you don't go first. Qu'est que ga 
 te fait a la fin ? tu es gargon toi — buvons ! " 
 
 The next day he left us, and left me sad for one. The 
 quiet determination with which he acted upon positive 
 experience of her was enough to make a man thoughtful. 
 And then Bernard was the flower of us : he was the 
 drop of mirth and gayety in our iron cup. He was a 
 pure, unadulterated Frenchman, and to be just — where 
 can you find anything so delightful as a Frenchman — 
 of the right sort ? 
 
 He fluttered home singing 
 
 " Les doux yeux de ma brunet — te, 
 Tout — e mignonett — e, tout — e gentillett — e," 
 
 and left us all in black. 
 
 God bless you, my merry fellow. I hope you found 
 your children healthy, and your brunette true and your 
 friends alive, and that the world is just to you, and 
 smiles on you, as you do on it, and did on us. 
 
 From Liverpool we walked to Glasgow : from Glasgow 
 to Edinburgh : and from Edinburgh, on a cold starry 
 midnight we started for Newcastle. 
 
 In this interval of business let me paint you my com- 
 panions Pippin and Elliot. The reader is entitled to 
 this, for there must have been something out of the 
 common in their looks, since I was within an ace of 
 
76 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 being killed along of the Italian's face, and was impris- 
 oned four days through the Englishman's mug. 
 
 The Italian whom we know by the nickname of Pippin 
 was a man of immense stature and athletic mould. His 
 face, once seen, would never be forgotten. His skin, 
 almost as swarthy as Othello's, was set off by dazzling 
 ivory teeth, and lighted by two glorious large eyes, black 
 as jet, brilliant as diamonds : the orbs of black lightning 
 gleamed from beneath eyebrows that many a dandy 
 would have bought for mustaches at a high valuation. 
 A nose like a reaping-hook completed him — perch him 
 on a tolerable-sized rock, and there you had a black 
 eagle. 
 
 As if this was not enough, Pippin would always wear 
 a conical hat, and had he but stepped upon the stage in 
 " Massaniello " or the like, all the other brigands would 
 have sunk down to rural police by the side of our man. 
 But now comes the absurdity : his inside was not differ- 
 ent from his out, it was the exact opposite. You might 
 turn over twenty thousand bullet heads and bolus eyes, 
 before you could find one man so thoroughly harmless 
 as this thundering brigand. He was just a pet, an uni- 
 versal pet, of all the men and women that came near him. 
 He had the disposition of a dove and the heart of a hare. 
 He was a lamb in wolf's clothing. 
 
 My next portrait is not so pleasing. 
 
 A MAN TURNED BRUTE. 
 
 Some ten years before this, a fine, stout young Eng- 
 lish rustic entered the service of Mademoiselle Djek. 
 He was a model for bone and muscle, and had two 
 cheeks like roses : when he first went to Paris he was 
 looked on as a curiosity there. People used to come to 
 Djek's stable to see her and Elliot, the young English 
 Samson. Just ten years after this young Elliot had got 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 77 
 
 to be called " old Elliot." His face was not only pale, 
 it was colorless ; it was the face of a walking corpse. 
 This came of ten years' brandy and brute. I have often 
 asked people to guess the man's age, and they always 
 guessed sixty, sixty-five, or seventy, oftenest the latter. 
 
 He was thirty-five, not a day more. 
 
 This man's mind had come down along with his body. 
 
 He understood nothing but elephant, he seldom 
 talked, and then nothing but elephant. He was an 
 elephant-man. I will give you an instance which I 
 always thought curious. 
 
 An elephant, you may have observed, cannot stand 
 quite still. The great weight of its head causes a nod- 
 ding movement, which is perpetual when the creature 
 stands erect. Well, this Tom Elliot, when he stood up, 
 used always to have one foot advanced, and his eye half 
 closed, and his head niddle-noddling like an elephant 
 all the time ; and with it all such a presence of brute and 
 absence of soul in his mug, enough to give a thoughtful 
 man some very queer ideas about man and beast. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 My office in this trip was merely to contract for the 
 elephant's food at the various places ; but I was getting 
 older and shrewder, and more designing than I used to 
 be, and I was quite keen enough to see in this elephant 
 the means of bettering my fortunes if I could but make 
 friends with her. But how to do this ? She was like 
 a coquette : strange admirers welcome ; but when you 
 had courted her awhile she got tired of you, and then 
 nothing short of your demise satisfied her caprice. Her 
 heart seemed inaccessible, except to this brute Elliot 3 
 
78 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 and he, drunk or sober, guarded the secret of his fasci- 
 nation by some instinct ; for reason he possessed in a 
 very small degree. 
 
 I played the spy on quadruped and biped, and I found 
 out the fact, but the reason beat me. I saw that she 
 was more tenderly careful of him than a mother of her 
 child. I saw him roll down stupid drunk under her 
 belly, and I saw her lift first one foot and then the 
 other, and draw them slowly and carefully back, trem- 
 bling with fear lest she might make a mistake and hurt 
 him. 
 
 But why she was a mother to him, and a stepmother 
 to the rest of us, that I could not learn. 
 
 One day, between Plymouth and Liverpool, having 
 left Elliot and her together, I happened to return, and I 
 found the elephant alone and in a state of excitement, 
 and looking in I observed some blood upon the straw. 
 
 His turn has come at last, was my first notion ; but 
 looking round, there was Elliot behind me. 
 
 " I was afraid she had tried it on with you," I said. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "The elephant." 
 
 Elliot's face was not generally expressive, but the 
 look of silent scorn he gave me at the idea of the 
 elephant attacking him was worth seeing. The brute 
 knew something I did not know and could not find out ; 
 and from this one piece of knowledge he looked down 
 upon me with a sort of contempt that set all the Seven 
 Dials' blood on fire. 
 
 "I will bottom this," said I, "if I die for it." 
 
 My plan now was to feed Djek every day with my 
 own hand, but never to go near her without Elliot at 
 my very side, and in front of the elephant. 
 
 This was my first step. 
 
 We were now drawing towards Newcastle, and had to 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 79 
 
 He at Morpeth ; where we arrived late, and found Mr. 
 Yates and M. Huguet, who had come out from Newcastle 
 to meet us ; and at this place I determined on a new 
 move which I had long meditated. 
 
 Elliot, I reflected, always slept with the elephant. 
 None of the other men had ever done this. Now might 
 there not be some magic in this unbroken familiarity 
 between the two animals ? 
 
 Accordingly, at Morpeth I pretended there was no 
 bed vacant in the inn, and asked Elliot to let me lie 
 beside him ; he grunted an ungracious assent. 
 
 Not to overdo it at first, I got Elliot between me and 
 Djek, so that if she was offended at my intrusion, she 
 must pass over her darling to resent it ; Ave had tramped 
 a good many miles, and were soon fast asleep. 
 
 About two in the morning I was awoke by a shout 
 and a crunching, and felt myself dropping into the 
 straw out of the elephant's mouth. She had stretched 
 her proboscis over him — had taken me up so delicately 
 that I felt nothing, and when Elliot shouted I was in 
 her mouth ; at his voice, that rang in my ears like the 
 last trumpet, she dropped me like a hot potato. I rolled 
 out of the straw, giving tongue a good one, and ran out 
 of the shed. I had no sooner got to the inn than I felt 
 a sickening pain in my shoulder and fainted away. 
 
 Her huge tooth had gone into my shoulder like a 
 wedge. It was myself I had heard being crunched. 
 
 They did what they could for me, and I soon came to. 
 "When I recovered my senses I was seized with vomit- 
 ing ; but at last all violent symptoms abated ; and I 
 began to suffer great pain in the injured part, and did 
 suffer for six weeks. 
 
 And so I scraped clear. Somehow or other Elliot was 
 not drunk, or nothing could have saved me : for a second 
 wonder he, who was a heavy sleeper, woke at the very 
 
80 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 slight noise she made eating me ; a moment later, and 
 nothing could have saved me. I use too many words — 
 suppose she had eaten me — what then ? 
 
 They told Mr. Yates at breakfast, and he sent for me 
 and advised me to lie quiet at Morpeth till the fever of 
 the wound should be off me ; but I refused. She was to 
 start at ten, and I told him I should start with her. 
 
 Running from grim death like that, I had left my 
 shoes behind in the shed, and M. Huguet sent his serv- 
 ant Baptiste, an Italian, for them. 
 
 Mr. Yates then asked me for all the particulars, and 
 whilst I was telling him and M. Huguet, we heard a 
 commotion in the street, and saw people running, and 
 presently one of the waiters ran in and cried, — 
 
 " The elephant has killed a man, or near it." 
 
 Mr. Yates laughed and said, — 
 
 " Not quite so bad as that ; for here is the man." 
 
 " No, no ! " cried the waiter ; " it is not him ; it is one 
 of the foreigners." 
 
 Mr. Yates started up all trembling : he ran to the 
 stable : I followed him as I was, and there we saw a 
 sight to make our blood run cold. On the corn-bin lay 
 poor Baptiste crushed into a mummy. How it happened 
 there was no means of knowing ; but, no doubt, while he 
 was groping in the straw for my wretched shoes, she 
 struck him with her trunk, perhaps more than once ; his 
 breast-bones were broken to chips, and every time he 
 breathed, which by God's mercy was not many minutes, 
 the man's whole chest frame puffed out like a bladder 
 with the action of his lungs — it was too horrible to 
 look at. 
 
 Elliot had run at Baptiste's cry, but too late to save 
 his life this time. He had drawn the man out of the 
 straw as she was about to pound him to a jelly, and there 
 the poor soul lay on the corn-bin, and by his side lay the 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 81 
 
 things he had died for : two old shoes. Elliot had found 
 them in the straw, and put them there of all places in 
 the world. 
 
 By this time all Morpeth was out. They besieged the 
 doors, and vowed death to the elephant. M. Huguet 
 became greatly alarmed : he could spare Baptiste, but he 
 could not spare Djek. He got Mr. Yates to pacify the 
 people : " Tell them something/ 7 said he. 
 
 " What on earth can I say for her over that man's 
 bleeding body ? " said Mr. Yates. " Curse her ! would 
 to God I had never seen her ! " 
 
 " Tell them he used her cruel," said M. Huguet ; " I 
 have brought her off with that before now." 
 
 Well, my sickness came on again, partly no doubt by 
 the sight and the remorse, and I was got to bed and lay 
 there some days ; so I did not see all that passed, but I 
 heard some, and I know the rest by instinct now. 
 
 Half an hour after breakfast-time Baptiste died. On 
 this the elephant was detained by the authorities, and a 
 coroner's inquest was summoned, and sat in the shambles 
 on the victim, with the butcheress looking on at the pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 Pippin told me she took off a juryman's hat during 
 the investigation, waved it triumphantly in the air, and 
 placed it cleverly on her favorite's head, old Tom. 
 
 At this inquest two or three persons deposed on oath 
 that the deceased had ill-used her more than once in 
 France, in particular that he had run a pitchfork into 
 her two years ago, that he had been remonstrated with, 
 but in vain ; unfortunately she had recognized him at 
 once, and killed him out of revenge for past cruelty, or 
 to save herself from fresh outrages. 
 
 This cooled the ardor against her. Some even took 
 part with her against the man. 
 
 " Bun a pitchfork into an elephant ! Oh, for shame ! 
 
82 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 no wonder she killed him at last. How good of her not 
 to kill him then and there — what forbearance — for- 
 gave it for two years, ye see." 
 
 There is a fixed opinion among men that an elephant 
 is a good, kind creature ; the opinion is fed by the pro- 
 prietors of elephants, who must 'nurse the notion or lose 
 their customers, and so a set tale is always ready to clear 
 ■the guilty and criminate the sufferer ; and this tale is 
 greedily swallowed by the public. You will hear and 
 read many such tales in the papers before you die. 
 Every such tale is a lie. 
 
 How curiously things happen ! Last year, i. e., more 
 than twenty years after this event, my little girl went 
 for a pound of butter to Newport Street. She brought 
 it wrapped up in a scrap of a very old newspaper ; in 
 unrolling it, my eye by mere accident fell upon these 
 words: "An inquest." I had no sooner read the para- 
 graph than I put the scrap of paper away in my desk : 
 it lies before me now, and I am copying it. 
 
 " An inquest was held at the Phoenix Inn, Morpeth, on the 
 27th ultimo, on view of the body of an Italian named Baptiste 
 Bernard, who was one of the attendants on the female ele- 
 phant which lately performed at the Adelphi. It appeared 
 from the evidence that the man had stabbed the elephant in 
 the trunk with a pitchfork about two years ago, while in a 
 state of intoxication, and that on the Tuesday previous to the 
 inquest, the animal caught hold of him with her trunk, and 
 did him so much injury that he died in a few hours. Verdict, 
 died from the wounds and bruises received from the trunk of 
 an elephant. Deodand, five shillings.'" 
 
 Well, this has gone all abroad : for print travels like 
 wind ; and it is not fair to the friends and the memory 
 of this Baptiste Bernard to print that he died by his 
 own cruelty, or fault, or folly. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 83 
 
 So take my deposition, and carry it to Milan, his 
 native city. 
 
 I declare upon oath that the above is a lie. That the 
 man was never an attendant upon the female elephant ; 
 he was an attendant on the female Huguet. For he 
 was that lady's footman. His first introduction to 
 Mademoiselle Djek was her killing him, and he died, 
 not by any fault of his own, but by the will of God and 
 through ignorance of the real nature of the full-grown 
 elephant, the cunningest, most treacherous, and blood- 
 thirsty beast that ever played the butcher among man- 
 kind. 
 
 What men speak dissolves in the air ; what they print 
 stands fast, and will look them in the face to all eter- 
 nity. I print the truth about this man's death, so help 
 me God. 
 
 Business is business. As soon as we had got the 
 inquest over, and stamped the lie current, hid the truth, 
 and buried the man, we marched south and played our 
 little play at Newcastle. 
 
 Deodand for a human soul sent by murder to its 
 account, five bob. 
 
 After Newcastle we walked to York and thence to Man- 
 chester. I crept along thoroughly crestfallen. Months 
 and months I had watched and spied and tried to pluck 
 out the heart of this Tom Elliot's mystery. I had 
 failed. Months and months I had tried to gain some 
 influence over Djek. I had failed — but for Elliot, it 
 was clear I should not live a single day within reach of 
 her trunk; this brute was my superior. I was compelled 
 to look up to him, and I did look up to him. 
 
 As I tramped sulkily along, my smarting shoulder 
 reminded me that in elephant, as in everything else I 
 had tried, I was Jack, not master. 
 
 The proprietors had their cause of discontent too j we 
 
84 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 had silenced the law, but we could not silence opinion. 
 Somehow suspicion hung about her in the very air 
 wherever she went. She never throve in the English 
 provinces after the Morpeth job, and finding this, Mr. 
 Yates said, "Oh, hang her, she has lost her character 
 here. Send her to America." So he and M. Huguet 
 joined partnership and took this new speculation on 
 their shoulders. America was even in that day a great 
 card if you went with an English or French reputation. 
 
 I had been thinking of leaving her and her old Tom 
 in despair ; but now that other dangers and inconven- 
 iences were to be endured besides her and her trunk, by 
 some strange freak of human nature, or by fate, I began 
 to cling to her like a limpet to a rock, the more you pull 
 at him. 
 
 Mr. Yates dissuaded me. " Have nothing to do with 
 her, Jack. She will serve you like all the rest. Stay 
 at home, and I'll find something for you in the theatre." 
 
 I thought a great deal of Mr. Yates for this ; for he 
 was speaking against his own interest. I was a faithful 
 servant to him, and he needed one about her. Many a 
 five-pound note I had saved him already, and well he 
 deserved it at my hands. 
 
 " Xo, sir," I said, " I shall be of use, and I can't bear 
 to be nonplussed by two brutes like Elliot and her. I 
 have begun to study her, and I must go on to the word 
 'finis!'" 
 
 Messrs. Yates and Huguet insured the elephant for 
 twenty thousand pounds, and sent us all to sea together 
 in the middle of November, a pretty month to cross the 
 Atlantic in. 
 
 This was what betters call a hedge ; and not a bad 
 one. 
 
 Our party was Queen Djek, Mr. Stevenson her finan- 
 cier, Mr. Gallott her stage-manager and wrongful heir; 
 
JACK OF ALL TEADES, 
 
 85 
 
 Elliot her keeper, her lord, her king ; Pippin her slave, 
 always trembling for his head ; myself her commissariat ; 
 and one George Hinde from Wombwell's, her man-of-all- 
 work. 
 
 She had a stout cabin built upon deck for her. It 
 cost forty pounds to make ; what she paid for the ac- 
 commodation Heaven knows, but I should think a good 
 round sum, for it was the curse of the sailors and pas- 
 sengers, and added fresh terrors to navigation ; the 
 steersman could not see the ship's head, until the sea 
 took the mariners' part and knocked it into toothpicks. 
 
 Captain Sebor had such a passage with us as he had 
 never encountered before ; he told us so — and no won- 
 der ; he never had such a wholesale murderess on board 
 before ; contrary winds forever and stiff gales too. At 
 last it blew great guns ; and one night as the sun went 
 down crimson in the Gulf of Florida, the sea running 
 mountains high, I saw Captain Sebor himself was 
 fidgety. He had cause : that night a tempest came on : 
 the Ontario rolled fearfully, and groaned like a dying 
 man ; about two in the morning a sea struck her, 
 smashed Djek's cabin to atoms, and left her exposed 
 and reeling; another such would now have swept her 
 overboard, but her wits never left her for a moment. 
 She threw herself down flatter than any man could have 
 conceived possible ; out went all her four legs, and she 
 glued her belly to the deck ; the sailors passed a chain 
 from the weather to the lee bulwarks, and she seized it 
 with her proboscis, and held on like grim death. Poor 
 thing, her coat never got not to say dry — she was like 
 a great water-rat all the rest of the voyage. 
 
 The passage was twelve weeks of foul weather ; the 
 elephant began to be suspected of being the cause of 
 this, and the sailors often looked askant at her, and 
 said we should never see port till she walked the plank 
 
86 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 into the Atlantic. If her underwriters saved their 
 twenty thousand pounds, it was touch and go more than 
 once or twice. Moreover, she ate so little all the voyage 
 that it was a wonder to Elliot and me how she came not 
 to die of sickness and hunger. I suppose she survived 
 it all because she had more mischief to do. 
 
 As the pretty little witches sing in Mr. Locke's opera 
 of "Macbeth:" 
 
 She must, she must, she must, she must, she must 
 shed — much — more — blood. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Our preposterous long voyage deranged all the calcu- 
 lations that had been made for us in England, and we 
 reached New York just at the wrong time. We found 
 Master Burke playing at the Park Theatre, and we were 
 forced to treat with an inferior house, the Bowery 
 Theatre. We played there with but small success com- 
 pared with what we had been used to in Europe. Master 
 Burke filled the house — we did not fill ours — so that 
 at last she was actually eclipsed by a human actor : to 
 be sure it was a boy, not a man, and child's play is some- 
 times preferred by the theatre-going world even to horse- 
 play. 
 
 The statesmen were cold to us ; they had not at this 
 time learned to form an opinion of their own at sight on 
 such matters, and we did not bring them an overpower- 
 ing European verdict to which they had nothing to do 
 but sign their names. There was no groove cut for the 
 mind to run in, and while they hesitated, the speculation 
 halted. I think she would succeed there now ; but at 
 this time they were not ripe for an elephant. 
 
JACK OF ALL THADES. 
 
 87 
 
 We left New York and away to Philadelphia on foot 
 and steamboat. 
 
 There is a place on the Delaware where the boat 
 draws up to a small pier. Down this we marched, and 
 about ten yards from the end the floor gave way under 
 her weight, and Djek and her train fell into the sea. I 
 was awoke from a reverie, and found myself sitting right 
 atop of her, with my knees in Chesapeake Bay. Elliot 
 had a rough Benjamin on, and as he was coming thun- 
 dering down with the rest of the rubbish alive and dead, 
 it caught in a nail, and he hung over the bay by the 
 shoulder like an Indian fakeer, cursing and swearing for 
 all the world like a dog barking. I never saw such a 
 posture — and, oh ! the language ! 
 
 I swam out ; but Djek was caught in a trap betweer? 
 the two sets of piles. The water was about two feet 
 over her head, so that every now and then she disap- 
 peared, and then striking the bottom she came up again, 
 plunging and rolling and making waves like a steam- 
 boat: her trunk she kept vertical like the hose of a 
 diving-bell, and oh, the noises that came up from the 
 bottom of the sea through that flesh-pipe : for about four 
 hours she went up and down the gamut of " 0 Lord, what 
 shall I do ? " more than a thousand times, I think. We 
 brought ropes to her aid, and boats, and men, and tried 
 all we knew to move her, but in vain ; and when we had 
 exhausted our sagacity, she drew upon a better bank, her 
 own. Talk of brutes not being able to reason — gam- 
 mon. Djek could reason like Solomon ; for each fresh 
 difficulty she found a fresh resource. On this occasion 
 she did what I never saw her do before or since : she 
 took her enormous skull, and used it as a battering-ram 
 against the piles : two of them resisted — no wonder — 
 they were about eight inches in diameter; the third 
 snapped like glass, and she plunged through and waddled 
 
88 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 on shore. I met her with a bucket of brandy and hot 
 water — stiff. 
 
 Ladies, who are said to sip this compound in your 
 boudoirs while your husbands are smoking at the clubs, 
 but I don't believe it of you, learn how this lady dis- 
 posed of her wooden tumbler full. She thrust her pro- 
 boscis into it. Whis — s — s — s — p ! Now it is all in 
 her trunk. Whis — s — s — sh ! Now it is all in her abdo- 
 men: one breath drawn and exhaled sent it from the 
 bucket home. This done, her eye twinkled, and she 
 trumpeted to the tune of " All is well that ends well." 
 
 I should weary the reader were I to relate at length 
 all the small incidents that befell us in the United 
 States. 
 
 The general result was failure, loss of money, our sal- 
 aries not paid up, and fearful embarrassments staring us 
 in the face j we scraped through without pawning the 
 elephant, but we were often on the verge of it. All this 
 did not choke my ambition. Warned by the past, I 
 never ventured near her (unless Elliot was there) for 
 twelve months after our landing ; but I was always 
 watching Elliot and her to find the secret of his in- 
 fluence. 
 
 A fearful annoyance to the leaders of the speculation 
 was the drunkenness of Old Tom and George Hinde : 
 these two encouraged one another and defied us, and of 
 course they were our masters, because no one but Elliot 
 could move the elephant from place to plaee or work her 
 on the stage. 
 
 One night Elliot was so drunk that he fell down 
 senseless at the door of her shed on his way to repose. 
 I was not near, but Mr. Gallott, it seems, was, and he told 
 us she put out her proboscis, drew him tenderly in, laid 
 him on the straw, and flung some straw over him or 
 partly over him. Mr. Gallott is alive and a public char- 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 89 
 
 acter : you can ask him whether this is true : I tell this 
 one thing on hearsay. 
 
 Not long after this, in one of the American towns, I 
 forget which, passing by Djek's shed, I heard a tremen- 
 dous row. I was about to call Elliot, thinking it was 
 the old story, somebody getting butchered : but, I don't 
 know how it was, something stopped me, and I looked 
 cautiously in instead, and I saw Tom Elliot walking into 
 her with a pitchfork — she trembling like a schoolboy 
 with her head in a corner — and the blood streaming 
 from her sides. As soon as he caught sight of me, he 
 left orf and muttered unintelligibly. I said nothing. I 
 thought the more. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 We had to go by water to a place called City Point, 
 and thence to Pittsville. I made a mistake as to the 
 hour the boat started ; and Djek & Co. went on board 
 without me. 
 
 Well, you will say I could follow by the next boat. 
 But how about the tin to pay the passage ? My pocket 
 was dry : and the treasurer gone on. But I had a good 
 set of blacking brushes ; so sold them, and followed on 
 with the proceeds : got to City Point. Elephant gone 
 on to Pittsville ; that I expected. Twenty miles or so 
 I had to tramp on an empty stomach. And now doesn't 
 the Devil send me a fellow who shows me a short cut 
 through a wood to Pittsville : into the wood I go. I 
 thought it was to be like an English wood : out of the 
 sun into a pleasant shade, and, by then you are cool, 
 into the world again. Instead of that, " the deeper the 
 deeper you are in it," as the song of the bottle says, the 
 
90 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 further you were from getting out of it. Presently two 
 roads instead of one, and then I knew I was done. I 
 took one road : it twisted like a serpent. I had not 
 been half an hour on it before I lost all the points of 
 the compass. Says I, " I don't know whether I ever 
 shall see daylight again • but if I do, City Point will be 
 the first thing I shall see. You mark my words/' said I. 
 
 So here was I lost in what they call a wood out there, 
 but we should call a forest at home. And now, being in 
 the heart of it, I got among the devilishest noises, and 
 nothing to be seen to account for them : little feet pat- 
 tering and scurrying along the ground, wings flapping 
 out of trees ; but what struck most awe into a chap 
 from the Seven Dials was the rattle, the everlasting 
 rattle and nothing to show. Often I have puzzled my- 
 self what this rattle could be. It was like a thousand 
 rattlesnakes, and didn't I wish I was in the Seven Dials, 
 though some get lost in them for that matter. After all, 
 I think it was only insects ; but insects by billions — 
 you never heard anything like it in an English wood. 
 
 Just as I was losing heart in this enchanted wood, I 
 heard an earthly sound, the tramp of a horse's foot. It 
 was music. 
 
 But the leaves were so thick, I could not see where the 
 horse was : he seemed to get farther off, and then nearer. 
 At last the sound came so close I made a run, burst 
 through a lot of green leaves, and came out plump on a 
 man riding a gray cob. He up with the but-end of his 
 whip to fell me, but seeing I was respectable, " Halloo, 
 stranger ! " says he, " guess you sort o' startled me." — 
 " Beg pardon, sir," says I, " but I have lost my way." 
 — "I see you are a stranger," said he. 
 
 So then he asked me where I was bound for, and I 
 told him — Pittsville. 
 
 I won't insult the reader by telling him what he said 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 91 
 
 about the course I had been taking through the wood. 
 I might as well tell him his A B C, or which side his 
 bread and butter falls in the dust on. Then he asked 
 me who I was, so I told him I was one of the elephant's 
 domestics, leastways I did not word it so candid — "I 
 was in charge of the elephant, and had taken a short 
 cut." 
 
 Now he had heard of Djek, and seen her bills up, so 
 he knew it was all right. " How am I to find my way 
 out, sir ? " said I. " Find your way out ? " said he. 
 " You will never find your way out." — " Good news, 
 that." 
 
 He thought a bit, then he said, " The best thing you 
 can do is to come home with me, and to-morrow I will 
 send you on." 
 
 I could have hugged him. 
 
 " You had better walk behind me," says he, " my pony 
 bites." So I tramped astern ; and on we went patter, 
 patter, patter through the wood. At first I felt as jolly 
 as a sand-boy marching behind the pony ; but when we 
 had pattered best part of an hour, I began to have my 
 misgivings. In all the enchanted woods ever I had read 
 of there was a small trifle of a wizard or ogre that took 
 you home and settled your hash. Fee, faw, fuin, I 
 smell the blood of an English-mun, etc. 
 
 And still on we pattered, and the sun began to de- 
 cline, and the wood to darken, and still we pattered on. 
 I was just thinking of turning tail and slipping back 
 among the panthers and mosquitoes and rattlesnakes, 
 when, oh, be joyful ! we burst on a clearing, and there 
 was a nice house in the middle of it, and out came the 
 dogs jumping to welcome us, and niggers no end, with 
 white eyeballs and grinders like snow. 
 
 They pulled him off his horse, and in we went. There 
 was his good lady, and his daughter, a beautiful girl, and 
 
92 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 snch a dinner ! We sat down, and I maintained a mod« 
 est taciturnity for some minutes : u The silent hog eats 
 the most acorns." After dinner he shows me all manner 
 of ways of mixing the grog, and I show him one way 
 of drinking it — when yon can get it. Then he must 
 hear about the elephant ; so I tell him the jade's history, 
 but bind Mm to secrecy. 
 
 Then the young lady puts in, u So you are really an 
 Englishman? ana she looks me all over. •• That you 
 may take your oath of. iniss," ? says L 
 
 •• Oh/" says she, and smiles. I did not take it up at 
 first, but I see what it was now. Me standing five feet 
 four. I did not come up to her notion of the Father of all 
 Americans. •• Does this great people spring from such 
 a little stock as we have here ? " thinks my young lady. 
 I should have up and told her the pluck makes the man 
 and not the inches ; but I lost that chance. Then being 
 pressed with questions, I told them all my adventures, and 
 they hung on my words. It was a new leaf to them, I 
 could see that. 
 
 The young lady, her eyes glittered like two purple 
 stars, at a stranger with the gift of the gab, that had 
 seen so much life as I had, and midnight came in no 
 time. Then I was ushered to bed. Xow up to that 
 time I had always gone to roost without pomp or cere- 
 mony ; sometimes with a mole candle, but oftener a 
 farthing dip, which I have seen it dart its beams out of 
 a bottle instead of a flat candlestick. 
 
 This time a whole cavalcade of us went up the stairs ; 
 one blackie marched in my van with two lights, two 
 blackies brought up my rear. They showed me into a 
 beautiful room, and stood in the half-light with eyes and 
 teeth like red-hot silver, glittering and diabolical. I 
 thought of course they would go away now. 2s or they. 
 Presently one imp of darkness brings me a chair. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 93 
 
 I sit down and wonder. Other two lay hold of my 
 boots and whip them off. This done they buzz about 
 me like black and white fiends, fidgetting, till I longed 
 to punch their heads. They pull my coat off and my 
 trousers ; then they hoist me into bed. This done, first 
 one makes a run and tucks me in and grins over me dia- 
 bolical; then another comes like a battering-ram, and 
 tucks me in tighter. Fiend 3 looks at the work and 
 puts the artful touches at the corners, and behold me 
 wedged, and then the beneficent fiends mizzled with a 
 hearty grin that seemed to turn them all ivory. I 
 could not believe my senses ; I had never been tucked 
 in since my mother's time. 
 
 In the morning, struggled out, and came down to 
 breakfast. Took leave of the good Samaritan, who 
 appointed two of my niggers to see me out of the wood, 
 made my bow to the ladies, and away with a grateful 
 heart. The niggers conducted me clear of the wood, 
 and set me on the broad road. Then came one of the 
 pills a poor fellow has to stomach. I had made friends 
 with the poor darkies, and now I had not even a few 
 pence to give them, and such a little would have gone 
 so far with them. I have often felt the bitterness of 
 poverty, but never I do think as when I parted with my 
 poor niggers at the edge of the wood, and was forced to 
 see them go slowly home without a farthing. 
 
 I wish these few words could travel across the water, 
 and my good host might read them, and see I have 
 not forgotten him all these years. But, dear heart, 
 you may be sure he is not upon the earth now. It is 
 years ago, and a man that had the heart to harbor a 
 stranger and a wanderer, why, he would be one of the 
 first to go. 
 
 We steamed and tramped up and down the United 
 States of America. On our return to Norfolk, she broke 
 
94 
 
 JACK OF ALL TLADES. 
 
 loose at midnight, slipped into the town, took up the 
 trees on the boulevard and strewed them flat, went into 
 the market, broke into a vegetable shop, munched the 
 entire stock ; next to a coachinakers, took off a carriage- 
 wheel, opened the door, stripped the cushions, and we 
 found her eating the stuffing. 
 
 One day at noon, we found ourselves fourteen miles 
 from the town, I forget its name, we had to play in that 
 very night. Mr. Gallott had gone on to rehearse, etc., 
 and it behooved us to be marching after him. At this 
 juncture Old Tom, being rather drunk, feels a strong 
 desire to be quite drunk, and refuses to stir from his 
 brandy-and-water. Our exchequer was in no condition 
 to be trifled with thus. If Elliot & Co. became helpless 
 for an hour or two we should arrive too late for the 
 night's performance, and Djek eating her head off all 
 the while. I coaxed and threatened our two brandy 
 sponges ; but in vain. They stuck and sucked. I was 
 in despair, and being in despair, came to a desperate 
 resolution. I determined to try and master her myself 
 then and there, and to defy these drunkards. 
 
 I told Pippin my project. He started back aghast; 
 he viewed me in the light of a madman. "Are you 
 tired of your life ? " said he. But I was inflexible. 
 Seven Dials' pluck was up. I was enraged with my 
 drunkards, and I was tired of waiting so many years, the 
 slave of a quadruped whose master was a brute. 
 
 Elephants are driven with a rod of steel sharpened at 
 the end ; about a foot from the end of this weapon is a 
 large hook ; by sticking this hook into an elephant's 
 ear, and pulling it, you make her sensible which way 
 you want her to go, and persuade her to comply. 
 
 Armed with this tool I walked up to Djek's shed, and 
 in the most harsh and brutal voice I could command, 
 bade her come out She moved in the shed, but hesi- 
 
ON WE MARCHED, THE BEST OF FRIENDS. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 95 
 
 tated. I repeated the command still more repulsively, 
 and out she came towards me very slowly. 
 
 With beasts such as lions, tigers, and elephants, great 
 promptitude is the thing. Think for them ! Don't give 
 them time to think, or their thoughts may be evil. I 
 had learned this much, so I introduced myself by driv- 
 ing the steel into Djek's ribs, and then hooking her ear, 
 while Pippin looked down from a first-story window. 
 If Djek had known how my heart was beating, she 
 would have killed me then and there ; but, observing no 
 hesitation on my part, she took it all as a matter of 
 course, and walked with me like a lamb. I found 
 myself alone with her on the road, and fourteen miles 
 of it before us. It was a serious situation, but I was 
 ripe for it now. All the old women's stories and tradi- 
 tions about an elephant's character had been driven out 
 of me by experience and washed out with blood. I had 
 fathomed Elliot's art. I had got what the French call 
 the riddle-key of Mademoiselle Djek, and that key was 
 " steel ! " 
 
 On we inarched, the best of friends ; there were a 
 number of little hills on the road, and as w r e mounted 
 one, a figure used to appear behind us on the crest of the 
 last between us and the sky — this was the gallant 
 Pippin, solicitous for his friend's fate, but desirous of 
 not partaking it if adverse. And still the worthy Djek 
 and I marched on, the best of friends. About a mile 
 out of the town she put out her trunk and tried to, curl 
 it round me in a caressing way. I met this overture by 
 driving the steel into her till the blood squirted out of 
 her. If I had not, the siren would have killed me in 
 the course of the next five minutes. Whenever she 
 relaxed her speed, I drove the steel into her. When 
 the afternoon sun smiled gloriously on us, and the poor 
 thing felt nature stir in her heart, and began to frisk in 
 
90 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 her awful clumsy way, pounding the great globe, I drove 
 the steel into her : if I had not, I should not be here to 
 relate this sprightly narrative. 
 
 Meantime at her stage-manager and financier 
 
 were in great distress and anxiety, — four o'clock, and 
 no elephant. At last they got so frightened, they came 
 out to meet us, and presently to their amazement and 
 delight Djek strode up with her new general. Their 
 ecstasy was great to think the whole business was no 
 longer at a drunkard's mercy. "But how did you man- 
 age ? how ever did ye win her heart ?" — " With this," 
 said I, and showed them the bloody steel. 
 
 We had not been in town half an hour before Tom and 
 George came in. They were not so drunk but what they 
 trembled for their situations after my exploit, and rolled 
 and zigzagged after us as fast as they could. 
 
 By these means I rose from mademoiselle's slave to 
 be her friend and companion. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 This feat kept my two drunkards in better order, and 
 revived my own dormant ambition. I used now to visit 
 her by myself, steel in hand, to feed her, etc., and scrape 
 acquaintance with her by every means — steel in hand. 
 One day I was feeding her, when suddenly I thought a 
 house had fallen on me. I felt myself crashing against 
 the door, and there I was lying upon it in the passage 
 with all the breath driven clean out of my bod} r . Pippin 
 came and lifted me up, and carried me into the air. I 
 thought I should have died before breath could get into 
 my lungs again. She had done this with a push from 
 the thick end of her proboscis. After awhile I came to. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 97 
 
 I had no sooner recovered my breath than I ran into the 
 stable, and came back with a pitchfork. Pippin saw my 
 intention, and implored me for heaven's sake not to. I 
 would not listen to him ; he flung his arms round me. 
 I threatened to turn the fork on him if he did not let 
 me go. 
 
 " Hark ! " said he, and sure enough there she was 
 snorting and getting up her rage. "I know all about 
 that," said I : " my death-warrant is drawn up, and if I 
 don't strike, it will be signed : this is how she has felt 
 her way with all of them before she has killed them. I 
 have but one chance of life," said I, " and I won't throw 
 it away without a struggle." I opened the door, and with 
 a mind full of misgivings I walked quickly up to her. I 
 did not hesitate or raise the question which of us two 
 was to suffer; I knew that would not do. I sprang 
 upon her like a tiger, and drove the pitchfork into her 
 trunk. She gave a yell of dismay, and turned a little 
 from me ; I drove the fork into her ear. 
 
 Then came out her real character. 
 
 She wheeled round, ran her head into a corner, stuck 
 out her great buttocks, and trembled all over like a leaf. 
 I stabbed her with all my force for half an hour till the 
 blood poured out of every square foot of her huge body, 
 and, during the operation, she would have crept into a 
 nut-shell if she could. I filled her as full of holes as a 
 cloved orange. 
 
 The blood that trickled out of her saved mine : and 
 for the first time I walked out of her shambles her 
 master. 
 
 One year and six months after we had landed at New 
 Xork to conquer another hemisphere, we turned tail and 
 sailed for England again. We had a prosperous voyage 
 with the exception of one accident. George Hinde from 
 incessant brandy had delirium tremens, and one nighty 
 
98 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 in a fit of it, lie had just sense enough, to see that he was 
 hardly to be trusted with the care of himself. " John," 
 said he to me, " tie me to this mast hand and foot." I 
 demurred : but he begged me for heaven's sake ; so I 
 bound him hand and foot as per order. This done, some 
 one called me down below, and whilst I was there, it 
 seems George got very uncomfortable and began to halloo 
 and complain. Up comes the captain ; sees a man lashed 
 to the mast. "What game is this?" says he. "It is 
 that little blackguard John," says Hinde, "he caught me 
 sleeping against the mast, and took a mean advantage : 
 do loose me, captain ! " The captain made sure it was a 
 sea-jest, and loosed him with his own hands. "Thank 
 you, captain," saj'S George ; " you are a good fellow. 
 God bless you all ! " and with these words he ran aft and 
 jumped into the sea. A Yankee sailor made a grab at 
 him and just touched his coat, but it was too late to save 
 him, and we were going before the wind ten knots an 
 hour. Thus George Hinde fell by brandy : his kindred 
 spirit old Tom seemed ready to follow without the help 
 of water salt or fresh. This man's face was now an 
 uniform color, white, with a scarce perceptible bluish, 
 yellowish tinge. He was a moving corpse. 
 
 Drink forever ! It makes men thieves, murderers, 
 asses, and paupers ; but what about that, so long as it 
 sends them to an early grave, with " beast " for their 
 friends to write over their tombstones, unless they have 
 a mind to tell lies in a churchyard, and that is a common 
 trick. 
 
 We arrived at the mouth of the Thames. 
 
 Some boats boarded us with fresh provisions and deli- 
 cacies ; among the rest one I had not tasted for many a 
 day, it is called soft-tommy at sea, and, on land, bread. 
 The merchant stood on tiptoe and handed a loaf towards 
 me, and I leaned over the bulwarks and stretched down 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 99 
 
 to him with a shilling in my hand. But, as ill-luck 
 would have it, the shilling slipped from my fingers and 
 fell. If it had been some men's it would have fallen 
 into the boat; others', into the sea, slap ; but it was mine, 
 and so it fell on the boat's very rim and then danced to 
 its own music into the water. I looked after it in silence ; 
 a young lady, with whom I had made some little acquaint- 
 ance during the voyage, happened to be at my elbow, and 
 she laughed most merrily as the shilling went down. I 
 remember being astonished that she laughed. The man 
 still held out the bread, but I shook my head. " I must 
 go without now," said I ; the young lady was quite sur- 
 prised. "Why, it is worth a guinea," cried she. "Yes, 
 miss," said I, sheepishly, " but w T e can't always have 
 what we like, you see ; I ought to have held my shilling 
 tighter." 
 
 " Your shilling," cries she. " Oh ! " and she dashed 
 her hand into her pocket and took out her purse, and I 
 could see her beautiful white fingers tremble with eager- 
 ness as they dived among the coin. She soon bought 
 the loaf, and as she handed it to me, I happened to look 
 in her face, and her cheek was red and her eyes quite 
 brimming: her quick woman's heart had told her the 
 truth, that it was a well-dressed and tolerably well-be- 
 haved man's last shilling, and he returning after years 
 of travel to his native land. 
 
 I am sure, until the young lady felt for me, I thought 
 nothing of it ; I had been at my last shilling more than 
 once. But when I saw she thought it hard, I began to 
 think it was hard, and I remember the water came into 
 my own eyes. Heaven bless her, and may she never 
 want a shilling in her pocket, nor a kind heart near her 
 to show her the world is not all made of stone ! 
 
 We had no money to pay our passage, and we found 
 Mr. Yates somewhat embarrassed; we had cost him a 
 
jack :r all llalzs. 
 
 thousand or two and no return. So. whilst he wrote to 
 M. Huguet, that came to pass in England which we had 
 always just contrived to stare off abroad. 
 The elephant was pawned. 
 
 And now I became of use to the proprietors ; I ar- 
 ranged with the mortgagees, and they made the spout a 
 show-place. I used to exhibit her and her tricks, and 
 with the proceeds I fed her, and Elliot, and myself. 
 
 We had been three weeks in pledge, when, one fine 
 morning, as I was showing off seated on the elephant's 
 back. I heard a French exclamation of surprise and joy ; 
 I looked down, and there was M. Huguet. I came down 
 to him, and he, whose quick eye saw a way through me 
 out of drunken Elliot, gave a loose to his feelings and 
 embraced me a la Francaise: 4; which made the common 
 people very much to admire," as the song has it, also a 
 polite howl of derision greeted our Continental affection. 
 M. Huguet put his hand into his pocket, and we got out 
 of limbo, and were let loose upon suffering humanity 
 once more, 
 
 They talk as if English gold did everything ; but it 
 was French gold bought us off, I know that ; for I saw 
 it come out of his pocket 
 
 As soon as we were redeemed, we took an engagement 
 at Astley's, and, during this engagement, cadaverous 
 Tom, finding we could master her, used to attend less 
 and less to her, and more and more to brandy. 
 
 A certain baker who brought her loaves every morn- 
 ing for breakfast used to ask me to let him feed her 
 himself. He admired her, and took this way of making 
 her fond of him. One day I had left these two friends 
 and their loaves together for a minute, when I heard a 
 fearful cry. I knew the sound too well by this time, 
 and as I ran back, I had the sense to halloo at her ; this 
 saved the man's life : at the sound of my voice she 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 101 
 
 dropped him from a height of about twelve feet, and 
 he rolled away like a ball of worsted. I dashed in, up 
 with the pitchfork and into her like lightning, and while 
 the blood was squirting out of her from a hundred little 
 prong-holes, the poor baker limped away. 
 
 Any gentleman or lady who wishes to know how a 
 man feels when seized by an elephant preparatory to 
 being squelched, can consult this person ; he is a respect- 
 able tradesman ; his name is Johns : he lives near Ast- 
 ley's Theatre, or used to, and for obvious reasons can tell 
 you this one anecdote out of many such better than I 
 can ; that is, if he has not forgotten it, and i" dare say he 
 hasn't — ask him ! 
 
 After Astley's, Drury Lane engaged us to play second 
 to the " Lions of Mysore ; " rather a down-come ; but we 
 went. In. this theatre we behaved wonderfully. Not- 
 withstanding the number of people continually buzzing 
 about us, we kept our temper and did not smash a single 
 one of these human gnats so trying to our little female 
 irritability and feeble nerves. The only thing we did 
 wrong was, we broke through a granite mountain and fell 
 down on to the plains, and hurt our knee, and broke one 
 super, — only one. 
 
 The " Lions of Mysore " went a-starring to Liverpool, 
 and we accompanied them. Whilst we were there the 
 cholera broke out in England, and M. Huguet summoned 
 us hastily to France. We brushed our hats, put on our 
 gloves, and walked at one stretch from Liverpool to 
 Dover. There we embarked for Boulogne ; Djek, cadav- 
 erous Tom, wolf-skin-lamb Pippin, and myself. I was 
 now in Huguet's service at fifty francs a week, as coad- 
 jutor and successor of cadaverous Tom, whose demise 
 was hourly expected even by us who were hardened by 
 use to his appearance, which was that of the ghost of 
 delirium tremens. We arrived off Boulogne Pier; but 
 
102 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 there we were boarded by men in uniforms and mus- 
 taches, and questions put about the cholera, which dis- 
 ease the civic authorities of Boulogne were determined 
 to keep on the other side of the Channel. The captain's 
 answer proving satisfactory, we were allowed to run into 
 the port. 
 
 In landing anywhere, Djek and her attendants had 
 always to wait till the other passengers had got clear, 
 and we did so on this occasion. At length our turn 
 came ; but we had no sooner crossed the gangway, and 
 touched French ground, than a movement took place on 
 the quay, and a lot of bayonets bristled in our faces, and 
 " halte let " was the word. We begged an explanation ; 
 in answer an officer glared with eyes like saucers and 
 pointed with his finger at Elliot. The truth flashed on 
 us. The Frenchmen were afraid of cholera coming over 
 from England, and here was a man who looked plague, 
 cholera or death himself in person. We remonstrated 
 through an interpreter, but Tom's face was not to be 
 refuted by words. Some were for sending us back home 
 to so diseased a country as this article must have come 
 out of; bat milder measures prevailed. They set apart for 
 our use a little corner of the quay, and there they roped 
 us in and sentinelled us. And so for four days, in the 
 polished kingdom of France, we dwelt in a hut ruder far 
 than any on the banks of the Ohio. Drink forever ! At 
 last, as Tom Coffin got neither a worse nor a better color, 
 they listened to reason and let us loose upon the nation 
 at large, and away we tramped for Paris. 
 
 Times were changed with us in one respect ; we no 
 longer marched to certain victory; our long ill-success 
 in America had lessened our arrogance, and we crept 
 along towards Paris. But, luckily for us, we had now a 
 presiding head and a good one. The soul of business is 
 puffing; and no man puffed better than our chief 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 103 
 
 M. Huguet. Half way between Boulogne and Paris we 
 were met by a cavalier carrying our instructions how we 
 were to enter Paris ; and, arrived at St. Denis, instead 
 of going straight on, we skirted the town, and made our 
 formal entry by the Bois de Boulogne and the Arch of 
 Triumph. Huguet had come to terms with Pranconi, 
 and, to give Djek's engagement more public importance, 
 Pranconi's whole troop were ordered out to meet us and 
 escort us in. They paraded up and down the Champs 
 Elysees first, to excite attention and inquiry, and, when 
 the public were fairly agog, our cavalcade formed outside 
 the barrier and came glittering and prancing through the 
 arch. An elephant has her ups and her downs like the rest. 
 Djek, the despised of Kentucky and Virginia, burst on 
 Paris, the centre of a shining throng. Franconi's bright 
 amazons and exquisite cavaliers rode to and fro our line 
 carrying sham messages with earnest faces ; Djek was 
 bedecked with ribbons and seemed to tread more majes- 
 tically, and our own hearts beat higher, as, amidst grace 
 and beauty, and pomp, sun shining — hats waving — 
 feathers bending — mob cheering — trumpets crowing — 
 and flints striking fire, we strode proudly into the great 
 city, the capital of pleasure. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 These were bright days to me. I was set over Old 
 Tom — fancy that ; and my salary doubled his : I had 
 fifty francs a week, and cleared as much more by show- 
 ing her privately in her stable. 
 
 Money melts in London; it evaporates in Paris. 
 Pippin was a great favorite both with men and women 
 behind the scenes at Pranconi's : he introduced me to 
 
104 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 charming companions of both, sexes; gayety reigned, 
 and tin and morals "made themselves air, into which 
 they vanished." — Shakespeare. 
 
 Towards the close of her engagement Djek made one 
 of her mistakes : she up with her rightful heir, and 
 broke his ribs against the side scenes. 
 
 We nearly had to stop her performances ! we could 
 not mend our rightful heir by next night, and substi- 
 tutes did not pour in. " I won't go on with her," " I 
 won't play with her," was a cry that even the humblest 
 and neediest began to raise. I am happy to say that 
 she was not under my superintendence when this right- 
 ful heir came to grief. 
 
 And now the cholera came to Paris, and theatricals of 
 all sorts declined, for there was a real tragedy playing 
 in every street. The deaths were very numerous and 
 awfully sudden ; people were struck down in the streets 
 as if by lightning ; gloom and terror hung over all. 
 
 When this terrible disease is better known, it will be 
 found to be of the nature of strong poison, and its cure, 
 if any, will be strychnine, belladonna, or likelier still 
 some quick and deadly mineral poison that kills the 
 healthy with cramps and discoloration. 
 
 In its rapid form cholera is not to be told from quick 
 poison, and hence sprung up among the lower order in 
 Paris a notion that wholesale poisoning was on foot. 
 
 Pippin and I were standing at the door of a wine- 
 shop waiting for our change ; his wild appearance 
 attracted first one and then another : little knots of 
 people collected and eyed us : then they began to talk 
 and murmur, and cast suspicious glances. " Come away," 
 said Pippin, rather hastily. We walked off — they 
 walked after us, increasing like a snowball, and they 
 murmured louder and louder. I asked Pippin what the 
 fools were gabbling about ; he told me they suspected us 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 105 
 
 of being the poisoners ; at this I turned round, and 
 being five feet four, and English, was for punching 
 some of their heads ; but the athletic pacific Italian 
 would not hear of it, much less co-operate : and now 
 they surrounded us just at the corner of one of the 
 bridges, lashing themselves into a fury, and looking first 
 at us, and then at the river below. Pippin was as white 
 as death, and I thought it was all up myself, when by 
 good luck a troop of mounted gendarmes issued from 
 the palace. Pippin hailed them; they came up, and, 
 after hearing both sides, took us under their protection, 
 and off we marched between two files of cavalry, fol- 
 lowed by the curses of a superficial populace. Extremes 
 don't do. Pippin was the color of ink, Elliot of paper : 
 both their mugs fell under suspicion, and nearly brought 
 us to grief. 
 
 Eranconi closed, and Djek, Huguet and Co. started on 
 a provincial tour. 
 
 They associated themselves on this occasion with 
 Michelet, who had some small wild animals, such as 
 lions, tigers, and leopards. 
 
 Our first move was to Versailles. Here we built a 
 show-place and exhibited Djek, not as an actress, but as 
 a private elephant, in which capacity she did the usual 
 elephant business, besides a trick or two that most of 
 them have not brains enough for ; whereof anon. 
 
 Michelet was the predecessor of Van Amburgh and 
 Carter, and did everything they do, a dozen years before 
 they were ever heard of : used to go into the lions' den, 
 pull them about, and put his head down their throats, 
 and their paws round his neck, etc. 
 
 I observed this man and learned something from him. 
 Besides that general quickness and decision, which is 
 necessary with wild animals, I noticed that he was 
 always on the lookout for mischief, and always punished 
 
106 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 it before it came. Another point, he always attacked 
 the offending part, and so met the evil in front ; for 
 instance, if one of his darlings curled a lip and showed 
 a tooth, he hit him over the mouth that moment and 
 nowhere else; if one elongated a claw, he hit him over 
 the foot like lightning. He read the whole crew as I 
 had learned to read Djek, and conquered their malice by 
 means of that marvellous cowardice which they all show 
 if they can see no sign of it in you. 
 
 There are no two ways with wild beasts. If there is 
 a single white spot in your heart — leave them ; for 
 your life will be in danger every moment. If you can 
 despise them, and keep the rod always in sight, they are 
 your humble servants ; nobody more so. 
 
 Our exhibition, successful at first, began to flag; so 
 then the fertile brain of M. Huguet had to work. He 
 proposed to his partner to stand a tiger and he would 
 stand a bull, and " we will have a joint-stock fight like 
 the King of Oude." Michelet had his misgivings ; but 
 Huguet overruled him. That ingenious gentleman then 
 printed bills advertising for a certain day a fight between 
 a real Bengal tiger and a ferocious bull that had just 
 gored a man to death. This done, he sent me round the 
 villages to find and hire a bull : " Mind you get a mild 
 one, or I shall have to pay for a hole in the tiger's 
 leather." I found one which the owner consented to 
 risk for so much money down, and the damage he should 
 sustain from tiger to be valued independently by two 
 farmers after the battle. 
 
 The morning of the fight Pippin and I went for our 
 bull, and took him out of the yard towards Versailles ; 
 but when we had gone about two hundred yards, he 
 became uneasy, looked round, sniffed about, and finally 
 turned round, spite of all our efforts, and paced home 
 again. We remonstrated with the proprietor. "Oh," 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 107 
 
 said he, "I forgot — he won't start without the wench." 
 So the wench in question was sent for (his companion 
 upon amatory excursions), she went with us, and launched 
 *us towards Versailles. This done, she returned home, 
 and we marched on ; but before we had gone a furlong, 
 Taurus showed symptoms of uneasiness ; these in- 
 creased, and at last he turned round and walked tran- 
 quilly home. We hung upon him, thrashed him, and 
 bullied him, all to no purpose. His countenance was 
 placid, but his soul resolved, and he walked home slowly, 
 but inevitably : so then there was nothing for it but to 
 let him have the wench all the way to the tiger ; and she 
 would not go to Versailles till she had put on some 
 new finery, short waist, coal-scuttle bonnet, etc. More 
 time lost with that — and, when we did arrive in the 
 arena, the spectators were tired of waiting. The bull 
 stood in the middle confused and stupid. The tiger was 
 in his cage in a corner ; we gave him time to observe 
 his prey, and then we opened the door of his cage. 
 
 A shiver ran through the audience. (They were all 
 seated in boxes looking down on the area.) 
 
 A moment more, and the furious animal would spring 
 upon his victim, and his fangs and claws sink deep into 
 its neck, etc., vide book of travels. 
 
 One moment succeeded to another, and nothing oc- 
 curred. The ferocious animal lay quiet in his cage, and 
 showed no sign ; so then we poked the ferocious animal 
 — he snarled, but would not venture out. When this 
 had lasted a long time, the spectators began to doubt his 
 ferocity, and to goose the ferocious animal. So I got a 
 red-hot iron and nagged him behind. He gave a yell of 
 dismay and went into the arena like a shot. He took 
 no notice of the bull : all he thought of was escape 
 from the horrors that surrounded him. Winged by 
 terror, he gave a tremendous spring and landed his fore- 
 
108 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 paws on the boxes, stuck fast and glared in at the 
 spectators. They rushed out yelling. He dug his 
 hind-claws into the woodwcrk, and by slow and painful 
 degrees clambered into the boxes. When he got in, the 
 young and active were gone home, and he ran down the 
 stairs among the old people that could not get clear so 
 quick as the rest. He was so frightened at the people 
 that he skulked and hid himself in a corn-field, and the 
 people were so frightened at him that they ran home 
 and locked their street-doors. So one coward made 
 many. 
 
 They thought the poor wretch had attacked them, and 
 the journal next day maintained this view of the trans- 
 action, and the town to this day believes it. We netted 
 our striped coward with four shutters, and kicked him 
 into his cage. 
 
 The bull went home with "the wench," and to this 
 day his thick skull has never comprehended what the 
 deuce he went to Versailles for. 
 
 This was how he competed with Oriental monarchs. 
 
 We marched southward, through Orleans, Tours, etc., 
 to Bordeaux, and were pretty well received in all these 
 places except at one small place whose name I forget. 
 Here they hissed her out of the town at sight. It 
 turned out she had been there before and pulverized a 
 brush-maker, a popular man amongst them. 
 
 Soon after Bordeaux she had words with the lions; 
 they, in their infernal conceit, thought themselves more 
 attractive than Djek. It is vice versa, and by a long 
 chalk, said Djek and Co. The parties growled a bit, then 
 parted to meet no more in this world. 
 
 Prom Bordeaux we returned by another route to Paris ; 
 for we were only starring it in the interval of our en- 
 gagement as an actress with Franconi. We started one 
 morning from with light hearts, our faces turned 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 109 
 
 towards the gay city ; Elliot, Pippin, and I. Elliot and 
 I walked by the side of the elephant, Pippin walking 
 some forty yards in the rear. He never trusted himself 
 nearer to her on a march. 
 
 We were plodding along in this order, when, all in a 
 moment,, without reason or warning of any sort, she 
 spun round between us on one heel like a thing turning 
 on a pivot, and strode back like lightning at Pippin. He 
 screamed and ran, but before he could take a dozen steps, 
 she was upon him and struck him down with her trunk 
 and trampled upon him ; she then wheeled round and 
 trudged back as if she had merely stopped to brush off 
 a fly, or pick up a stone. After the first moment of 
 stupefaction both Elliot and I had run after her with all 
 the speed we had : but so rapid was her movement, and 
 so instantaneous the work of death, that we only met her 
 on her return from her victim. I will not shock the 
 reader by describing the state in which we found our 
 poor comrade : but he was crushed to death : he never 
 spoke, and I believe and trust he never felt anything for 
 the few minutes that breath lingered in his body. We 
 kneeled down and raised him, and spoke to him, but he 
 could not hear us. When Djek got her will of one of 
 us, all our hope used to be to see the man die ; and so it 
 was with poor dear Pippin ; mangled, and life impos- 
 sible, we kneeled down and prayed to God for his death ; 
 and by Heaven's mercy, I think in about four minutes 
 from the time he got his death-blow, his spirit passed 
 away, and our well-beloved comrade and friend was 
 nothing now but a lump of clay on our hands. 
 
 We were some miles from any town or village, and 
 did not know what to do, and how to take him to a rest- 
 ing-place ; at last we were obliged to tie the body across 
 the proboscis, and cover it as well as we could, and so 
 we made his murderess carry him to the little town of 
 
110 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 La Palice ; yes, La Palice. Here we stopped, and a sort 
 of inquest was held, and M. Huguet attended and told 
 the old story ; said the man had been cruel to her, and 
 she had put up with it as long as she could. Verdict — 
 " Served him right," — and so we lied over our poor 
 friend's murdered body, and buried him with many sighs 
 in the little churchyard of La Palice, and then trudged 
 on sad and downcast towards the gay capital. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 I think a lesson is to be learned from this sad story. 
 Too much fear is not prudence. Had poor Pippin 
 walked with Elliot and me alongside the elephant, she 
 dared not have attacked him. But through fear he kept 
 forty yards in the rear, and she saw a chance to get him 
 by himself : and, from my knowledge of her, I have 
 little doubt she had meditated this attempt for months 
 before she carried it out. Poor Pippin ! 
 
 We arrived in Paris to play with Franconi. Now it 
 happened to be inconvenient to Franconi to fulfil his 
 engagement. He accordingly declined us. M. Huguet 
 was angry : threatened legal proceedings. Franconi an- 
 swered, " Where is Pippin ? " Huguet shut up. Then 
 Franconi followed suit ; if hard pressed, he threatened 
 to declare in open court that it was out of humanity 
 alone he declined to fulfil his engagement. This stopped 
 M. Huguet's mouth altogether. He took a place on the 
 Boulevard, and we showed her and her tricks at three 
 prices, and did a rattling business. Before we had been 
 a fortnight in Paris, old Tom Elliot died at the Hospital 
 Dubois, and I became her vizier at a salary of one hun- 
 dred francs per week. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Having now the sole responsibility, I watched her as 
 you would a powder-magazine lighted by gas. I let no- 
 body but M. Huguet go near her in my absence. This 
 gentleman continued to keep her sweet on him with 
 lumps of sugar, and to act as her showman when she ex- 
 hibited publicly. 
 
 One day we had a message from the Tuileries, and we 
 got the place extra clean ; and the King's children paid 
 her a visit — a lot of little chaps — I did not know their 
 names, but I suppose it was Prince Joinville, Aumale, 
 etc. All I know is that while these little Louis 
 Philippes were coaxing her, and feeding her, and cutting 
 about her and sliding down her, and I was a-telling them 
 she was a duck, the perspiration was running down my 
 back one moment and cold shivers the next, and I 
 thanked Heaven devoutly when the young gents went 
 back to their papa and mamma and no bones broken. 
 The young gentlemen reported her affability, and my 
 lies, to the King, and he engaged her to perform gratis in 
 the Champs Elysees during the three days' fete. Fifteen 
 hundred francs for this. 
 
 But Huguet was penny wise and pound foolish to 
 agree : for it took her gloss off. Showed her gratis to 
 half the city. 
 
 Among Djek's visitors came one day a pretty young 
 lady, a nursery-governess to some nobleman's children, 
 whose name I forget, but he was English. The children 
 were highly amused with Djek, and quite loath to go. 
 The young lady, who had a smattering of English as I 
 had of French, put several questions to me. I answered 
 them more polite than usual on account of her being 
 pretty, and I used a privilege I had and gave her an 
 order for free admission some other day. She came, 
 with only one child, which luckily was one of those 
 deeply meditative ones that occur but rarely, and only 
 
112 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 bring out a word every half-hour : so mademoiselle and 
 I had a chat, which I found so agreeable that I rather 
 neglected the general public for her. I made it my 
 business to learn where she aired the children, and one 
 vacant morning, dressed in the top of the fashion, I stood 
 before her in the garden of the Tuileries ; she gave a half- 
 start and a blush, and seemed very much struck with aston- 
 ishment at this rencontre : she was a little less astonished 
 next week when the same thing happened, but still she 
 thought these coincidences remarkable, and said so. In 
 
 short, I paid my addresses to Mademoiselle . She 
 
 was a charming brunette from Geneva, greatly my superior 
 in education and station. I was perfectly conscious of 
 this, and instantly made this calculation : " All the better 
 for me if I can win her."' But the reader knows my 
 character by this time, and must have observed how 
 large a portion of it effrontery forms. I wrote to her 
 every day, sometimes in the French language ; no, not in 
 the French language j in French words. She sometimes 
 answered in English words. She was very pretty and 
 very interesting, and I fancied her. When a man is in 
 love he can hardly see difficulties : I pressed her to 
 marry me, and I believed she would consent. When I 
 came to this point the young lady's gayety declined, 
 and when I was painting her pictures of our conjugal hap- 
 piness, she used to sigh instead of brightening at the 
 picture : at last I pressed her so hard that she consented 
 to write to Geneva and ask her parents' consent to our 
 union: when the letter went, I was in towering spirits. 
 I was now in the zenith of my prosperity : the risks I 
 had run with Djek were rewarded by a heavy salary and 
 the post of honor near her, and, now that I was a little 
 weary of roaming the world alone with an elephant, fate 
 had thrown in my way a charming companion who would 
 cheer the weary road. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 113 
 
 Dreams. 
 
 The old people at Geneva saw my position with 
 another eye. " He is a servant liable to lose his place 
 at any moment by any one of a hundred accidents, and 
 his profession is a discreditable one : why, he is a show- 
 man." 
 
 They told her all this in language so plain that she 
 would never show me the letter. I was for defying 
 their advice and authority, but she would not hear of 
 it. I was forced to temporize. " In a month's time,' 7 
 said I to myself, " her scruples will melt away." But 
 in less than a fortnight the order came for us to march 
 into Flanders. I communicated this cruel order to my 
 sweetheart ; she turned pale, and made no secret of her 
 attachment to me and of the pain she felt at parting. 
 Every evening before we left Paris I saw her, and im- 
 plored her to trust herself to me and leave Paris as my 
 wife. She used to smile at my pictures of wedded hap- 
 piness, and cry the next minute because she dared not 
 give herself and me that happiness ; but with all this 
 she was firm and would not fly in her parents' face. 
 
 At last came a sad and bitter hour : hat in hand, as 
 the saying is, I made a last desperate endeavor to persuade 
 her to be mine, and not to let this parting take place at 
 all. She was much agitated, but firm ; and the more I 
 said, the firmer she became. So at last I grew frantic 
 and reproached her. I called her a cold-hearted coquette, 
 and we parted in anger and despair. 
 
 Away into the wide world again, not, as I used to 
 start on these pilgrimages, with a stout heart and iron 
 nerves, but cold and weary and worn out before the 
 journey had begun. As we left Paris behind us I had 
 but one feeling : that the best of life was at an end for 
 me. My limbs took me along like machinery, but my 
 heart was a lump of ice inside me, and I would have 
 
H4 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 thanked any man for knocking me on the head and end- 
 ing the monotonous farce of my existence. Ay, gentle- 
 folks, even a poor mechanic can feel like this when the 
 desire of his heart is balked forever. 
 
 Trudge, trudge, trudge ! for ever and ever. 
 
 Tramp, tramp, tramp ! for ever and ever. 
 
 A man gets faint and weary of it at last, and there 
 comes a time when he pines for a hearthstone and a 
 voice he can believe, a part, at least, of what it says, 
 and a Sunday of some sort now and then ; and my time 
 was come to long for these things, and for a pretty and 
 honest face about me to stand for the one bit of peace 
 and the one bit of truth in my vagabond-charlatan life. 
 
 I lost my appetite and sleep, and was Very nearly los- 
 ing heart altogether. My clothes hung about me like 
 bags, I got so thin. It was my infernal occupation that 
 cured me after all. Djek gave me no time even for de- 
 spair : the moment I became her sole guardian I had 
 sworn on my knees she should never kill another man ; 
 judge whether I had to look sharp after her to keep the 
 biped from perjury and the quadruped from murder. I 
 slept with her, rose early, fed her, walked twenty miles 
 with her, or exhibited her all day, sometimes did both, 
 and at night rolled into the straw beside her, too deadly 
 tired to feel all my unhappiness ; and so, after awhile, 
 time and toil blunted my sense of disappointment, and 
 I trudged and tramped and praised Djek's moral quali- 
 ties in the old routine. Only now and then — when I saw 
 the country lads in France or Belgium going to church 
 dressed in their best with their sweethearts, and I in 
 prison in the stable with my four-legged hussy, waiting 
 perhaps till dark to steal out and march to some fresh 
 town — I used to feel as heavy as lead, and as bitter as 
 wormwood, and wish we were all dead together by way 
 of a change. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 115 
 
 A man needs a stout heart to go through the world at 
 all : but most of all he needs it for a roving life ; don't 
 you believe any other, no matter who tells you. 
 
 With this brief notice of my feelings, I pass over 
 two months' travel. All through, I spare the reader 
 much, though I dare say he doesn't see it. 
 
 Sir, the very names of the places I have visited would 
 fill an old-fashioned map of Europe. 
 
 Talk of Ulysses and his travels; he never saw the 
 tenth part of what I have gone through. 
 
 I have walked with Djek farther than round the 
 world during the eleven years I trudged beside her ; it 
 is only twenty-four thousand miles round the world. 
 
 After a year's pilgrimage, we found ourselves at 
 Doncheray near Sedan. 
 
 Here we had an incident. Monsieur Huguet was show- 
 ing her to the public with the air of a prince, and in 
 his marechal-of-France costume, glittering with his the- 
 atrical cross of the Legion of Honor. He was not par- 
 ticular what he put on, so that it shone and looked well. 
 He sent me for something connected with the perform- 
 ance, a pistol, I think. I had hardly ten steps to go, 
 but during the time I was out of her sight, I heard a 
 man cry out and the elephant snort. I ran back, halloo- 
 ing as I came. As I ran in I found the elephant feeling 
 for something in the straw with her foot, and the people 
 rushing out of the doors in dismay; the moment she 
 saw me she affected innocence, but trembled from head 
 to foot. I drew out from the straw a thing you would 
 have taken for a scarecrow, or a bundle of rags. It was 
 my master, M. Huguet, his glossy hat battered, his 
 glossy coat stained and torn, and his arm broken in two 
 places ; a moment more, and her foot would have been 
 on him and his soul crushed out of his body. 
 
 The people were surprised when they saw the furious. 
 
116 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 snorting monster creep into a corner to escape a little 
 fellow five feet four, who got to the old weapon, pitchfork, 
 and drove it into every part of her but her head. She hid 
 that in the corner the moment she saw blood in my eye. 
 
 We got poor M. Huguet to bed, and a doctor from the 
 hospital to him, and a sorrowful time he had of it ; and 
 so after standing good for twelve years, lump sugar fell 
 to the ground. Pitchfork held good. 
 
 At night more than a hundred people came to see 
 whether I was really so hardy as to sleep with this 
 ferocious animal. To show them my sense of her, I lay 
 down between her legs. On this she lifted her fore- 
 feet singly, and with the utmost care and delicacy drew 
 them back over my body. 
 
 As soon as M. Huguet's arm was set, and doing well, 
 he followed us — (we had got into France by this time), 
 and came in along with the public to admire us, and, to 
 learn how the elephant stood affected towards him now, 
 he cried out in his most ingratiating way — in sugared 
 tones — "Djek, my boy, Djek." At this sound Djek 
 raised a roar of the most infernal rage, and Huguet, 
 who knew her real character well enough, though he pre- 
 tended not to, comprehended that her heart was now set 
 upon his extinction, malgre twelve years of lump sugar. 
 
 He sent for me, and with many expressions of friend- 
 ship offered me the invaluable animal for thirty thou- 
 sand francs. I declined her without thanks. " Then I 
 shall have the pleasure of killing her to-morrow," said 
 the Frenchman, " and what will become of your salary, 
 mon pauvre gargon ? " 
 
 In short, he had me in a fix, and used his power. I 
 bought her of him for twenty thousand francs, to be 
 paid by instalments. I gave him the first instalment, 
 a five-franc piece, and walked out of the wine-shop her 
 sole proprietor. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 117 
 
 The sense of property is pleasant, even when we have 
 not paid for the article. 
 
 That night I formed my plans ; there was no time to 
 lose, because I had only a thousand francs in the world, 
 and she ate a thousand francs a week, or nearly. I 
 determined to try Germany, a poor country, but one 
 which being quite inland could not have become callous 
 to an elephant, perhaps had never seen one. I shall 
 never forget the fine clear morning I started on my own 
 account. The sun was just rising, the birds were tuning, 
 and all manner of sweet smells came from the fields 
 and the hedges. Djek seemed to step out more majestic- 
 ally than when she was another man's ; my heart beat 
 high. Eleven years ago I had started the meanest of 
 her slaves, I had worked slowly, painfully, but steadily 
 up, and now I was actually her lord and master, and half 
 the world before me with the sun shining on it. 
 
 The first town I showed her at as mine was Verdun, 
 
 and the next day I wrote to Mademoiselle at Paris, 
 
 to tell her of the change in my fortunes This was the 
 only letter I had sent ; for we parted bad friends. I 
 received a kinder answer than the abrupt tone of my 
 letter deserved. She congratulated me and thanked me 
 for remembering that whatever good-fortune befell me 
 must give her particular pleasure, and in the postscript 
 she told me she was just about to leave Paris and return 
 to her parents in Switzerland. 
 
 Djek crossed into Prussia, tramped that country, and 
 penetrated into the heart of Germany. As I had 
 hoped, she descended on this nation with ad the charm 
 of novelty, and used to clear the copper 1 out of a whole 
 village. I remember early in this trip being at a coun- 
 try inn. I saw rustics male and female dressed in their 
 
 1 Germany is mostly made of copper. A bucketful of farthings was a 
 common thing for me to have in my carriage. 
 22 
 
118 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 Sunday clothes coming over the hills from every side to 
 one point. I thought there must be a fair or something. 
 I asked the landlord what they were all coming for. 
 He said, " Why, you, to be sure." They never saw such 
 a thing in their lives, and never will again. 
 
 In fact, at one or two small places we were stopped 
 by the authorities, who had heard that we carried more 
 specie out of little towns than the circulating medium 
 would bear. 
 
 In short, my first coup was successful. After six 
 months' Germany, Bavaria, Prussia, etc., I returned to 
 the Ehine at Strasburg with eight thousand francs. 
 During all this time she never hurt a soul, I watched 
 her so fearfully close. So, being debarred from murder, 
 she tried arson. 
 
 At a place in Bavaria her shed was suddenly observed 
 to be in flames, and we saved her with difficulty. 
 
 The cause never transpired until now; but I saw 
 directly how it had been done : I had unwarily left my 
 coat in her way. The pockets were found emptied of all 
 their contents, amongst which was a lucif er-box, fragments 
 of which I found amongst the straw. She had played 
 with this in her trunk, hammering it backwards and for- 
 wards against her knee, dropping the lighted matches 
 into the straw when they stung her, and very nearly 
 roasted her own beef, the mischievous, uneasy devil. 
 
 My readers will not travel with an elephant, but busi- 
 ness of some sort will fall to the lot of them soon or 
 late, and as charlatanry is the very soul of modern busi- 
 ness, it may not be amiss to show how the humble 
 artisan worked his elephant. 
 
 We never allowed ourselves to drop casually upon any 
 place like a shower of rain. 
 
 A man in bright livery, green and gold, mounted on a 
 showy horse, used to ride into the town or village, and 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 119 
 
 go round to all the inns making loud inquiries about 
 their means of accommodation for the elephant and her 
 train. Four hours after him, the people being now a 
 little agog, another green-and-gold man came in on a 
 trained horse, and inquired for No. 1 ; as soon as he had 
 found him, the two rode together round the town, No. 2 
 blowing a trumpet and proclaiming the elephant, the 
 nations she had instructed in the wonders of nature ; 
 the kings she had amused; her grandeur, her intelli- 
 gence, and above all her dove-like disposition. 
 
 This was allowed to ferment for some hours, and, 
 when expectation was at its height, the rest of the cav- 
 alcade used to heave in sight — Djek bringing up the 
 rear. Arrived I used to shut her in out of sight, and 
 send all my men and horses round, parading, trumpeting, 
 and pasting bills ; so that at last the people were quite 
 ripe for her, and then we went to work. And thus the 
 humble artisan and his elephant cut a greater dash than 
 lions and tigers and mountebanks and quacks, and drew 
 more money. 
 
 Here is one of my programmes : only I must remark 
 that I picked up my French where I picked up the sin- 
 cerity it embodies, in the circuses, coulisses, and caba- 
 rets of French towns ; so that I can patter French as 
 fast as you like, but of course I know no more about it 
 than a pig — not to really know it. 
 
 Par permission de M. le Maire. 
 Le grand 
 ELEPHANT 
 du Roi de Siam 
 Du Cirque Olympique Franconi. 
 Mademoiselle Djek, 
 
 Elephant colossal, de onze pieds de hauteur et du poids de 
 neuf mille liv., est le plus grand elephant que Ton ait vu en 
 Europe. 
 
120 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 M. H. B. Lott, naturaliste, pourvoyeur des menageries des 
 diverses cours d'Europe, aetionnaire du Cirque Oiympique et 
 proprietaire de ce magnifique elephant, quil a dresse au point 
 de le presenter au public dans une piece theatrale qui fut creee 
 pour Mademoiselle Djek il y a trois ans et demi, et qui a eu 
 uu si grand succes, sous le nom de TElepliant du Eoi de 
 Siam. 
 
 Le proprietaire, dans son voyage autour du monde, eut oc- 
 casion d'acheter cet enorme quadrupede, qui le prit en affec- 
 tion, et qui, depuis onze ans quil le possede, ne s'est jamais 
 dementi, se plait a ecouter son maitre et execute avec punctu- 
 ality tout ce qu'il lui indique de faire. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek, qui est dans toute la force de sa taille 
 a maintenant cent vingt-cinq ans ; elle a onze pieds de hauteur 
 — et pese neuf mille livres. 
 
 Sa consommation dans les vingt-quatre heures excede deux 
 cent livres — quarante livres de pain pour son dejeuner: a 
 midi. du son et de Tavoine ; le soir, des pommes-de-terre ou 
 du riz cuit ; et la nuit du foin et de la paille. 
 
 C'est le meme elephant qui a combattu la lionne de M. 
 Martin. Cette lionne en furie, qu'une imprudence fit sortir de 
 sa cage, s'elance sur M. H. B. Lott qui se trouvait aupres de 
 son elephant ; voyant le danger il se refugie derriere une des 
 jambes de ce bon animal, qui releve sa trompe pour le pro- 
 teger. 1 La lionne allait saisir M. H. B. Lott; Telephant la 
 voit. rabat sa trompe, Lenveloppe, Tetouffe, la jette a loin, et 
 Taurait ecrasee, si son maitre ne lui eut dit de ne pas continuer. 
 
 Elle a ensuite allonge sa trompe, frappe du pied, criant et 
 temoignant la satisfaction, qu'elle eprouvait d'avoir sauve son 
 ami d'une mort certaine, comme on a pu voir dans les journaux 
 en fevi'ier 1832. 
 
 Dans les cours des seances, on lui fera faire tous ses grands 
 exercices qui sont dignes d'admiration, dont le grand nombre 
 ne pennet pas d"en donner Lanalyse dans cette affiche, et qu^l 
 faut voir pour Ten faire une idee juste. 
 
 Prix d'entree : Premieres Secondes 
 Les mihtaires et les enfants, moitie. 
 
 1 I am a dull fellow now, as you see. But you must allow I have been a 
 man of imagination. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 121 
 
 1 don't think but what my countrymen will under- 
 stand every word of the above, but as there are a great 
 number of Frenchmen in London who will read this, I 
 think it would look unkind not to translate it into Eng- 
 lish for their benefit. 
 
 By permission of the Worshipful the Mayor 
 the great 
 ELEPHANT 
 of the King of Siam 
 From Franconi's Olympic Circus. 
 Mademoiselle Djek, 
 Colossal elephant, eleven feet high and weighs nine thousand 
 pounds. The largest elephant ever seen in Europe. 
 
 Mr. H. B. Lott, naturalist, who supplies the menageries of 
 the various courts of Europe, shareholder in the Olympic 
 Circus, and proprietor of this magnificent elephant, which he 
 has trained to such a height that he will present her to the 
 public in a dramatic piece which was written for her three 
 years and a half ago and had a great success under the title of 
 the Elephant of the King of Siam. 1 
 
 The proprietor, in his voyage round the globe, was fortu- 
 nate enough to purchase this enormous quadruped, which 
 became attached to him, and has been eleven years in his pos- 
 session, during which time she has never once forgotten her- 
 self and executes with obedient zeal whatever he bids her. 
 
 Mademoiselle Djek has now arrived at her full growth, being 
 one hundred and twenty-five years of age : she is eleven feet 
 high and weighs nine thousand pounds. Her daily consump- 
 tion exceeds two hundred pounds : she takes forty pounds of 
 bread for her breakfast, at noon barley and oats, in the even- 
 ing potatoes or rice cooked, and at night hay and straw. 
 
 This is the same elephant that fought with Mr. Martin's 
 lioness. The lioness, whom the carelessness of the attendants 
 
 1 My literary gent and me we nearly had words over this bit. " Why. it is 
 all nominative case," says he. " Well," says 1, " you can't have too much of 
 a good thing. Can you better it?" says I. "Better it," says he, " why, I 
 could not have come within a mile of it ; " and he grinned : so I shut him up 
 — for once. 
 
122 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 allowed to escape from her cage, dashed furiously at Mr. H. 
 B. Lott; fortunately he was near his elephant, and seeing the 
 danger took refuge behind one of the legs of that valuable 
 animal ; she raised her trunk in her masters defence. The 
 lioness made to seize him : but the elephant lowered her trunk, 
 seized the lioness, choked her, flung her to a distance and 
 would have crushed her to death if Mr. Lott had not com- 
 manded her to desist. After that she extended her trunk, 
 stamped with her foot, trumpeting and showing her satisfac- 
 tion, at having saved her friend from certain death; full 
 accounts of which are to be seen in the journals of Februarv, 
 1832. 
 
 In the course of the exhibition she will go through all her 
 exercises, which are wonderful, and so numerous that it is 
 impossible to enumerate them in this bill : they must be seen 
 to form a just idea of them. 
 
 Prices : First places Second 
 Soldiers and children half-price. 
 
 Djek and I used to make our bow to our audiences in 
 the following fashion : I came on with her and said, 
 " Otez mon chapeau pour saluer : " then she used to take 
 off my hat, wave it gracefully and replace it on my head 
 — she then proceeded to pick up twenty-five-franc pieces 
 one after another and keep them piled in the extremity 
 of her trunk. She also fired pistols, and swept her den 
 with a broom in a most pains-taking and ludicrous way. 
 
 But perhaps her best business in a real judge's eye 
 was drinking a bottle of wine. The reader will better 
 estimate this feat if he will fancy himself an elephant 
 and lay down the book now and ask himself how he 
 would do it — and read the following afterwards. 
 
 The bottle (cork drawn) stood before her. She placed 
 the finger and thumb of her proboscis on the mouth, 
 made a vacuum by suction, and then, suddenly inverting 
 the bottle, she received the contents in her trunk ; the 
 difficulty now was to hold the bottle, which she would 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 123 
 
 not have broken for a thousand pounds (my lady thought 
 less of killing ten men than breaking a saucer) and yet 
 not let the liquor run from her flesh-pipe. She rapidly 
 shifted her hold to the centre of the bottle, and worked 
 it by means of the wrinkles in her proboscis to the bend 
 of it. Then she griped it, and at the same time curled 
 round her trunk into a sloping position and let the wine 
 run down her throat. This done, she resumed the first 
 position of her trunk, and worked the bottle back towards 
 her finger, suddenly snapped hold of it by the neck, and 
 handed it gracefully to me. 
 
 With this exception it was not her public tricks that 
 astonished me most. The principle of all these tricks 
 is one. An animal is taught to lay hold of things at 
 command, and to shift them from one place to another. 
 You vary the thing to be laid hold of, but the act is the 
 same. In her drama, which was so effective on the 
 stage, Djek did nothing out of the way. She merely 
 went through certain mechanical acts at a word of com- 
 mand from her keeper, who was unseen or unnoticed, i.e., 
 he was either at the wing in his fustian jacket, or on 
 the stage with her in gimcrack and gold as one of a lot 
 of slaves or courtiers or what not. Between ourselves, 
 a single trick I have several times caught her doing on 
 her own account proved more for her intelligence than 
 all these. She used to put her eye to a keyhole. Ay, 
 that she would, and so watch for hours to see what 
 devil's trick she could do with impunity — she would 
 see me out of the way and then go to work. Where 
 there was no keyhole, I have seen her pick the knot out 
 of a deal board, and squint through the little hole she 
 had thus made. 
 
 A dog comes next to an elephant : but he is not up to 
 looking through a keyhole, or a crack. He can think of 
 nothing better than snuffing under the door. 
 
124 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 At one place, being under a granary, she worked a 
 hole in the ceiling, no bigger than a thimble, and sucked 
 down sackfuls of grain before she was found out. Talk 
 of the half -reasoning elephant : she seldom met a man 
 that could match her in reasoning — to a bad end. Her 
 weak points were her cruelty and cowardice, and by this 
 latter Tom Elliot and I governed her with a rod of iron, 
 vulgarly called a pitchfork. If a mouse pottered about 
 the floor in her stable, Djek used to tremble all over, 
 and whine with terror till the little monster was gone. 
 A ton shaken by an ounce. 
 
 I have seen her start back in dismay from a small 
 feather floating in the air. If her heart had been as 
 stout as her will to do mischief was strong, mankind 
 must have risen to put her down. 
 
 Almost all you have ever heard about the full-grown 
 elephant's character is a pack of falsities. They are 
 your servants by fear, or they are your masters. Two 
 years ago an elephant killed his keeper at Liverpool 
 or Manchester, I forget which. Out came the Times : 
 he had pronged him six weeks before. How well I knew 
 the old lie ; it seldom varies a syllable. That man died, 
 not because he had pronged the animal, but because he 
 hadn't, or not enough. 
 
 Spare the pitchfork — spoil the elephant. 
 
 There is another animal people misconstrue just 
 as bad. 
 
 The hyena. 
 
 Terrible fierce animal the hyena, says Buffon and Co. ; 
 and the world echoes the chant. 
 
 Fierce ; are they ? You get a score of them together 
 in a yard, and you shall see me walk into the lot with 
 nothing but a switch, and them try to get between the 
 brick and the mortar with the funk, that is how fierce 
 they are : and they are not only cowardly, but innocent, 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 125 
 
 and affectionate into the bargain is the fierce hyena of 
 Buffon and Co. : but indeed wild animals are sadly mis- 
 understood. It is pitiable : and those that have the best 
 character deserve it less than those that have the worst. 
 
 In one German town I met with something I should 
 like to tell the sporting gents, for I don't think there is 
 many that ever fell in with such a thing. But it is an 
 old saying that what does happen has happened before, 
 and may again, so I tell this to put them on their 
 guard, especially in Germany. Well, it was a good 
 town for business, and we stayed several days : but before 
 we had been there many hours my horses turned queer. 
 Kestless they were and uneasy. Sweated of their own 
 accord. Stamped eternally. One in particular began to 
 lose flesh. We examined the hay. It seemed particu- 
 larly good, and the oats not amiss. Called the landlord 
 in, and asked him if he could account for it. He stands 
 looking at them : this one called Dick was all in a 
 lather. " Well, I think I know now," said he ; " they 
 are bewitched. You see there is an old woman in the 
 next street that bewitches cattle, and she rides on your 
 horses' backs all night, you may take your oath." Then 
 he tells us a lot of stories, whose cow died after giving 
 this old wench a rough word, and how she had been 
 often seen to go across the meadows in the shape of a 
 hare. " She has a spite against me, the old sorceress," 
 says he. " She has been at them ; you had better send 
 for the pastor." — " Go for the farrier, Jem," says I. So 
 we had in the farrier. He sat on the bin and smoked 
 his pipe in dead silence, looking at them. " They seem 
 a little fidgety," says he, after about half an hour. So 
 I turned him out of the stable. And I was in two 
 minds about punching his head, I was. " Send for the 
 veterinary surgeon No. 1." He came. " They have got 
 some disorder," says he — " that is plain ; nosteils are 
 
126 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 slear, too. Let me see them eat." They took their 
 food pretty well. Then he asked where we came from 
 last. I told him. '•' Well/' 7 said he. cheerfully, " this is 
 a murrain. I think. In this country we do invent a new 
 murrain about every twenty years. We are about due 
 now." He spoke English, this one, quite a fine gentle- 
 man. One of the grooms put in. I think the water is 
 poisoned.''' — •• Anyway." says another, "Dick will die if 
 we stay here." So then they both pressed me to leave 
 the town. " You know, governor, we can't afford to lose 
 the horses.'' Xow I was clearing ten pounds a day in the 
 place, and all expenses paid. So I looked blank. So 
 did the veterinary. U I wouldn't go," says he, -'wait a 
 day or two : then the disease will declare itself, and we 
 shall know what we are doing." You see, gents, he did 
 not relish my taking a murrain out of his town, he was 
 a veterinary. " Whatever it is," says he, " you brought 
 it with you." — " Well, now," said I, u my opinion is, I 
 found it here. Did you notice anything at the last 
 place, Nick ? " — ••Xo," the grooms both bore me out. 
 u Oh ! " says the vet., " you can't go by that : it had 
 not declared itself." Well, will you believe me (I often 
 laugh when I think of it), it was not two minutes after 
 he said that, that it did declare itself. It was Sunday 
 morning, and Xick had got a clean shirt on. Nick was 
 currying the very horse called Dick, when all of a 
 sudden the sleeve of his white shirt looked dirty. 
 •• What now ? " cries he, and comes to the light. " I do 
 believe it is vermin," says he, " and if it is, they are 
 eaten up with it." — " Vermin ? What vermin can that 
 be ? " said I, " have we invented a new vermin too ? " 
 They were no bigger than pins' points, looked like dust 
 on his shirt. " What do you say, sir ? is it vermin ? " 
 — " Not a doubt of it," says the vet. " These are 
 poultry -lice, unless I am mistaken. Have you any hens 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 127 
 
 anywhere near ? " Both the grooms burst out, " Hens ? 
 why, there are full a hundred up in the hay-loft." So 
 that was the murrain. The hens had been tumbling in 
 the hay : the hay came down to the rack all alive with 
 their vermin : and the vermin were eating the horses. 
 We stopped that supply of hay ; and what with curry- 
 ing, and washing with a solution the vet. gave us, we 
 cured that murrain — chicken-pox, if any. We had a 
 little scene at going away from this place. Landlord 
 had agreed to charge nothing for the use of stabling; 
 we spent so much in other ways with him. In spite of 
 that he put it down at the foot of the list. I would not 
 pay. " You must." — "I won't." — " Then you sha'n't 
 go till you do ; " and with that he and his servants 
 closed the great gates. The yard was entered by two 
 great double doors, like barn-doors, secured outside by a 
 stout beam. So there he had us fast. It got wind, and 
 there was the whole population hooting outside, three 
 thousand strong. Then it was, " Come, don't be a fool." 
 "Don't you be a fool." 
 
 " Stand clear," said I to the man, " we will alter our 
 usual line of march this time ; I'll take Djek from the 
 rear to the front." So they all formed behind me and 
 Djek, two carriages and six horses, all in order. "Now," 
 said I, "landlord, you have had your joke: open the 
 door, and let us part friends ; we have been with you a 
 week, you know, and you have had one profit out of us, 
 and another out of the townsfolk we brought to your 
 bar — open the door." 
 
 "Pay me my bill, and I'll open," says he. "If I 
 turned away one traveller from my stable for you, I've 
 turned away twenty." 
 
 " A bargain is a bargain. Will you open ? before she 
 knocks your door into toothpicks." 
 
 " Oh ! I'll risk my door if you'll risk your beast. No J 
 I won't open till I am paid." 
 
128 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 " Once, will you open ? " 
 "No." 
 
 " Twice, will you open ? — Thrice ? 99 
 " No." 
 
 "Djek — go !" 
 
 She walked lazily at the door as if she did not see it. 
 The moment she touched it, both doors were in the road, 
 the beam was in half in the road ; most times one thing 
 stands, another goes : here it all went bodily on all sides 
 like paper on a windy day, and the people went fastest 
 of all. There was the yell of a multitude under our 
 noses, then an empty street under our eyes. We 
 marched on calm, majestical, and unruffled, beneath the 
 silent night. 
 
 Doors and bolts, indeed — to a lady that had stepped 
 through a brick wall before that day, an English brick 
 wall. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 From Strasburg I determined to go into Switzerland : 
 above all to Geneva — I could Dot help it; in due course 
 of time and travel I arrived near Geneva, and I sent 
 forward my green-and-gold avant-couriers. But alas ! 
 they returned with the doleful news that elephants were 
 not admitted into that ancient city. The last elephant 
 that had been there had done mischief, and, at the 
 request of its proprietor, Mademoiselle Gamier, a young 
 lady whose conscience smote her, for she had had 
 another elephant that killed one or two people in Venice, 
 was publicly executed in the fortress. 1 
 
 1 They gave this elephant an ounce of prussic acid and an ounce of arsenic : 
 neither of these sedatives producing any effect, they fired a cannon-ball 
 through her neck. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 129 
 
 Fortunately (as I then thought), I had provided 
 myself with testimonials from the mayor and governors 
 of some score of towns through which we had passed. 
 I produced these, and made friends in the town, particu- 
 larly with a Dr. Mayo. At last we were admitted. 
 Djek was proved a dove by such overpowering testi- 
 mony. I had now paid M. Huguet six thousand francs, 
 and found myself possessed of five thousand more. 
 Business was very good in Geneva. Djek very popular. 
 Her intelligence and amiability became a byword. I 
 had but one bitter disappointment, though. Mademoi- 
 selle never came to see us, and I was too sulky and 
 
 too busy to hunt for her. Besides, I said to myself, 
 " All the world can find me, and if she cared a button 
 for me she would come to light." I tried to turn it off 
 with the old song,— 
 
 " Now get ye gone, ye scornful dame, 
 If you are proud, I'll be the same, 
 I make no doubt but 1 shall find 
 As pretty a girl unto my mind." 
 
 Behold me now at the climax of prosperity, dressed 
 like a gentleman, driving a pair of horses, proprietor of 
 a whole cavalcade, and of an elephant, and, after clear- 
 ing all expenses, making at the rate of full six hundred 
 pounds per annum. There was a certain clergyman of 
 the place used to visit us about every day and bring her 
 cakes and things to eat, till he got quite fond of her, and 
 believed that she returned his affection. I used to beg 
 him not to go so close to her; on this his answer was, 
 "Why, you say she is harmless as a chicken," so then 
 I had no more to say. Well, one unlucky day, I turned 
 my back for a moment ; before I could get back, there 
 were the old sounds, a snort of rage, and a cry of terror, 
 and there was the poor minister in her trunk. At sight 
 
130 
 
 JACK OF ALL TEADES. 
 
 of me she dropped him, but two of his ribs were broken, 
 and he was quite insensible, and the people rushed out 
 in terror. We raised the clergyman and carried him 
 home, and in half an hour a mob was before the door, 
 and stones as big as your fists thrown in at the windows ; 
 this, however, was stopped by the authorities. But the 
 next day my lady was arrested and walked off to the 
 fortress, and there confined. I remonstrated, expostu- 
 lated — in vain. I had now to feed her, and no return 
 from her ; ruin stared me in the face. So I went to law 
 with the authorities. Law is slow, and Djek was eating 
 all the time. Euin looked nearer still. The law ate 
 my green-and-gold servants and my horses, and still 
 Djek remained in quod. Then I refused to feed her 
 any longer; and her expenses fell upon the town. Her 
 appetite and their poverty soon brought matters to a 
 climax. They held a sort of municipal tr'bunal, and 
 tried her for an attempt at homicide. I got counsel to 
 defend her, for I c .strusted my own temper and French. 
 
 I can't remember half the fine things he said, but 
 there was one piece of common-sense I do remember ; he 
 said, "The animal I believe is unconscious of her gveat 
 strength, and has committed a fatal error rather than a 
 crime ; still, if you think she is liable to make such 
 errors, let her die rather than kill men. But how do 
 you reconcile to your consciences to punish her proprie- 
 tor, to rob him of his subsistence ? He has committed 
 no crime, he has been guilty of no want of caution. If, 
 therefore, you take upon yourselves to punish the brute, 
 be honest ! buy her of the man first, and then assert 
 your sublime office — destroy an animal that has offended 
 morality. But a city should be above wronging or rob- 
 bing an individual." When he sat down I thought my 
 homicide was safe, for I knew Geneva could not afford 
 to buy an elephant, without it was out of a Noah's ark. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 131 
 
 But up gets an orator on the other side and attacked 
 me ; accused me of false representations, of calling a 
 demon a duck. "We have certain information from 
 France that this elephant has been always wounding 
 and killing men up and down Europe these twenty years. 
 Monsieur Lott knew this by universal report and by 
 being an eye-witness of more than one man's destruction," 
 — here there was a sensation, I can tell you. " He has, 
 therefore, forfeited all claims to consideration." Then 
 he thundered out, "Let no man claim to be wiser than 
 Holy Writ ; there we are told that a lie is a crime of the 
 very deepest dye, and here we see how for years false- 
 hood has been murder." Then I mind he took just the 
 opposite line to my defender. Says he, " If I hesitate 
 for a moment it is not for the man's sake, but for the 
 brute's : but I do not hesitate. I could wish so majestic 
 a creature might be spared for our instruction," says he, 
 "that so wonderful a specimen of the Creator's skill 
 might still waxk the earth ; but reason and justice and 
 humanity say ' No. 7 There is an animal far smaller, yet 
 ten times more important, for he has a soul ; and this, the 
 king of all the animals, is not safe while she lives : there- 
 fore she ought to die : weaker far than her in his indi- 
 vidual strength, he is a thousand times stronger by 
 combination and science, therefore she will die." 
 
 When this infernal chatterbox shut up, my heart sank 
 into my shoes. He was a prig, but an eloquent one, and 
 he walked into Djek and me till we were not worth half 
 an hour's purchase. 
 
 For all that the council did not come to a decision on 
 the spot, and I believe that if Djek had but been con- 
 tent to kill the laity as heretofore, we should have 
 scraped through with a fine ; but the fool must go and 
 tear black cloth, and dig her own grave. 
 
 Two days after the trial, out came the sentence — death. 
 
132 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 With that modesty and good feeling which belongs to 
 most foreign governments, they directed me to execute 
 their sentence. 
 
 My answer came in English. u I'll see you d d and 
 
 double d d first, and then I won't." 
 
 Meantime Huguet was persecuting poor heart-sick me 
 for the remainder of her purchase-money, and, what with 
 the delay, the expenses and the anxiety, I was so down and 
 so at the end of my wits and my patience that her sentence 
 fell on me like a blow on a chap that is benumbed, pro- 
 duced less effect upon me at the time than it does when 
 I think of it now. 
 
 Well, curse them, one fine morning they ran a cannon 
 up to the gate, loaded it, and bade me call the elephant, 
 and bring her into a favorable position for being shot. 
 I refused point-blank in English as before. They 
 threatened me for my contumacy. I answered, they 
 might shoot me if they liked, but I would not be the 
 one to destroy my own livelihood. 
 
 So they had to watch their opportunity. 
 
 It was not long of coming. 
 
 She began to walk about, and presently the poor fool 
 marched right up to the cannon's mouth and squinted 
 down it. Then she turned, and at last she crossed right 
 before it. The gunner took the opportunity, applied his 
 linstock and fired. There was a great tongue of flame 
 and a cloud of smoke, and through the smoke something 
 as big as a house was seen to go down ; the very earth 
 trembled at the shock. 
 
 The smoke cleared in a moment, and there lay Djek. 
 She never moved: the round shot went clean through 
 her body and struck the "opposite wall with great force. 
 It was wonderful and sad, to see so huge a creature 
 robbed of her days in a moment by a spark. There she 
 lay — poor Djek! 
 
JACK OF ALL TEADBS. 
 
 133 
 
 In one moment I forgot all her faults. She was an old 
 companion of mine in many a wet day and dreary night. 
 She was reputation to me, and a clear six hundred a year 
 — and then she was so clever. We shall never see her 
 like again, and there she lay. I mourned over her, right 
 or wrong, and have never been the same man since that 
 shot was fired. 
 
 The butchery done, I was informed by the municipal 
 authorities that the carcass was considered upon the 
 whole to be my property. The next moment I had two 
 hundred applications for elephant-steaks from the pinch- 
 gut natives, who, I believe, knew gravy by tradition 
 and romances that had come all the way from Paris. 
 Knives and scales went to work, and, with the tears run- 
 ning down my cheeks, I sold her beef at four sous per 
 pound for about forty pounds sterling. 
 
 This done, all my occupation was gone. Geneva was 
 no place for me, and, as the worthy Huguet, whose life 
 I had saved, threatened to arrest me, I determined to go 
 back to England and handicraft. Two days after Djek's 
 death I was hanging sorrowfully over the bridge when 
 some one drew near to me, and said in a low voice, 
 "Monsieur Lott." I had no need to look up, I knew 
 the voice; it was my lost sweetheart; she spoke very 
 kindly, blushed, and welcomed me to her native country. 
 She did more : she told me she lived five miles from 
 Geneva, and invited me to visit her mother ; she took 
 occasion to let me know that her father was dead : " My 
 mother refuses me nothing," she added, with another 
 blush. This was all like a dream to me. The next day 
 I visited her and her mother, and was cordially received : 
 in short, it was made clear to me that my misfortune 
 had endeared me to this gem of a girl instead of repell- 
 ing her. An uncle too had died and left her three hun- 
 dred pounds, and this made her bolder still, and she did 
 23 
 
134 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 not conceal her regard for me. She told me she had 
 seen me once in Geneva driving two showy horses in a 
 carriage and looking like a nobleman, and so had hesi- 
 tated to claim the acquaintance ; but hearing the ele- 
 phant's execution, and guessing that I could no longer 
 be on the high road to fortune, she had obeyed her heart 
 and been the first to remind me I had once esteemed her. 
 In short, a pearl. 
 
 I made her a very bad return for so much goodness. 
 I went and married her. We then compounded with 
 Huguet for three thousand francs, and sailed for England 
 to begin the world again. 
 
 The moment I got to London, I made for the Seven 
 Dials to see my friend Paley. 
 
 On the way I meet a mutual acquaintance, told him 
 where I was going — red-hot. 
 
 He shook his head, and said nothing. 
 
 A chill came over me. If you had stuck a knife in 
 me I shouldn't have bled. I gasped out some sort of 
 inquiry. 
 
 " Why, you know he was not a young man," says he ; 
 and he looked down. 
 
 That was enough for such an unlucky one as me. I 
 began to cry directly. " Don't ye take on," says he. 
 " Old man died happy. Come home with me ; my wife 
 will tell you more about it than I can." 
 
 I was loath to go, but he persuaded me. His wife 
 told me the old gentleman spoke of me to the last, and 
 had my letters read out, and boasted of my success. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you he would rise ? " he used to say, 
 and then it seems he made much of some little presents 
 I had sent him from Paris — and them such trifles com- 
 pared with what I owed him ; " Doesn't forget old friends 
 now he is at the top of the tree," and then burst out 
 praising me, by all accounts. 
 
JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 135 
 
 So then it was a little bit of comfort to think he had 
 died while I was prosperous, and that my disappoint- 
 ment had never reached his warm and feeling heart. 
 
 A workman has little time to grieve outwardly. He 
 must dry his eyes quickly, let his heart be ever so sad ; 
 or he'll look queer when Saturday night comes. You 
 can't make a workman-like joint with the tear in your 
 eye ; one-half the joiners can't do it with their glasses 
 on. And I was a workman once more ; I had to end as 
 I began. 
 
 I returned to the violin trade, and, by a very keen 
 attention to its mysteries, I made progress, and having 
 a foreign connection I imported and sold to English 
 dealers, as well as made, varnished, and doctored violins. 
 But soon the trade, through foreign competition, de- 
 clined to a desperate state. I did not despair, but to 
 eke out, I set my wife up in a china and curiosity shop 
 in Wardour Street, and worked at my own craft in the 
 back parlor. I had no sooner done this than the 
 writers all made it their business to sneer at Wardour 
 Street, and now nobody dares buy in that street, so 
 since I began this tale we have closed the shop — it 
 only wasted their time — they are much better out 
 walking and getting fresh air at least for their trouble. 
 I attend sales and never lose a chance of turning a 
 penny ; at home I make and mend and doctor fiddles — I 
 carve wood — I clean pictures and gild frames. I cut 
 out fruit and flowers in leather — I teach ladies and 
 gentlemen to gild at so much a lesson ; and by these and 
 a score more of little petty arts I just keep the pot 
 boiling. 
 
 I am, as I have been all my life, sober, watchful, en- 
 terprising, energetic, and unlucky. 
 
 In early life I played for a great stake — affluence. 
 I think I may say I displayed in the service of Djek 
 
136 
 
 JACK OF ALL TRADES. 
 
 some of those qualities, by which, unless books are 
 false, men have won campaigns and battles, and reaped 
 fortunes and reputations. Eesult in my case — a can- 
 non-shot fired in a dirty little village calling itself a city, 
 in a country that Yorkshire could eat up and spit out 
 again, after all the great kingdoms and repubs. had 
 admired her and forgiven her her one defect — a tongue 
 of fire — a puff of smoke — and the perils, labor, cour- 
 age, and perseverance of eleven years blown away like 
 dust to the four winds of heaven. 
 
 I am now playing for a smaller stake ; but I am now 
 as usual playing my very best. I am bending all my 
 experience of work and trade, all my sobriety, activity, 
 energy, and care, all my cunning of eye and hand, to 
 one end — not to die in the workhouse. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, the workman has said his say ? 
 and I hope the company have been amused. 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 Upon the second day of October, 1856, the Glasgow 
 Times told the world a moving story. 
 
 A little boy was drowning in the Clyde. There were 
 a score of people on the bank ; but they only groaned, 
 and glared, and fluttered at the child's screams and 
 struggles ; not one had both the courage and the skill 
 to plunge in and rescue him. 
 
 But presently came an elderly man who was a peer- 
 less swimmer and diver, and had saved more than forty 
 lives in that very river. 
 
 Alas ! he was now stone blind ; a little girl, his grand- 
 daughter, was leading him by the hand. 
 
 Yet to him his blindness seemed no obstacle. "Let me 
 to him ! let me to him ! " he cried, "I'll save him yet ! " 
 
 But, in the general dismay and agitation, his appeal 
 was unheeded at first. Then he screamed out in gener- 
 ous fury, " Ye daft fules, a mon disna soom wi' his een ; 
 just fling me in the water, and cry me« to him, and ye'll 
 see." 
 
 His prayer would have been granted, but his grand- 
 daughter, with a girl's affection and unreasoning fears, 
 clung round his knees, and screamed, "Na, na, ye 
 wadna, — ye wadna ! " 
 
 This caused a hesitation, when there was no longer a 
 
 137 
 
138 
 
 A HEEO AND A MARTYR, 
 
 moment to lose. The boy sank for the last time. A 
 deep groan from the spectators told the sad end, and the 
 poor blind hero went home flinging his arms about in 
 despair, and crying like a child ; for, as he afterwards 
 said, in telling the lamentable tale, " It was a laddie 
 flung away ; clean flung away." 
 
 The chronicler went on to enumerate the gallant 
 exploits of this very James Lambert, before he lost his 
 sight ; and the whole story set me thinking. I began to 
 weigh the vulgar griefs of men against James Lambert's 
 high distress. I taxed myself, and dissected things that 
 had made me rage, or grieve ; now they seemed small 
 and selfish. 
 
 From that my mind went into books, and I fell to 
 comparing the feats and the tears of James Lambert 
 with the feats and tears of heroes, whom history has 
 embalmed, or poetiy canonized. 
 
 Strange to say, it was not my living contemporary, but 
 the famous figures of poetry and history, that paled a 
 little in this new crucible. I often detected some draw- 
 back to their valor, and a taint of egotism in their 
 grief. This made me suspect that poetry, like its read- 
 ers, may have been dazzled by the glare of armor and 
 the blare of trumpets, and left heroic men unsung, who 
 best deserved a bard. For, look below the surface — 
 unsung Lambert's was the highest courage ; it was soli- 
 tary courage, and no trumpets to stir it ; no armor, no 
 joint enthusiasm ; often no spectators. Summer and 
 winter he plunged into the Clyde, and saved men and 
 women, with his bare body, and at great peril to his life : 
 for the best swimmer is a dead man if a drowning per- 
 son clutches him and cripples him. And what was his 
 reward on earth ? For his benevolent courage he was 
 stricken blind, through so many immersions of his 
 heated body in icy water. 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 139 
 
 Was not this a poetic calamity, and a fit theme for 
 tenderest verse ? 
 
 Being thus afflicted, for his virtue, he heard a fellow- 
 creature drowning. He was potent as ever in the water, 
 but impotent on land ; and they would not help him into 
 the water ; and so a young life was flung away, that he 
 could have saved; and he went home flinging his arms 
 about in agony, and weeping tears that angels might be 
 proud to dry with loving wing. Alas ! and is it so ? 
 The eyes, that can no longer see, can weep. 
 
 A noble, rare, unselfish, and most poetical distress, 
 though told in the plain prose of a journal. It made me 
 desire to see this James Lambert, and hear his tale from 
 his own lips, and give him my poor sympathy. 
 
 But, unfortunately, I am a procrastinator. Of course 
 I can do unadvisable things expeditiously ; but, when a 
 wise or good thing is to be done, " nonum prematur in 
 annum" is my motto. So, for ten mortal years, and 
 more, I was always going — going — going — to visit 
 James Lambert. 
 
 At last, after many years, being in Selkirkshire, I 
 shook off " the thief of time," and went into Glasgow to 
 see this man, a hero in his youth, a martyr in old age. 
 
 But I had lived long enough to observe that, when 
 you seek a man who was alive and elderly twelve years 
 ago, you find he has been dead from four to seven. So, 
 on the road to Glasgow, I blamed myself bitterly for 
 my besetting sin, and actually said to myself very earn- 
 estly, — 
 
 " from this moment 
 
 The very firstlings of my heart shall be 
 The firstlings of my hand." 
 
 That was fine ; only, not to deceive you, I had often 
 repeated this high resolve, with great fervor and sincer- 
 ity, and then gone on procrastinating. 
 
140 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 In Glasgow I made strict inquiries after James Lam- 
 bert ; I asked the landlord, and all the waiters ; went to 
 every tradesman I knew in the city. Not one soul had 
 ever heard of him, nor of his exploits. This confirmed 
 my fear that he had gone to a better world, whilst I 
 was busy postponing here below. However, my tardy 
 blood was up at last ; so I took a cab, and drove to the 
 police chambers, and asked for the chief. The request 
 I had to make was unusual ; therefore I prefaced the 
 matter after this fashion — " Sir, most people come here 
 to ask you to find out some malefactor. I come hunting 
 an honest man and a man of great merit, one James 
 Lambert who saved many lives in the Clyde, years ago. 
 I have come from England to find him, and I can hear 
 nothing of him, alive or dead. If you will assist me with 
 your machinery, I shall be truly obliged to yon." 
 
 Now they say the Scotch are not so quick to take a 
 new idea as the English. That may be ; but they are 
 also not so quick to reject one. An English chief con- 
 stable would probably have said at once, " That is quite 
 out of our line ; you should go to the parochial clergy ; " 
 but after twenty minutes' discussion would have relented, 
 and given me every assistance : the Scottish chief, on the 
 contrary, though manifestly taken aback, thought before 
 he spoke ; thought, without disguise, for full thirty 
 seconds. " Well, sirr," said he, very slowly, " I see — no 
 — objection — to thaat." Then he turned to a tube 
 and said, in a hollow voice, " Send me a detective." 
 
 This done, he took down my name, and address in 
 Glasgow, and what I knew about James Lambert. 
 
 One's idea of a detective is — a keen, lean man, with 
 little glittering eyes — a human weasel. The door 
 opened, and in walked a model of strength and youthful 
 beauty, that made me stare. He was about twenty-two 
 years old,, at least six feet four in height, and the 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 141 
 
 breadth, and, above all, the depth of his chest, incredi- 
 ble. Until I saw John Heenan strip, and reveal his 
 bulging back and breast, and every inch of his satin skin 
 mapped with muscles, I took for granted the old sculp- 
 tors had exaggerated, and carved ideal demigods, not 
 real men. Nude Heenan showed me they had not exag- 
 gerated, but selected ; and this detective confirmed the 
 proof j for he was a much finer man than Heenan, yet 
 not a bit fleshy : and, instead of a prizefighter's features, 
 a comely, manly, blooming face, and a high, smooth fore- 
 head, white as snow itself. I know no lady in the South 
 with a forehead more white and delicate. 
 
 This Hercules- Apollo — his Scotch name I have for- 
 gotten — stood at the door, and, drawing himself up, 
 saluted his chief respectfully. 
 
 " said the chief, " this is Mr. Eedd, fr' Eng- 
 land. He is looking for an old man named Lambert, 
 that saved many lives in the Clyde some years ago. 
 Ye'll take means to find him — here's his description — 
 and ye'll report to Mr. Eedd at his hotel. Ye under- 
 stand now ; he's to be found — if he is alive." 
 
 The detective saluted again, but made no reply. He 
 took my address, and the particulars, and went to work 
 directly, as a matter of course. I thanked the chief 
 heartily, and retired to my hotel. 
 
 About nine in the evening, Detective Hercules-Apollo 
 called on me. All he had detected was a brave man, 
 called John Lambert, that had saved lives out of a burn- 
 ing ship in the port of Greenock. I declined John 
 Lambert — with thanks. 
 
 Having now no serious hope of finding James Lam- 
 bert alive, I took the goods the gods provided, and in- 
 terviewed Hercules-Apollo, since he was to hand. I 
 questioned him, and he told me he was often employed 
 in captures. 
 
142 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 " Well," said I, " you are the man for it. You don't 
 often meet your match, eh ? " 
 
 He blushed a little, and smiled, but it did not make 
 him bumptious, as it might a small man, say a lifeguards- 
 man, or drayman. He said, " I assure you, sirr, I need 
 it all, and whiles, mair." He then pointed out to me a 
 window in the Trongate, exactly opposite the room we 
 were in. " Yon's just a nest o' theeves," said he : "they 
 wark wi' decoys, sirr, a wife wi' a tale o' woe, or a lass 
 wi' a bonny face, and the like. The other night a 
 gentleman put his hand through the window, and cried 
 ' Thieves ! ' So I ran up the stair. The door was lockit, 
 ye may be sure. I just pit my fut till't " — 
 
 " And it flew up the chimney ? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha! Xo so far as that, sirr. Aweel, I thoucht 
 to find ma}~be two or three of them ; but there were 
 nigh a dizen o' the warst characters in Glasgow. How- 
 ever, I was in for't, ye ken ; so I was in the middle of 
 them before they had time to think, and collared twa old 
 offenders. ' I'll tak this handful,' says I, ' and I'll come 
 bock for the lave ' & : marched 'em oot, and the gentle- 
 man at my heels. He was glad to wend clear, and so 
 was I. My hairt beat hard that time, I shall assure ye ; 
 but I didna let the vagabonds see thaat, ye ken." He 
 intimated that it was all gas for any one man to pretend 
 he could master half a dozen, if they were resolute. 
 "Na — we beer the law in our hairts, and they beer 
 guilt in theirs. That's what makes the odds, sirr." 
 
 After a conversation, of which this is only a fragment, 
 we returned to James Lambert, and he told me he ex- 
 pected news, good or bad, by break of day, for he had 
 fifty policemen questioning on their beats, in the like- 
 liest parts of the city. " Ah," said I, " but I am afraid 
 those beats are all above ground now my poor hero is 
 underground." 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 143 
 
 I went to bed with this conviction ; and having 
 hitherto blamed myself, which is an unnatural trick, I 
 now looked round for somebody else to blame, which is 
 customary and wholesome ; and herein my smattering of 
 the British drama stood my friend ; I snarled, and said 
 — out of Sir Peter — " He has died on purpose to vex 
 me." 
 
 I heard no more till half-past one next day, and 
 then my gigantic and beautiful detective called. This 
 time he had a huge pocket-book — enormous — in a 
 word, such a pocket-book as he a man. He opened it, 
 and took out an old newspaper with an account of James 
 Lambert, and also a small pamphlet. I ran my eye 
 over them. 
 
 " That will be the man, sirr ? " 
 
 « Yes." 
 
 "Aweel, then we've got him,' 7 said he, quietly. 
 " What ! got him alive ? " 
 
 " Ou ay ; he is in vara good health. He's not an old 
 man, sirr. He will not be mair than saxty." 
 
 " Have you seen him with your own eyes ? " said I, 
 still half incredulous. 
 
 " Ye may be sure o' thaat, sirr. I wadna come here 
 till I had spoken him. He stays at No. 36 Little Street, 
 Calton." 
 
 I thought Calton was some other town, but he told me 
 it was only a suburb of Glasgow, and all the cabmen 
 knew it. Then I thanked him for his zeal and ability, 
 and stood a sovereign, which he received with a grateful 
 smile, but no abatement of his manly dignity ; and I 
 took a fly that moment, and drove to Little Street, 
 Calton. 
 
 For some reason No. 36 was hard to find, and I got 
 out of the fly to explore. I found the population in a 
 flutter, and it was plain by the swift gathering of 
 
144 
 
 A HERO AND A MAE T YE. 
 
 juveniles, and their saucer eyes, that this was the first 
 triumphal car had entered that miserable street. How- 
 ever, if there was amazement, there was civility; and 
 they vied with each other in directing me to James Lam- 
 bert. I mounted a stair, as directed, and knocked at a 
 door. A woman's voice said, "Corrie in," and I entered 
 the room. There was but one. 
 
 On my right hand as I stood at the door, and occupy- 
 ing nearly one-third of the room, was a long large 
 wooden machine for spinning cotton ; the upper part 
 bristled with wooden quills polished by use. Behind it 
 the bed in a recess. Immediately on my left was a 
 table with things on it, covered with a linen cloth. Ex- 
 actly opposite me the fireplace. On my right hand of it 
 the window, but in an embrasure. 
 
 An old woman sat before the window, a young woman 
 sat all in a heap the other side of the fire ; and in front 
 of the fire stood a gray-headed man, with well-cut feat- 
 ures, evidently blind. He was erect as a dart, and 
 stood before his own fire in an easy and gentleman-like 
 attitude, which does not, as a rule, belong to working- 
 men ; they generally slouch a bit when not at work. 
 
 " Does Mr. Lambert live here ? " said I, for form. 
 
 He replied civilly, " I am James Lambert. What is 
 your wull with me ? " 
 
 "Mr. Lambert, I have come from some distance to 
 have a talk with you — about your exploits in saving 
 lives." 
 
 " Aweel, sirr, I'll be very happy to hae a crack wi' ye. 
 Wife, give the gentleman a chair." 
 
 When I was seated, he said, " We are in a litter the 
 day ; but ye'll excuse it." 
 
 I saw no litter, and did not know what he meant. 
 Before he could explain, a young man called for him, no 
 doubt by appointment j and Lambert begged me to 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 145 
 
 excuse him for a moment; he had a weekly pension, 
 and they would not pay it after three o'clock ; but it was 
 not far, and he would return directly. He then left me 
 seated between the two women. I looked hard at the 
 young woman. She never moved, and seemed quite 
 stupid or stupefied. I looked at the table on her side 
 of the room, and wondered what was under the linen 
 cloth. There seemed to be a prominence or two, such 
 as objects of unequal height would cause, and I fancied 
 it must be the best teapot, and other china, covered to 
 keep off the dust. 
 
 The young woman was repellent, so I turned round to 
 the old one, and praised her husband. 
 
 "Ay," said she, "he has been a curious mon in his 
 time — and mony a great f aitour c he did — and mony a 
 good suit he destroyed that / had to pay for." 
 
 This last sentence being uttered earnestly, and its 
 predecessor apathetically, coupled with the stress on 
 the "I," gave me the measure of the woman's mind. 
 However, I tried her again. " Did you see any of his 
 exploits ? " 
 
 " Na, na ; I was aye minding my wark at hame. I 
 saw leetle o' his carryings on." 
 
 I said no more ; but remembered Palissy's wife, and 
 other egotistical mediocres ; and turned to the young 
 woman : but she seemed unconscious of my voice or my 
 presence. 
 
 From this impenetrable I turned, in despair, to the 
 covered table ; tried to see below the cover with my 
 eagle eye, and had just settled positively it was the 
 china tea-service, when, to my great relief, James Lam- 
 bert returned, and conversation took the place of idle 
 speculation. 
 
 We soon came to an understanding, and I asked him 
 to give me some details, and to begin at the beginning. 
 
146 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 " Aweel, sirr," said he, " the first case ever I had was 
 a baker — they ca't a case ye ken the noo ; aw thing is a 
 case — an awfu' fat mon he was. I was aboot fourteen 
 or fifteen then, but a gey guid soomer d. Aweel, sirr. 
 me and Rab Rankin, and John Murdoch, and a hantle 
 mair lads, went doon to the bathing-place, an' we were 
 divairting oorselves in the water, when the baker strips 
 and comes out on the deal. Noo ye'll understond there 
 was shallow water and deep, and the deep was at the 
 far eend o' the deal. They ca' it ' the Dominie's Hole,' 
 fra a schulemaister wha was drooned there a hundre' 
 years agone. So this baker comes oot to the vera eend 
 o' the deal, and dives in heed first, as if Clyde belanged 
 to him — ha, ha, ha! He dizna come up for awhile, 
 and I said to the other callants e, < Hech, sirs, ye'll see 
 a bonny diver.' Presently up he comes, paanting and 
 baashing, and flinging his arrms ; then doon he goes 
 again with baith een glowering. ' Maircy on us,' cries 
 ane, 'the moo's drooning.' However, he comes up 
 again, baashing and spluttering. I was ready for him, 
 and just swam forereicht him, and took him by th' arm. 
 That will let ye see what a senseless cauf I was. I suld 
 hae gQne and flung him ae eend of my gallows, or my 
 naepkin/, and towed him in; but, insteed of that, he 
 gat haud o' me and grippit me tight to his breest, and 
 took me doon with him. Noo, tell me, sir — y' are a 
 soomer yoursel ? " 
 
 I said, " Yes." 
 
 " What was our lives worth, the pair ? Him a twanty 
 stane mon, and me a laddy ? " 
 
 "Not much, indeed, unless you could slip away from 
 him." 
 
 " Ay, but I could na ; he huggit me till him. Aweel, 
 sirr, if he was wild, I was desperate. I flang my heed 
 back and gat my knees up to his breest, and after my 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 147 
 
 knees my feet, and I gied the awfu'est spang with my 
 feet against his breest, and I got clear, a' but the skin ? o 
 my forefinger, that I left in his hond. I raised to the 
 surface and called to the boys to mak' a chain. I was 
 afeared to dive for him. But by Glide's maircy he came 
 up yance mair, just to tak' leave o' Scoetland. I got 
 ahint him and gave him a sair crack on the heed, drove 
 him forud, followed him up wi' a push, and then the 
 lads took hands and won to him, and pulled him to the 
 deal, and I soomed ashore, and I hadna been there a 
 minute when I swooned reicht away." 
 " How was that ? " I asked. 
 
 "I think it was partly the pain, but maistly faint- 
 hairtedness at sight o' my finger a-streaming wi' bluid, 
 and the skin away. When I came to mysel' the baker 
 had put on his claes and gaed awa." 
 
 " What, without a word to his preserver ? 99 
 
 "Ay." 
 
 " Didn't he give you anything ? " 
 
 " Deil a bawbee. But there was two gentlemen saw 
 the affair, and gied me fifteen shellin'. I went hame 
 sucking my sair finger ; and my mither gied me an aw-f u' 
 hiding for spoiling my clothes. She took me by the 
 lug 9, and made me cry ' murrder.' 99 
 
 "Fine, sympathetic creatures, the women in these 
 parts," said I ; circumferens acriter oculos, as my friend 
 Livy hath it, and withering a female right and left, 
 as playful men shoot partridges. Unfortunately, neither 
 of them observed I had withered her : the hero's narra- 
 tive and my basilisk glances were alike unheeded. 
 
 " And on the impassive ice the lightnings play." — Pope. 
 
 James Lambert, duly questioned, then related how a 
 personal friend of his had been seized with cramp in the 
 middle of the Clyde. " For, sirr," said he, " the Clyde 
 
148 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 is a deedly water, by reason of its hot and cold currents, 
 and sand-holes and all." 
 
 His friend had sunk for the last time; James Lam- 
 bert dived for him, and brought him up from the 
 bottom, and took him ashore. 
 
 " And, sirr, maybe ye wadna think it; but the resoolt 
 was — I lost my freend." 
 
 " What do you mean? " said I, staring. 
 
 4 'He just avoided me after that. He came to see me 
 twarree A times, too ; but I obsairved he wasna easy till 
 he was away; and bymby I saw nae mair o' the lad." 
 This he said without passion, and apparently only to 
 discharge his conscience, as a faithful narrator of real 
 events, and men as they are in life, not books. But I, 
 who am no hero, boiled. 
 
 I took time to digest this human pill, and then 
 questioned him. But I omit two cases — to use his own 
 words — as they had no particular feature. 
 
 44 The next case, sir, was an old wumman ; ye ken the 
 wives come on Glasgow Green to wash. Well, this auld 
 wife had gone oot at 4 the three stanes ' to dip her stoop 
 i' the water, and overbalanced herself and gone in heed 
 first, and the stream carried her oot. The cry got up, 
 4 there's a wumman droonin.' I was a lang way off, but 
 I heerd it, and ran down and into the water after her, 
 clothes and all. She was floating, sirr, but her heed was 
 doon, and her feet up. I never saw the like in a* my 
 life. I soomed up to her, and lifted her puir auld gray 
 heed out o' the water — a rale riverend face she had — ■ 
 and broucht her ashore on my arm as quiet as a lamb ; 
 and laid her doon." 
 
 44 Was she insensible? " 
 
 44 Not athegither, I think, but nigh hand it, just scared 
 like oot o' her senses, puir saul. Vera sune she began 
 to tremble all over and greet sair. I turned my bock, 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 149 
 
 no' to greet mysel', and went aside and ridded my elaes. 
 Aweel, sirr, the first word she spoke was to speer for 
 me. She cries out, quite sudden, 'Whaur's the mon 
 that gat me oot ; for Gude's sake, whaur is he ? ' Sae 
 the folk pushit me, and I behooved to come forrud, and 
 mak' my confession. ' Wife/ says I, 'I'm the mon.' So 
 she looks me all over. 'The Lorrd protect ye,' she 
 cried. < The Lorrd bless ye ! — I'm a puir auld body,' 
 says she, " I hae naething but my washing-bay K But 
 come ye wi' me ; and I'll pit it away, and get ye twarree 
 shellin' for saving me fra deeth.' " 
 
 " Hech, sirr, I felt it awfu' keen ; it was just her 
 livelihood, ye ken, her washing-bay ; and she'd pit it i' 
 pawn for me. ' Puir auld body,' says I, 1 and is that a' 
 ye hae ? ' And I just clappit a shellin' in her hand, 
 and I tell't her I needed naething ; I'd a gude wife, and 
 a gude wage. I was warking at Somerville's mill ower 
 the water. * And,' says I, ' if ye wait for me Saturday 
 afternoons, when I lift my wage, I'll whiles hae a 
 shellin' for ye.' " 
 
 "And did she?" 
 
 "Na, na," said he; then, thoughtfully, "She was 
 ower puir to gie, and ower decent to take." 
 
 All our other provincial dialects are harsh and ugly ; 
 but the Scotch is guttural on the consonants, and on the 
 vowels divinely melodious : I wish I could convey the 
 exquisite melody of James Lambert's voice in speaking 
 these words, " Puir — auld — body ! an' is thaat a' ye 
 hae ? " 
 
 The story itself, and the brave, tender hero's tones 
 were so manly, yet so sweet, that they brought water 
 into my eyes; and I thought this tale at least must 
 touch some chord even in the dull, domestic heart. But 
 no ; I looked at the young woman, and she sat all of a 
 heap, still wrapped in herself, dull, stupid, and gloomy 
 24 
 
150 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 beyond description, and the narrative, far from touching 
 her, never even reached her. That was evident, some- 
 how. Thought I to myself, " Oh, but y'arr a dour wife, 
 y' arr." 
 
 Perhaps you will be incredulous at my thinking in 
 Scotch ; but the truth is, I am little better than a chame- 
 leon ; I take the local color willy nilly. After a day in 
 France I begin to think in French ; in Scotland, Scotch. 
 I think in bad French and bad Scotch — very ; but that 
 is a flimsy detail ; the broad fact remains. So I dubbed 
 her a "douri wife : " and really I felt wrath that such 
 pearls of true narrative should be poured out before 
 young Apathy and ancient Mediocrity. 
 
 Of Mediocrity there is no cure ; but there is of 
 Apathy, at least in Scotland. That cure is — whiskey. 
 "When whiskey will not thaw a Scotch body at all, 
 
 " O then be bold to say Bassanio's — dead." 
 
 So I beckoned a dirty but attentive imp, that gleamed, 
 all eyes, in a dark corner, and sent him out for a great 
 deal of whiskey ; and postponed my inquiries till after 
 the thaw. 
 
 But, before the imp could return with Apathy's cure, 
 several footsteps were heard on the stairs, and three or 
 four men entered, all in good black suits. A few words 
 of subdued greeting passed, and then they removed the 
 white linen cloth from what I. with my eagle eye and 
 love of precision, had inventoried as the best tea-service. 
 
 It was the body of a little girl, lying in her little 
 coffin. The lid was not yet on. She looked like frozen 
 wax. 
 
 After the first chilling surprise, I cast my eye on the 
 young woman. She never moved nor looked, but she 
 shivered by the fire when the men touched the coffin 
 behind her. 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 151 
 
 She was the dead child's mother. Even I — in spite 
 of my eagle eye — could see that now. 
 
 I whispered to James Lambert, " I have intruded on 
 you at a sad time." 
 
 " Ye haena intruded at all," said he out loud. Then 
 he told me, before them all, what made it worse was that 
 the father had gone away and not been seen these three 
 days. 
 
 a Aj, but," said Mrs. Lambert, "ye mauna let the 
 gentleman think he is ane that drinks. Na, he is a real 
 quiet, sober, decent man." 
 
 " He is thaat," said the bereaved mother, speaking for 
 the first time, but in a crushed and dogged way. 
 
 "Tin no' exackly denying that," said James, cau- 
 tiously. " But whaur is he — at the present time ? " 
 
 It was evident that this quiet, sober, decent man, upon 
 the death of his daughter, had gone away on the fuddle, 
 and left his bereaved wife to bury the child how she 
 could. 
 
 Such are the dire realities of life, especially among 
 the poor. 
 
 With what different eyes I looked now on the poor 
 creature, bereaved mother, and deserted wife, whose 
 deep and numbing agony I had taken for sullen apathy 
 — with my eagle eye. 
 
 And now came in an undertaker, and the coffin-lid 
 was to be screwed on. Before this was done, all the 
 men, myself included, took a last look at her who was 
 taken away so early from the troubles of the world. 
 
 " Ay, sir," said the undertaker to me, " it is just clay 
 going to the dust ; " and never was a truer word nor 
 more pictorial. That clay seemed never to have lived. 
 
 The lid was soon screwed down, and then, to my sur- 
 prise, the undertaker delivered a prayer. Now that was 
 the business of the minister : and besides, the under- 
 
152 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 taker had the reddest nose I ever saw. For all that he 
 delivered a grave, feeling, and appropriate prayer, and then 
 the deceased was carried out for interment, and I was 
 left with James Lambert, his daughter, and his wife. 
 I asked James Lambert, would not the minister meet 
 them at the grave. 
 
 "Na," said he, "there's nae minister intill't. The 
 wives daur na tell him, or he'd be speering, * Why is na 
 the gude man here ? ' and then he'd get a pooblie re- 
 buke. Whisper, sirr. Hae ye no absairved that the 
 women-folk aye screens a blackguard ? " 
 
 " Yes," whispered I ; " especially when they surfer by 
 him." 
 
 So the poor wife let her child be prayed over and 
 buried by a layman, sooner than expose her husband to 
 the censure of the church. 
 
 All this made my bowels yearn, and, for the first time, 
 I addressed myself directly to her. I said, " My poor 
 woman, nobody can console a mother that has lost a 
 child : that is beyond the power of man. But, if it is 
 a part of your trouble that you are left without help, 
 and perhaps hard put to it for expenses, I can be of 
 some little use to you in that." Then I pulled out two 
 or three of those deplorable old rags — Scotch one-pound 
 notes, by means of which the national malady is per- 
 petuated and passes from hand to hand. 
 
 I don't know whether it was the stale words or the 
 old rags, or both ; but the poor woman burst out crying 
 and sobbing with almost terrible violence. 
 
 We did what we could for her, and tried to get her to 
 swallow a few drops of whiskey ; but she put her hand 
 up and turned away from it. 
 
 The quick-eared old man found this out somehow, and 
 explained her to her face. " She can take a drap as 
 weel as ony body : but noo, she blames it for her mon 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 153 
 
 being away." Then, rather roughly to his wife, " Hets, 
 ye fule, let the lass greet. What'n harm will that dee 
 her?" 
 
 Soon after this the two women exchanged one of their 
 signals, and went out together — I think to pay the 
 undertaker ; and such is the decent pride of the Scotch 
 character, that to be able to do this was probably a drop 
 of comfort in the bitter cup of their affliction. 
 
 When they were gone, the old man's expressive 
 features brightened a little, and he drew his stool nearer 
 me, with a certain genial alacrity. There are book- 
 makers who would not let you know that, madam, lest 
 you should turn from their hero with aversion; but, 
 when I deal with fact, I am on my oath. At all events, 
 understand him before you turn from him. You see the 
 present very clearly, the past through a haze ; but this 
 man, being blind, could not see the present at all, and 
 saw the past clearer than you do ; for he was compelled 
 to live in it. He had never seen the grandchild he had 
 lost ; an unfamiliar fragment of this generation had 
 gone away to the grave, a man of his own generation 
 sat beside him, and led him back to the men and things 
 he knew by sight and by deed. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Lambert — now tell me." 
 
 "Aweel, sirr, ye've heerd o' the callant they wadna 
 let me save — hech, sirr, yon was a wean wastit & — noo 
 I'll mak' ye the joodge whether I could na hae saved 
 that ane, and twarree mair. There's a beck they ca' 
 i the Plumb ' rins doon fra' the horse-brae into the Clyde 
 near Stockwell Brigg. The bairns were aye for sporting 
 in the beck, because it was shallow by ordinar, and ye'd 
 see them the color o' vilets, and no' hauf sae sweet, wi' 
 the dye that ran i' the beck. Aweel, ae day there was 
 a band o' them there ; and a high spate * hed come doon 
 and catched them, and the resoolt was I saw ane o' th' 
 
154 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 assembly in the Clyde. I had warned the neer-do-weels, 
 ye ken, mony's the time. By good-luck, I was na far 
 away, and went in for him and took him by the ear. 
 < C'way, ye little deevil,' says I. I had na made three 
 strokes, when I'm catched round the neck wi' another 
 callan." 
 
 "Where on earth did he spring from ? 99 
 
 " I dinna ken. I was attending to number ane, when 
 number twa poppit up, just to tak' leave o' G-lasgwo. I 
 tell't them to stick in to me, and carried the pair ashore. 
 Directly, there's a skirl on the bank, and up comes num- 
 ber three, far ahint me in the Clyde, and sinks before I can 
 win ™> to him. Dives for this one, and has a wark to 
 find him at the bottom. Brings him ashore, in a kind o' 
 a dwam ; but I had nae fear for his life, he hadna been 
 doon lang : my lord had a deal mair mischief to do, ye 
 ken. By the same token he came to vera sune ; and d'ye 
 ken the first word he said to me ? 99 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Nay, but guess." 
 " I cannot." 
 
 " He said, < Dinna tell my feyther ! 9 ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! 
 ha! ha! ' Lordsake, man, dinna tell my feyther! 'ha! 
 ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 I never saw a man more tickled, by a straw, than 
 James Lambert was at this. By contemplating him I 
 was enabled, in the course of time, to lose my own grav- 
 ity; for his whole face was puckered with mirth, and 
 every inch of it seemed to laugh. 
 
 " But," said he, " wad you believe it, some officious 
 pairson tell't his feyther, in spite o' us baith. He was 
 just a laboring man. He called on me, and thankit me 
 vara hairtily, and gied me a refreshment. And I 
 thoucht mair o't than I hae thoucht o' a hantle siller on 
 the like occasions," 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 155 
 
 After one or two savings that would have gained a 
 man a medal in the South, but go for nothing in this 
 man's career, and would dilute the more colored inci- 
 dents, James Lambert prefaced a curious story by letting 
 me into his mind. "By this time, sirr," said he, " I was 
 aye prowling about day and night for vectims." 
 
 " Tell the truth, James. You had the pride of an 
 artist. You wanted them to fall in, that you might pull 
 them out, and show your dexterity." 
 
 " Dinna mak' me waur than I am, ha ! ha ! ha ! Nay, 
 but ye ken, in those days, folk was na sae acquainted in 
 sooming, and accidents was mair common ; and sae, if 
 such a thing was to be, I wad like to be there and save 
 'em. Ech, the sweetness o't ! — the sweetness o't ! 
 
 " I raised every morning between three and four, and 
 took a walk ; it was a kind o' my natur, and the river 
 was aye the first place I ran tae. Aweel, ae morning, 
 before 'twas well light, I heerd high words, and there 
 was a lass fleichting n on a lad, and chairging him wi' 
 beein' her ruin : and presently she runs away skirling, 
 and flings hersel' into the river. The lad he just turns 
 on his heel and walks away." 
 
 I expressed my surprise and horror — no matter in 
 what terms. 
 
 He replied, loftily, " My dear sirr, d'ye ken this ? there 
 have been men in the name o' men, that were little mair 
 than broom besoms." 
 
 I acquiesced. 
 
 " 'Twas na for sport neither. The lass knew the water, 
 and ran straicht to the deepest pairt, opposite Nelson's 
 Monument : her claes buoyed her up, and I got her out 
 easy eneuch. She was na ashore a moment, when in she 
 flees again, the daft hizzy. Noo the water maistly cools 
 thir sort o' lasses, and reconciles them to terree firmee. 
 But she was distrackit, she was just a woman that wanted 
 
156 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 to die. So I went in again, and lectured her a' the time 
 I was pulling her oot. ' Hae ye a quarrl wi' Him that 
 made ye, ye daft cummer ?' o says I ; and I held her on 
 the bank itsel' ; but if I was strong in the water, she was 
 stronger on land wi' her daftness, and she flung me off, 
 and in again. ' Vara weel, my leddy,' says I. Sae — d'ye 
 ken what I did noo ? " 
 "No." 
 
 " I just drooned her. I pit her heed under water, and 
 keepit there till I made her taste the bitterness o' dethe, 
 for her gude, ye ken. Hech, sirr, but it sickened her o' 
 yon game. She brought up a quart o' Clyde, and then 
 she lay and rolled a bit, and pu'd the grass, and then she 
 sat up quite as a lamb ; and I stood sentinel over her 
 leddyship, and my claes a-drippin'. By this time a wheen 
 folk cam' aboot to see, and doesna the lad, that was wi' 
 her, step forrud and complain to me. ' Ye'd little to do 
 to interfere,' says he ; ' she was wi' me ; she was na wi' 
 you.' — ' What,' says I, < d'ye begroodge the lass her life ? 1 
 — ' Not I,' says he ; ' but y' had no need to meddle ; what's 
 your business ? ' So I gied him his answer. Says I, 
 ' You have taen her character, and turned her on the 
 maircy of the warld, and noo it's a' your vexation that 
 ye could na' be rid of her in the Clyde. But she shall 
 outlive you, ye blackguard,' says I, ' please Gude.' So 
 then he challenged me to fight. But as I mad ready to 
 take off my coat, a fine lad steps forrud, and lays his 
 hand on my arm. ' Ye're-no fit for him,' says he; ' an' 
 ye've done your wark,' says he, 1 and this is mines.' So 
 at it they went, and t'other stood up and fought for 
 about five minutes. But oh, he napped it. My lad just 
 hashed him. Gied him twa black een, and at the hinder 
 end laid him sprawlin' and smothered i' bluid." 
 
 "But the woman?" 
 
 " She was na a woman. She was but a lassie, about 
 nineteen." 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 157 
 
 " Little fool ! and thought she was ruined for life — 
 when all her life was before her." 
 
 " Ye may say that, sirr : why, that very year wasna 
 she married on a decent tradesman ? I often saw her 
 after she was married ; but she wadna speak to me. She 
 could na look me straught i' the face. She'd say ' Gude 
 morning/ though — when she couldna get by me." 
 
 " Ungrateful little brute ! " 
 
 " Na, na ; it was na ingratitude ava ; it was just 
 shame. Aweel, she needna run fra' me noo ; for I canna 
 see her, nor ony of those I hae saved." 
 
 This made me gulp a bit, and, when I had done, I 
 said, " She measured you by her small self. She would 
 have been sure to blab, in such a case, so she thought 
 you would." 
 
 " Aweel then," said he, " she was mistaen ; for I maun 
 tell ye that some mischief-maker let on something or 
 other about it to her man, and he was uneasy, and came 
 and asked me if 'twas true I had taken his wife out o' 
 the water. ' Ay/ said I, ' her and twarree mair.' — 
 ' What had she to do i' the water ? ' says he. 6 That's 
 her business,' says I, 'mine was to tak' her oot.' He 
 questioned me had she been drinking. c Like eneuch,' 
 says I, ' but I couldna say.' He questioned me, and 
 questioned me ; but I pit the collar on, ye ken. I 
 behooved to clear the wife a' I could. I didna lee 
 neither; but I was afflickit wi' a sooden obleevion o' 
 sma' parteeculars, haw ! haw ! I dinna think muckle o' 
 yon carle. He had a rare gude wife ; they a' said so, 
 and whaur was the sense o' him diving into her past life, 
 to stir the mud ? " 
 
 Passing over an easy job or two, and a few melancholy 
 cases in which he had dived and groped the river, and 
 restored dead bodies to their friends, I come now to a 
 passage, which but for its truth I should hesitate to 
 
158 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 relate exactly as he told it me ; but, if I were to yield 
 to squeamishness and slur it, a chapter of human nature, 
 revealed to me, would by me be meanly carried to my 
 grave and hidden from the scholars of other ages and 
 nations. 
 
 Thus, then, it was : James Lambert was bathing in 
 the Clyde one evening at the hour when it was allowed 
 at that epoch. 
 
 Suddenly, Mrs. Cooper, that kept the Society's house, 
 cried to him over the window, " Kin, Jamie Lambert, 
 there is a laddie in the water." 
 
 Up ran James Lambert, but the boy had sunk. A 
 bystander directed him to the place ; but it is not so 
 easy to mark the exact spot where a body has dis- 
 appeared in the water ; and James Lambert dived twice, 
 and came up without the child. He dived a third time, 
 and groped along the bottom. He was down so long 
 that the cry got up he was drowned too. Others scouted 
 the idea. James Lambert drown ! They had known 
 him cross the Clyde, under the water, from bank to 
 bank. Some time having elapsed since the first alarm, 
 people had poured across the green, and down the banks, 
 and there was quite a crowd there murmuring and 
 gazing, when up came James Lambert, panting, with 
 the child in his arms. 
 
 There was a roar of exultation at the sight, but 
 James Lambert did not hear it, and did not see the 
 crowd. (Take note of that fact.) His whole soul was 
 in the lovely boy, that lay white and inanimate in his 
 arms. He ran into the house, uttering cries of concern. 
 
 " But when I got him in the hoose, he opens ae eye on 
 me — like a bonny blue bead it was. Eh ! I was happy ; 
 I was happy. I gied the bonny bairn a kiss and hands 
 him to the wife, and orders her to the fire wi' him. 
 Then I'm going oot, when a' of a soodden I find I haena 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 159 
 
 a steek on me, and twa hundred folk about the door. 
 Wad ye believe it, wi> the great excitement I never knew 
 1 was nakit, till I saw the folk, and bethought me. I 
 rins back again, and at the stair-foot, there's a bundle o' 
 linen. I was na lang happing mysel', I can tell ye, and 
 oot I comes as bold as brass, in the wife's apron and a 
 muckle sheet. The sight o' me made the lasses scairt 
 and skirl P; for I was like a corp just poppit oot o' the 
 grave. I went for my clothes, and — they were away. 
 My bluid gat up at that, and I chackit them sair. 
 'Hech,' says I, 'ye maun be a cauld-hairted set o' 
 thieves,' says I, 'to tak' my very claes, when I was 
 doing a mon's pairt.' Bymby? I sees a young leddy 
 in a silk gown, wagging on me r , and she points to a 
 hedge near by. So I went, and there were my claes. 
 She hed put them aside for me, ye ken, and keepit her 
 ee on them. Wasna that thouchtful o' her noo ? " 
 " It was, indeed." 
 
 " Aweel, sirr, I got my things on at the hedge, an' tied 
 up the wife's bundle, and cam' forrud : and by this time 
 the folk was dispairsed like. But the same young leddy 
 was walking to and fra, with her een doon, reflecking 
 like. She wagged on me, and I came to her. So she 
 askit me who I was, and I tell't her I was a cotton- 
 spinner, and they caed me James Lambert. So she 
 lookit at me full, and says she, 'James, are ye mar- 
 ried? 7 — 'Oh, yes, ma'am,' says I, 'this three years.' 
 So she lookit me all over, in a vara curious way ; and she 
 says saftly, ' James — it is — a — great — pity — yere 
 married — for yere a vara — gallant — man.' So ye see, 
 sirr, I could hae had a young leddy — for her ee tell't me 
 mair nor her words — if I had na had the wife. But 
 then I'd no hae had the wife. So it comes a' to the 
 same thing." 
 
 I stared at him with surprise, for to me it did not 
 
160 
 
 A HEKO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 seem quite the same thing to marry high sympathy, 
 swift intelligence, and plenty of money, and to marry 
 poverty plus grovelling mediocrity. However, it was 
 not for me to satirize conjugal affection and its amiable 
 delusions. But I proposed the young lady's health, and 
 we drank it cordially. 
 
 By this time I conclude I have so spoiled the readers 
 of James Lambert, that they will care for no passage of 
 his extraordinary career that does not offer some new 
 feature. So I go from water to the double peril of ice 
 and water at the freezing point. 
 
 " It was a hard winter ; and I had chairge o' the gen- 
 tlemen belonging to the skating club. So I had to go to 
 Hugginfield Loch. But I was clean wastit there. I was 
 armed wi' ladders an' ropes, and corks. Mon, ony fule 
 can stand and fling gear till a drooning body. And I 
 gat an awf u' affront intil the bargain ; they castit in my 
 teeth that I was partial, and saved the rich afore the 
 poor. Noo I let naebody droon, but my bargain was with 
 the club to save them first ; so I behooved to keep to the 
 contract. Aweel then, I did nae execution worth speak- 
 ing o' ; the thing I'm coming tae was at the bend of the 
 Clyde, they ca' 'the peat bog.' A number was skating 
 on the river, and the ice began to heave an' shake wi' the 
 high tide. So I chased all the boys aff wi' my belt, and 
 warned the men : but some folk winna be warned by me. 
 The ice breaks under a laboring man, and in he goes, and 
 the tide sucked him under in a moment. I ran to the 
 place as fast as I could, and under the ice after him. 
 Aweel, I soomed, and soomed, and did na catch him. I 
 soomed, and soomed, ay, hoping to find him, till I had 
 nae chance to come back alive if I did na turn. But, 
 just as I turned, my feet struck him. Then my hairt 
 got up again, and I grippit him, and I dragged him back 
 wi' me, and soomed and soomed for my ain life the noo, 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 161 
 
 as weel as his. Eh, mon, I was amaist gane. But I 
 wadna lose him. 'Twas baith live, or baith dee. Fm 
 just givin' in, when I see the light o' the hole, and mak' 
 for't, and get him oot and on to the ice, and dizna it 
 keep breaking direckly with the pair o' us, and sae we 
 go floonderin' and smashing, till we are helpit ashore. 
 ~Noo PU tell ye a farce. I'm haulding the chiel prisoner 
 by the collar, and shaking t'other neif 5 at them a'. 
 Ye ken I wanted to fleicht on them, for saying I riskit 
 myself mair for the rich than the puir. But a' I could 
 say was, t Wow — wow — wow ; ' the brethe wadna come 
 bock to my body. And while I was i wow — wow — 
 wowing ' at them, and gripin' my coptive like a molly- 
 factor, dizna he turn roond and thank me in a brief 
 discoorse vara ceevil. Eh, mon, I glowered at him ; I 
 loosed him, an' rolled away backards to glowe r at him. 
 He could hae repeated his catecheesm, and I could only 
 baash an' blather. The man was a better man than me ; 
 for he had been langer in. Oh, I declared that on the 
 bank, sune as ever I could speak." 
 
 I come now to the crowning feat of this philanthropic 
 and adventurous life ; and I doubt my power to describe 
 it. I halt before it, like one that feels weak, and a 
 mountain to climb ; for such a feat, I believe, was never 
 done in the water by mortal man, nor ever will again 
 while earth shall last. 
 
 James Lambert worked in Somerville's mill. Like 
 most of the hands, he must cross the water to get home. 
 For that purpose, a small ferry-boat was provided ; it lay 
 at a little quay near the mill. One Andrew had charge 
 of it ashore, and used to shove it off with a lever, and 
 receive it on its return. He often let more people go into 
 it than Lambert thought safe, and Lambert had remon- 
 strated, and had even said, " Ye'll hae an Occident some 
 day that ye'll rue but ance, and that will be a' your 
 
162 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 life." Andrew, in reply, told him to mind his own 
 business. 
 
 Well, one evening James Lambert wanted to get 
 away in the first boat-load. This was somehow con- 
 nected with his having bought a new hat : perhaps he 
 wished to avoid the crowd of workpeople — here I am 
 not very clear. However, he watched the great wheel, 
 and the moment it began to waver, previous to stopping, 
 he ran for his hat, and darted down the stairs. But, as 
 he worked in an upper story, full a dozen got into the 
 boat before him. He told Andrew to put off, but 
 Andrew would not till the boat should be full ; and soon 
 it was crammed. James Lambert then said it was a 
 shame of him to let so many on board. This angered 
 the man, and, when the boat was so crowded that her 
 gunwale was not far above water, he shoved her vio- 
 lently off into the tideway, and said words which, if he 
 has not prayed God to forgive them in this world, will 
 perhaps hang heavy round his neck in the next. 
 
 "To hell — ye beggars !" he cried. 
 
 This rough launching made the overladen boat wobble. 
 The women got frightened, and before the boat had gone 
 twenty yards she upset in dark, icy water, ten feet deep. 
 
 It was night. 
 
 " Before the boat coupit t athegither, they a' flew to 
 me that could : for they a' kenned me. F the water, 
 them that hadna a baud o' me, had a haud o' them that 
 had a haud o' me, and they carried me doon like leed." 
 
 Now it is an old saying, and a true one, that "After- 
 wit is everybody's wit." Were I to relate at once what 
 James Lambert accomplished, hundreds would imagine 
 they could have done the same. To correct that self- 
 deception, and make men appreciate this hero correctly, 
 I shall stop here, and entreat my readers, for the in- 
 struction of their own minds, to lay down this narra- 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 163 
 
 tive and shut their eyes, and ask themselves how it was 
 possible for mortal man to escape drowning himself, and 
 to save those who were drowning him. You have seen 
 that it cost him the skin of his finger to get clear of a 
 single baker. Here he was clutched and pinned by at 
 least four desperate drowning creatures, strong as lions 
 in their wild despair, and the weight of twelve people 
 more hanging on to those that clutched him, so that the 
 united weight of them all carried down the strong 
 swimmer, like a statue in a sack. 
 
 " Sirr, when yeve twa feet i' the grave, your mind 
 warks hard. I didna struggle, for it was nae mair use 
 than to wrastle wi' a kirk. I just strauchtened myself 
 oot like a corp w, and let them tak' me doon to the bot- 
 tom o' the Clyde ; and there I stood upright, an' waited ; 
 for I kenned the puir sauls would droon afore me, and I 
 saw just a wee wee chance to save them yet. Ye shall 
 understond, sirr, that when folk are drooning, they 
 dinna settle doon till the water fills their lungs and 
 drives the air oot. At first they waver up and doon at 
 sairtain intervals. Aweel, sirr, I waited for that, on the 
 grund. I was the only ane grunded, ye'll obsairve. A 
 slight upward movement commenced. I took advantage, 
 and gied a vi'lent spang wi' my feet against the bottom, 
 and, wi' me choosing my time, up we a' came. My arms 
 were grippit ; but I could strike oot wi' my feet, and, 
 before ever we reached the surface, I lashed oot 
 like a deevil, for the quay. Aweel, sirr, wi' all I could 
 do, we didna wend abune a yard, or maybe a yard an a 
 hauf, and doon they carried me like leed. I straucht- 
 ened myself as we sank, and I grunded. The lave 
 were a' roond me like a fon v. I bides my time, and, 
 when they are inclining upward, I strikes fra the grund ; 
 an' this time, mair slanting towards the quay. That 
 helpit us, and in a dozen vi'lent strokes we maybe 
 
164 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 gained twa yards this time. Then doon like leed. 
 Plays the same game again, up, and doon again. And 
 noo, sirr, there was something that turned sair against 
 us ; but then there was something for us to bollance it. 
 It was against us that they had all swallowed their pint 
 o' water by this time, and were na sae buoyant : it was 
 for us that the water was shallower noo, maybe not mair 
 than twa feet ower heed. Noo this twa feet wad droon 
 us as weel as twanty ; but wi' nae mair nor twa feet 
 water abune us, I could spring up fra the grun by mere 
 force, for the grun gies ye an awfu' poower for a foot or 
 twa. Sae noo I'm nae suner doon than up again, and 
 still creeping for the quay, and the water aye a wee bit 
 shallower. The next news is, I gat sair spent, and that 
 was bad : but, to bollance that, some folk on the quay 
 gat rapes and boat-hooks, and pickit off ane or twa that 
 was the nearest : and now ilka time I cam' up, they 
 pickit ane off, and that lightened my burden ; and 
 bymby I drave a couple into shallow water myseP wi' 
 my feet. When I was in seven fut water mysel', and 
 fewer folk hauding me doon, I got to be maister, and 
 shovit ane, and pu'd anither in, till we landed the whole 
 saxteen or seventeen. But my wark was na done, for I 
 kenned there were mair in the river. I saw the last o' 
 my ain band safe, then oot into the Clyde, wherever I 
 heerd cries, and sune I fand twa lasses skirling, takes 
 'em by their lang hair, -and tows them to the quay in a 
 minute. Just as I'm landing thir w twa, I hear a cry in 
 the vara middle o' the river, and in I splash. It was a 
 strapping lass — they caed her Elizabeth Whitelaw. 
 ' C'way, ye lang daftie,' says I, and begins to tow her. 
 Lo an' behold ! I'm grippit wi' a man under the water. 
 It was her sweethairt. She was hauding him doon. 
 The hizzy was a'reicht, but she was drooning the lad : 
 pairts these* twa lovers — for their gude — and taks 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 165 
 
 'em ashore, one in each hand. Aweel, sirr, I saved just 
 ane mair, and then I plunged in again, and sairched ; 
 but thir was nae mair to be seen noo : three puir lasses 
 were drooned : but I did na ken that at the time. And 
 noo I'll tell ye a farce. I'm seized wi' a faintness, and 
 maks for the shore. But I gat weaker, and dazed like, 
 and the lights o' Glasgow begins to flecker afore my 
 een : and thinks I, ' I'll no see ye again ; I'm done this 
 time.' It was all I could do for the bare life, to drift to 
 the hinder part of the quay. I hadna the power to 
 draw mysel' oot. I just grippit the quay, and sobbit. 
 The folk were a' busy with them I had saved ; nane of 
 them noticed me, and I would ha' been drooned that 
 nicht : — but wha d'ye think saved me that had saved 
 sae mony ? — an auld decrepit man : haw, haw, haw ! 
 He had a hookit stick, and gied me the handle, and 
 towed me along the quay into shallow water, and I gat 
 oot, wi' his help, and swooned deed away. I'm tauld I 
 lay there negleckit awhile ; but they fand me at last, and 
 then I had fifty nurses for ane." 
 
 Have I exaggerated ? Does history record any other 
 example of a man being clutched by a great number of 
 drowning people, and carried to the bottom, and saving 
 them all in the lump, and then dashing in and saving 
 the outsiders in detail ? 
 
 By way of illustration let the reader imagine an um- 
 brella-frame, and only four or five curved whalebones 
 attached to the top part of the upright : now fasten 
 several other curved whalebones, high up, to each of 
 those four or five curves. Now plunge the whole frame 
 into water till the upright touches the ground. Not one 
 of the sixteen curved pieces will touch the ground. 
 But, in the water, if a person, male or female, clings to a 
 fixed upright, that person's body floats up, more or less • 
 at all events, it inclines towards the horizontal. 
 25 
 
166 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 Now James Lambert, by artificially straightening his 
 body, made himself the stick of that human umbrella, 
 or the upright post they all clung to directly or indirectly, 
 and so were kept floating in a curve, instead of sinking 
 to the bottom. This enabled him, but only by patiently 
 and artfully watching the fluctuations up and down of 
 those floating bodies, to spring at the nick of time from 
 the hard ground, and carry them all to the surface for a 
 few seconds. The rest is detail, and his own narrative 
 makes it clear. But see what intellectual and moral 
 qualities are here combined. Genius is often without 
 courage ; courage is generally without genius, and so 
 indeed is bare skill ; and, in desperate danger, how often 
 has genius lost its head, and blundered like an idiot ; 
 how often has courage lacked invention, and relied on 
 precedent, that did not fit the novel danger, and so led it 
 to death. But this man, even as his body touched the 
 water, was all cool courage and swift inventive genius. 
 He did not repeat himself as mere skill does. Hugged 
 in the water by a single man — the baker — he hit, with 
 prompt invention, on the one way to save both lives ; he 
 used the baker's own chest as a fulcrum, and so tore 
 himself free. But clutched by a dozen, and more, he 
 never attempted to get free at all, but straightened and 
 stiffened himself into an upright post, and used the 
 ground as his fulcrum, to save himself and those who 
 were drowning themselves and him. 
 
 I come, now, to the sad ending of all these glorious 
 deeds. 
 
 James Lambert was up the river working, but at what 
 business I forget. An engineer fell into the water, and 
 sank for the last time, before James could get to the 
 place. 
 
 Following the direction of persons on the bank, he 
 flung himself from a bridge, and dived for the man. 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 167 
 
 But the others had not marked the place precisely, 
 and when, after repeated efforts, he brought the man 
 to land, life was gone forever. To use his own words, 
 " It was a dear jump. He lost his life, and I lost my 
 sight." 
 
 It was winter, and he was perspiring freely when he 
 jumped into the icy water. 
 
 Very soon after, a great dazzling seized him, followed 
 by darkness. It cleared after a time, and he saw again. 
 But the same thing occurred at intervals ; and, by de- 
 grees, the attacks came oftener, and remained longer, 
 until at last the darkness settled down, and the light 
 fled forever. 
 
 Think of it. This twenty years he can no longer see 
 the " Dominie's Hole," nor "the three stanes," nor "the 
 peat bog," nor "the dead-house," nor the Clyde itself, 
 where every bend is the scene of some great good feat 
 he did. More than fourscore eyes he rescued from the 
 darkness of the grave ; yet unjust fate and dire calamity 
 have not left him one poor orb to see the blessed day 
 and the faces of those he has saved. 
 
 Now turn back to the story repeated from the Glasgow 
 Times, and surely you will say that it was a rare, and 
 noble, and poetic distress, and worthy to be sung by 
 some great poet. 
 
 I am no poet, and cannot adorn so strong a tale ; 
 therefore I have aimed at that which all honest men can 
 attain, if they will but take trouble ; viz., the exact 
 truth. I travelled to see him. I stayed in Glasgow 
 many days to know him. I took him down to the Clyde, 
 and verified every spot, and got him to tell me each 
 principal incident over again, at its own site, and I 
 noted down his very words, as well as I could. 
 
 The next thing was to rescue his features from obliv- 
 ion. I asked him to meet me at the photographer's. 
 
168 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 He did so, but, horrible to relate, dressed as all Scotch- 
 men dress on Sundays. 
 
 u James," said I, severely, " was it in this clerical suit 
 you saved so many lives ? " 
 
 "No likely," said he; "except yon carle that was 
 bathing o' the sabba' day. Mod, I was for coming in 
 my auld claes that I wrought at the mill yon time : but 
 the wife cried shame ; she wadna let me." 
 
 Observe how devoid of common-sense is common- 
 sense, the moment it meddles with the things of 
 genius. So I sent him back for his old clothes, and I 
 now present you not indeed the hero himself, but his 
 true wreck. The picture will mislead you, unless you 
 allow for that sad misrepresentation of the manly 
 mouth which takes place when a hero loses his front 
 teeth. Observe the thin straight lips, and the strong 
 chin: those lips, when the teeth were behind them, 
 marked iron resolution. Add to the straight, thin, Amer- 
 ican mouth, an eye full of fire ; and, by the wreck, you 
 may divine the man. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 James Lambert is of ordinary size, but very clean- 
 built and wiry. The signs of great activity still linger 
 about him. The easy attitude in which I first saw him 
 was that of a man who could spring across the room in 
 a moment from where he stood. 
 
 In manner he is two men ; sometimes grave, slow, and 
 thoughtful ; sometimes fiery and vivacious ; and the 
 changes are well timed; for he relates his feats with 
 French vivacity, but makes his reflections in a slow, 
 thoughtful way that is Scotch all over. It is just pos- 
 sible that " race " may have a hand in his vivacious half, 
 for he admits a French progenitor, and " Lambert " is a 
 French name. 
 
A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 169 
 
 I have not known him long enough to draw his whole 
 character ; but to what is revealed in his recorded acts 
 I can add one trait ; he is a man without bile. I offer 
 one example : after describing with great spirit how he 
 saved a respectable acquaintance, he told me that the 
 said individual had afterwards avoided him; and then 
 he stopped and went in a moment from his French 
 manner to his Scotch. 
 
 " And — I hae — obsairved, sirr, that the mair part — 
 of them I hae saved — shuns me." 
 
 Straight I exploded with ire at their baseness. But 
 I could not convey my spleen into this heroic bosom 
 void of bile. 
 
 " Na, sirr," said he, with the same measured thought- 
 fulness, " I just — - think — it is ower great — a debt — 
 to awe to ony man ; and they feel it a burrden." 
 
 Almost any other man, finding, in a certain base 
 biped, vanity too strong for gratitude, would have vented 
 the discovery in tones, either of wrath, or of piteous 
 complaint ; but this man sounded like a patient, inquir- 
 ing philosopher : certainly a faint tone of regret pierced 
 through, but no more than became, a philosopher, gently 
 disappointed in mankind. To me, who have seen so 
 much storming and blubbering over trifles, this thought- 
 ful, uncomplaining dignity was as pathetic as it was 
 noble. 
 
 If the man seems egotistical, his discourse being all 
 about himself, you must remember that I kept drawing 
 him out, and that the true balance of the dialogue is 
 not presented, since I have suppressed the greater part 
 of my questions, as not worth printing. 
 
 I ought also to tell you that his manner of relating 
 his exploits had no touch of vanity, nor boasting, nor 
 self-gratulation. It was a thing both strange and fine 
 to see how he was carried away out of the dark present 
 
170 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 into those glowing scenes, re-lighted by the sun of 
 memory. As he related, the whole man quivered with 
 excitement. When he was telling me how he dived for 
 the little boy opposite "the dead-house," I took his 
 hand, and — under cover of sympathy, being a prying 
 scoundrel — I furtively felt his pulse. It was beating 
 about one hundred and ten to the minute ; his heart was 
 once more doing tlie deed, and his poor blind face shone 
 with angelic goodness, and gleamed with heroic fire. 
 
 This hero and martyr has a foible, not an uncommon 
 one in Glasgow ; but still a sad fault. He is too fond 
 of whiskey — much. 
 
 Bookmakers' morality will say, " Why reveal the 
 infirmity of such a man ? n I'll tell you ; because in 
 less than two hundred years the first stone of honesty 
 in biography will have to be laid ; so, not to waste the 
 world's time, I lay it now. 
 
 Since, in this best of all possible worlds, much is 
 done for moderately good killers of men, you may be 
 curious to know what man has done for this incompar- 
 able saver of men. 
 
 He has earned the gold medal of the Humane Society 
 twice, and the silver about twelve times. 
 
 He has never received either. 
 
 He better deserves every order and decoration the 
 state or the sovereign can bestow, than does any gentle- 
 man or nobleman in this land, whose bosom is a constel- 
 lation. Yet not a cross nor a ribbon has ascended from 
 the vulgar levels, where they grow like buttercups, to 
 the breast of this immortal hero. And why ? he is but 
 a saver of men, not a killer ; he is only a Christian 
 hero ; and, in the distribution of glory, the world, in- 
 cluding the very preachers of the gospel, is as rank a 
 heathen as ever in spite of Christ ; and a fool in spite 
 of Voltaire. 
 
A OTRO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 171 
 
 The one public honor paid him is this. — A suspension 
 bridge has been built over the Clyde where he saved 
 more than twenty lives that one dark night ; and over 
 this bridge two men pass gratis till they die ; Bailie 
 Harvey and Hero Lambert. The rest of mankind pays 
 a halfpenny. 
 
 So much for his decorations. Then for his pensions. 
 He has but one ; and that is local, not imperial, though 
 the places the man adorns are the empire and the world. 
 The Barony Parish, Glasgow, allows him three and six- 
 pence a week. But he was earning twenty-rive to thirty 
 when he fell blind. So that his local allowance, for 
 benefits to mankind, does not compensate him for his 
 calamity, by five-sixths ; and his heroic and philan* 
 thropic feats are left out of the arithmetic altogether. 
 
 I propose, then, to those who govern this country, 
 to depart from the stiff precedents of savages, and to 
 take wider and more enlightened views of heroism, be- 
 ginning with James Lambert, since they cannot begin 
 better. They have the example of France ; she bestows 
 civic honors on the heroes who save, as well as on the 
 heroes who kill. 
 
 I propose to the Humane Society to bestow their gold 
 medal. Anything less would be no compliment to this 
 great saver. 
 
 As for the English public, that needs no spur. When 
 this narrative appears in an influential journal, hundreds 
 will desire to improve James Lambert's condition. The 
 best way to do that would be to secure him a fixed and 
 large increase of income for the few years he has to 
 live. It is out of my way, but in this one case I would 
 receive and acknowledge donations with this object. 
 
 But I also wish to procure him the blessed boon of 
 personal sympathy. I will not encourage a raid of 
 staring dunces, pragmatical charlatans, and gaping 
 
172 
 
 A HERO AND A MARTYR. 
 
 quidnuncs ; for that would do him harm, not good. But 
 I will give his present address to any ladies and gentle- 
 men who may be able and willing to go to him in the 
 right spirit. Any such superior soul, who will visit him 
 in person, and with gentle hand draw him awhile from 
 the things present, which he cannot see, to the past, 
 which he can see, will mount high on what an old author 
 calls " the ladder of charity,'-' for this will be a charity 
 in a very refined and gracious form ; it will be charity 
 + brains. None will repent such a visit: though his 
 estate is humble, he is one of nature's gentlemen, fit 
 company for an emperor ; and he is a sight better worth 
 seeing than half the public shows ; for he is a man 
 without his fellow. 
 
GLOSSARY. 
 
 a. Cry me to him, i.e., Cry right — left — etc., till I find him. 
 
 b. The lave— The rest, 
 e. Faitour — Feat. 
 
 d. Soom — Swim. 
 
 e. Gallant — A boy. 
 
 f. Naepkin — Handkerchief. English. 
 
 g. Lug — Ear. 
 
 h. Twarree — Two or three. 
 
 i. Washing-bay, or bay ne — Tub. French, " Bain." 
 j. Dour — Grim — severe. Latin, " Durus." 
 
 k. A wean wastit — A child thrown away. 
 I. Spate — Flood. 
 
 m. Win, won, etc. — Tenses of the old verb " wend" — to go. 
 
 Saxon, 
 n. Fleichting — Scolding. 
 
 o. Cummer — A woman of the people. French, " Commere." 
 p. Scairt and skirl — Run and squeal. Scairt is French 
 
 " Sortir." 
 q. Bymby — By and by. 
 r. Wagging on me — Beckoning to me. 
 s. 1$e\i — Fist. English, 
 t. Coupit — Upset, 
 u. Corp — Corpse, 
 v. Fon — Fan. 
 w. Thir— These, 
 x. These — Those. 
 
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