The Cloister and the Hearth Part 150

"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?"

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 G.o.d!" she cried, "thank G.o.d! Oh, bless thee, Gerard, bless thee!

Why what is here, Gerard?"

On the other leaves were pinned every sc.r.a.p 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 tenderness. 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 affection of candour.

"'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh.

"We shall see. Tell me, have you escaped temptation here? Why I ask is, when _I_ 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 loth, to be tempted."

"Aye that is another matter; _I_ should tempt thee then? to what, i'

G.o.d'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 another? Oh! how shallow are the wise, and how little able are you to read me, who can read you so well from top to toe. Come, learn thy A B C. 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 sometimes. 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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; "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?"

"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 languor 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, '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 her favourite's child--for you _were_ her favourite--and her immortal jewel to G.o.d, and pa.s.sed 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: G.o.d 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 loth 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."