The Cloister and the Hearth Part 152

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 fasting 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 b.u.t.ts' 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 b.u.t.ts' length from here at any rate."

"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 parlour. "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 ha.s.sock, 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; 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! 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, murmuring 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 Elia.s.soen, parson of Gouda.

FOOTNOTE:

[L] I think she means prejudice.

CHAPTER XCVIII

MARGARET went back to Rotterdam long ere Gerard awoke, and actually left her boy behind her. She sent the faithful, st.u.r.dy Reicht off to Gouda directly with a vicar's grey frock and large felt hat, and with minute instructions how to govern her new master.

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

She kept away from Gouda parsonage.

Things that pa.s.s little noticed in the heat of argument, sometimes rankle afterwards; and, when she came to go over all that had pa.s.sed, she was offended at Gerard's thinking she could ever forget the priest in the sometime lover. "For what did he take me?" said she. And this raised a great shyness which really she would not otherwise have felt, being downright innocent. And pride sided with modesty, and whispered "Go no more to Gouda parsonage."

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

But this generous stroke of policy cost her heart dear. She had never yet been parted from her boy an hour; and she felt sadly strange as well as desolate without him. After the first day it became intolerable; and what does the poor soul do, but creep at dark up to Gouda parsonage, and lurk about the premises like a thief till she saw Reicht Heynes in the kitchen alone. Then she tapped softly at the window and said, "Reicht, for pity's sake bring him out to me unbeknown." With Margaret the person who occupied her thoughts at the time ceased to have a name, and sank to a p.r.o.noun.

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

And it was arranged that Reicht should take him half way to Rotterdam every day, at a set hour, and Margaret meet them. And at these meetings, after the raptures, and after mother and child had gambolled together like a young cat and her first kitten, the boy would sometimes amuse himself alone at their feet, and the two women generally seized this opportunity to talk very seriously about Luke Peterson. This began thus:

"Reicht," said Margaret, "I as good as promised him to marry Luke Peterson. 'Say you the word,' quoth I, 'and I'll wed him.'"

"Poor Luke!"

"Prithee, why poor Luke?"

"To be bandied about so, atwixt yea and nay."

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

"Me?" said Reicht, with a toss of the head.

"Oh, I ask your pardon. Well, then, you can do me a good turn."

"Whist! whisper! that little darling is listening to every word, and eyes like saucers."

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

Two women plotting against one boy? Oh you great cowardly serpents!

But when these stolen meetings had gone on 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 colour in his pale face, sat the vicar of Gouda in the grey frock and large felt hat she had sent him.