The Cloister and the Hearth Part 54

'Monseigneur,' said the cure right humbly, 'doth the parish allege many things against me, or this one only?' 'In sooth, but this one,' said the bishop; and softened a little. 'First, monseigneur, I acknowledge the fact.' "Tis well,' quoth the bishop; 'that saves time and trouble. Now to your excuse, if excuse there be.' 'Monseigneur, I have been cure of that parish seven years, and fifty children have I baptized, and buried not five. At first I used to say, "Heaven be praised, the air of this village is main healthy," but on searching the register book I found 'twas always so, and on probing the matter, it came out that of those born at Domfront, all, but here and there one, did go and get hanged at Aix. But this was to defraud not their cure only, but the entire Church of her dues: since "pendards" pay no funeral fees, being buried in air.

Thereupon, knowing by sad experience their greed, and how they grudge the Church every sou, I laid a trap to keep them from hanging: for, greed against greed, there be of them that will die in their beds like true men, ere the Church shall gain those funeral fees for nought.' Then the bishop laughed till the tears ran down, and questioned the churchwarden, and he was fain to confess that too many of the parish did come to that unlucky end at Aix. 'Then,' said the bishop, 'I do approve the act, for myself and my successors; and so be it ever, till they mend their manners and die in their beds.' And the next day came the ringleaders crest-fallen to the cure, and said, 'Parson, ye were ever good to us, barring this untoward matter: prithee let there be no ill blood anent so trivial a thing.' And the cure said, 'My children, I were unworthy to be your pastor could I not forgive a wrong; go in peace, and get me as many children as may be, that by the double fees the cure you love may miss starvation.'

"And the bishop often told the story, and it kept his memory of the cure alive, and at last he shifted him to a decent parish, where he can offer a gla.s.s of old Medoc to such as are worthy of it. Their name it is not legion."

A light broke in upon Gerard, his countenance showed it.

"Ay!" said his host, "I am that cure: so now thou canst guess why I said 'At their old tricks.' My life on't they have wheedled my successor into remitting those funeral fees. You are well out of that parish. And so am I."

The cure's little niece burst in, "Uncle, the weighing:--la! a stranger!" And burst out.

The cure rose directly, but would not part with Gerard.

"Wet thy beard once more, and come with me."

In the church porch they found the s.e.xton with a huge pair of scales, and weights of all sizes. Several humble persons were standing by, and soon a woman stepped forward with a sickly child and said, "Be it heavy, be it light, I vow, in rye meal of the best, whate'er this child shall weigh, and the same will duly pay to holy Church, an if he shall cast his trouble. Pray, good people, for this child, and for me his mother hither come in dole and care!"

The child was weighed, and yelled as if the scale had been the font.

"Courage! dame," cried Gerard. "This is a good sign. There is plenty of life here to battle its trouble."

"Now, blest be the tongue that tells me so," said the poor woman. She hushed her ponderling against her bosom, and stood aloof watching, whilst another woman brought her child to scale.

But presently a loud, dictatorial voice was heard. "Way there, make way for the seigneur!"

The small folk parted on both sides like waves ploughed by a lordly galley, and in marched in gorgeous attire, his cap adorned by a feather with a topaz at its root, his jerkin richly furred, satin doublet, red hose, shoes like skates, diamond-hilted sword in velvet scabbard, and hawk on his wrist, "the lord of the manor." He flung himself into the scales as if he was lord of the zodiac as well as the manor; whereat the hawk balanced and flapped; but stuck: then winked.

While the s.e.xton heaved in the great weights, the cure told Gerard: "My lord had been sick unto death, and vowed his weight in bread and cheese to the poor, the Church taking her tenth."

"Permit me, my lord; if your lordship continues to press with your lordship's staff on the other scale, you will disturb the balance."

His lordship grinned and removed his staff, and leaned on it. The cure politely but firmly objected to that too.

"Mille diables! what am I to do with it, then?" cried the other.

"Deign to hold it out so, my lord, wide of both scales."

When my lord did this, and so fell into the trap he had laid for holy Church, the good cure whispered to Gerard, "Cretensis incidit in Cretensem!" which I take to mean, "Diamond cut diamond." He then said with an obsequious air, "If that your lordship grudges Heaven full weight, you might set the hawk on your lacquey, and so save a pound."

"Gramercy for thy rede, cure," cried the great man, reproachfully.

"Shall I for one sorry pound grudge my poor fowl the benefit of holy Church? I'd as lieve the devil should have me and all my house as her, any day i' the year."

"Sweet is affection," whispered the cure.

"Between a bird and a brute," whispered Gerard.

"Tush!" and the cure looked terrified.

The seigneur's weight was booked, and Heaven I trust and believe did not weigh his grat.i.tude in the balance of the sanctuary.

For my unlearned reader is not to suppose there was anything the least eccentric in the man, or his grat.i.tude to the Giver of health and all good gifts. Men look forward to death, and back upon past sickness, with different eyes. Item, when men drive a bargain, they strive to get the sunny side of it; it matters not one straw whether it is with man or Heaven they are bargaining. In this respect we are the same now, at bottom, as we were four hundred years ago: only in those days we did it a grain or two more navely, and that navete shone out more palpably, because, in that rude age, body prevailing over mind, all sentiments took material forms. Man repented with scourges, prayed by bead, bribed the saints with wax tapers, put fish into the body to sanctify the soul, sojourned in cold water for empire over the emotions, and thanked G.o.d for returning health in 1 cwt. 2 stone 7 lb. 3 oz. 1 dwt. of bread and cheese.

Whilst I have been preaching, who preach so rarely and so ill, the good cure has been soliciting the lord of the manor to step into the church, and give order what shall be done with his great-great-grandfather.

"Ods bodikins! what, have you dug him up?"

"Nay, my lord, he never was buried."

"What, the old dict was true after all?"

"So true that the workmen this very day found a skeleton erect in the pillar they are repairing. I had sent to my lord at once, but I knew he would be here."

"It is he! 'Tis he!" said his descendant, quickening his pace. "Let us go see the old boy. This youth is a stranger I think."

Gerard bowed.

"Know then that my great-great-grandfather held his head high, and, being on the point of death, revolted against lying under the aisle with his forbears for mean folk to pa.s.s over. So, as the tradition goes, he swore his son (my great-grandfather) to bury him erect in one of the pillars of the church" (here they entered the porch). "'For,' quoth he, 'NO BASE MAN SHALL Pa.s.s OVER MY STOMACH.' Peste!" and, even while speaking, his lordship parried adroitly with his stick a skull that came hopping at him, bowled by a boy in the middle of the aisle, who took to his heels yelling with fear the moment he saw what he had done. His lordship hurled the skull furiously after him as he ran, at which the cure gave a shout of dismay and put forth his arm to hinder him, but was too late.

The cure groaned aloud. And, as if this had evoked spirits of mischief, up started a whole pack of children from some ambuscade, and unseen, but heard loud enough, clattered out of the church like a covey rising in a thick wood.

"Oh! these pernicious brats," cried the cure. "The workmen cannot go to their nonemete but the church is rife with them. Pray Heaven they have not found his late lordship; nay, I mind, I hid his lordship under a workman's jerkin, and--saints defend us! the jerkin has been moved."

The poor cure's worst misgivings were realized: the rising generation of plebeians had played the mischief with the haughty old n.o.ble. "The little ones had jockeyed for the bones oh" and pocketed such of them as seemed adapted for certain primitive games then in vogue amongst them.

"I'll excommunicate them," roared the curate, "and all their race."

"Never heed," said the scapegrace lord: and stroked his hawk; "there is enough of him to swear by. Put him back! put him back!"

"Surely, my lord, 'tis your will his bones be laid in hallowed earth, and ma.s.ses said for his poor prideful soul?"

The n.o.ble stroked his hawk.

"Are ye there, Master Cure?" said he. "Nay, the business is too old: he is out of purgatory by this time, _up or down_. I shall not draw my pursestrings for him. Every dog his day. Adieu, Messires, adieu, ancestor:" and he sauntered off whistling to his hawk and caressing it.

His reverence looked ruefully after him.

"Cretensis incidit in Cretensem," said he sorrowfully. "I thought I had him safe for a dozen ma.s.ses. Yet I blame him not, but that young ne'er-do-weel which did trundle his ancestor's skull at us: for who could venerate his great-great-grandsire and play football with his head? Well it behoves us to be better Christians than he is." So they gathered the bones reverently, and the cure locked them up and forbade the workmen, who now entered the church, to close up the pillar, till he should recover by threats of the Church's wrath every atom of my lord.

And he showed Gerard a famous shrine in the church. Before it were the usual gifts of tapers, &c. There was also a wax image of a falcon, most curiously moulded and coloured to the life, eyes and all. Gerard's eye fell at once on this, and he expressed the liveliest admiration. The cure a.s.sented. Then Gerard asked "Could the saint have loved hawking?"

The cure laughed at his simplicity. "Nay, 'tis but a statuary hawk. When they have a bird of gentle breed they cannot train they make his image, and send it to this shrine with a present, and pray the saint to work upon the stubborn mind of the original, and make it ductile as wax: that is the notion, and methinks a reasonable one, too."

Gerard a.s.sented. "But alack, reverend sir, were I a saint, methinks I should side with the innocent dove, rather than with the cruel hawk that rends her."

"By St. Denys you are right," said the cure. "But, que voulez-vous? the saints are debonair, and have been flesh themselves, and know man's frailty and absurdity. 'Tis the Bishop of Avignon sent this one."

"What do bishops hawk in this country?"

"One and all. Every n.o.ble person hawks, and lives with hawk on wrist.

Why my lord abbot hard by, and his lordship that has just parted from us, had a two years' feud as to where they should put their hawks down on that very altar there. Each claimed the right hand of the altar for his bird."