The Path of Life Part 4

He was outside once more, loafing on, along the houses.

V. SPRING

Mother stood like a clucking hen among her red-cheeked youngsters. She was holding a loaf against her fat stomach and, with a curved pruning-knife, was cutting off good thick slices which the youngsters s.n.a.t.c.hed away one by one and stuffed into their pockets. Horieneke fetched her basket of knitting and her school-books. She first pulled Fonske's stocking up once more, b.u.t.toned Sarelke's breeches and wiped Lowietje's nose; and, with an admonishing "Straight to school, do you hear, boys?" from mother, the whole band rushed out of the door, through the little flower-garden and up the broad unmetalled road, straight towards the great golden sun which was rising yonder, far behind the pollard alders, in a mighty fire of rays. It was cool outside; the sky was bright blue streaked with glowing shafts aslant the hazy-white clouds deep, deep in the heavens. Over the level fields, ever so far, lay a stain of pale green and brown; and the slender stalks of the wheat stood like needles, quivering in their glittering moisture. The trees were still nearly bare; and their trunks and tops stood tall and black against the clear sky; but, when you saw them together, in rows or little cl.u.s.ters, there was a soft yellow-green colour over them, spotted with gleaming buds ready to burst. A soft wind, just warm enough to thaw the frost, worked its way into and through everything and made it all shake and swarm till it was twisted full of restless, growing life. That wind curled through the youngsters' tangled hair and coloured their round cheeks cherry-red. They ran and romped through the dry sand, stamping till it flew above their heads. They were mad with enjoyment.

Trientje stood in the doorway, in her little shirt, with her stomach sticking out, watching her brothers as they disappeared; and, when she saw them no longer, she thrust her fists into her sockets, opened her mouth wide and started a-crying, until mother's hands lifted her up by the arms and mother's thick lips gave her a hearty kiss.

Horieneke came walking step by step under the lime-trees, along the narrow gra.s.s-path beside the sand, keeping her eyes fixed on the play of her knitting-needles. When she reached the bridge that crossed the brook, she looked round after her brothers. They had run down the slope and were now trotting wildly one after the other through the rich brown gra.s.s, pulling up all the white and yellow flowers, one by one, till their arms were crammed with them. Horieneke took out her catechism, laid it open on the low rail and sat there cheerfully waiting. Sarelke had crept through the water-flags until he was close to the brook and, through the clear, gleaming blue water, watched a little fish frisking about. In a moment, his wooden shoes and his stockings were off and one leg was in the water, trying it: it was cold; and he felt a shiver right down his back. Ripples played on the smooth blue and widened out to the bank. The little fish was gone, but so was the cold; and he saw more fish, farther away: quick now, the other leg in the water! He pulled his breeches up high and there he stood, with the water well above his knees, peering out for fish. The water was clear as gla.s.s; and he saw swarms of them playing, darting swiftly up and down, to and fro like arrows: they shot past in shoals that held together like long snakes, in among the moss and the reeds and between the stones, winding through slits and crannies. He shouted aloud for joy. Bertje and Wartje and the others all had their stockings off and stood in the water bending down to look, making funnels of their hands in the water, where it rustled in little streams between two gra.s.s-sods through which the fish had to pa.s.s. Whenever they felt one wriggling in their hands they yelled and screamed and sprang out of the brook to put it into their wooden shoes, which stood on the bank, scooped full of water. There they loitered examining those beasties from close by: those fish were theirs now; and they would let them swim about in the big tub at home and give them a bit of their bread and b.u.t.ter every day, so that they might grow into great big pike. And now back to the runnel for more.

"Boys, I'll tell mother!" cried Horieneke.

But they did not hear and just kept on as before. Fonske had not been able to catch one yet and his fat legs were turning blue with the cold.

In front of him stood Bertje, stooping and peering into the water, with his hands ready to grasp; and Fonske saw such a lovely little runnel from his neck to halfway down his back, all bare skin. He carefully scooped his hands full of water and let it trickle gently inside Bertje's shirt.

The boy growled; and Fonske, screaming with laughter, skipped out of the brook. Now came a romping and stamping in the water, a dashing and splashing with their hands till it turned to a rain of gleaming drops that fell on their heads and wetted their clothes through and through.

And a bawling! And a plashing with their bare legs till the spray spouted high over the bank.

"The constable!" cried Horieneke.

The sport was over. Like lightning they all sprang out of the brook, caught up their wooden shoes with the little fish in them and ran as hard as they could through the gra.s.s to the bridge. There only did they venture to look round. Hurriedly they turned down their breeches, dried their shiny cheeks and dripping hair with one another's handkerchiefs and then marched all together through the sun and wind to school.

In the village square they wandered about among the other boys, silently showed their catch, hid their shoes in the hawthorn-hedge behind the churchyard and stayed playing until schoolmaster's bell rang.

Boys and girls, each on their own side, disappeared through the gate; and the street was now silent as the grave. After a while, there came through the open window of the school first a sort of buzzing and humming and then a repet.i.tion in chorus, a rhythmical spelling aloud: b-u-t, but; t-e-r, ter: b.u.t.ter; B-a, Ba; b-e-l, bel: Babel; ever on and more and more noisily. In between it all, the sparrows chattered and chirped and fluttered safely in the powdery sand of the playground.

The sun was now high in the sky and the light glittered on the young leaves, full of the glad life of youth and gleaming with gold.

Horieneke, with a few more children, was in another school. They sat, the boys on one side and the girls on the other, on long benches and were wrapped up in studying their communion-book and listening to an old nun, who explained it to them in drawling, snuffling tones. After that, they had to say their lesson, one by one; and this all went so quietly, so modestly, so easily, 'twas as if they had the open book before them.

Half-way through the morning, they went two and two through the village to the church, where the priest was waiting to hear their catechism. This also went quietly; and the questions and answers sounded hollow in that empty church.

Horieneke sat at the head of the girls; she had caught up almost half of them because she always knew her lessons so well and listened so attentively. She was allowed to lead the prayers and was the first examined; then she sat looking at the priest and listening to what came from his lips. He always gave her a kind smile and held her up to the others as an example of good conduct. After the catechism, they had leave to go and play in the convent-garden. In the afternoon, there were new lessons to be learnt and new explanations; and then quietly home.

So they lived quite secluded, alone, in their own little world of modesty and piety, preparing for the great day. The other youngsters, who went their several ways, felt a certain awe for these school-fellows who once used to romp and fight with them and who were now so good, so earnest, so neat in their clothes and so polite. The "first-communicants:" the word had something sacred about it which they respected; and the little ones counted on their fingers how many years they would have to wait before they too were learning their catechism and having leave to play in the convent-garden.

To her brothers Horieneke had now become a sacred thing, like a guardian angel who watched over them everywhere; and they dared do no mischief when she was by. She no longer played with them after school; she was now their "big sister," to whom they softly whispered the favours which they wished to get out of mother.

When Trientje saw her sister coming home in the distance, she put out her little arms and then would not let her go. For mother, Horieneke had to wash the dishes, darn the stockings and, when the baby cried, sit for hours rocking it in the cradle or dandling it on her lap, like a little young mother.

Holding Trientje by the hand and carrying the other on her arm, she would walk along the paths of the garden and then put them both down on the bench in the box arbour, while she tended the plants and shrubs that were beginning to shoot.

In the evening, when the bell rang for benediction, she called all her little brothers and they went off to church together. From every side came wives in hooded cloaks and lads in wooden shoes that stamped on the great floor till it echoed in the silent nave.

The choir was a semicircular, homely little chapel, with narrow pointed windows, black at this hour, like deep holes, with leads outlining saints in shapeless dark patches of colour. The altar was a ma.s.s of burning candles; and a flickering gleam fell on the bra.s.s candlesticks, the little gold leaves and the artificial flowers and on the corners of the silver monstrance, which stood glittering high up in a little white satin house. All of this was clouded in a blue smoke which rose from the holes of the censer continuously swung to and fro by the arm of a roguish serving-boy. Far at the back, in the dark, in the black stripes of shadow cast by the pillars or under the cold bright patch of a lamp or a stand of votive candles was an old wife, huddled under her hood, with bent back, praying, and here and there a troop of boys who by turns dropped their wooden shoes or fought with one another's rosaries.

Near the communion-bench knelt Horieneke, her eyes wide open, full of brightness and gladness and ecstacy, face to face with Our Lord. The incense smelt so good and the whole little church was filled with the trailing chords of the organ and with soft, plaintive Latin chant. Her lips muttered automatically and the beads glided through her fingers: numbered Hail Marys like so many roses that were to adorn her heart against the coming of the great G.o.d. Her thoughts wafted her up to Heaven in that wide temple full of glittering lights where, against the high walls full of pedestals and niches, the saints, all stiff with gold and jewels, stood smiling under their haloes and the nimble angels flew all around on their white-plaster wings. She had something to ask of every one of them and they received her prayer in turns. When the priest stood up in his gleaming silver cope, climbed the three steps and took the Blessed Sacrament in his white hands to give the benediction; when the bell tinkled and the censer flew on high and the organ opened all its throats and the glittering monstrance slowly made a cross in the air and above the heads of the worshippers, she fell forward over her praying-stool and lay like that, swooning in mute adoration, until all was silent again, the candles out and she sitting alone there in the dark with a few black shapes of cloaked women who wandered discreetly from one station of the Cross to the next. Outside she heard her brothers playing in the church-square. There she joined the little girls of her school; and, arm in arm, they walked along past the dark houses and the silent trees, each whispering her own tale: about her new dress, her veil, her white shoes, her long taper with golden bows; about flowers and beads and prayers....

After supper, Horieneke had to rock the baby to sleep, while mother moved about, and then to say the evening prayers out loud, after which they all of them went to bed. On reaching her little bedroom, she visited all the prints and images hanging on the walls. She then undressed and listened whether any one was still awake or up. Next she carefully crept down the three stairs[6] in her little shift and clambered up the ladder to the loft, where all her little brothers lay playing in a great box-bed. They knew that she would come and had kept a place for her in the middle. She sank deep in the straw and, when they all lay still, she went on with the tale which she had broken off yesterday half-way. It was all made up of long, long stories out of _The Golden Legend_ and wonderful adventures of far beyond the sea in unknown lands. She told it all so prettily, so leisurely; and the children listened like eager little birds. High up in the dusk of the rafters they saw all those things happening before their eyes in the black depths and saw the mad fairy-dance there, until they dreamed off for good and all and Horieneke was left the only one awake, still telling her story. Then she crept carefully back to her room and into bed, where she lay counting: how many more days, how many times sleeping and getting up and how many more lessons to learn ... and then the great day! The great day! Slowly she made all the days, with their special happenings, appear before her eyes; and she enjoyed beforehand all those beautiful things which had kept her so long a-longing. When, in her thoughts, it came to Sat.u.r.day evening and at last, slowly--like a box with something wonderful inside which you daren't open--to that Sunday morning, then her heart began to flutter, a thrill ran through her body and, so that she shouldn't weep for gladness, she bit her lips, squeezed her hands between her knees and rubbed them until the ecstasy was pa.s.sed and she again lay smiling in supreme content and shivering with delight.

[6] The bedroom behind the kitchen or living-room, in the Flemish cottages, is over the cellar; but this cellar is not entirely underground and is lighted by a very low window at the back.

Consequently, the floor of the bedroom is a little higher than that of the living-room and is approached by a flight of two or three steps.

Time dragged on; cold weather came and rain and it seemed as if it never would be summer. And that constant repet.i.tion of getting up and going to bed and learning her lessons and counting the hours and the minutes became so dreary and seemed to go round and round in an endless circle.

To-day at last was the long-awaited holiday when Horieneke might go into town with mother to buy clothes. Her heart throbbed; and she walked beside mother, with eyes wide-open, looking round at every window, up one street and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she saw pretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, a splendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of woven lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little gla.s.s peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained, said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money,"

but bought and went on buying; and, every time something new went into the big basket, it was:

"Don't tell father what it cost, Rieneke!"

All those pretty things were locked away in the bedroom at home and hung up in the oak press, while father was still at work.

On another evening, when mother and Horieneke were alone at home, the seamstress brought the new clothes: a whole load of white muslin in stiff white folds full of satin bows and ribbons and white lace. They had to be tried on; and Horieneke stood there, for the first time in her life, all in white, like an angel. But the happiness lasted only for a spell: there came a noise and every one in the room fled and the clothes were hastily taken off and put away.

Every day, when the boys were at school and father in the fields, neighbours came to look at the clothes. Piece after piece was carefully taken out of the press and spread out for show on the great bed. The wives felt and tested the material, examined the tucks and seams and the knots and the lining, the bows and ribbons and clapped their hands together in admiration. It became known all over the village that Horieneke would be the finest of all in the church.

The counted days crept slowly by, the sun climbed higher every day and the mornings and evenings lengthened. Things out of doors changed and grew as you looked: the young green stood twinkling on every hand; the fields lay like coloured carpets, sharply outlined; and the trees grew long, pale branches with leaves which stood out like stately plumes against the sky, so full of youth and freshness and free from dust as yet and tender. In course of time, white buds came peeping, gleaming amid the delicate young leaves, till all looked like a spotted altar-cloth: a promising splendour of white blossoms. Here and there in the garden an early flower came creeping out. Yonder, in the dark-blue wood, patches of brown and of pale colour stood out clearly, with a whole variety of vivid hues. And it had all come so unexpectedly, all of a sudden, as though, by some magic of the night, it was all set forth to adorn and grace a great festival.

In the fields, the folk were hard at work. The land was turned up and torn and broken by the gleaming plough and lay steaming in purple clods in the sun's life-giving rays. Everything swarmed with life and movement.

The houses were done up and coated with fresh whitewash, the shutters painted green, till it all shouted from afar in a glad mosaic, with the blue of the sky and the young leaf.a.ge of the trees, under the brown, moss-grown roofs.

And the days crept on, each counted and marked off: so many white stripes on the rafters and black stripes on the almanack; they fell away one by one and the Sat.u.r.day came, the long-expected eve of the great Sunday.

Quite early, before sunrise, the linen hung outside, the white smocks and shirts waving, like fluttering pennons, from the clothes-lines in the white orchard. Horieneke also was up betimes and helping mother in her work. From top to bottom everything had to be altered and done over again and cleansed. It was only with difficulty that she got to school. The last time! To-day, the great examination of conscience, the general confession and the communion-practice; and, to-night, everything to be laid out ready for to-morrow morning: all this kept running anyhow through her head and among the lines of her lesson-book.

Half-way through the morning they went to church. The children there all looked so glad, so happy and so clean and neat in their second-best clothes and so nicely washed. They now made their confessions for the last time; and it all went so pleasantly: they had done no wrong for such a long while and all their sins had already been forgiven two or three times over, yesterday and the day before. They sat in two long rows waiting their turns and thinking over, right away back to their far-off babyhood, whether nothing had been forgotten or omitted: their little hearts must be quite stainless now and pure. When they were tired of examining their consciences, they fell to praying, with their eyes fixed upon the saint who stood before them on his pedestal, or else watched the other youngsters going in and out by turns.

The little church looked its best, neat as a new pin: the floor was freshly scrubbed and the chairs placed side by side in straight rows; the bra.s.swork shone like gold; and a new communion-cloth hung, like a snow-white barrier, in front of the sanctuary. The velvet banners were stripped of their linen covers; and the blue vases, with bright flowers and silver bunches of grapes, were put out on the altar, as on feast-days. And all of this was for to-morrow! And for them!

All the time it was deathly still, with not a sound but that of the youngsters going in and out of the creaking confessional. Now and then the church-door flapped open and banged to, when one of the children had finished and went away. Their little souls were white as new-fallen snow and bedight with indulgences and prayers. On their faces lay the fresh innocence of babes brought to baptism or of laughing angels' heads and in their wide eyes everything was reflected festively and at its best; they felt so light and lived on little but longing and a holy fear of their own worthiness: that great, incredible thing of the morrow was suddenly going to change them from children into grown-up people!

They just gave themselves time to have their dinners in a hurry; and then back to school, where they were to learn how to receive communion. A few benches placed next to one another represented the communion-rails; and there they practised the whole afternoon: with studied piety, their hands folded and their heads bowed, they learnt how to genuflect, how to rise, how to approach in ranks and return at a sign from the old nun, who tapped with a key on the arm of her chair each time that a new row of youngsters had to start, kneel or go back. In a short time this went as exactly, as evenly as could be, just like soldiers drilling. Finally, they had to recite once more their acts of faith, adoration and thanksgiving; and Horieneke and the first of the little boys had to write out on large sheets of paper the preparation and thanks which they had learnt by heart, to be read to-morrow in church. After that, they were drawn up in line and silently and mysteriously led into the convent.

The children held their breath and walked carefully down long pa.s.sages, between high, white walls, past closed doors with inscriptions in Gothic letters and a smell of clean linen and apples: ever on and on, through more pa.s.sages, till they reached a large hall full of chairs where Mother Prioress--a fat and stately nun, with her great big head covered by her cap and her hands in her sleeves--sat upon a throne. They had to file past her, one by one, with a low bow, and then sit down.

Mother Prioress settled herself in her seat, coughed and, in a rich, throaty voice, began by telling the youngsters how they were to address Our Lord; told stories of children who had become saints; and she ended by slowly and cautiously producing a little gla.s.s case in which a thorn out of Our Lord's crown lay exposed on a red-velvet cushion. And then they were sent home.

On the way, Horieneke came upon her brothers playing in the sand. They had scooped it up in their wooden shoes and poured it into a heap in the middle of the road and then wetted it; and now they were boring all sorts of holes in it and tunnels and pa.s.sages and making it into a rats'-castle. She let them be, gathered up her little skirts, so as not to dirty them, and pa.s.sed by on one side.

Mother was up to her elbows in the golden dough of the cakebread, stirring and beating and patting the jumble of eggs and flour and milk.

Horieneke took the crying baby out of the cradle, shaking and tossing it in the air, and went into the garden just outside the door. The golden afternoon sun lay all around and everything was radiant with translucid green. The little path lay neatly raked and the yellow daffodils stood, like bra.s.s trumpets, closely ranked on their stalks; under the shrubs bright violets peeped out with raised eyebrows, like the grinning faces of little old wives. The whole garden was filled with a scent of fresh jasmine and a cool fragrance of cherry-blossom and peach.

It was all so still and peaceful that Horieneke, who had begun to sing, stopped in the middle and stood listening to the chaffinches and siskins chattering pell-mell.

From there she went to her little bedroom, laid the child on her bed and drew the curtains before the window which let in the sun in a thousand slender beams of dusty light. The pictures and images gleamed on the wall and the saints seemed to smile with happiness in that cool air, fragrant of gillyflowers and white jasmine. She took out her new prayer-book, flicked the silver clasp open and shut and played with the little shaft of light which the gilt edge sent running all round the white walls. Then she stood musing for a long time, gazing out through the little curtains at those white trees in blossom, around and above which the golden pollen danced, and at all that huge green field and the everlasting sun and all the blue on the horizon. And, feeling tired, she laid her head on the bed beside the baby and lingered there, dreaming of all the delight and beauty of the morrow.

Mother called her and Horieneke came down. Mam'selle Julie was there, who had promised to come and curl the child's hair. Mam'selle put on a great ap.r.o.n and began to undress Horieneke; then a great tub of rain-water was carried in and the girl was scrubbed and washed with scented soap till the whole tub was full of suds. Her head was washed as well and her hair plaited into little braids, which were rolled up one by one and wound in curl-papers and fastened to her head, under a net. Her cheeks and neck shone like transparent china with the rosy blood coursing underneath.

When she was done, Mam'selle Julie went off to the other communicants.

The boys were lying on their backs, under the walnut-tree, talking, when Horieneke came past. They looked at the funny twists on her head and went on talking: Wartje longed most of all to put on his new breeches; Fonske was glad that Uncle Petrus was coming to-morrow and Aunt Stanske and Cousin Isidoor; Bertje because of the dog-cart[7] and the dogs and the chance of a ride; Wartje because of all that aunt would bring with her in her great wicker basket; and Dolfke longed for father to come home from work, so that he might help to clean the rabbits.