The Cloister and the Hearth
by Charles Reade
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Return to Part 1 of 2

"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? maybe 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, your lock is gone; I have sold it."

"And who was so mad as to buy such a thing?" inquired 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, mistress, 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," stammered the poor girl,
trying hard to maintain the advantageous 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.

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. "However, when all is done, 'twas not art, 'twas but
woman's wit."

"Nought but that, burgomaster," said Margaret bitterly. "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 o'
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 vellums all about the town.
Printing had by this time dealt caligraphy in black and white a
terrible blow in Holland and Germany. But some copies of the
printed books were usually illuminated and fettered. The printers
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!"

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 the highest effort of
intelligence, Pity; Experience of sorrows, and Imagination, by
which alone we realize the grief we never felt. In the fifteenth
century 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 the imaginary crime they fell foul of the supposed victim.
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 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; 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 followed 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 attention, 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."

"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 so 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 bereavement 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 mincement 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?"

"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 Margaret'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-humouredly, mistaking.

"Denys?"

"Well? - But - Hallo! How know you my name is - "

"Denys of Burgundy!"

"Why, ods bodikins! I know you not, and you know me."

"By Gerard's letter. Crossbow! beard! handsome! The divell is
dead."

"Sword of Goliah! this must be she. Red hair, violet eyes, lovely
face. But I took ye for a married wife, seeing ye- - "

"Tell me my name," said she quickly.

"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.
Shall 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. Boo! boo! boo!"

Margaret quickened her steps; but Denys took down his crossbow and
pretended to shoot them all dead: they fled quadrivious,
shrieking.

CHAPTER LI

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 behaviour, 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 favourite 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 Van Eyck was perplexed. At last she made a confidante of
Reicht. The secret ran through Reicht, as through a cylinder, to
Catherine.

"Ay, and is she 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 Rotterdam."

The English princess, now Countess Charolois, made a stately
progress through the northern states of the duchy, accompanied by
her stepdaughter the young heiress of Burgundy, Marie de
Bourgogne. Then the old duke, the most magnificent prince in
Europe, put out his splendour. Troops of dazzling knights, and
bevies of fair ladies gorgeously attired, attended the two
princesses; 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. Richart
invited all his people to meet him at Rotterdam and view the
pageant.

They had been in Rotterdam some days, when Denys met Catherine
accidentally in the street, and after a warm greeting on both
sides, bade her rejoice, for he had found the she-comrade, and
crowed; but Catherine cooled him by showing him how much earlier
he would have found her by staying 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."

No, 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 Rotter then, and see thyself."

"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 mistress'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 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 Martha. Margaret was hours alone with her letter.

CHAPTER LI

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 to obey, 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."

"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?"

Cornelis 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 faithful 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: 'obedience is honey,' quoth she; and in sooth 'tis a
sweetmeat she cannot but savour, eating so little on't, for what
with her fair face, and her mellow tongue; and what wi' flying 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 crestfallen. "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 Cornelis.

"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, colouring.

"Give that here!" said Eli, and he scanned the writing, 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; 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 here
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 adoors 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. "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.

[1] Anglice, a Thing-em-bob.

CHAPTER LIII

"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 waited 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 pretty 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 colour. 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 commencement 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 halfway, she stopped and said thoughtfully, "Denys!"

"Well, she-general?"

"I must go home" (piteously).

"What, have ye left somewhat behind?"

"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."

"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 described, 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.

Cornelis 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 putting her hand down by
her side, made him a swift furtive 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 company that he had been ordered thither;
and at that she coloured. And now she began to read her Gerard,
their Gerard, to their eager ears, in a mellow, 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.

"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 liked 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
gaily 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 myself, 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, 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 it. 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. '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 to it?' I told her, 'nay.' She blushed for us then. Here they
were better Christians.' So I behoved 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 Rhine."

"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.

"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, coloured 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 sweetheart, they did bid me God-speed; and I towards Rhine."

Margaret paused here, and gave Denys the coloured drawing to hand
round. It was eagerly examined by the females on account of the
costume, which differed in some respects from that of the 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 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 perhaps the rude
germ of the diamond buckle to come.

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."

Eli. "Whisht, wife!"

"And I did sigh loud, and often. And me sighing so, one came
carolling like a bird adown t' other road. 'Ay, chirp and chirp,'
cried I bitterly. 'Thou has not lost sweetheart, and friend, they
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 lied from it, I
looked down the path to see what could make a man so lighthearted
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.

"Nay, lass," said Eli, "heed him not! Thou unmannerly cur, offer't
but again and I put thee to the door."

"Why, what was there to gibe at, Sybrandt?" remonstrated Catherine
more mildly. "Is not our Kate afflicted? and is she not the most
content of us all, and singeth like a merle at 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 bemoan thy lot, thou 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 presently 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, '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, 'Didst well to leave France and make for
Germany; but think not of Holland again. Nay, on 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 novice,' 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 cul de bois, and the
cul de jatte, 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."

Eli. "Good lad! good lad!"

"Why, what shame was it for such as I to turn beggar? Beggary was
an ancient and most honourable mystery. What did holy monks, and
bishops, and kings, when they would win Heaven's smile? why, wash
the feet of beggars, those favourites 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 greatest 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 honour and such low
disgrace, on the same path of honesty, please God. Well then,
since I had not spirit to beg, he would indulge 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 questioned me strictly what I could do. I began
to say I was strong and willing. 'Ba!' said he, 'so is an ox. Say,
what canst do that Sir Ox cannot?' I could write; I had won a
prize for it. '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. 'Then,' said he, 'I hire you from this
moment.' 'What to do?' said I. 'Nought crooked, Sir Candour,' says
he. 'I 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,
'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 cul de jatte 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. 'Servant,' 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 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 spearwort, 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 master; board the wife; and flatter her inn sky
high, all but the armories, and offer to colour 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 behind 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?' 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 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'emprunt," 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 Bec; 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 set 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 Bec,' 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 Bec, Gerard
erst, of his young days and home, and brought the water to my een.
But looking up, my master's visage was as the face of a little boy
whipt soundly, or sipping foulest medicine. 'Zounds, stop that
bellyache 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
a stave, and eke so obscene, as I drew away from him a space that
the lightning might not spoil the new psaltery. However, none
came, being winter, and then I said, 'Master, the Lord is
debonair. Held I the thunder, yon ribaldry had been thy last, thou
foul-mouthed wretch.'

"'Why, Bon Bec, 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; naught but the bare melody.' For oh, Margaret, note the sly
malice of the Evil One! Still to the scurviest matter he wedded
the tunablest ditties."

Catherine. "That is true as Holy Writ."

Sybrandt. "How know you that, mother?"

Cornelis. "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. '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 parting 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; 'disguise 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,
'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 wholesome. 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 between life and death, I filled my hat
withal, and came flying to souse him. Then my lord laughed in my
face. 'Come, Bon Bec, by thy white gills, I have 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.' '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 Bec,' says he, 'for leading thee to a worthy master. Each day
his lesson. To-morrow we will study the cul 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 beggar 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 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 Bec, 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 Rollin 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 hooks 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 village, and I sat
me down on the stocks, and even 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 loud
and clear, as I had heard the minstrels of 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 singing, 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 poverty'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 Bec, 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
making?' '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 Rhineward. 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 walking, 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 Bec,' 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 boatman
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 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 boatman and Cul de Jatte clung round me, and in a
moment the bourreau's man, that waited in a beat, 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 Catherine. "Here,
Cornelis," 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 carefully 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, discoursing of sinners and their
lethal end. 'Too late!' said he, 'too late!' and gnashed his
teeth. Then I told him 'too late' was the divell's favourite
whisper in repentant ears. Said I -
     '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 a word like a wee pitchfork to go that way. ''Tis yon
farmhouse,' said he: 'bide thou at hand.' And he went to the
house, and came back with money, food, and wine. 'This lad did the
business,' 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
farmhouse by the road. He made for it. I stood, and asked myself,
should I run away and leave him, not to be shamed 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 holloaing, for the peasants had laid on heartily.
But more trouble 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 windmill crazed. He fled adown the road. I followed
leisurely, and found him at dinner. '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 Strasbourg. And I
looked down Rhine with longing heart. The stream how swift! It
seemed running to clip Sevenbergen 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 an ill welcome from my folk, and of the neighbours' 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.
Welladay! Why did he not 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 afeared 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!"

Eli. "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 raiment 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
brother?' He slunk away. But shallow she did crawl after the
skull, and with apron reverently dust it for Barnabas, and it
Barabbas; and so home with it. Said I, 'Non vult anser velli, sed
populus vult decipi.'"

Catherine. "Oh, the goodly Latin!"

Eli. "What meaneth it?"

Catherine. "Nay, 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 turn him off. 'What would
become of him? He did so love honesty.' 'Thou love honesty?' said
I. '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 Bec,' said he;
'hadst starved peradventure but for me. Kick not down thy ladder!
Call ye that just? Nay, 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. Now 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 Nurnberg. 'Twas a long way to Nurnberg.' 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
a-weary on his long staff, and offered us a shell apiece. My
master would none. But 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 us, 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 be 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, 'Behold thy justice, Bon
Bec,' said he. 'Thou railest on thy poor, good, within an ace of
honest master, and bestowest 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
pilgrims 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 "Coquillarts," 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 Bec,'
said he, '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, grey, and crutched; for all
these are of our brotherhood, and of our art, only masters they,
and we but poor apprentices, in guild.' For his tongue was an ell
and a half.

"'A truce to thy irreverend sophistries,' said I, '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. Next an armed man a-riding of a horse, which drew a cart
full of females and children; and in it, sitting backwards, a
lusty lazy knave, lance in hand, with his luxurious 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 ruffler, proud
of his brave feathers as the rest, and haply with more reason,
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, swallowing him so as he
too went darkling led by his sweetheart 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 downlying, 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. 'Time would show,' said he, 'wait till they camp.' And
rising after meat and meditation, 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 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 chanticleer'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 '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 newborn 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 neighbouring
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 gipsywise, but of the
roasters, and boilers, and voppers, and gamblers, no more noticed,
no, not for a 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, 'Triumph, Bon Bec,
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 gipsy women have no more shame under their
skins than a wolf ruth, or a hare valour. And, Bon Bec,' 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 forward; 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 sesseldegers,"
"the gensscherers," in France "marcandiers or rifodes," "the
veranerins," "the stabulers," with a few foreigners like
ourselves, such as "pietres," "francmitoux," "polissons"
"malingreux," "traters," "rufflers," "whipjalks," "dommerars,"
"glymmerars," "jarkmen," "patricos," "swadders," "autem morts,"
"walking morts" 'Enow,' cried I, stopping him, 'art as gleesome as
the Evil One a counting of his 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
companion 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 Bec,
thy manners are a charm. I have made a good bargain.' So he to the
'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 sho'ed the passers-by. Oh, Bon Bec, 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!' 'What, did they fall on thee
and bite thee, poor soul?' 'Worse, worse, dear Bon Bec. 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, 'I said no such thing. But
tell me, since they bit thee not, but sportfully licked thee, what
harm?' '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 put 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, 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 Bec, 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 scurry miracle driven forth with stripes and threats. Oh,
cozening knaves!' Said I, 'Becomes you to complain of guile.'
'Alas, Bon Bec,' 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 would put it to more profit;' and railing on quiens. 'And as
for those monks, there was one Above.' 'Certes,' said I, 'there is
one Above. What then?' 'Who will call those shavelings to compt,
one day,' quoth he. 'And all deceitful men' said I. At one that
afternoon I got armories to paint: so my master took the yellow
jaundice and went begging through the town, and with his oily
tongue, and saffron-water face, did fill his hat. Now in all the
towns are certain licensed beggars, and one of these was an old
favourite 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 constables'
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 misdeeds, 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. 'Lo ye now, here
standeth Misfortune backbit by Envy. But stand thou forth, blind
Envy, and vent thine own lie.' And blind Hans behoved 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, 'In sooth, Hans, ye are to blame;
hast cast more dirt of suspicion on thyself than on him.' But the
burgomaster, 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 France much courted,
save by condemned malefactors, to wit the hangman; and says he,
'Ant 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. 'How is this knave? quoth
the burgomaster. My master said carelessly, 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 measurement. ''Tis no bungling soldiers'
work, my masters,' said he, ''tis ourn.' Then the burgomaster gave
judgment: '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.' 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, and there was Cul de Jatte 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: 'Well, what of that?' 'Twas not mine, but his; I would
pay him the price of it. '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 him up his money in three throws, and when he had
got it all he said, softly, 'Bon Bec.' 'Master,' said I. Then the
poor rogue was greatly moved. 'I thought ye had been mocking me,'
said he; 'oh, Bon Bec, Bon Bec, 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. Yet 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, lighthearted, 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 gentleman in brave attire and two servants; they
overtook 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 set me on his horse like a popinjay,
and fared by my side in my worn weeds, with my psaltery on his
back. And said he, 'Now, good youth, thou art Cousin Detstein; and
I, late count, thy Servant. Play the part well, and help me save
my bloodstained 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
servants, they did slily grin to one another to see their master
so humbled

"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 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 magnificent 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 the 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 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 another, and the superior mind
obtained its natural influence. 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 day 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, 'For further
penance bow thy pride; go meet yon base-born girl; kiss thy
homicidal hand, and give it her, and hold her in discourse as best
ye may.' And my noble Servant said humbly, '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. Presently 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 hedgestakes, and moved not nor spake."

Denys. "Aie! aie! aie Pardon, the company."

"This surprised me none; for so they did discountenance poor
Denys. And that whole day I wore in experimenting 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 customary, 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 women,
Denys?") And the reader opened two great violet eyes upon him with
gentle surprise.

Denys. "Ahem! he says so, she-comrade. By Hannibal'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 nought 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 lasses, 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 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 perfume them with rose-water.
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-capt 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 superstition. 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 particoloured
'fools,' which are so rife in Germany. But oh, sorry wit, that is
driven to 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 wench, 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 venison at a cat; and in that circle a smaller
circle. The rusticalls held their peace; and besides these circles
cabalistical, I laid down on the table solemnly yon parchment deed
I had out of your house. The rusticalls 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
hac aula morari, strepitantes ita - et olentes: ut dulcissimae
nequeam miser scribere.' 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 scared 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 forgive 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, looking 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 jibes,
and prison, and banishment, as those sweet German flowers a
blooming in winter's snow.

"January 2. - My servant, the count, finding me curious, 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 apothecary 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 comb 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 we 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 chamber above the stable, where, for table,
was a curious and artificial rock, and the drinking vessels hang
on its pinnacles, 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 behoved 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, 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 plaintive 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 Nurnberg and Augsburg 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 blushed 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 building 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 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 gaily painted and all glazed, and the
glass so clean and burnished as 'tis most resplendent and rare;
and I, now first seeing a great city, 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 question 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 Soloman'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 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 commerce, 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 oh, Margaret, the workmen of all the guilds are so
kind and brotherly to one another, and to me. Here, methinks, I
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 treachery: challenge first, then draw, and with the
edge only, mostly the face, not with Sir Point; for if in these
combats 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 ye seek.
Sir Printing Press - sore foe to poor Gerard, but to other humans
beneficial - plieth by night and day, and casteth goodly words
like sower afield; while I, poor fool, can but sow them as I saw
women in France sow rye, dribbling it in the furrow 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 seizeth the poor wretch with iron arms, and opening
herself, hales him inside her, and there pierces him through and
through with two score 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 senator, 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 Veit 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. 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 dict, 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-faced 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 merchant, 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 delicate 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 mountain 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 improbable!' 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 forward; 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 distanced 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 a-foot, 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
windmill. '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; but lo they were not flour-barrels, but
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, I 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 enormous 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 am faint with travel.' They nodded
and grinned their horrible grin, and bade one light a lanthorn and
lead me. He took me up a winding staircase, up, up, and I saw no
windows, but the wooden walls were pierced like a barbican 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 downstairs 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
boisterous mirth below. At last I dropped off. How long I slept I
knew not; but I woke with a start: the noise 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
Margaret!' 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!'"

Eli. "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 hack 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. 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 wood-work 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 that I had not fallen into their
bloody trap, and were running to despatch me. Margaret, I felt no
fear, for I 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 lighting,
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, cowards, assassins!
reckless fiends!' and at each word on went a barrel pierced. But
oh, 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 yelled 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 for ever. 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
loophole, 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. '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
chimney. The mill caught fire. Fire glimmered through it. Tongues
of flame darted through each loophole and shot sparks and fiery
flakes into the night. One of the assassins 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 staggered 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 beautiful! 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 striking 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 furlongs 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 upward 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.

CHAPTER LIV

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 had seen as yet, and," as he thought, "the
beautifullest, 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 Margaret 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 - loth 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 writing 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!"

"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 silence. He put a horn of wine to my lips."

Catherine. "Bless him! bless him!"

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 19. - 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.
Oh, Margaret! how strangely mixed they be, and how old I 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 Richart prepared to read, Kate looked at her mother, and
with a faint blush drew out the 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 Richart read. Both the specimens these sweet
surreptitious 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 20. - 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, delectable 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 delicate 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 tourney dreading the evil eye.

"January 25. - 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 city, 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 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 business sadly, crying
'Seyte frolich!' The best of their drunken sport is
'Kurlemurlehuff,' 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 labour of Hercules, 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 fleshy wine-pots, to 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 indeed 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 lasses, 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, Jonah's
wife. This comes of a woman wedding a boy."

"In the south where wine is, the gentry drink themselves 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 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 t'emporte!' '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 culverines; and many other sieges in this our century.
More than all nations they flatter their women, and despise 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 furniture 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 windows 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 Holland,
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 custom. 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
indoors, 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. Round 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?"

Richart. "Ay, in sooth; see else."

Denys (inspecting the letter gravely). "I read not the letter so."

Richart. "How then?"

Denys. "Humph! 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 with
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 gesture. Here Sir Chough may
by no means pass for falcon gentle, as did I in Germany, pranked
in my noble servant'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 in 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 will apply
a crust or what not. They do even tell of a cardinal at Rome,
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 velvet 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; O, perversity! Their salt is black;
without a lie. In commerce these Venetians 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 republic: 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, pampered and honoured 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 city, the
watchman 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 aye with the god of traders, 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
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 discouraged 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
neighbouring 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 mountains. But neither in France, nor
Germany, nor Italy, is a wayfarer's life safe from the vagabones
after sundown. 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 domesday;
and then gloze foul faults with silken names who can!"

Eli (with a sigh). "He should have been a priest, saving your
presence, my poor lass."

"January 26. - 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 Rome.

"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 the
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 monstrous 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 between 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 marble and stood before them. 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 favourites. 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 mali 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
summers 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 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 bring him, and no other, for the
least treason to the state; and there it stands in his eye
whispering 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 gentle folks 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 O, sovereign wisdom of bywords! how true they put the finger
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 terre."

Richart 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 know the custom of our Dutch skippers to
hoist flowers to the masthead 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 masthead
made my heart leap with assurance of a countryman. They carried
me, and oh, Margaret! on the stern of that Dutch boy, was written
in muckle letters,
     RICHART 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. Ah
me, how they went to my heart, those bare letters in a foreign
land. Dear Richart! good, kind brother Richart! often I have sat
on his knee and rid on his back. Kisses many he has 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

Eli. "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."

Richart. "Poor little curly-headed lad, what had he done that we
have driven him so far?"

"That is what I would fain know," said Catherine drily, 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 hearing 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 he 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, though it had no sale in other
parts, may be merchandise at Rome."

"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 Rotterdam,
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; Richart and I will give him glamour
for glamour. We will write him a letter, and send it to Rome by a
sure hand with money, and bid him home on the instant."

Cornelis and Sybrandt 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 him; 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! Natheless, 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 though I be
somewhat slow."

Here Richard 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 not her 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 Catherine 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 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 abide 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 Richart sat down
and concocted a letter to bring Gerard home. Richart promised it
should go by sea to Rome that very week. Sybrandt and Cornelis
exchanged a gloomy wink, and stole out. Margaret, seeing Giles
deep in meditation, for the dwarf's intelligence had taken giant
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 sonorous atom.

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 Richart. 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 exchanged 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."

"Hear the boy!" said Catherine, half comically, half proudly.

"We hear him," said Richart; "a mostly makes himself heard when a
do speak."

Sybrandt. "Which will get to him first?"

Cornelis (gloomily). "Who can tell?"

CHAPTER LV

About two months before this scene in Eli's home, the natives of a
little' maritime place between Naples and Rome might be seen
flocking to the sea beach, with eyes cast seaward at a ship, that
laboured 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 sailing,
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 labouring 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, handling the ropes as
each thought fit, and cursing and praying 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 in 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 amid-ships, 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 Ravenna; 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, barefooted, 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.

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.

"Oh, most merciful sea! oh, sea most generous! oh! bountiful sea!
oh, 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 Roman woman of the humbler class sat with her child at her
half-bared breast, silent amid that wailing throng: her cheek ashy
pale; her eye calm; and her lips moved at times in silent prayer,
but she neither wept, nor lamented, nor bargained with the gods.
Whenever 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 I do
believe, sat Antiquity among those mediaevals. Sixteen hundred
years had not tainted the old Roman 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, like the
Colossus of Rhodes, not so much 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 wavering 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 executing 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. "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 mariners call these fiery globes Castor
and Pollux. But if 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 Christian 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 for ever; 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 immovable, and flooded the deck.

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. "Rather call these heathens, that
lie a praying to the sea. Friends, I do honour 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 was the
Jew 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 the 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."

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 passengers 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; 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 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 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 service. There I felt it with my
toes again; see the benefit 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 extending 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 suction 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 Rome, 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 Rome without looking back, I who am
not in the service of Holy Church, stop 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 reward 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 gratitude. She took his hand gently, and raising it slowly
to her lips, kissed it; but so nobly, she seemed to be conferring
an honour on one deserving hand. Then with face all beaming and
moist eyes, she held her child up and made him kiss his preserver.

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 Roman 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.

CHAPTER LVI

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 Rome."

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 unsaleable; 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 surprise asked him
what had dashed his spirits. He told her. She gave him her reading
of the matter. "Those sly 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. Methinks
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 them."

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 factions, and vindictive eating of their opposites'
livers, minced and fried, since Scribbling came in. Why, I 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 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
Rotterdam, and arrested for curing without a licence 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 colour, and struck off a meal per day.

This last stroke of genius got him into fresh trouble.

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 opening, 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.

"Patienza, 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 neighbour Pietro, with his one bad
picture."

"Why, how know you 'tis a bad picture?"

"Because nobody will buy it. There is one that hath 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: though in her opinion
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 keyhole, 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, anyway."

"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. Anyway, 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 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 grownup
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. Anything 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 neighbour
in this house, and methinks your brother in fortune. I am an
artist too."

"You are a painter? Welcome, signer. 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 caligraph. 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 artist is one who
thinks, and paints his thought. Now a caligraph 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 eminence, 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 oh! hostess, I 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 savoury. 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 unsavoury, I promise you."

Pietro fixed his glittering eye on him.

"What, good youth, thou a stranger, and offerest me thy dinner?"

"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 'een eij scheeren,'
that is, 'to shave an egg.' Therefore, I, for my lost dinner, do
claim to feast mine eyes on your picture, whose face is toward 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."

"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 dagger into the next one that
should flout it, and the labour 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
for ever. Would I were dead, and buried in it for my coffin!"

Gerard reflected.

"I accept the condition. 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. Therefore, 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 picture. "First, signor, I would
have you know that, in the mixing of certain colours, 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 solis filii. If we have
colour, 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. Henceforth 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 gradation, till vision itself melts into
distance. O, beautiful! And the cunning rogue hath hung his
celestial figure in air out of the way of his little world below.
Here, floating 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 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 it is a common
saying 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 picture, 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.

CHAPTER LVII

About a week after this the two friends sat working together. but
not in the same spirit. Pietro dashed fitfully 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 rattle-snake, but eventually 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 acquaintance 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 well is he none the worse
for his voyage in that strange boat?"

"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, oh, 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 chicanery, 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 vuol' pecora senza lana."

She fell into thought, and said she would come again to-morrow.

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 upstairs to console him.

"What, have they let thee bring home thy masterpiece?"

"As heretofore."

"More fools they, then."

"That is not the worse."

"Why, what is the matter?"

"They have bought the cards," yelled Pietro, and hammered 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 maltreated 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 indignation. "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 have kept back. 'Twas you limned her, brother. She had lovely
red-brown hair and sapphire eyes, and above all, soul."

"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 landlady crying
from below, "Come down, you are wanted." He went down, and there
was Teresa again.

"Come with me, Ser Gerard."

CHAPTER LVIII

Gerard walked silently beside Teresa, wondering in his own mind,
after the manner of artists, what she was going to do 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 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 favour.

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, Claelia, the sausage-maker, wants
one; she told me, and I told Leonora."

Teresa made a courteous speech and withdrew.

Claelia 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 Claelia returned.

"Madama, I hear from the goldsmith's wife, the excellent 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 favour
on him."

"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 coloured
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 expression of heartfelt
gratitude, and embraced Gerard warmly.

Yet somehow there was something in the man's original manner, and
his having followed his wife by stealth, that made Gerard
uncomfortable under this caress. However, 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."

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 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 Rome. 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 kneeling, and eat no butter nor
eggs next Wednesday, and pax vobiscum!' 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 discursive lady
back to the point: "Would she be so kind as 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 scholars, 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 key-hole; 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 conclusion; 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 window. 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
vellum, and parting with Teresa at his own door, ran hastily
upstairs, 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 reading 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 improper to destroy
the deed. On the contrary, he vowed to decipher every word, at his
leisure. He went downstairs, 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 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; 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 trembling; then stood
heart-sick, awaiting his verdict.

When it came it staggered him. For the verdict was, a Dominican
falling on his neck.

The next day an event took place in Holland, the effect of which
on Gerard's destiny, no mortal at the time, nor even my
intelligent reader now, could, I think, foresee.

Marched up to Eli's door a pageant brave to the eye of sense, and
to the vulgar judgment noble, but to the philosophic, pitiable
more or less.

It looked one animal, a centaur; but on severe analysis proved
two. The human half were sadly bedizened with those two metals, to
clothe his carcass with which and line his pouch, man has now and
then disposed of his soul: still the horse was the vainer brute of
the two; he was far worse beflounced, bebonneted, and bemantled,
than any fair lady regnante crinolina. For the man, under the
colour of a warming-pan, retained Nature's outline. But it was
subaudi equum! Scarce a pennyweight of honest horse-flesh to be
seen. Our crinoline spares the noble parts of women, and makes but
the baser parts gigantic (why this preference?); but this poor
animal from stem to stern was swamped in finery. His ears were hid
in great sheaths of white linen tipped with silver and blue. His
body swaddled in stiff gorgeous cloths descending to the ground,
except just in front, where they left him room to mince. His tail,
though dear to memory, no doubt, was lost to sight, being tucked
in heaven knows how. Only his eyes shone out like goggles, through
two holes pierced in the wall of haberdashery, and his little
front hoofs peeped in and out like rats.

Yet did this compound, gorgeous and irrational, represent power;
absolute power: it came straight from a tournament at the Duke's
court, which being on a progress, lay last night at a neighbouring
town - to execute the behests of royalty.

"What ho!" cried the upper half, and on Eli emerging, with his
wife behind him, saluted them. "Peace be with you, good people.
Rejoice! I am come for your dwarf."

Eli looked amazed, and said nothing. But Catherine screamed over
his shoulder, "You have mistook your road, good man; here abides
no dwarf."

"Nay, wife, he means our Giles, who is somewhat small of stature:
why gainsay what gainsayed may not be?"

"Ay!" cried the pageant, "that is he, and discourseth like the big
taber.

"His breast is sound for that matter," said Catherine sharply.

"And prompt with his fists though at long odds."

"Else how would the poor thing keep his head in such a world as
this?"

"'Tis well said, dame. Art as ready with thy weapon as he; art his
mother, likely. So bring him forth, and that presently. See, they
lead a stunted mule for him. The Duke hath need of him, sore need;
we are clean out o' dwarven, and tiger-cats, which may not be,
whiles earth them yieldeth. Our last hop o' my thumb tumbled down
the well t'other day."

"And think you I'll let my darling go to such an ill-guided house
as you, where the reckless trollops of servants close not the well
mouth, but leave it open to trap innocents, like wolven?"

The representative of autocracy lost patience at this unwonted
opposition, and with stern look and voice bade her bethink her
whether it was the better of the two; "to have your abortion at
court fed like a bishop and put on like a prince, or to have all
your heads stricken off and borne on poles, with the bellman
crying, 'Behold the heads of hardy rebels, which having by good
luck a misbegotten son, did traitorously grudge him to the Duke,
who is the true father of all his folk, little or mickle?'

"Nay," said Eli sadly, "miscall us not. We be true folk, and
neither rebels nor traitors. But 'tis sudden, and the poor lad is
our true flesh and blood, and hath of late given proof of more
sense than heretofore."

"Avails not threatening our lives," whimpered Catherine; "we
grudge him not to the Duke; but in sooth he cannot go; his linen
is all in holes. So there is an end."

But the male mind resisted this crusher.

"Think you the Duke will not find linen, and cloth of gold to
boot? None so brave, none so affected, at court, as our monsters,
big or wee."

How long the dispute might have lasted, before the iron arguments
of despotism achieved the inevitable victory, I know not; but it
was cut short by a party whom neither disputant had deigned to
consult.

The bone of contention walked out of the house, and sided with
monarchy.

"If my folk are mad, I am not," he roared. "I'll go with you and
on the instant."

At this Catherine set up a piteous cry. She saw another of her
brood escaping from under her wing into some unknown element.
Giles was not quite insensible to her distress, so simple yet so
eloquent. He said, "Nay, take not on, mother! Why, 'tis a godsend.
And I am sick of this, ever since Gerard left it."

"Ah, cruel Giles! Should ye not rather say she is bereaved of
Gerard: the more need of you to stay aside her and comfort her."

"Oh! I am not going to Rome. Not such a fool. I shall never be
farther than Rotterdam; and I'll often come and see you; and if I
like not the place, who shall keep me there? Not all the dukes in
Christendom."

"Good sense lies in little bulk," said the emissary approvingly.
"Therefore, Master Giles, buss the old folk, and thank them for
misbegetting of thee; and ho! you - bring hither his mule."

One of his retinue brought up the dwarf mule. Giles refused it
with scorn. And on being asked the reason, said it was not just.

"What! would ye throw all into one scale! Put muckle to muckle,
and little to wee! Besides, I hate and scorn small things. I'll go
on the highest horse here, or not at all."

The pursuivant eyed him attentively a moment. He then adopted a
courteous manner. "I shall study your will in all things
reasonable. (Dismount, Eric, yours is the highest horse.) And if
you would halt in the town an hour or so, while you bid them
farewell, say but the word, and your pleasure shall be my
delight."

Giles reflected.

"Master," said he, "if we wait a month, 'twill be still the same:
my mother is a good soul, but her body is bigger than her spirit.
We shall not part without a tear or two, and the quicker 'tis done
the fewer; so bring yon horse to me."

Catherine threw her apron over her face and sobbed. The high horse
was brought, and Giles was for swarming up his tail, like a rope;
but one of the servants cried out hastily, "Forbear, for he
kicketh." "I'll kick him," said Giles. "Bring him close beneath
this window, and I'll learn you all how to mount a horse which
kicketh, and will not be clomb by the tail, the staircase of a
horse." And he dashed into the house, and almost immediately
reappeared at an upper window, with a rope in his hand. He
fastened an end somehow, and holding the other, descended as swift
and smooth as an oiled thunderbolt in a groove, and lighted
astride his high horse as unperceived by that animal as a fly
settling on him.

The official lifted his hands to heaven in mawkish admiration. "I
have gotten a pearl," thought he, "and wow but this will be a good
day's work for me."

"Come, father, come, mother, buss me, and bless me, and off I go."

Eli gave him his blessing, and bade him be honest and true, and a
credit to his folk. Catherine could not speak, but clung to him
with many sobs and embraces; and even through the mist of tears
her eye detected in a moment the little rent in his sleeve he had
made getting out of window, and she whipped out her needle and
mended it then and there, and her tears fell on his arm the while,
unheeded - except by those unfleshly eyes, with which they say the
very air is thronged.

And so the dwarf mounted the high horse, and rode away complacent
with the old hand laying the court butter on his back with a
trowel.

Little recked Perpusillus of two poor silly females that sat by
the bereaved hearth, rocking themselves, and weeping, and
discussing all his virtues, and how his mind had opened lately,
and blind as two beetles to his faults, who rode away from them,
jocund and bold.

     Ingentes animos angusto pectore versans.

Arrived at court he speedily became a great favourite.

One strange propensity of his electrified the palace; but on
account of his small size, and for variety's sake, and as a
monster, he was indulged on it. In a word, he was let speak the
truth.

It is an unpopular thing.

He made it an intolerable one.

Bawled it.

CHAPTER LIX

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 laureat, 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 labours 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 fourteenth 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 moderation; 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 calumniatorem Platonis."

Pugnacity, whether wise or not, is a form of vitality. 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 company, 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, chronology,
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 accumulated 5000 MSS. in the
library of the Vatican, and had set Poggio to translate Diodorus
Siculus and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, Laurentius Valla to translate
Herodotus and Thucydides, Theodore Gaza, Theophrastus; 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, provided 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 will find but few whose minds arc 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 opinions of another
age, past or future. Being a lump of simplicity, his sceptism 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 unconsciously a droll
distinction. Whatever Christian ceremony 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 philosophic
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 prices were going for
copying than authorship ever obtained for centuries under the
printing press.

Gerard had three hundred crowns for Aristotle's treatise 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 lap
dog.

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
advantage 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 napkins, 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 eyed them with reasonable 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 meat withal. One, being
in haste, did skewer his tongue to his palate with it, I hear; O
tempora, O mores! The ancients, reclining godlike 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 answer 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 honour 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, sloping 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 overlapped. 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 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 glittering 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.

Gerard 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 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
chair, crying, "Ah, traitress! traitress!" Gerard inquired what
was his ill? "Traitress! traitress!" was the reply. Whereupon
Gerard wrote Plutarch. Then says Bonaventura, "I am melancholy;
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 honoured, 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 labour. 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.a

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.

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.

CHAPTER LX

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
comparatively narrow limits of the modern city, and the gigantic
vestiges of antiquity that peeped aboveground 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 pleases 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 flung their broken pots
and pans there, and lo - a mountain.
     'Ex pede Herculem; ex ungue leonem.'"

Gerard listened respectfully, but when the holy friar proceeded by
analogy to imply that the moral superiority of the heathen Romans
was proportionally 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 staircase. 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."

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!

"Oh, 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 rigour, 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 complaining 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: then spoke
civilly to the demoniac in his human character, 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 has discredited a revelation 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 ferentes.'
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; "I blistered him
with a single touch of 'Socratic interrogation.' 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, followed 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-favoured 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; at least he says so."

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 difficulty, if the wit of man might achieve it. "Signorina,"
said he, "these things are only hard because folk attempt too
much, are artificial and labour 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
dict to me just what you would say to him."

"Well, if he sat there, I should say, 'Go away.'"

Gerard, who was flourishing his pen by way of preparation, laid it
down with a groan.

"And when he was gone," said Floretta, "your highness would say,
'Come back.'"

"Like enough, wench. Now silence, all, and let me think. He
pestered me to write, and I promised; so mine honour is engaged.
What lie shall I tell the Gerardo 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 herself 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 Heaven'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, methinks her highness's chin
is not quite so"

"Oh, a touch will make that right."

"What a pity 'tis not coloured. I'm all for colours. Hang black
and white! And her highness hath such a lovely skin. Take away her
skin, and half her beauty is lost."

"Peace. Can you colour, 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 colours now - quick, this moment - for love of all
the saints."

"Nay, signorina, I must prepare them. I could come at the same
time."

"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 colours. 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 I'll
whip you till the blood comes. You know how I can lay on when I'm
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 Gerardo." And
Gerard bowed himself out of this velvet tiger's den.

He came next day and coloured 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 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 religious processions. Their number and
pious ardour 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 capuchin 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 conversed 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: 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 ceremony 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 Verum icon, or true impression of our Saviour's face,
taken at the very moment of His most mortal agony for us. Received
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
priest went round the platform, 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."

"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 Rome 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 conferred 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 forget 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 cardinals 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."

"And I tell you, father, that were both bread and wine charged
with direst poison before his holiness had consecrated 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 existence 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 hurried 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 breathless 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 complexion was pale, his face
oval, his beard grey 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.

"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 invisible 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 Roman 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 humour 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 Rome."

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 thousand strangers to Rome; 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 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,
looking 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 excellently 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 Boccaccio."

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 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 compare 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."

"I 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 discharged. 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."

"Reduced to this strait we throw ourselves on your holiness's
generosity. Vouchsafe to give us your infallible 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 can remember, all the vices of
Boccaccio, without his choice Italian."

Fra Colonna. "Your holiness is known for slighting Aeneas 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; 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 highbred, 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 between two hot
young bloods, ."

"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 -
     .
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, 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 mushroom. 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 '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 pleasure, 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 colour 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.'

"Thereafter God did write His rainbow in the sky as a bond that
earth should be flooded no more; and between 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 toilsome 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. O, 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 concerning
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? Because in that city were sixty thousand children,
besides much cattle.

"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 'Dominum terra' with a nip,
musquitoes 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 you
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 receive, 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 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 school-fellows 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 honour," 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 company, 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."

"Ay, your holiness; 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.

CHAPTER LXI

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 colourist, 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
mediaeval frankness.

"Alack! signorina," said Gerard, "you have surely never noted the
ancient habit; so free, so ample, so simple, yet so noble; and
most becoming your highness, to whom Heaven hath given the Roman
features, and eke a shapely arm and hand, his in modern guise."

"What, can you flatter, 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 Lactantius
lying open. "That is fairly writ, anyway," 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, inquired 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 following -
     Opera et impensis 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 caligraph, 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."

And he almost ran to the Princess Claelia.

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 footfall could be heard. The room was an
ante-chamber 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 heathens 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
cheeks, and her eyes brightened, and her mouth smiled with
delicious complacency at this genuine tribute to her charms.

When they had looked at one another so some time, and she saw
Gerard's eloquence was confined to ejaculating 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, 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 inconsiderate. 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 highbred
nostrils suddenly expanded like a bloodhorse's. "Wretch!" said
she; and rising up with a sudden return to vigour, 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 screaming through the curtain, and there she was heard crying
bitterly for some time after.

"Saints of heaven!" cried Gerard, "what is amiss? what has 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 methinks 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 coloured 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 anywhere 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 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 Venus. 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 gallants. 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 revelation 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 this 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 Roman robe? I'll doff it, and habit me as when
thou first camest 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 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
unnatural 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 awkwardly 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."

"Ah! there is one somewhere then. Where? where?"

"In Holland, my native country."

"Ah! Marie de Bourgoyne is fair, they say. Yet she is but a
child."

"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 Margaret 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 concentrated 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 Roman 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 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 dismissed 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 insolence 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 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 honour 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 Rome 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 wayward, and
shrewish, and curst, and because everybody admires me but you."

"I admire you too, Signora. Your friends may flatter 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 a 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 somewhat abruptly.

Poor Gerard. He began to wade in deep waters when he encountered
this Italian princess; callida et calida selis 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."

"What, know you not who teaches us women to do all things? 'Tis
love, Gerar-do. Love made me draw because thou draweth, 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 promised 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 Gerardo," she added
gloomily, "between 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 Sevenbergen: 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 Rome; 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 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 benefactress once more. Is
it for me to slander you?"

"Go! I will send you the means. I know myself; if 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 quarrel 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 cried. 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.

"The land is too full of cut-throats for me," said he; "and 'tis
lovely fair weather for the sea. Our Dutch skippers are not
shipwrecked like these bungling Italians."

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 rompere 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."

"That is Hans, honest Hans. Oh, 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 Margaret's sake."

"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 he 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 maybe 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 sennight 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 me." She died very comfortable, and I saw her laid in 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
Reicht Heynes I blame for humouring the old woman and letting her
do it; 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 unlike 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 be the one to bring it thee all smiling and smirking? 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."

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 realise 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 his 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
trickling from his nostrils and ears.

CHAPTER XLII

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 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 eyeing
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 encountered 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 pleasure.

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 immortal. 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 visionaries. The Church alone
gives repose to the heart on earth, and happiness to the soul
hereafter. Hath earth deceived thee, hath passion broken thy heart
after tearing 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. Oh, my Margaret! oh, 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 hypocrites that name it to my broken heart.
Accursed be the world! Ghysbrecht lives; Margaret dies. Thieves,
murderers, harlots, live for ever. 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.

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.

CHAPTER LXIII

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 colours.

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 Rome.

They are no lovers of truth, nor of mankind, who conceal or slur
the wickedness of the good, and so by their want of candour 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, Lodovico?"

"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 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 colours,
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. O, 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 contribute 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 embarkation. But
no Gerard.

They waited for him some time, at first patiently, then
impatiently.

Vanucci excused him. "I heard him say he had forgotten to provide
himself with a fardingale. Comrades, the good lad is hunting for a
beauty fit to take rank 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! 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 extinguished 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 - cotemporaneously, he lay supine; and the peerless creature
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
cod-fish.

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 viley ill-favoured; with their nasty
horns that make one afeard, and, their foul nostrils cast up into
the air. Holes be they; not nostrils."

"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 buffaloes 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 laughing 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."

"Tell him not, a soul of ye," 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 transcended 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 each, 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 Gerard's
companion, the ladies began to pick her to pieces sotto voce, and
audibly.

The lovely girl then showed that, if rich in beauty, 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 detractors.

"There is not one of you that wears Nature's colours," said' she.
"Look here," and she pointed rudely in one's face. "This is the
beauty that is to be bought in every shop. Here is cerussa, here
is stibium, and here purpurissum. 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 coloured, 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 stultified 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 distraught, you are sad. Judge
whether I care for the 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 coloured and withdrew his hand from Marcia's head.

Marcia was all admiration. "Aha! ladies," said she, "here is a
rival an ye will. Those cheeks were coloured by Nature-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 putting 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 Marcia pettishly,
and eyeing 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 Marcia's lap.

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 all
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 Epicaene,
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 a
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 colours. 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!"

"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' admiration of her by
lavishing all their tenderness on him.

But one there was who was still among these butterflies, 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 blandishments of Claelia,
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, disordered stomach,
and spirits artificially depressed

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 labour, and the calm sleep that is
labour's satellite; above all, his piety.

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 vulture Remorse sat upon it
rending it.

Broken health; means wasted; innocence fled; Margaret 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 companions, 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 Rome, and lay stony
eyed, woebegone, 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 intelligence; they
would see and save.

No; they knew not where he was, or whither he was gliding.

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.

And that eye is the eye of an enemy.

An enemy to the death.

CHAPTER LXIV

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 colour 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 not forbidding. Nothing to remark
in him but a singularly 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.

"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 him 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?"

"From myself."

At this the man, with the first symptoms of anxiety he had shown,
entreated her to be cautious, and particular, 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 the 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 young,
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?"

"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."

"Neither will avail him."

"Are ye so sure of your hand? What are your weapons?"

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 sudden gleam of
pity. It lasted but a moment. "But his heart is 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, revenge 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.

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 sphynx: 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, impulsive, 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.

CHAPTER LXV

It happened, two days after the scene I have endeavoured 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!"

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 favour 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 nought 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 this state of mind, the circumstance made no impression
whatever on him.

CHAPTER LXVI

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 intelligence.

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."

"'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!

"'The broken-hearted Gerard.'

"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.

"O, miserable day! O, calamity of calamities! Gerard, my friend,
my sweet patron! Help! help! He is killing 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 sluggishness. Go down to
the river? No. 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 glistened 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, unacquainted 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 quickfooted 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?" 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 difficulty 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.

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 became 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; but that man
was not Gerard. One said he knew a fisherman hard by that had nets
and drags. They found the fisherman and paid him liberally 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 cry 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.

CHAPTER LXVII

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, partly by
an actor in the scene.

Gerard, then, after writing his 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 provided, 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.

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 sentinel'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.

CHAPTER LXVIII

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 favour; 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 shuddered with instinctive antipathy and
dread. She had read wickedness and hatred in their faces, and
mysterious signals of secret intelligence. She preferred to
receive Catherine and her daughter at home. The former 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 to
Tergou.

"The poor lass hath not a soul about her, that knows 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 for ever 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 does 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 hustled 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 looking 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, '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 that 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.

CHAPTER LXIX

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 collects 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 vobiscum."

He was gone. Gerard lay back, meditating and wondering, 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 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 '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 (receive
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. 'I
know the face,' quoth he. ''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 defied.

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 harmonies. 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, "Oh,
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 confessing his every
sin with sighs and groans of penitence.

"Thy sins are great," said Anselm. "Thy temptation 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 Claelia'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 antechamber and hack him to pieces.

"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.

CHAPTER LXX

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 ludicrous 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 miscreant went on to be averse to taking it; and from that to
remorse; and from remorse to something very like penitence. And
here Teresa cooperated by threatening, not for the first time, to
leave him unless he would consent 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 labour was better for him,
than the brief excitement of being hewn in pieces by the Princess
Claelia'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.

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 thirsting 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."

"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 eucharist 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 priest's
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 feelings.

Here Gerard ended, and Brother Clement began,

CHAPTER LXXI

"As is the race of leaves so is that of men." And a great man
budded unnoticed in a tailor's house at Rotterdam 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 fulfilled the human precept,
"Soyez de votre siecle!"

In this emergency the seneschal cast his despairing eyes around;
and not in vain. A hopeful light shot into them.

"Here is this," said he, sotto voce. "Surely this will serve: 'tis
altogether apelike, doublet and hose apart"

"Nay," said the chancellor peevishly, "the Princess Marie would
hang us. She doteth on this."

Now this was our friend Giles, strutting, all unconscious, in
cloth of gold.

Then Dr. Remedy grew impatient, and bade flay a dog.

"A dog is next best to an ape; only it must be a dog all of one
colour."

So they flayed a liver-coloured 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.