 CHAPTER 69 OF THE CLOISTER AND THE HARTH by Charles Reed. 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 fryer sat by his bedside, reading pious collects allowed from his brievery. The patient at times eyed him, and seemed to listen, but others closed his eyes and moaned. The monk kneeled down with his face touching the ground and prayed for him, then rose and bowed 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 vubiscombe. He was gone. Gerald lay back, meditating and wondering, till weak and weary'd 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 fryer 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 feigned to strike you with all, or both you and I should be at the bottom of Tiber.' Gerald stared at him. "'What! Twas you saved me? How?' "'Well, Signor, I was by the banks of Tiber, on an errand, no matter what. You came to me and begged hard for a dagger-stroke, but ere I could oblige you, I even as you spoke to me, I knew you, for the Signor that saved my wife and child upon the sea. It is Theresa's husband and an assassin at your service. Well, Ser Gerald, 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, Theresa! And how could I go home and look her in the face? Did I let thee die? And by the very death thou saved 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 try to grip me, and so end us both. But I swam round thee, and received my excuses, so buffeted thee on the nape of the neck with my steel glove that thou lost sense. And I, with much adieu, 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. Theresa will nurse him and be pleased with me, thought I. But hard by this monastery a holy fryer the biggest air I saw met us, and asked the matter, so I told him, I look hard at thee, I know the face, quote thee, Tis one Gerard, a fair youth from Holland. The same Kowai 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 in all. So I just bargained to be, let in to see thee once a day, and hear thou art. 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, that he retired on tiptoe 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, barmy peace. Ah, he sighed, the church's 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 reverent 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 Jullier, 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 Jullier 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 naught. Lie not oppressed and crushed by hidden sins. And soon, Gerard was at Father Anselm's knees, confessing his every sin with size 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 Clialia'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 never had thought on but for them. 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. Her 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 Ludovico should come for his money, to fall on him in a certain ante-chamber, 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 70 of The Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reed This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham One of the novice Gerard's self-imposed penances was to receive Ludovico kindly, feeling secretly as to a slimy serpent. Whatever 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 gauged 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. Seeing 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 penance. And here Teresa cooperated by threatening not for the first time to leave him unless he would consent to lead an honest life. The goodfathers of the convent lent their aid, and Ludovico and Teresa were sent by sea to Leghorn, where Teresa had friends, and the assassin settled down and became a porter. He founded miserably dull work at first and said so. But me thinks this dull life of plodding labour was better for him than the brief excitement of being hewn in pieces by the Princess Claelia's mermidons. His exiles 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 Fragerome. 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 kitchenmaid. 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. She 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 groveled with remorse and terror at the feet of the gigantic bow-energies. 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. Doth thy jewels, said Fragia Rome-sterny, I will, I will, doth thy silk, and velvet, and in humbler garb than wears thy meanest servant, when 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. Oh mercy, be think thee, my features are known through Italy. Aye, beauty is a curse to most of ye. Well, thou mist 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 agon? Is it fit for such as thou to touch it? Ah, no, but oh, go not without giving your penitent daughter your blessing. Time in oh 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. End of Chapter 70 Recording by Tom Denham Chapter 71 of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reid This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham 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 ecla. 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. Oh, this is grave! Flaming an ape incontinent, and clap him to the Duke's breast. Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to counteract the bloodthirsty Tom foolery 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, soye de votre sietle. In this emergency the senichal cast his despairing eyes around, and not in vain, a hopeful light shone into them. Here is this, said he, soto votre. Surely this will serve, to his altogether ape-like 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 barred flay a dog. The 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. But 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 Arquitaine and Chilperique, Faremond, 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 medieval for Adam. The good duke's body was carried into Burgundy, and laid in a noble morselium of black marble at Dijon. Holland rang with his death, and little dreamed that anything as famous was born in her territory that year. That judgment has been long reversed. Men gaze at the tailor's house, here the great birth of the fifteenth century took place. In what house the good duke died, no one knows, and no one cares, as the song says. And why? Let's fill up the good, come and go, and leave mankind not a hate me wiser. No better, no other than they found it. But when, once in three hundred years, such a child is born to the world as Margaret's son, lo a human torch lighted by fire from heaven, and fiat luxe thunders from pole to pole? Read of Chapter 71, Recording by Tom Denham, Chapter 72 of The Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reid. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, Recording by Tom Denham. The Cloyster The Dominicans, or preaching friars, once the most powerful order in Europe, were now on the wane. Their rivals and bitter enemies the Franciscans were overpowering them throughout Europe, even in England a rich and religious country where, under the name of the black friars, they had once been paramount. Therefore, the sagacious men who watched and directed the interests of the order were never so anxious to incorporate Abel and zealous sons and send them forth to win back the world. The zeal and accomplishments of Clement, especially his rare mastery of language, for he spoke Latin, Italian, French, high and low Dutch, soon transpired, and he was destined to travel and preach in England corresponding with the Roman centre. But Jerome, who had the superior's ear, obstructed this design. Clement said he, as the milk of the world still in his veins, its feelings, its weaknesses, let not his newborn zeal and his humility tempt us to forego our ancient wisdom. Try him first and temper him, lest one day we find ourselves leaning on a reed for a staff. It is well advised, said the prior, take him in hand thyself. Then Jerome, following the ancient wisdom, took Clement and tried him. One day he brought him to a field where the young men amused themselves at the games of the day. He knew this to be a haunt of Clement's late friends. And sure ere long Pietro Vanucci and Andrea passed by them and cast a careless glance on the two friars. They did not recognise their dead friend in a shaven monk. Clement gave a very little start, then lowered his eyes and said a paternoster. Would ye not speak with them, brother? said Jerome, trying him. No, brother, yet it was good for me to see them. They remind me of the sins I can never repent enough. It is well, said Jerome, and he made a cold report in Clement's favour. Then Jerome took Clement to many deathbeds, and then into noisome dungeons, places where the darkness was appalling and the stench loathsome, pestilential, and men looking like wild beasts lay coiled in rags and filth and despair. It tried his body hard, but the soul collected all its powers to comfort such poor wretches there as were not past comfort. And Clement shone in that trial. Jerome reported that Clement's spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. Good, said Anselm, his flesh is weak, but his spirit is willing. But there was a greater trial in store. I will describe it as it was seen by others. One morning a principal street in Rome was crowded, and even the avenues blocked up with heads. It was an execution. No common crime had been done, and on no vulgar victim. The governor of Rome had been found in his bed at daybreak slaughtered. His hand, raised probably in self-defense, lay by his side severed at the wrist. His throat was cut, and his temples bruised with some blunt instrument. A murder had been traced to his servant, and was to be expiated in kind this very morning. Italian executions were not cruel in general. But this murder was thought to call for exact and bloody retribution. The criminal was brought to the house of the murdered man, and fastened for half an hour to its wall. After this foretaste of legal vengeance, his left hand was struck off, like his victims. A new-killed fowl was cut open and fastened round the bleeding stump, with what view I really don't know, but by the look of it some mares-nest of the poor dear doctors. And the murderer, thus mutilated and bandaged, was hurried to the scaffold, and there a young friar was most earnest and affectionate in praying with him and for him, and holding the crucifix close to his eyes. Suddenly the executioner pulled the friar roughly on one side, and in a moment fell the culprit with a heavy mallet, and falling on him cut his throat from ear to ear. There was a cry of horror from the crowd. The young friar swooned away. A gigantic monk strode forward and carried him off like a child. Brother Clement went back to the convent sadly discouraged. He confessed to the friar with tears of regret. "'Courage, son Clement,' said the friar, a Dominican is not made in a day. Thou shalt have another trial, and I forbid thee to go to it fasting.' Clement bowed his head in token of obedience. He had not long to wait. A robber was brought to the scaffold, a monster of villainy and cruelty, who had killed men in pure wantonness after robbing them. Clement passed his last night in prison with him, accompanied him to the scaffold, and then prayed with him and for him so earnestly that the hardened ruffian shed tears and embraced him. Clement embraced him too, though his flesh quivered with repugnance, and held the crucifix earnestly before his eyes. The man was grotted, and Clement lost sight of the crowd, and prayed loud and earnestly while that dark spirit was passing from earth. He was no sooner dead than the hangman, raised his hatchet, and quartered the body on the spot, and o mysterious heart of man, the people who had seen the living body robbed of life with indifference, almost with satisfaction, uttered a piteous cry at each stroke of the axe upon his corpse that could feel nought. Clement too shuddered then, but stood firm like one of those rocks that vibrate, but cannot be thrown down. But suddenly Jerome's voice sounded in his ear. Brother Clement, get thee on that cart and preach to the people. Nay, quickly, strike with all thy force on all this iron, while yet is hot, and souls are to be saved. Clement's colour came and went, and he breathed hard. But he obeyed and with ill-assured snap mounted the cart, and preached his first sermon to the first crowd he had ever faced. Oh, that sea of heads! His throat seemed parched, his heart thumped, his voice trembled. By and by, the greatness of the occasion, the sight of the eager, upturned faces, and his own heart full of zeal fired the pale monk. He told them this robber's history, warm from his own lips in the prison, and showed his hearers by that example the gradations of folly and crime, and warned them solemnly not to put foot on the first round of that fatal ladder. And as alternately he thundered against the shedders of blood, and moved the crowd to charity and pity, his tremors left him, and he felt all strung up like a loot. And gifted with an unsuspected force, he was master of that listening crowd, could feel their very pulse, could play sacred melodies on them, as on his sultry. Sobs and groans attested his power over the marble already excited by the tragedy before them. Jerome stared like one who goes to light a stick, and fires a rocket. After a while, Clement caught his look of astonishment, and seeing no approbation in it, broke suddenly off, and joined him. It was my first endeavour, he said apologetically. Your behest came on me like a thunderbolt. Was I—did I—oh, correct me, and aid me with your experience, brother Jerome." Ah! said Jerome doubtfully. He added rather sullenly after long reflection, Give the glory to God, brother Clement! My opinion is thou art an orator born! He reported the same at headquarters, half reluctantly, for he was an honest friar, though a disagreeable one. One Julio Antonelli was accused of sacrilege. Three witnesses swore they saw him come out of the church whence the candlesticks were stolen and that the very time. Other witnesses proved an alibi for him as positively. Neither testimony could be shaken. In this doubt Antonelli was permitted the trial by water, hot or cold. By the hot trial he must put his bare arm into boiling water, fourteen inches deep, and take out a pebble. By the cold trial his body must be let down into eight feet of water. The clergy who thought him innocent recommended the hot water trial, which to those whom they favoured was not so terrible as it sounded, but the poor wretch had not the nerve and chose the cold ordeal. And this gave Jerome another opportunity of stealing Clement. Antonelli took the sacrament and then was stripped naked on the banks of the Tiber and tied hand and foot to prevent those struggles by which a man, throwing his arms out of the water, sinks his body. He was then let down gently into the stream and floated a moment with just his hair above water. A simultaneous roar from the crowd on each bank proclaimed him guilty. But the next moment the ropes which happened to be new got wet and he settled down. Another roar proclaimed his innocence. They left him at the bottom of the river the appointed time, rather more than half a minute, then drew him up gurgling and gasping and screaming for mercy, and after the appointed prayers dismissed him, cleared of the charge. During the experiment Clement prayed earnestly on the bank. When it was over he thanked God in a loud but slightly quavering voice. By and by he asked Jerome whether the man ought not to be compensated. For what? For the pain, the dread, the suffocation, poor soul he liveth but hath tasted all the bitterness of death, yet he had done no ill. He is rewarded enough in that he is cleared of his fault. But being innocent of that fault yet hath he drunk death's cup, though not to the dregs, and his accusers less innocent than he do suffer naught? Jerome replied somewhat sternly, It is not in this world men are really punished, brother Clement. Unhappy they who sin yet suffer not, and happy they who suffer such ills as earth hath bowed to inflict, discounted to them above I and a hundredfold. Clement bowed his head submissively. May thy good words not fall to the ground, but take root in my heart, brother Jerome. But the severest trial Clement underwent at Jerome's hands was unpremeditated. It came about thus. Jerome in an indulgent moment went with him to Fra Colonna, and there the dream of Polifilo lay on the table just copied fairly. The poor author in the pride of his heart pointed out a master stroke in it. For ages said he, fools have been lavishing poetic praise and amorous compliment on mortal women, mere creatures of earth, smacking palpably of their origin. Sirens at the windows where our Roman women in particular have by lifelong study learned the wily art to show their one good feature, though but an ear or an eyelash, at a jalosi, and hide all the rest. Magpies at the door, Caprenni giardini, Angelli in strada, Sante in chiesa, diavoli in cazza. Then come I and ransack the minstrel's lines for amorous turns, not forgetting those which Petrarch wasted on that French-jilted Laura, the slyest of them all, and I lay you the whole bundle of spice at the feet of the only females worthy amorous incense, to wit the nine muses. By which goodly stratagem, said Jerome, who had been turning the pages all this time, you, a friar of St. Dominic, have produced an obscene book. And he dashed Polifilo on the table. Obscene thou discourteous monk! And the author ran round the table, snatched Polifilo away, locked him up, and trembling with mortification, said, My Gerald, sure, brother, what's his name, a not-found Polifilo obscene, pure is Omnia Pura. Such as read your Polifilo, heaven grant they may be few. We'll find him what I find him. Poor Colonna gulped down this bitter pill, as he might. And had he not been in his own lodgings, and a high-born gentleman as well as a scholar, there might have been a vulgar quarrel. As it was, he made a great effort, and turned the conversation to a beautiful chrysalite the cardinal Colonna had lent him. And while Clement handled it, enlarged on its moral virtues, for he went the whole length of his age as a worshipper of jewels. But Jerome did not, and expostulated with him for believing that one dead stone could converse Valor on its wearer, another chastity, another safety from poison, another temperance. The experience of ages proves they do, said Colonna. As to the last virtue you have named, there sits a living proof. This Gerald, I beg pardon, brother Thingamy, comes from the north, where men drink like fishes. Yet was he ever most abstemious? And why? Carried an amethyst, the clearest and fullest-coloured air I saw on any but noble finger. Where in heaven's name is thine amethyst? Show it, this unbeliever. And was that amethyst that made the boy temperate? asked Jerome ironically. Certainly, why? What is the derivation and meaning of amethyst? A negative and methua to tipple. Go to, names or but the signs of things, a stone is not called amethystos for two thousand years out of mere sport and abusive language. He then went through the prime jewels, illustrating their moral properties, especially of the ruby, the sapphire, the emerald, and the opal, by anecdotes out of grave historians. These be old wives' fables, said Jerome contemptuously. Was ever such credulity as thine? Now credulity is a reproached skeptics have often the ill luck to incur, but it mortifies them nonetheless for that. The believer in stones writhed under it and dropped the subject. Then Jerome, mistaking his silence, exhorted him to go a step farther and give up from this day his vain pagan law and study the lives of the saints. Blot out these heathen superstitions from thy mind, brother, as Christianity hath blotted them from the earth. And in this strain he proceeded repeating, unconsciously, some current but loose theological statements. Then the smarting polyphilo revenged himself. He flew out and hurled a mountain of crude miscellaneous law upon Jerome, of which, partly for want of time, partly for lack of learning, I can reproduce but a few fragments. The heathen blotted out. Why they hold four-fifths of the world. And what have we Christians invented without their aid? Painting, sculpture? These are heathen arts, and we but pygmies at them. What modern mind can conceive and grave so godlike forms as did the chief Athenian sculptors and the Libyan lycas and dynocrates of Macedon? And Scopus, Timothyus, Leocaris, and Briaxes? Caris, Lycipus, and the immortal three of rogues that wrought Leocoon from a single block. What prince hath the genius to turn mountains into statues as was done at Pakistan and projected at Athos? What town the soul to plant a colossus of brass in the sea for the tallest ships to sail in and out between his legs? Is it architecture we have invented? Why here, too, we are but children. Can we match for pure design the Parthenon with its clusters of double and single Doric columns? I too adore the Doric when the scale is large, and for grandeur and finish the theatres of Greece and Rome are the prodigious temples of Egypt, up to whose portals men warped or struck through avenues a mile long of Sphinxes, each as big as a Venetian palace. And all these prodigies of porphyry cut and polished like crystal, not rough-une as in our puny structures. Even now their polished columns and pilasters lie or thrown and broken, or grown with a canthus and myrtle, but sparkling still and flouting the slovenly art of modern workmen. Is it sewers, aqueducts, viaducts? Why we have lost the art of making a road, lost it with the world's greatest models under our very eye. Is it sepulchres of the dead? Why no Christian nation has ever erected a tomb, the sight of which does not set a scholar laughing. But do think of the mausoleum, and the pyramids, and the monstrous sepulchres of the Indus and Ganges, which outside are mountains, and within are minds of precious stones, and you have not seen the East Jerome, or you could not decry the heathen. Jerome observed that these were mere material things. True greatness was in the soul. Well then, replied Colonna, in the world of mind, what have we discovered? Is it geometry? Is it logic? Nay, we are all pupils of Euclid and Aristotle. Is it written characters and invention almost divine? We know more invented it than Cadmus did. Is it poetry? Homer hath never been approached by us, nor hath Virgil nor Horace. Is it tragedy or comedy? Why, poets, actors, theatres, all fell to dust at our touch. Have we succeeded in reviving them? Would you compare our little miserable mysteries and moralities, all frigid personification, and dog-latin, with the glories of a Greek play, on the decoration of which a hundred thousand crowns had been spent, performed inside a marble miracle, the audience a seated city, and the poet a Sophocles. What then have we invented? Is it monotheism? Why, the learned and philosophical among the Greeks and Romans held it, even their more enlightened poets were monotheist in their sleeves? Zeus est in Oranos, Zeus tegi Zeus toypanta. Seth the Greek, and Lucan echoes him, Jupiter est quod cunque vides quo cunque movres. Their vulgar were polytheists. And what are ours? We have not invented invocation of the saints. Our sancti answers to their demonies and divi, and the heathen used to pray their divi or deified mortal to intercede with the higher divinity, but the rude minds among them, incapable of nice distinctions, worshipped those lesser gods they should have but invoked, and so to the mob of Christians in our day following the heathen vulgar or by unbroken tradition. For in holy writ is no polytheism of any sort or kind. We have not invented so much as a form or variety of polytheism. The pagan vulgar worshipped all sorts of deified mortals, and each had his favorite to whom he prayed ten times for once to the omnipotent. Our vulgar worshipped canonized mortals, and each has his favorite to whom he prays ten times for once to God. Call you that invention? Invention is confined to the east. Among the ancient vulgar only the mariners were monotheists. They worshipped Venus, called her Stella Maris and Regina Calorum. Among our vulgar only the mariners are monotheists. They worshipped the Virgin Mary and called her Star of the Sea and the Queen of Heaven. Call you there's a new religion? An old doublet with a new button. Our vulgar make images and adore them which is absurd, for adoration is the homage due from a creature to its creator. Now here man is the creator, so the statues ought to worship him, and would if they had brains enough to justify a rat in worshiping them. But even this abuse, though childish enough to be modern, is ancient. The pagan vulgar in these parts made their images, then knelt before them, adorned them with flowers, offered incense to them, lighted tapers before them, carried them in procession, and made pilgrimages to them just to the smallest tittle as we their imitators do. Jerome here broke in impatiently and reminded him that the images the most revered in Christendom were made by no mortal hand but had dropped from heaven. I cried Cologne as such other tutelary images of most great Italian towns. I have examined nineteen of them and made draughts of them. If they came from the sky our worst sculptors or our angels. But my mind is easy on that score. Ungainly statue or villainous d'orbe fell never yet from heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is pagan and arose thus. The Trojans had oriental imaginations and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave Saint Paul trouble at Ephesus. It was a statue of Diana that fell down from Jupiter. Credart, key, Credare, reposite. What would you cast your profane doubts on that picture of our blessed lady which scarce a century ago hung lustrous in the air over this very city, and was taken down by the pope and bestowed in Saint Peter's church? I have no profane doubts on the matter, Jerome. This is the story of Numa's shield, revived by theologians with an itch for fiction, but no talent that way, not being orientals. The ancile or sacred shield of Numa hung lustrous in the air over this very city till that pious prince took it down and hung it in the temple of Jupiter. Be just, swallow both stories or neither. The bocca della verita passes for a statue of the virgin and convicted a woman of perjury the other day. It is in reality an image of the goddess Ria, and the modern figment is one of its ancient traditions. Swallow both or neither. Kibavium non-oaded amet to a karmina mavi. But indeed we owe all our Palladian killer, and all our speaking, nodding, winking, sweating, bleeding statues to these poor abused heathens. The Athenian statues all sweated before the Battle of Caronia, so did the Roman statues during Tully's consulship vis the statue of victory at Capua, of Mars at Rome, and of Apollo outside the gates. The Palladium itself was brought to Italy by Hineas, and after keeping quiet three centuries made an observation in Vesta's temple, a trivial one I fear since it had not survived. Juno's statue at Vae assented with a nod to go to Rome. Antony's statue on Mount Alban bled from every vein in its marble before the fight of Actium, others cured diseases, as that of Pelicus derided by Lucian, for the wiser among the heathen believed in sweating marble, weeping wood and bleeding brass as I do. Of all our marks and dents made in stone by soft substances, this saint's knee and that saint's finger and Tother's head, the original is heathen. Thus the footprints of Hercules were shown on a rock in Skidia. Castor and Pollux fighting on white horses for Rome against the Latians left the prints of their hooves on a rock at Regulum. A temple was built to them on the spot and the marks were to be seen in Tully's day. You may see near Venice a great stone cut nearly in half by Saint George's sword. This he ne'er had done but for the old Roman who cut the whetstone in due with his razor. Chibavium non-Odeid amet to a Carminamavi. Kissing of images and the pope's toe is Eastern paganism. The Egyptians had it of the Assyrians, the Greeks of the Egyptians, the Romans of the Greeks and we of the Romans, whose pontifex maximus had his toe kissed under the empire. The Druids kissed the high priest's toe a thousand years BC. The Muslims who, like you, profess to abhor heathenism, kissed the stone of the carba. A pagan practice. The priests of Baal kissed their idols so. Tully tells us of a fair image of Hercules at Agrigentum whose chin was worn by kissing. The lower parts of the statue we call Peter or Jupiter. The toe is sore worn but not all by Christian mouths. The heathen vulgar laid their lips their first for many a year and ours have but followed them as monkeys their masters. And that is why, down with the poor heathen. Perianti anti nos nostra fecarent. Our infant baptism is Persian, with the font and the signing of the child's brow. Our throwing three handfuls of earth on the coffin and saying dust to dust is Egyptian. Our incense is Oriental, Roman, pagan, and the early fathers of the church regarded it with superstitious horror and died for refusing to handle it. Our holy water is pagan and all its uses. See, here is a pagan aspersaurium. Could you tell it from one of ours? It stood in the same part of their temples and was used in ordinary worship as ours and in extraordinary purifications. They called it aqua lustralis. Their vulgar, like ours, thought drops of it falling on the body would wash out sin. And their men of sense, like ours, smiled or sighed at such credulity. What saith Ovid of this folly which hath outlived him? Ah, nimium faculaeis chitristia crimina coides, flumenia toleposse puttetis aqua. Thou seest the heathen were not all fools. No more are we. Not all. Fra calona uttered all this, with such volubility that his hearers could not edge in a word of remonstrance, and not being interrupted in praising his favourites, he recovered his good humour without any diminution of his volubility. We celebrate the miraculous conception of the virgin on the 2nd of February. The old Romans celebrated the miraculous conception of Juno on the 2nd of February. Our feast of all saints is on the 2nd of November. The festum de mortis was on the 2nd of November. Our candle-mas is also an old Roman feast. Neither the date nor the ceremony altered one tittle. The patrician ladies carried candles about the city that night, as our signoras do now. At the gate of San Croce, our courtesans keep a feast on the 20th of August. Ask them why? The little noodles cannot tell you. On that very spot stood the temple of Venus. Her building is gone, but her right remains. Did we discover purgatory? On the contrary, all we really know about it, is from two treatises of Plato, the Gorgias and the Phaedo, and the 6th book of Virgil's Ineared. I take it from a holier source. St. Gregory, said Jerome Sternley. Like enough, replied Colonna Dryley, but St. Gregory was not so nice. He took it from Virgil. Some souls, saith Gregory, are purged by fire, others by water, others by air. Says Virgil, Aliai panduntor inanes, suspensai adventus, alias subgurgite vasto, infectum eliutor skillis ut exuritor igne. But per adventure you think Pope Gregory I lived before Virgil, and Virgil versified him. But the doctrine is eastern, and as much older than Plato, as Plato, than Gregory. Our prayers for the dead come from Asia with Inears. Ovid tells that when he prayed for the soul of Anchises, the custom was strange in Italy. Hunk morem Ineos, pietatus idionus octor, atulit interus juste latine to us. The Biblicae sortes, which I have seen consulted on the altar, are a parody on the sortes Virgiliani. Our numerous altars in one church are heathen. The Jews who are monotheists have but one altar in a church, but the pagans had many, being polytheists. In the temple of Pethion Venus were a hundred of them. Centum chisabio thure calendare. Our altars, and our hundred lights around St. Peter's tomb, are pagan. Centum aras posuid virgilem que sacra veret igne. We invent nothing, not even numerically. Our very devil is the god Pan, horns and hooves and all, but blackened. For we cannot draw, we can put daub the figures of antiquity with a little sorry paint or suit. Our Moses hath stolen the horns of Ammon, our Wolfgang the hook of Saturn, and Janus bore the keys of heaven before St. Peter. All our really old Italian bronzes of the virgin and child are venuses and cupids. So is the wooden statue that stands hard by this house of Pope Joan and the child she is said to have brought forth there in the middle of her procession? Idiots, our newborn children, thirteen years old, and that boy is not a day younger. Cupid, cupid, cupid! And since you accuse me of credulity, know that to my mind that Papers is full as mythological, born of froth, and every way unreal as the goddess who passes for in the next street, or as the saints you call St. Bako and St. Quirina, or St. Oracte, which is a dunce-like corruption of Mount Sorakte, or St. Amphibolis, an English saint, which is a dunce-like corruption of the cloak worn by their St. Alban, or as the Spanish saint St. Via, which words on his tombstone written thus S. Via prove him no saint, but a good, old, nameless heathen, and prefectus Viarum, or overseer of roads. Would he were back to earth and paganizing of our Christian roads, or as our St. Veronica of Banasco, which Veronica is a dunce-like corruption of the Vera icon, which this saint brought into the church, I wish it may not be as unreal as the donor, or as the eleven thousand virgins of Cologne, who were but a couple. Clement interrupted him to inquire what he meant. I have spoken with those who have seen their bones. What, of eleven thousand virgins all collected in one place and at one time? Do but bethink thee, Clement, not one of the great eastern cities of antiquity could collect eleven thousand pagan virgins at one time, far less a puny western city? Eleven thousand Christian virgins in a little wee, pain-im-city. Quod cunque ostendis me he seek incredulous odi. The simple sooth is this. The martyrs would do. The Breton princess herself, falsely called British, earned her maid Onesimila, which is a Greek name, Onesima, diminished. This, some fool, did mispronounce, undecimile, eleven thousand. Loose tongue found credulous ears, and so one fool made many, eleven thousand of them. And you will. And you charge me with credulity, churro? And bid me read the lives of the saints? Well, I have read them, and many a dear old pagan acquaintance I found there. The best fictions in the book are oriental, and are known to have been current in Persia and Arabia eight hundred years and more before the dates the church assigns to them as facts. As for the true western figments, they lack the oriental plausibility. Think you, I am credulous enough to believe that Saint Ida joined a decapitated head to its body, that Saint Cuthbert's carcass directed his bearers where to go and where to stop, that a city was eaten up of rats to punish one hathow for comparing the poor to mice, that angels have a little horn on their foreheads, and that this was seen and recorded at the time by Saint Veronica of Benasco, who never existed, and hath left us this information and a miraculous handkercher? For my part I think the holiest woman the world airs or must have an existence ere she can have a handkercher, or an eye to take unicorns for angels. Think you, I believe, that a brace of lions turned sextons and helped Anthony bury Paul of Thebes, that Patrick, a scotch saint, stuck a goat's beard on all the descendants of one that offended him, that certain thieves having stolen the convent ram and denying it, Saint Paul de Lyon bad the ram bear witness and straight the mutton bleated in the thief's belly. Would you have me give up the skillful figments of antiquity for such old wives' fables as these? The ancients lied about animals too, but then they lied logically, we unreasonably. Do but compare Ephesus and his lion, or better still Androclese and his lion, with Anthony and his two lions. Both the pagan lions do what lions never did, but at the least they act in character. A lion with a bone in his throat or a thorn in his foot could not do better than be civil to a man, but Anthony's lions are asses in a lion's skin. What Leonine motive could they have in turning sextons? A lion's business is to make corpses not in turn them. He added, with a sigh, our lies are as inferior to the lies of the ancients as our statues, and for the same reason, we do not study nature as they did, we are imitatores servum pecus. Believe you, the lives of the saints that Paul the Theban was the first hermit and Anthony the first canobite? Why Pythagoras was an eromite and underground for seven years and his daughter was an abes. Monks and hermits were in the east long before Moses, and neither old Greece nor home was ever without them. As for St. Francis and his snowballs, he did but mimic diogenes who naked embraced statues on which snow had fallen. The folly without the poetry. Ape of an ape for diogenes was but a mimic therein of the Brahmins and Greek gymnosephists. Nonetheless, the children of this Francis bid fair to pelt us out of the church with their snowballs. Tell me now, Clement, what habit is lovelier than the vestments of our priests? Well, we owe them all to Numa Pompilius, except the girdle and the stole, which are judeical. As for the Amici and the Albe, they retain the very names they bore in Numa's day. The pelt worn by the cannons comes from primeval paganism, tis a relic of those rude times when the sacrificing priests wore the skins of the beasts with the fur outward. Strip off thy black gown, Jerome, thy girdle and cowl, for they come to us all three from the pagan ladies. Let thy hair grow like Absalom's, Jerome, for the tonsure is as pagan as the muses. Take care what thou sayest, said Jerome sternly. We know the very year in which the church did first ordain it. But not invented, Jerome, the Brahmins wore it a few thousand years ere that. From them it came through the Assyrians, the priests of Isis in Egypt, and afterwards of Serapus at Athens. The late pub, the saints be good to him, once told me that tonsure was forbidden by God to the Levites in the Pentateuch. If so, this was because of the Egyptian priests wearing it. I trust to his holiness. I am no biblical scholar. The Latin of thy namesake, Jerome, is a barrier I cannot overleap. Dixit ad me dominus dens, Dixi ad dominum deum. No, thank you, Holy Jerome. I can stand a good deal, but I cannot stand thy Latin. Nay, give me the New Testament. It is not the Greek of Xenophon, but it is Greek. And there be heathen sayings in it, too, for St. Paul was not so spiteful against them as thou. When the heathen said a good thing that suited his matter, by Jupiter he just took it, and mixed it to all eternity with the inspired text. Come forth, Clement, come forth, said Jerome, rising, and thou profane monk, know that but for the powerful house that upholds thee, thy accursed heresy should go no farther, for I would have thee burned at the stake. And he strode out, white with indignation. Colonna's reception of this threat did credit to him as an enthusiast. He ran and hallowed joyfully after Rome, and that is pagan, burning of men's bodies for the opinions of their souls is a purely pagan custom. As pagan as incense, holy water, a hundred altars in one church, the tonsure, the cardinals, or flaments heart, the word pope, the here Jerome, slammed the door. But ere they could get clear of the house, a jealousy was flung open, and a pain in monk came out, head and shoulders, and over hung the street shouting, affecti suplicius christitianae genus hominum novus and having delivered this parting blow, he felt a great triumphant joy, and strode exultant to and fro, and not attending with his usual care to the fair way, for his room could only be threaded by little paths, wriggling among the antiquities, tripped over the beak of an Egyptian stork, and rolled upon a regiment of Armenian gods, which he found tough in argument though small in stature. You will go no more to that heretical monk, said Jerome to Clement. Clement sighed. Shall we leave him and not try to correct him? Make allowance for heat of discourse. He was netled. His words are worse than his acts. O'tis a pure and charitable soul. So are all archheretics. Satan does not tempt them like other men. Rather, he makes them more moral to give their teaching weight. Fra calona cannot be corrected. His family is all-powerful in Rome. Pray we the saints he blasphemes to enlighten him, it will not be the first time they have returned good for evil. Meantime, thou art forbidden to consort with him. From this day go alone through the city. Confess and absolve sinners, exercise demons, comfort the sick, terrify the impenitent, preach wherever men are gathered, and occasion serves, and hold no converse with the fra calona. Clement bowed his head. Then the prior, at Jerome's request, had the young friar watched. And one day the spy returned with the news that Brother Clement had passed by the fra calona's lodging, and had stopped a little while in the street, and then gone on, but with his hand to his eyes, and slowly. This report Jerome took to the prior. The prior asked his opinion, and also Anselm's, who was then taking leave of him on his return to Juliet. Jerome, he obeyed but with regret, eye with childish repining. Anselm, he shed a natural tear at turning his back on a friend and a benefactor, but he obeyed. Now Anselm was one of your gentle irresistibles. He had at times a mild ascendant even over Jerome. Worthy brother Anselm, said Jerome, Clement is weak to the very bone. He will disappoint thee. He will do nothing great either for the church or for our holy order. Yet he is an orator, and hath drunken of the spirit of Saint Dominic. Fly him then with a string. That same day it was announced to Clement that he was to go to England immediately with brother Jerome. Clement folded his hands on his breast, and bowed his head in calm submission. End of chapter 72, Recording by Tom Denham Chapter 73 of The Cloyster and the Hearth by Charles Reed This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham The Hearth A Catherine is not an unmixed good in a strange house. The governing power is strong in her. She has scarce crossed the threshold ere the utensils seem to brighten. The hearth to sweep itself, the windows to let in more light, and the soul of an enormous cricket to animate the dwelling place. But this cricket is a busy body, and that is a tremendous character. It has no discrimination. It sets everything to rights and everybody. Now many things are the better for being set to rights, but everything is not. Everything is the one thing that won't stand being set to rights except in that calm and cool retreat, the grave. Catherine altered the position of every chair and table in Margaret's house, and perhaps for the better. But she must go farther and upset the live furniture. When Margaret's time was close at hand, Catherine treacherously invited the aid of Denis and Martin, and on the poor, simple-minded fellows asking her earnestly what service they could be, she told them they might make themselves comparatively useful by going for a little walk. So far so good. But she intimated further that should the promenade extend into the middle of next week, all the better. This was not ingratiating. The subsequent conduct of the strong under the yoke of the weak might have propitiated a she-bear with three cubs, one sickly. They generally slipped out of the house at daybreak and stolen like thieves at night, and if by chance they were at home, they went about like cats on a wall tipped with broken glass and wearing awestruck visages and a general air of subjugation and depression. But all would not do. Their very presence was ill-timed and jarred upon Catherine's nerves. Did instinct whisper a pair of depopulators had no business in the house with multipliers twain? The breastplate is no armor against a female tongue, and Catherine ran infinite pins and needles of speech into them. In a word, when Margaret came downstairs, she found the kitchen swept of heroes. Martin, old and stiff, had retreated no farther than the street, and with the honours of war, for he had carried off his baggage, a stool, and sat on it in the air. Margaret saw he was out in the sun, but was not aware he was a fixture in that luminary. She asked for Denis. Good kind, Denis. He will be right pleased to see me about again. Catherine, wiping a bowl with now superfluous vigor, told her Denis was gone to his friends in Burgundy. And hard time! Hasn't been an eye them this three years by all accounts. What, gone without bidding me farewell, said Margaret, uplifting two tender eyes like full-blown violets. Catherine reddened, for this new view of the matter set her conscience pricking her. But she gave a little toss and said, Oh, you were asleep at the time, and I would not have you wakened. Poor Denis, said Margaret, and the dew gathered visibly on the open violets. Catherine saw out of the corner of her eye, and, without taking a bit of open notice, slipped off and lavished hospitality and tenderness on the surviving depopulator. It was sudden, and Martin old and stiff in more ways than one. No, thank you, Dame, I have got used to outer doors, and I love not changing and changing. I meddle when nobody here, and nobody meddles were me. Oh, you nasty cross, old wretch! screamed Catherine, passing in a moment from treacle to sharp as vinegar, and she flounced back into the house. On calm reflection she had a little cry, then she half reconciled herself to her conduct by vowing to be so kind, Margaret should never miss her plagues of soldiers. But feeling still a little uneasy, she dispersed all regrets by a process at once simple and sovereign. She took and washed the child. From head to foot she washed him in tepid water, and heroes and their wrongs became as dust in an ocean of soap and water. While this celestial ceremony proceeded, Margaret could not keep quiet. She hovered round the fortunate performer. She must have an apparent hand in it, if not a reel. She put her finger into the water to pave the way for her boy, I suppose, for she could not have deceived herself so far as to think Catherine would allow her to settle the temperature. During the ablution she kneeled down opposite the little Gerard and prattled to him with amazing fluency, taking care, however, not to articulate, like grown-up people, for how could a cherub understand their ridiculous pronunciation? I wish you could wash out that, said she, fixing her eyes on the little boy's hand. What? What have you not noticed on his little finger? Granny looked, and there was a little brown mole. Hey, but this is wonderful, she cried. Nature, my lass, you're strong and meddlesome to boot. Has noticed such a mark on someone else? Tell the truth, girl. What, on him? Nay, mother, not I. Well, then he has, and on the very spot. And you never noticed that much. But, dear heart, I forgot. You ha'nt known him from child to man as I have. I have had him hundreds of times on my knees the same as this, and washed him from top to toe in lukewarm water. And she swelled with conscious superiority, and Margaret looked meekly up to her as a woman beyond competition. Catherine looked down from her dizzy height and moralized. She differed from other busybodies in this, that she now and then reflected. Not deeply, or, of course, I should take care not to print it. It is strange, said she, how things come round and about. Life is but a whirligig. Least ways we poor women our lives are all cut upon one pattern. Wasn't I for washing out my Gerard's mole in his young days? Oh, fire, here's a foul blot, quo high! And scrubbed away at it, I did. Till I made the poor white cry. So then I thought, it was time to give over. And now you says to me, Mother says you do try and wash you out, my Gerard's finger says you. Think on't. Wash it out, cried Margaret. I wouldn't for all the world. Why, it is the sweetest bit in his little darling body. I'll kiss it more than night till he that owned it first comes back to us three. Oh, bless you, my jewel of gold and silver, for being marked like your own daddy, to comfort me. And she kissed little Gerard's little mole. But she could not stop there. She presently had him sprawling on her lap, and kissed his back all over again and again, and seemed to worry him as wolf alam. Catherine looking on and smiling. She had seen a good many of these savage onslaughts in her day. And this little sketch indicates the tenor of Margaret's life for several months. One or two small things occurred to her during that time, which must be told, but I reserve them, since one string will serve for many glass beads. But while her boy's father was passing through those fearful tempests of the soul, ending in the dead monastic calm, her life might fairly be summed in one great blissful word, maternity. You, who know what lies in that word, enlarge my little sketch and see the young mother nursing and washing, and dressing and undressing, and crowing and gambling with her firstborn. Then, swift and enlightening, dart your eye into Italy, and see the cold cloister, and the monks passing like ghosts, eyes down, hands meekly crossed over bosoms dead to earthly feelings. One of these cowled ghosts is he, whose return full of love and youth and joy that radiant young mother awaits. In the valley of Grindelwald, the traveller has on one side the perpendicular Alps, all rock, ice, and everlasting snow, towering above the clouds, and piercing to the sky. On his other hand little everyday slopes, but green as emeralds, and studded with cows and pretty cots, and life, whereas those lofty neighbours stand leafless, lifeless, inhuman, sublime. Elsewhere sweet common places of nature are apt to pass unnoticed, but fronting the grim Alps, they soothe, and even gently strike, the mind by contrast with their tremendous opposites. Such in their way are the two halves of this story rightly looked at. On the Italian side rugged adventure, strong passion, blasphemy vice, penitence. Pure ice, holy snow, soaring direct at heaven. On the Dutch side all on a humble scale, and womanish, but ever green. And as a pathway parts the ice-towers of Grindelwald, aspiring to the sky from its little sunny braze, so here is but a page between the cloister and the hearth. End of chapter 73 Recording by Tom Denham Chapter 74 of The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reid This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Tom Denham The Cloister The New Pope favoured the Dominican order. The convent received a message from the Vatican, requiring a capable friar to teach at the University of Baal. Now Clement was the very monk for this. Well versed in languages, and in his worldly days had attended the lectures of Guarini the Younger. His visit to England was therefore postponed, though not resigned, and meantime he was sent to Baal, but not being wanted there for three months, he was to preach on the road. He passed out of the northern gate with his eyes lowered, and the whole man wrapped in pious contemplation. Oh, if we could paint a mind at its story, what a walking fresco was this barefooted friar! Hopeful, happy love, bereavement, despair, impiety, vice, suicide, remorse, religious despondency, penitence, death to the world, resignation, and all in twelve short months. And now the traveller was on foot again. But all was changed, no perilous adventures now, the very thieves and robbers bowed to the ground before him, and instead of robbing him, forced stolen money on him, and begged his prayers. This journey therefore furnished few picturesque incidents. I have, however, some readers to think of who care little for melodrama, and expect a quiet peep at what passes inside a man. To such students things undramatic are often vocal, denoting the progress of a mind. The first Sunday of Clement's journey was marked by this. He prayed for the soul of Margaret. He had never done so before, not that her eternal welfare was not dearer to him than anything on earth. It was his humility. The terrible impieties that burst from him on the news of her death horrified my well-disposed readers, but not, as on reflection, they horrified him who had uttered them. For a long time during his novitiate he was oppressed with religious despair. He thought he must have committed that sin against the Holy Spirit, which dooms the soul for ever, by degrees that dark cloud cleared away, and Selmo Juvanti, but deep self-abasement remained. He felt his own salvation insecure, and moreover thought it would be mocking heaven should he, that deeply stained, pray for a soul so innocent comparatively as Margaret's. So he used to coax Good Anselm and another kindly monk to pray for her. They did not refuse, nor do it by halves. In general the good old monks, and there were good, bad, and indifferent in every convent, had a pure and tender affection for their younger brethren, which in truth was not of this world. Clement, then, having preached on Sunday morning in a small Italian town, and being mightily carried onward, was greatly encouraged, and that day a barmy sense of God's forgiveness and love descended on him, and he prayed for the welfare of Margaret's soul. And from that hour this became his daily habit, and the one purified tie that by memory connected his heart with earth. For his family were to him as if they had never been. The church would not share with earth, nor could even the church cure the great love without annihilating the smaller ones. During most of this journey, Clement rarely felt any spring of life within him, but when he was in the pulpit. The other exceptions were when he happened to relieve some fellow creature. A young man was tarantula-bitten, or perhaps, like many more, fancied it. Fancy or reality, he had been for two days without sleep, and in most extraordinary convulsions, leaping, twisting, and beating the walls. The village musicians had only excited him worse with their music. Exhaustion and death followed the disease when it gained such a head. Clement passed by and learned what was the matter. He sent for a sultry and tried the patient with soothing melodies, but if the other tunes maddened him, Clement seemed to crush him. He groaned and moaned under them, and groveled on the floor. At last the friar observed that at intervals his lips kept going. He applied his ear and found the patient was whispering a tune, and a very singular one that had no existence. He learned this tune and played it. The patient's face brightened amazingly. He marched about the room on the light fantastic toe, enjoying it, and when Clement's fingers ached nearly off with playing it, he had the satisfaction of seeing the young man sink complacently to sleep to this lullaby, the strange creation of his own mind, for it seems he was no musician and never composed a tune before or after. This sleep saved his life, and Clement, after teaching the tune to another, in case it should be wanted again, went forward with his heart a little warmer. On another occasion he found a mob hailing a decently dressed man along who struggled and vociferated, but in a strange language. This person had walked into their town erect and sprightly, waving a mulberry branch over his head. Thereupon the natives first gazed stupidly, not believing their eyes, then pounced on him and drugged him before the Podesta. Clement went with them, but on the way they drew quietly near the prisoner and spoke to him in Italian. No answer. In French, German, Dutch, no assets. Then the man tried Clement in tolerable Latin, but with a sharpish accent. He said he was an Englishman, and oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bow off the nearest tree to save his head. In my country, anybody's welcome to what grows on the highway, confound the fools I am ready to pay for it, but here is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of leaves. The pig-headed Podesta would have sent the dogged islander to prison, but Clement mediated and with some difficulty made the prisoner comprehend that silkworms, and by consequence mulberry leaves, were sacred, being under the wing of the sovereign, and his source of income, and urged on the Podesta that ignorance of his mulberry laws was natural in a distant country, where the very tree perhaps was unknown. The opinionate of islander turned a still-vibrating scale by pulling out a long purse and repeating his original theory that the whole question was mercantile. Quid damne, said he. Dick et sito solvam! The Podesta snuffed the gold, fined him a docket for the duke, about the value of the whole tree, and pouched the coin. The Englishman shook off his ire the moment he was liberated, and laughed heartily at the whole thing, but was very grateful to Clement. You are too good for this whole of a country, father. Come to England. That is the only place in the world. I was an uneasy fool to leave it, and wander among mulberries and their idiots. I am a kentish squire and educated at Cambridge University. My name it is Rolf, my place betz-hanger. The man and the house are both at your service. Come over and stay till doomsday. We sit down forty to dinner every day at betz-hanger. One more or one less at the board will not be seen. You shall end your days with me and my heirs, if you will, come now. What an Englishman says he means, and he gave him a great hearty grip of the hand to confirm it. I will visit thee some day, my son, said Clement, but not to weary thy hospitality. The Englishman then begged Clement to strive him. I know not what will become of my soul, said he. I live like a heathen since I left England. Clement consented gladly, and soon the islander was on his knees to him by the roadside, confessing the last month's sins. Finding him so pious a son of the church, Clement let him know he was really coming to England. He then asked him whether it was true that country was overrun with lollards and wickliphites. The other coloured up a little. There be black sheep in every land, said he. Then after some reflection he said gravely, Holy Father, hear the truth about these heretics. None are better disposed towards holy church than we English. But we are ourselves and by ourselves. We love our own ways and above all our own tongue. The Norman could conquer our billhooks, but not our tongues, and hard they tried it for many a long year by law and proclamation. Our good foreign priests utter God to plain English folk in Latin, or in some French or Italian lingo like the bleeding of a sheep. Then come the fox wickliph and his crew, and read him out of his own book in plain English, that all men's hearts warm too. Who can withstand this? God forgive me, I believe the English would turn deaf ears to Saint Peter himself, spokey not to them in the tongue their mothers sewed in their ears, and their hearts, along with mothers' kisses. He added hastily, I say not this for myself, I am Cambridge bread. The good words come not amiss to me in Latin, but for the people in general. Clavis ad corda anglorum est lingua materna. My son, said Clement, blessed be the hour I met thee, for thy words are sober and wise, but alas, how shall I learn your English tongue, no book have I? I would give you my book of hours, Father, tis in English and Latin cheek by jowl, but then what would become of my poor soul wanting my hours in a strange land? Stay, you are a holy man, and I am an honest one. Let us make a bargain. You, to pray for me every day for two months, and I to give you my book of hours. Here it is. What say you to that? And his eyes sparkled, and he was all on fire with mercantility. Clement smiled gently at this trait, and quietly detached a manuscript from his girdle, and showed him that it was in Latin and Italian. See, my son, said he, heaven hath foreseen our several needs, and given us the means to satisfy them. Let us change books, and, my dear son, I will give thee my poor prayers and welcome, not sell them thee. I love not religious bargains. The islander was delighted. Social I learn the Italian tongue without risk to my eternal wheel. Near is my purse, but nearer is my soul. He forced money on Clement. In vain the friar told him it was contrary to his vow to carry more of that than was barely necessary. Lay it out for the good of the church, and of my soul, said the islander, I ask you not to keep it, but take it, you must, and shall. And he grasped Clement's hand warmly again, and Clement kissed him on the brow, and blessed him, and they went each his way. About a mile from where they parted, Clement found two tired wayfarers sleeping in the deep shade of a great chestnut tree, one of a thick grove the road skirted. Near the men was a little cart, and in it a printing press, rude and clumsy as a vine press, a jaded mule was harnessed to the cart. And so Clement stood face to face with his old enemy. And as he eyed it, and the honest blue-eyed faces of the wearied craftsman, he looked back as on a dream of the bitterness he had once felt towards this machine. He looked kindly down on them and said softly, Sveinheim, the men started to their feet, Panarts! This scuttled into the wood and was seen no more. Clement was amazed, and stood puzzling himself. Presently a face peeped from behind a tree. Clement addressed it, what fear ye? A quavering voice replied, Say rather, by what magic you, a stranger, can call us by our names? I never clapped eyes on you till now. Oh, superstition, I know ye as all good workmen are known by your works. Come hither, and I will tell ye. They advanced gingerly from different sides, each regulating his advance by the others. My children, said Clement, I saw a lactantius in Rome, printed by Sveinheim and Panarts, disciples of Faust. To hear that, Panarts, our work has gotten to Rome already. By your blue eyes and flaxen hair I wished you were Germans, and the printing press spoke for itself. Who then should ye be but Faust's disciples, Panarts and Sveinheim? The honest Germans were now astonished that they had suspected magic in so simple a matter. The good father hath his wits about him, that is all. Said Panarts, I, said Sveinheim, and with those wits would ye could tell us how to get this tired beast to the next town. Ye, said Sveinheim, and where to find money to pay for his meat and ours when we get there? I will try, said Clement, free the mule of the cart and of all harness but the bear halter. This was done, and the animal immediately lay down and rolled on his back in the dust like a kitten. Whilst he was thus employed, Clement assured him he would rise up a new mule. His creator hath taught him this art to refresh himself, which the nobler horse knoweth not. Now, with regard to money, know that a worthy Englishman hath entrusted me with a certain sum to bestow in charity. To whom can I better give a stranger's money than to strangers? Take it, then, and be kind to some Englishman or other stranger in his need, and may all nations learn to love one another one day. The tears stood in the honest workmen's eyes. They took the money with heartfelt thanks. It is your nation we are bound to thank and bless, good father, if we but knew it. My nation is the church. Clement was then forbidding them farewell, but the honest fellows implored him to wait a little. They had no silver nor gold, but they had something they could give their benefactor. They took the press out of the cart, and while Clement fed the mule they hustled about, now on the white-hot road, now in the deep, cool shade, now half in and half out, and presently printed a quarto sheet of eight pages, which was already set up. They had not type enough to print two sheets at a time. When after the slower preliminaries the printed sheet was pulled all in a moment, Clement was amazed in turn. What are all these words really fast upon the paper? said he. Is it verily certain they will not go as swiftly as they came, and you took me for a magician? Tis augustine te civitate d'ay. My sons, you carry here the very wings of knowledge. O never abuse this great craft! Print no ill books! They would fly abroad countless as locusts, and lay waste men's souls. The workmen said they would sooner put their hands under the screw, and so abuse their goodly craft. And so they parted. There is nothing but meeting and parting in this world. At a town in Tuscany the holy friar had a sudden and strange recontra with the past. He fell in with one of those motley assemblages of protrisions and plebeians, piety and profligacy, a company of pilgrims, a subject too well painted by others for me to go and daub. They were in an immense barn belonging to the inn. Clement, dusty and wearied, and no lover of idle gossip sat in a corner studying the Englishman's hours, and making them out as much by his own dutch as by the Latin version. Presently a servant brought a bucket half full of water and put it down at his feet. A female servant followed with two towels, and then a woman came forward and crossing herself, kneeled down without a word at the bucket-side, removed her sleeves entirely, and motioned to him to put his feet into the water. It was some lady of rank doing penance. She wore a mask scarce an inch broad, but effectual. Or over she handled the friars feet more delicately than those do who are born to such officers. These penances were not uncommon, and Clement, though he had little faith in this form of contrition, received the services of the incognita as a matter of course. But presently she sighed deeply, and with her heart felt sigh, and her head bent low over her menial office. She seemed so bowed with penitence that he pitied her, and said calmly but gently, Can I ought for your soul's wheel, my daughter? She shook her head with a faint sob. Not, Holy Father, not! Only to hear the sin of her who is most unworthy to touch thy holy feet. It is part of my penance to tell sinless men how vile I am. Speak, my daughter. Father, said the lady, bending lower and lower, these hands of mine look white, but they are stained with blood, the blood of the man I loved. Alas, you withdraw your foot! Ah, me, what shall I do? All holy things shrink from me. Colpamea, Colpamea, said Clement eagerly, my daughter. It was an unworthy movement of earthly weakness for which I shall do penance. Judge not the church by her feebler servants, not her foot, but her bosom is offered to thee, repenting truly, take courage then, and purge thy conscience of its load. On this, the lady, in a trembling whisper, and hurriedly and cringing a little, as if she feared the church would strike her bodily for what she had done, made this confession. He was a stranger and base-born, but beautiful as spring and wise beyond his years. I loved him. I had not the prudence to conceal my love. Nobles courted me. I ne'er thought one of humble birth could reject me. I showed him my heart, oh, shame of my sex. He drew back, yet he admired me, but innocently he loved another, and he was constant. I resorted to a woman's wiles. They availed not. I borrowed the wickedness of men, and threatened his life, and to tell his true lover he died false to her. Ah, you shrink your foot trembles! Am I not a monster? Then he wept and prayed to me for mercy. Then my good angel helped me. I bought him leave Rome. Gerard, Gerard, why did you not obey me? I thought he was gone, but two months after this I met him. Never shall I forget it. I was descending the Tiber in my gully, when he came up it with a gay company, and at his side a woman, beautiful as an angel, but bold and bad. That woman claimed me aloud for her rival. Traitor and hypocrite, he had exposed me to her and to all the loose tongues in Rome. In terror and revenge I hired a bravo. When he was gone on his bloody errand, I wavered too late. The dagger I had hired struck. He never came back to his lodgings. He was dead. Alas, perhaps he was not so much to blame. None have ever cast his name in my teeth. His poor body is not found. Or I should kiss its wounds and slay myself upon it. All around his very name seems silent as the grave, to which this murderous hand had sent him. Clemens I was drawn by her movement. He recognized her shapely arm and soft white hand. And oh, he was so young to die. A poor thoughtless boy that had fallen a victim to that bad woman's arts, and she had made him tell her everything. Monster of cruelty, what penance can avail me. Oh, holy father, what shall I do? Clemens' lips moved in prayer, but he was silent. He could not see his duty clear. Then she took his feet and began to dry them. She rested his foot upon her soft arm, and pressed it with the towel so gently she seemed incapable of hurting a fly. Yet her lips had just told another story, and a true one. While Clemens was still praying for wisdom, a tear fell upon his foot. It decided him. My daughter said he and myself have been a great sinner. Clemens I, quite as great a sinner as thou, though not in the same way. The devil has jins and snares as well as traps, but penitence softened my empire's heart, and then gratitude remoulded it. Therefore seeing you, penitent, I hope you can be grateful to him who has been more merciful to you than you have to your fellow creature. Daughter, the church sends you comfort. Comfort to me? Ah, never, unless it can raise my victim from the dead. Take this crucifix in thy hand, fix thine eyes on it, and listen to me, was all the reply. Yes, Father, but let me thoroughly dry your feet first, till sitting in wet feet, and you are the holiest man of all whose feet I have washed. I know it by your voice. Woman, I am not. As for my feet, they can wait their turn. Obey thou me. Yes, Father, said the Lady humbly, but with a woman's evasive pertinacity, she reathed one towel swiftly round the foot she was drying, and placed his other foot on the dry napkin, then obeyed his command. And as she bowed over the crucifix, the low solemn tones of the friar fell upon her, and his words soon made her whole body quiver with various emotions in quick succession. My daughter, he you murdered, in intent, was one Gerard, a Hollander. He loved a creature as men should love none but their edema and his church. Heaven chastised him. A letter came to Rome. She was dead. Poor Gerard! Poor Margaret! moaned the penitent. Clement's voice faltered at this moment, but soon by a strong effort he recovered all his calmness. His feeble nature yielded body and soul to the blow. He was stricken down with fever. He revived only to rebel against heaven. He said, There is no God! Poor, poor Gerard! Poor Gerard! Thou feeble, foolish woman! Nay, wicked, impious Gerard! He plunged into vice, and soiled his eternal jewel. Those you met him with were his daily companions, but no, rash creature, that the seeming woman you took to be his Lehman was but a boy, dressed in woman's habits to flout the others, a fair boy called Andrea. What that Andrea said to thee I know not, but be sure neither he nor any Lehman knows thy folly. This Gerard, rebel against heaven, was no traitor to thee unworthy. The lady moaned like one in bodily agony, and the crucifix began to tremble in her trembling hands. Courage! said Clement! Comfort is at hand! From crime he fell into despair, and bent on destroying his soul. He stood one night by Tybur, resolved on suicide. He saw one watching him. It was a bravo. Holy saints! He begged the bravo to dispatch him. He offered him all his money to slay him, body and soul. The bravo would not. Then this desperate sinner, not softened even by that refusal, flung himself into Tybur. Ah! And the assassin saved his life! Thou had chosen for the task Lordovico, husband of Teresa, whom this Gerard had saved at sea, her and her infant child. He lives! He lives! He lives! I am faint! The friar took the crucifix from her hands, fearing it might fall. A shower of tears relieved her. The friar gave her time, then continued calmly. I, he lives! Thanks to thee and thy wickedness, guided to his eternal good by an almighty and all merciful hand. Thou art his greatest earthly benefactor. Where is he? Where? Where? What is that to thee? Only to see him alive, to beg him on my knees. Forgive me. I swear to you, I will never presume again to, How could I? He knows all. Oh, shame! Father, does he know? All. Then never will I meet his eye. I should sink into the earth. But I would repair my crime. I would watch his life unseen. He shall rise in the world whence I so nearly thrust him, poor soul. The Cesare, my family, are all powerful in Rome, and I am near their head. My daughter, said Clement coldly. He, you call Gerard, needs nothing man can do for him. Saved by a miracle from double death, he has left the world and taken refuge from sin and folly in the bosom of the church. A priest? A priest and a friar. A friar? Then you are not his confessor, yet you know all. That gentle voice. She raised her head slowly and peered at him through her mask. The next moment she uttered a faint shriek and lay with her brow upon his bare feet. End of chapter 74. Recording by Tom Denham