Part 2 (2/2)
Fultrade left the room, descended the staircase with meek gravity, and before leaving the house said to the old skipper, while affecting not to look at Anne the Sweet:
”May the Lord prosper your voyage, Eidiol.”
”Thanks for the good wish, Fultrade,” answered Eidiol, ”but my voyage could not choose but be favorable. We are to descend the Seine; the current carries us; my vessel has been freshly sc.r.a.ped; my ash-tree oars are new, my sailors are young and vigorous, and I am an old pilot myself.”
”All that is nothing without the will of the Lord,” answered the monk with a look of severity, while following with l.u.s.tful side glances the movements of Anne, who was ascending the stairs to fetch from the upper chambers the great coats which her father and brother wished to take along for use during the night on the water. ”No!” continued Fultrade, ”without the will of the Lord, no voyage can be favorable; G.o.d wills all things.”
”By the wine of Argenteuil, which you sold to us at such dear prices in the church of Notre Dame, when we used to go there and play dice, Father Fultrade, how like a sage you are now talking!” cried Rustic the Gay, whose name well fitted his looks. The worthy lad, having learned at the Port of St. Landry about the arrest of the dean of the Skippers' or Mariners' Guild of Paris, had hastened to the spot, greatly alarmed about Martha and her daughter, to whom he came to offer his services.
”Oh, Father Fultrade!” the young and merry fellow went on to say, ”what good broiled steaks, what delicate sausages did you not use to sell us in the rear of the little chapel of St. Gratien where you kept your tap-room! How often have I not seen monks, vagabonds and soldiers wa.s.sailing there with the gay la.s.sies of Four-Ba.n.a.l street! What giddy whirls did they not use to dance in front of your hermitage!”
”Thanks be to G.o.d, Father Fultrade needs no longer to sell wine and broiled steaks!” put in Martha with marked impatience at the jests of Rustic the Gay, and annoyed at seeing the young skipper endeavor to humiliate the holy man with the recollection of the former traffic in wine and victuals in which he had indulged as was the habit with the priests of lower rank. ”Father Fultrade is now the leader of the choir of St. Denis and one of the high dignitaries of the Church. Hold your tongue, brainless boy!”
”Martha, let the fool talk!” replied the monk disdainfully, walking to the door. ”The true Christian preaches humility. I am not ashamed of having kept a tap-room. The end justifies the means. All that is done in the temple of the Lord is sanctified.”
”What, Father Fultrade!” exclaimed Rustic the Gay, ”Is everything sanctified?--even debauchery?”
The monk left the house shrugging his shoulders and without uttering a word. But Martha, angered at the lad's language, addressed him with bitterness in her tone:
”Rustic, if all you come here for is to humiliate our good Father Fultrade, you may dispense with putting your feet over our threshold.
Shame upon speakers of evil!”
”Come, come, dear wife,” said Eidiol, ”calm yourself. After all, the lad has only said the truth. Is it not a fact that the lower clergy traffic in wine and food, even in pretty girls?”
”Thanks be to the Lord!” answered Martha. ”At least what is drunk and what is eaten on the premises of holy places is sanctified, as the venerable Father Fultrade has just said. Is it not better to go and drink there than in the taverns where Satan spreads his nets?”
”Adieu, good wife! I do not care to discuss such subjects. Nevertheless it does seem strange to me, despite the general custom, to see the house of the Lord turned into a tavern.”
”Oh, my G.o.d! My poor husband!” exclaimed Martha, sighing and painfully affected by the obduracy of her husband. ”Is the custom not general? In all the chapels there is feasting done.”
”It is the custom; I admit it; I said so before, dear wife. Let us not quarrel over it. But where is Anne? She has not returned from above;”
and stepping towards the staircase, the old man twice called out his daughter's name.
”Here I am, father,” answered the blonde girl with her sweet voice, and she descended with her father's and brother's great coats on her arm.
The preparations for departure were soon ended by Eidiol, his son, and Rustic the Gay, all the quicker and more cheerful for the hand that Anne took in them. A large hamper was filled with provisions and the men took leave of the women folks.
”Adieu, dear wife; adieu, dear daughter, till to-morrow. Forget not to lock the street door well to-night. Penitent marauders are dangerous fellows. There is no worse breed of thieves.”
”The Lord will watch over us,” answered Martha, dropping her eyes before her husband.
”Adieu, good mother,” said Guyrion, in turn. ”I regret to have caused you the fright of this forenoon. My father was right. I was too quick with my hook against the lances of the Franks.”
”Thanks to G.o.d, my son,” replied Martha with unction, ”our good Father Fultrade happened along, like an angel sent by G.o.d to save you. Blessed be he for his intervention!”
”If the angels look like him, what a devil of a face must not the demons have!” murmured Rustic the Gay, taking charge of the hamper, while Guyrion threw two spare oars and his redoubtable hook over his shoulder.
At the moment when, following last upon the steps of Eidiol and his son, Rustic the Gay was leaving the house, Anne the Sweet approached the young man and said to him in a low voice:
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