Part 151 (1/2)

He groaned.

”There, forgive me for nagging; I am but a woman: you would not have been so cruel to your own flesh and blood knowingly, would you?”

”Oh, no.”

”Well then, know that thy brother Sybrandt lies in my charge with a broken back, fruit of thy curse.”

”Mea culpa! mea culpa!”

”He is very penitent; be yourself and forgive him this night!”

”I have forgiven him long ago.”

”Think you he can believe that from any mouth but yours? Come! he is but about two b.u.t.ts' length hence.”

”So near? Why where?”

”At Gouda manse. I took him there yestreen. For I know you, the curse was scarce cold on your lips when you repented it” (Gerard nodded a.s.sent), ”and I said to myself, Gerard will thank me for taking Sybrandt to die under his roof; he will not beat his breast and cry mea culpa, yet grudge three footsteps to quiet a withered brother on his last bed.

He may have a bee in his bonnet, but he is not a hypocrite, a thing all pious words and uncharitable deeds.”

Gerard literally staggered where he sat at this tremendous thrust.

”Forgive me for nagging,” said she. ”Thy mother too is waiting for thee.

Is it well done to keep her on thorns so long? She will not sleep this night. Bethink thee, Gerard, she is all to thee that I am to this sweet child. Ah, I think so much more of mothers since I had my little Gerard.

She suffered for thee, and nursed thee, and tended thee from boy to man.

Priest, monk, hermit, call thyself what thou wilt, to her thou art but one thing; her child.”

”Where is she?” murmured Gerard, in a quavering voice.

”At Gouda manse, wearing the night in prayer and care.”

Then Margaret saw the time was come for that appeal to his reason she had purposely reserved till persuasion should have paved the way for conviction. So the smith first softens the iron by fire; and then brings down the sledge hammer.

She showed him, but in her own good straightforward Dutch, that his present life was only a higher kind of selfishness; spiritual egotism.

Whereas a priest had no more right to care only for his own soul than only for his own body. That was not _his_ path to heaven. ”But,” said she, ”whoever yet lost his soul by saving the souls of others? the Almighty loves him who thinks of others, and when He shall see thee caring for the souls of the folk the duke hath put into thine hand, He will care ten times more for thy soul than He does now.”

Gerard was struck by this remark. ”Art shrewd in dispute,” said he.

”Far from it,” was the reply, ”only my eyes are not bandaged with conceit.[L] So long as Satan walks the whole earth, tempting men, and so long as the sons of Belial do never lock themselves in caves, but run like ants, to and fro, corrupting others, the good man that skulks apart, plays the devil's game, or at least gives him the odds: thou a soldier of Christ? ask thy comrade Denys, who is but a soldier of the duke, ask him if ever he skulked in a hole and shunned the battle because forsooth in battle is danger as well as glory and duty. For thy sole excuse is fear; thou makest no secret on't. Go to; no duke nor king hath such cowardly soldiers as Christ hath. What was that you said in the church at Rotterdam about the man in the parable, that buried his talent in the earth and so offended the giver? Thy wonderful gift for preaching, is it not a talent, and a gift from thy creator?”

”Certes; such as it is.”

”And hast thou laid it out? or buried it? To whom hast thou preached these seven months? to bats and owls? Hast buried it in one hole with thyself and thy once good wits.

”The Dominicans are the friars Preachers. 'Tis for preaching they were founded; so thou art false to Dominic as well as to his master.