Part 152 (1/2)

When they had gone about a quarter of a mile, Gerard sighed. ”Margaret,”

said he, ”I must e'en rest; he is too heavy for me.”

”Then give him me, and take thou these. Alas! alas! I mind when thou wouldst have run with the child on one shoulder, and the mother on t'other.”

And Margaret carried the boy.

”I trow,” said Gerard, looking down, ”overmuch fasting is not good for a man.”

”A many die of it each year, winter time,” replied Margaret.

Gerard pondered these simple words, and eyed her askant, carrying the child with perfect ease. When they had gone nearly a mile, he said, with considerable surprise: ”You thought it was but two b.u.t.ts' length.”

”Not I.”

”Why, you said so.”

”That is another matter.” She then turned on him the face of a Madonna.

”I lied,” said she, sweetly. ”And to save your soul and body, I'd maybe tell a worse lie than that, at need. I am but a woman. Ah, well, it is but two b.u.t.ts' length from here at any rate.”

”Without a lie?”

”Humph? Three, without a lie.”

And sure enough, in a few minutes they came up to the manse.

A candle was burning in the vicar's parlour. ”She is waking still,”

whispered Margaret.

”Beautiful! beautiful!” said Clement, and stopped to look at it.

”What, in Heaven's name?”

”That little candle, seen through the window at night. Look an it be not like some fair star of size prodigious: it delighteth the eyes and warmeth the heart of those outside.”

”Come, and I'll show thee something better,” said Margaret, and led him on tiptoe to the window.

They looked in, and there was Catherine kneeling on the ha.s.sock, with her ”hours” before her.

”Folk can pray out of a cave,” whispered Margaret. ”Ay and hit heaven with their prayers. For 'tis for a sight of thee she prayeth; and thou art here. Now, Gerard, be prepared; she is not the woman you knew her; her children's troubles have greatly broken the brisk, light-hearted soul. And I see she has been weeping e'en now; she will have given thee up, being so late.”

”Let me get to her,” said Clement hastily, trembling all over.

”That door! I will bide here.”

When Gerard was gone to the door, Margaret, fearing the sudden surprise, gave one sharp tap at the window, and cried, ”Mother!” in a loud, expressive voice that Catherine read at once. She clasped her hands together and had half risen from her kneeling posture, when the door burst open and Clement flung himself wildly on his knees at her knees, with his arms out to embrace her. She uttered a cry such as only a mother could. ”Ah! my darling, my darling!” And clung sobbing round his neck. And true it was, she saw neither a hermit, a priest, nor a monk, but just her child, lost, and despaired of, and in her arms. And after a little while Margaret came in, with wet eyes and cheeks, and a holy calm of affection settled by degrees on these sore troubled ones. And they sat all three together, hand in hand, murmuring sweet and loving converse; and he who sat in the middle, drank right and left their true affection and their humble but genuine wisdom, and was forced to eat a good nouris.h.i.+ng meal, and at daybreak was packed off to a snowy bed, and by-and-by awoke, as from a hideous dream, friar and hermit no more, Clement no more, but Gerard Elia.s.soen, parson of Gouda.