Part 24 (1/2)
”Certainly you may,” answered Adrian, almost with enthusiasm. ”I have had enough of conventicles, psalm-singing, and the daily chance of being burned; indeed, from the time when I could think for myself I always wished to be a Catholic.”
”Your words make me a happy man,” answered Ramiro. ”Allow me to unbolt the door, I hear our hosts. Worthy Simon and Vrouw, I make you parties to a solemn and joyful celebration. This young man is my son, and in token of my fatherly love, which he has been pleased to desire, I now take him in my arms and embrace him before you,” and he suited the action to the word.
But Black Meg, watching his face in astonishment from over Adrian's shoulder, saw its one bright eye suddenly become eclipsed. Could it be that the n.o.ble Master had winked?
CHAPTER XXIV
MARTHA PREACHES A SERMON AND TELLS A SECRET
Two days after his reconciliation with his father, Adrian was admitted as a member of the Catholic Church. His preparation had been short; indeed, it consisted of three interviews with a priest who was brought to the house at night. The good man found in his pupil so excellent a disposition and a mind so open to his teaching that, acting on a hint given him by Ramiro, who, for reasons of his own not altogether connected with religion, was really anxious to see his son a member of the true and Catholic Church, he declared it unnecessary to prolong the period of probation. Therefore, on the third day, as the dusk of evening was closing, for in the present state of public feeling they dared not go out while it was light, Adrian was taken to the baptistry of the Groote Kerke. Here he made confession of his sins to a certain Abbe known as Father Dominic, a simple ceremony, for although the list of them which he had prepared was long, its hearing proved short. Thus all his offences against his family, such as his betrayal of his stepfather, were waived aside by the priest as matters of no account; indeed, crimes of this nature, he discovered, to the sacerdotal eye wore the face of virtue. Other misdoings also, such as a young man might have upon his mind, were not thought weighty. What really was considered important proved to be the earnestness of his recantation of heretical errors, and when once his confessor was satisfied upon that point, the penitent soul was relieved by absolution full and free.
After this came the service of his baptism, which, because Ramiro wished it, for a certain secret reason, was carried out with as much formal publicity as the circ.u.mstances would allow. Indeed, several priests officiated at the rite, Adrian's sponsors being his father and the estimable Hague Simon, who was paid a gold piece for his pains. While the sacrament was still in progress, an untoward incident occurred. From its commencement the trampling and voices of a mob had been heard in the open s.p.a.ce in front of the church, and now they began to hammer on the great doors and to cast stones at the painted windows, breaking the beautiful and ancient gla.s.s. Presently a beadle hurried into the baptistery, and whispered something in the ear of the Abbe which caused that ecclesiastic to turn pale and to conclude the service in a somewhat hasty fas.h.i.+on.
”What is it?” asked Ramiro.
”Alas! my son,” said the priest, ”these heretic dogs saw you, or our new-found brother, I know not which-enter this holy place, and a great mob of them have surrounded it, ravening for our blood.”
”Then we had best begone,” said Ramiro.
”Senor, it is impossible,” broke in the sacristan; ”they watch every door. Hark! hark! hark!” and as he spoke there came the sound of battering on the oaken portals.
”Can your reverences make any suggestions?” asked Ramiro, ”for if not-” and he shrugged his shoulders.
”Let us pray,” said one of them in a trembling voice.
”By all means, but I should prefer to do so as I go. Fool, is there any hiding place in this church, or must we stop here to have our throats cut?”
Then the sacristan, with white lips and knocking knees, whispered: ”Follow me, all of you. Stay, blow out the lights.”
So the candles were extinguished, and in the darkness they grasped each other's hands and were led by the verger whither they knew not. Across the wide s.p.a.ces of the empty church they crawled, its echoing silence contrasting strangely with the m.u.f.fled roar of angry voices without and the dull sound of battering on the doors. One of their number, the fat Abbe Dominic, became separated from them in the gloom, and wandered away down an arm of the vast transept, whence they could hear him calling to them. The sacristan called back, but Ramiro fiercely bade him to be silent, adding: ”Are we all to be snared for the sake of one priest?”
So they went on, till presently in that great place his shouts grew fainter, and were lost in the roar of the mult.i.tude without.
”Here is the spot,” muttered the sacristan, after feeling the floor with his hands, and by a dim ray of moonlight which just then pierced the windows of the choir, Adrian saw that there was a hole in the pavement before him.
”Descend, there are steps,” said their guide. ”I will shut the stone,” and one by one they pa.s.sed down six or seven narrow steps into some darksome place.
”Where are we?” asked a priest of the verger, when he had pulled the stone close and joined them.
”In the family vault of the n.o.ble Count van Valkenburg, whom your reverence buried three days ago. Fortunately the masons have not yet come to cement down the stone. If your Excellencies find it close, you can get air by standing upon the coffin of the n.o.ble Count.”
Adrian did find it close, and took the hint, to discover that in a line with his head was some filigree stonework, pierced with small apertures, the front doubtless of the marble tomb in the church above, for through them he could see the pale moon rays wavering on the pavement of the choir. As he looked the priest at his side muttered: ”Hark! The doors are down. Aid us, St. Pancras!” and falling upon his knees he began to pray very earnestly.
Yielding at last to the blows of the battering-beam, the great portals had flown open with a crash, and now through them poured the mob. On they came with a rush and a roar, like that of the sea breaking through a d.y.k.e, carrying in their hands torches, lanterns hung on poles, axes, swords and staves, till at length they reached the screen of wonderful carved oak, on the top of which, rising to a height of sixty feet above the floor of the church, stood the great Rood, with the images of the Virgin and St. John on either side. Here, of a sudden, the vastness and the silence of the holy place which they had known, every one, from childhood, with its echoing aisles, the moonlit, pictured windows, its consecrated lamps twinkling here and there like fisher lights upon the darkling waters, seemed to take hold of them. As at the sound of the Voice Divine sweeping down the wild waves at night, the winds ceased their raving and the seas were still, so now, beneath the silent reproach of the effigy of the White Christ standing with uplifted hand above the altar, hanging thorn-crowned upon the Rood, kneeling agonised within the Garden, seated at the Holy Supper, on His lips the New Commandment, ”As I have loved you, so ye also love one another,” their pa.s.sions flickered down and their wrath slept.
”They are not here, let us be going,” said a voice.
”They are here,” answered another voice, a woman's voice with a note of vengeance in it. ”I tracked them to the doors, the Spanish murderer Ramiro, the spy Hague Simon, the traitor Adrian, called van Goorl, and the priests, the priests, the priests who butcher us.”
”Let G.o.d deal with them,” said the first voice, which to Adrian sounded familiar. ”We have done enough. Go home in peace.”
Now muttering, ”The pastor is right. Obey the Pastor Arentz,” the more orderly of the mult.i.tude turned to depart, when suddenly, from the far end of the transept, arose a cry.
”Here's one of them. Catch him! catch him!” A minute more and into the circle of the torchlight rushed the Abbe Dominic, his eyes starting from his head with terror, his rent robe flapping on the ground. Exhausted and bewildered he cast himself down, and grasping the pedestal of an image began to cry for mercy, till a dozen fierce hands dragged him to his feet again.
”Let him go,” said the voice of the Pastor Arentz. ”We fight the Church, not its ministers.”
”Hear me first,” she answered who had spoken before, and men turned to see standing above them in the great pulpit of the church, a fierce-eyed, yellow-toothed hag, grey-haired, skinny-armed, long-faced like a horse, and behind her two other women, each of whom held a torch in her right hand.
”It is the Mare,” roared the mult.i.tude. ”It is Martha of the Mere. Preach on, Martha. What's your text?”
”Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,” she answered in a ringing, solemn voice, and instantly a deep silence fell upon the place.
”You call me the Mare,” she went on. ”Do you know how I got that name? They gave it me after they had shrivelled up my lips and marred the beauty of my face with irons. And do you know what they made me do? They made me carry my husband to the stake upon my back because they said that a horse must be ridden. And do you know who said this? That priest who stands before you.”
As the words left her lips a yell of rage beat against the roof. Martha held up her thin hand, and again there was silence.
”He said it-the holy Father Dominic; let him deny it if he can. What? He does not know me? Perchance not, for time and grief and madness and hot pincers have changed the face of Vrouw Martha van Muyden, who was called the Lily of Brussels. Ah! look at him now. He remembers the Lily of Brussels. He remembers her husband and her son also, for he burned them. O G.o.d, judge between us. O people, deal with that devil as G.o.d shall teach you.
”Who are the others? He who is called Ramiro, the Governor of the Gevangenhuis, the man who years ago would have thrust me beneath the ice to drown had not the Vrouw van Goorl bought my life; he who set her husband, Dirk van Goorl, the man you loved, to starve to death sniffing the steam of kitchens. O people, deal with that devil as G.o.d shall teach you.
”And the third, the half-Spaniard, the traitor Adrian called van Goorl, he who has come here to-night to be baptised anew into the bosom of the Holy Church; he who signed the evidence upon which Dirk was murdered”-here, again, the roar of hate and rage went up and beat along the roof-”upon which too his brother Foy was taken to the torture, whence Red Martin saved him. O people, do with that devil also as G.o.d shall teach you.
”And the fourth, Hague Simon the spy, the man whose hands for years have smoked with innocent blood; Simon the Butcher-Simon the false witness--”
”Enough, enough!” roared the crowd. ”A rope, a rope; up with him to the arm of the Rood.”
”My friends,” cried Arentz, ”let the man go. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, and I will repay.”
”Yes, but we will give him something on account,” shouted a voice in bitter blasphemy. ”Well climbed, Jan, well climbed,” and they looked up to see, sixty feet above their heads, seated upon the arm of the lofty Rood, a man with a candle bound upon his brow and a coil of rope upon his back.
”He'll fall,” said one.
”Pis.h.!.+” answered another, ”it is steeplejack Jan, who can hang on a wall like a fly.”
”Look out for the ends of the rope,” cried the thin voice above, and down they came.
”Spare me,” screamed the wretched priest, as his executioners caught hold of him.
”Yes, yes, as you spared the Heer Jansen a few months ago.”
”It was to save his soul,” groaned Dominic.
”Quite so, and now we are going to save yours; your own medicine, father, your own medicine.”