Part 20 (1/2)

”Here! here!” they cried.

”We would ye would ferry us over to yonder sh.o.r.e of the river,” said the foremost of the twain. ”We go afar on a weighty errand from the Convent of St. Thomas, and we must onwards this night. So be up quick, friend, and run us over soon.”

”Step in, then,” said the ferryman, not over courteously, for he remembered the trick played on him by their predecessor.

They entered the boat, and the ferryman put off. Just as the prow of the boat touched the opposite bank of the river, both sprang ash.o.r.e, and disappeared at once from his view, like him who had gone before them.

”Ah!” said the ferryman, ”if they call that doing good, or acting honestly, to cheat a hard-working poor fellow out of the reward of his labour, I do not know what bad means, or what it is to act knavishly.”

He waited a little while to see if they would return to pay him, but finding that they failed to do so, he put across once more to his home at Andernach.

”Hilloa! ferry,” again hailed a voice from the sh.o.r.e to which he was making, ”hilloa!”

The ferryman made no reply to this suspicious hail, but pushed off his boat from the landing-place, fully resolved in his own mind to have nothing to do with any more such black cattle that night.

”Hilloa! ferry,” was again repeated in a sterner voice. ”Art dead or asleep?”

”Here, ahoy!” cried the ferryman. ”What would ye?”

He had thought of pa.s.sing downwards to the other extremity of the town, and there mooring his barque below the place she usually lay in, lest any other monks might feel disposed to make him their slave without offering any recompense. He had, however, scarcely entertained the idea, when three black-robed men, clothed as the former, in long, flowing garments, but more closely cowled, if possible, than they, stood on the very edge of the stream, and beckoned him to them. It was in vain for him to try to evade them, and as if to render any effort to that effect more nugatory, the moon broke forth from the thick clouds, and lit up the scene all around with a radiance like day.

”Step in, holy fathers! step in! quick!” said he, in a gruff voice, after they had told him the same tale in the very same words as the three others had used who had pa.s.sed previously.

They entered the boat, and again the ferryman pushed off. They had reached the centre of the stream, when he bethought him that it was then a good time to talk of his fee, and he resolved to have it, if possible, ere they could escape him.

”But what do you mean to give me for my trouble, holy fathers?” he inquired. ”Nothing for nothing, ye know.”

”We shall give you all that we have to bestow,” replied one of the monks. ”Won't that suffice?”

”What is that?” asked the ferryman.

”Nothing,” said the monk who had answered him first.

”But our blessing,” interposed the second monk.

”Blessing! bah! That won't do. I can't eat blessings!” responded the grumbling ferryman.

”Heaven will pay you,” said the third monk.

”That won't do either,” answered the enraged ferryman. ”I'll put back again to Andernach!”

”Be it so,” said the monks.

The ferryman put about the head of his boat, and began to row back towards Andernach, as he had threatened. He had, however, scarcely made three strokes of his oars, when a high wind sprang up and the waters began to rise and rage and foam, like the billows of a storm-vexed sea. Soon a hurricane of the most fearful kind followed, and swept over the chafing face of the stream. In his forty years'

experience of the river, the ferryman had never before beheld such a tempest--so dreadful and so sudden. He gave himself up for lost, threw down his oars, and flung himself on his knees, praying to Heaven for mercy. At that moment two of the dark-robed monks seized the oars which he had abandoned, while the third wrenched one of the thwarts of the boat from its place in the centre. All three then began to belabour the wretched man with all their might and main, until at length he lay senseless and without motion at the bottom of the boat.

The barque, which was now veered about, bore them rapidly towards their original destination. The only words that pa.s.sed on the occasion were an exclamation of the first monk who struck the ferryman down.