Part 3 (2/2)
But neither peace nor plenty could allure him where Nello was not
When the supper sladdest, and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts to Alois, Patrasche, watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was unlatched by a careless new-comer, and as swiftly as his weak and tired liht He had only one thought--to follow Nello A huht have paused for the pleasant meal, the cheery warmth, the cosey slumber; but that was not the friendshi+p of Patrasche He reone time, when an old man and a little child had found him sick unto death in the wayside ditch
Snow had fallen freshly all the evening long; it was now nearly ten; the trail of the boy's footsteps was al to discover any scent When at last he found it, it was lost again quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost and again recovered, a hundred tiht was very wild The lamps under the wayside crosses were blown out; the roads were sheets of ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every trace of habitations; there was no living thing abroad All the cattle were housed, and in all the huts and homesteads men and women rejoiced and feasted There was only Patrasche out in the cruel cold--old and fath and the patience of a great love to sustain him in his search
The trail of Nello's steps, faint and obscure as it was under the neent straightly along the accustoht when Patrasche traced it over the boundaries of the town and into the narrow, tortuous, gloomy streets It was all quite dark in the town, save where soh the crevices of house-shutters, or sos The streets were all white with ice: the high walls and roofs looainst them There was scarce a sound save the riot of the winds down the passages as they tossed the creaking signs and shook the tall lamp-irons
[Illustration: The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the Midnight Mass]
So h the snow, so many diverse paths had crossed and recrossed each other, that the dog had a hard task to retain any hold on the track he followed But he kept on his way, though the cold pierced hier in his body gnawed like a rat's teeth He kept on his way, a poor gaunt, shi+vering thing, and by long patience traced the steps he loved into the very heart of the burgh and up to the steps of the great cathedral
”He is gone to the things that he loved,” thought Patrasche: he could not understand, but he was full of sorrow and of pity for the art-passion that to him was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred
The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the er to go home and feast or sleep, or too drowsy to knohether they turned the keys aright, had left one of the doors unlocked By that accident the foot-falls Patrasche sought had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of snow upon the dark stone floor By that slender white thread, frozen as it fell, he was guided through the intense silence, through the iates of the chancel, and, stretched there upon the stones, he found Nello He crept up and touched the face of the boy ”Didst thou drea?” said that mute caress
The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped hiether,” he murmured ”Men have no need of us, and we are all alone”
In answer, Patrasche crept closer yet, and laid his head upon the young boy's breast The great tears stood in his brown, sad eyes: not for hiether in the piercing cold The blasts that blew over the Flemish dikes from the northern seas were like waves of ice, which froze every living thing they touched The interior of the immense vault of stone in which they as even more bitterly chill than the snow-covered plains without Now and then a bat ht caures Under the Rubens they lay together quite still, and soothed al narcotic of the cold Together they drealad days when they had chased each other through the flowering grasses of the summer meadows, or sat hidden in the tall bulrushes by the water's side, watching the boats go seaward in the sun
Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streah the vastness of the aisles; the h the clouds, the snow had ceased to fall, the light reflected froht of dawn It fell through the arches full upon the two pictures above, fro back the veil: the Elevation and the Descent of the Cross were for one instant visible
Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arlistened on the paleness of his face ”I have seen theh!”
His li upward at the ht illu--light clear and sweet and strong as though it streamed from the throne of Heaven Then suddenly it passed away: once reat darkness covered the face of Christ
The ar ”We shall see His face--_there,_” he murmured; ”and He will not part us, I think” On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp found theht had frozen into stillness alike the young life and the old When the Christ broke and the priests caether Above the veils were drawn back froreat visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned head of the Christ
As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man ept as women weep ”I was cruel to the lad,” he muttered, ”and noould have made amends--yea, to the half of my substance--and he should have been to rew apace, a painter who had fame in the world, and as liberal of hand and of spirit ”I seek one who should have had the prize yesterday had worth won,” he said to the people--”a boy of rare proenius An old wood-cutter on a fallen tree at eventide--that was all his thereatness for the future in it I would fain find him, and take him withfair hair, sobbing bitterly as she clung to her father's arm, cried aloud, ”Oh, Nello, come! We have all ready for thee The Christ-child's hands are full of gifts, and the old piper will play for us; and the mother says thou shalt stay by the hearth and burn nuts with us all the Noel week long--yes, even to the Feast of the Kings!
And Patrasche will be so happy! Oh, Nello, wake and coht of the great Rubens with a smile upon its mouth, answered them all, ”It is too late”
For the sweet, sonorous bells went ringing through the frost, and the sunlight shone upon the plains of snow, and the populace trooped gay and glad through the streets, but Nello and Patrasche no more asked charity at their hands All they needed noerp gave unbidden
Death had been er life would have been It had taken the one in the loyalty of love, and the other in the innocence of faith, from a world which for love has no recompense and for faith no fulfilether, and in their deaths they were not divided: for when they were found the ar to be severed without violence, and the people of their little village, contrite and asharave, laid them to rest there side by side--forever!