"Why, methought I left it open," said he. "The wind. There is not a breath of wind. What means this?"
He stood with his hand upon the rugged door. He looked through one of the great c.h.i.n.ks, for it was much smaller in places than the aperture it pretended to close, and saw his little oil wick burning just where he had left it.
"How is it with me," he sighed, "when I start and tremble at nothing?
Either I did shut it, or the fiend hath shut it after me to disturb my happy soul. Retro Sathanas!"
And he entered his cave rapidly, and began with somewhat nervous expedition to light one of his largest tapers. While he was lighting it, there was a soft sigh in the cave.
He started and dropped the candle just as it was lighting, and it went out.
He stooped for it hurriedly and lighted it, listening intently. When it was lighted he shaded it with his hand from behind, and threw the faint light all round the cell.
In the farthest corner the outline of the wall seemed broken.
He took a step towards the place with his heart beating.
The candle at the same time getting brighter, he saw it was the figure of a woman.
Another step with his knees knocking together.
IT WAS MARGARET BRANDT.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Beat down Satan under our feet.
[2] Up, Hearts!
[3] Oh G.o.d our refuge and strength.
[4] Oh! Lamb of G.o.d, that takest away the Sins of the world, have mercy upon me!
[5] Oh! Holy Trinity, one G.o.d, have mercy upon us.
[6] From the a.s.saults of demons--from the wrath to come--from everlasting d.a.m.nation--
Deliver us O Lord!
[7] See the English collect, St. Michael and all Angels.
[8] Of whom may we seek succour, but of thee, Oh Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased (and that torrent of prayer, the following verse).
[G] Dr. d.i.c.kson, author of _Fallacies of the Faculty_, etc.
[H] It is related of a mediaeval hermit, that being offered a garment made of cats" skins, he rejected it, saying, "I have heard of a lamb of G.o.d, but I never heard of a cat of G.o.d."
CHAPTER XCVI
HER att.i.tude was one to excite pity rather than terror, in eyes not blinded by a preconceived notion. Her bosom was fluttering like a bird, and the red and white coming and going in her cheeks, and she had her hand against the wall by the instinct of timid things, she trembled so; and the marvellous mixed gaze of love, and pious awe, and pity, and tender memories, those purple eyes cast on the emaciated and glaring hermit, was an event in nature.
"Aha!" he cried. "Thou art come at last in flesh and blood; come to me as thou camest to holy Anthony. But I am ware of thee; I thought thy wiles were not exhausted. I am armed." With this he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his small crucifix and held it out at her, astonished, and the candle in the other hand, both crucifix and candle shaking violently, "Exorcizo te."
"Ah, no!" cried she, piteously; and put out two pretty deprecating palms. "Alas! work me no ill! It is Margaret."
"Liar!" shouted the hermit. "Margaret was fair, but not so supernatural fair as thou. Thou didst shrink at that sacred name, thou subtle hypocrite. In Nomine Dei exorcizo vos."
"Ah, Jesu!" gasped Margaret, in extremity of terror, "curse me not! I will go home. I thought _I_ might come. For very manhood be-Latin me not! Oh Gerard, is it thus you and I meet after all; after all?"
And she cowered almost to her knees, and sobbed with superst.i.tious fear, and wounded affection.
Impregnated as he was with Satanophobia, he might perhaps have doubted still whether this distressed creature, all woman, and nature, was not all art, and fiend. But her spontaneous appeal to that sacred name dissolved his chimera; and let him see with his eyes, and hear with his ears.
He uttered a cry of self-reproach, and tried to raise her; but what with fasts, what with the over-powering emotion of a long solitude so broken, he could not. "What," he gasped shaking over her, "and is it thou? And have I met thee with hard words? Alas!" And they were both choked with emotion, and could not speak for a while.
"I heed it not much," said Margaret, bravely, struggling with her tears; "you took me for another: for a devil; oh! oh! oh! oh! oh!"
"Forgive me, sweet soul!" And as soon as he could speak more than a word at a time, he said, "I have been much beset by the evil one since I came here."
Margaret looked round with a shudder. "Like enow. Then oh take my hand, and let me lead thee from this foul place."
He gazed at her with astonishment.
"What, desert my cell; and go into the world again? Is it for that thou hast come to me?" said he, sadly and reproachfully.
"Ay, Gerard. I am come to take thee to thy pretty vicarage: art vicar of Gouda, thanks to Heaven and thy good brother Giles: and mother and I have made it so neat for thee, Gerard. "Tis well enow in winter I promise thee. But bide a bit till the hawthorn bloom, and anon thy walls put on their kirtle of brave roses, and sweet woodbine. Have we forgotten thee, and the foolish things thou lovest? And, dear Gerard, thy mother is waiting; and "tis late for her to be out of her bed: prithee; prithee; come! And the moment we are out of this foul hole I"ll show thee a treasure thou hast gotten, and knowest nought on"t, or sure hadst never fled from us so. Alas! what is to do? What have I ignorantly said; to be regarded thus?"
For he had drawn himself all up into a heap, and was looking at her with a strange gaze of fear and suspicion blended.
"Unhappy girl," said he, solemnly, yet deeply agitated, "would you have me risk my soul and yours for a miserable vicarage and the flowers that grow on it? But this is not thy doing: the bowelless fiend sends thee, poor simple girl, to me with this bait. But oh, cunning fiend, I will unmask thee even to this thine instrument, and she shall see thee, and abhor thee as I do. Margaret, my lost love, why am I here? Because I love thee."
"Oh! no, Gerard, you love me not, or you would not have hidden from me; there was no need."
"Let there be no deceit between us twain: that have loved so true; and after this night, shall meet no more on earth."
"Now G.o.d forbid!" said she.
"I love thee, and thou hast not forgotten me, or thou hadst married ere this, and hadst not been the one to find me, buried here from sight of man. I am a priest, a monk: what but folly or sin can come of you and me living neighbours, and feeding a pa.s.sion innocent once, but now (so Heaven wills it) impious and unholy? No, though my heart break I must be firm. "Tis I that am the man, "tis I that am the priest. You and I must meet no more, till I am schooled by solitude, and thou art wedded to another."
"I consent to my doom but not to thine. I would ten times liever die; yet I will marry, ay, wed misery itself sooner than let thee lie in this foul dismal place, with yon sweet manse a waiting for thee." Clement groaned; at each word she spoke out stood clearer and clearer, two things--his duty, and the agony it must cost.
"My beloved," said he, with a strange mixture of tenderness and dogged resolution, "I bless thee for giving me one more sight of thy sweet face, and may G.o.d forgive thee, and bless thee, for destroying in a minute the holy peace it hath taken six months of solitude to build. No matter. A year of penance will, Dei gratia, restore me to my calm. My poor Margaret, I seem cruel: yet I am kind: "tis best we part; ay, this moment."