"You are very wise, my Lord, not to stint your bacon when you want to catch your mouse."
"Well, I should think a good broil of bacon would smell better to a st.u.r.dy old glutton like you, than the incense they will burn upon your coffin when fasting and prayer have brought your miserable life to a close."
Wyso slowly winked with one eye.
"Ah!" said he. "Is that what you should think?"
"Tell me, whose child is the young monk whom you call Donatus?"
Wyso"s head suddenly fell down on his breast again, and he began to snore.
"Do not pretend to be asleep, I do not believe it. You are a cunning fellow; what, is the living not enough for you! I will give you a nag and a sledge, much finer than those of the Bishop of Chur, goat-skins for shoes, and white lamb-skins--what more shall I offer you? Only say what you desire, and you shall have it."
Wyso looked at him with a cunning glance.
"You are a very clever man, my Lord, but you do not know us yet! Do you really suppose that because I do not turn up my eyes, and drawl out the name of G.o.d, nor snap in two from sheer fasting and scourging when any one touches me like a starved c.o.c.kchafer--do you suppose that I am a gluttonous b.o.o.by who holds his conscience between his teeth, and can wash away all oaths, all honour, and all fidelity to the Church which he has served all his life long in one unwonted drinking bout? No, my Lord, clever as you are, we have not gone so far as that; you may catch mice with bacon, but not Benedictines; do you understand?" And from loud laughter he fell to coughing till every vein swelled, and he had to wipe his face with the corner of the tablecloth.
"You oily priest--you! You mock me, do you? I will see if I cannot find means to make you speak--" and he unconsciously clutched at the knife in his girdle; his blood boiled with rage and he hardly knew what he was doing.
"What do you want, my Lord?" said Wyso coolly. "Would you like to rip my body up? That would do you no good--I have not written the secret on parchment and then swallowed it!"
Reichenberg stood for a moment speechless from astonishment, then his arm dropped as if suddenly sobered. Reflection came back to him and he understood that his efforts were wasted on this half-drunken cynic.
"The devil only knows what you priests are bound by," he muttered and put his knife back into its ivory sheath.
"Take a little nap, Count Reichenberg," said Wyso, smiling mischievously, "when children have not slept they are always ill-tempered. G.o.d grant the dinner may be blest to you! it must have cost us at least twenty gulden, everything included." The Count turned away and walked moodily to the window. "Go now, my Lord, and if you do not want to make an end of me, do not disturb me any more in my noon-tide sleep," said Wyso, laying his arms on the table and his red face on them, and pretending once more to be asleep.
"Count Reichenberg," said the Duke laughing, as Reichenberg went out into the courtyard, his spurs ringing as he walked, "Have you any more progeny in these parts? If so pray tell me beforehand, for your humour is enough to spoil the weather for our journey."
"I have given it up, my lord, and must wait for better times to take the matter up again," answered Reichenberg shortly.
The d.u.c.h.ess now appeared walking between the Abbot and Donatus, and ready to set out on her journey. The maids of honour followed, very ill-pleased, for they had been beyond measure dull, and the Countess Hildegard walked foremost with a broad-brimmed hat and trailing peac.o.c.k feather on her pretty head in the place of the golden chaplet. She fixed her longing eyes immoveably on Donatus, but he did not venture to lift his gaze to her, and the fine Florentine rouge fell off her cheeks that turned pale with vexation.
The sundial indicated four o"clock in the afternoon; the Duke had had the horses saddled and the outriders had already started. The litter was led out and the d.u.c.h.ess got into it.
"Farewell, my Lord Abbot," she cried once more. "Farewell, Donatus.
Bear in mind the words I spoke to you and do not fail to apply to me if ever you are in need of help."
Once more the Duke and the Abbot shook hands. The ladies put their gold-embroidered shoes into their stirrups and sprang, ill-satisfied, into their saddles; the whole cortege moved off as it came, amid the cracking of whips and barking of hounds, shouting, trampling, and hallooing, so that it could be heard long after it was out of sight.
The brethren drew a long breath of relief and went back to their daily duties, the convent servants swept the court-yard clean with large besoms; the scared cat sneaked suspiciously back over the granary roof and all was soon as quiet and peaceful as before.
But a shadow had fallen on the Abbot"s soul--a secret anxiety which would never let him breathe again so freely as he did that morning--a vague feeling that all was not in fact exactly as it had been before.
CHAPTER II.
The week was ended; it was Sat.u.r.day, the eve of the ordination. The busy hands were at rest; harvest was garnered, the doors of the overflowing barns would hardly close. And the church too was to reap her harvest; the seed of faith, which the pious monks had sown, twenty years ago, in the heart of the tiny foundling, had grown fair and strong and full in ear. Donatus had just preached his first sermon before all the brethren; with a beating heart he had p.r.o.nounced the final "Amen," his eyes flashing with sacred fires; his words had seemed to fly over the heads of the a.s.sembled brethren as if winged by the Holy Ghost. Nay, even after he had ended, the echo of his words sounded in the building, and they listened devoutly till it had quite died away. Then the Abbot rose and clasped the young man to his heart,
"Marvellous boy!" he exclaimed. "You came to us, a stranger, and we thought that we knew from whence you came, and believed that we should give to you out of our superfluity and teach you out of the stores of our wisdom. But now you give to us of your abundance and teach us by your wisdom so that we are fain to ask, "Whence are you?" For it was not in the snows of the wild heath where you were picked up, nor between our humble convent-walls that you received such a divine revelation."
Donatus kissed his uncle"s hand. "Oh father," he said softly, "I kiss your faithful and fatherly hand in all reverence, for it is the hand that has led me to that sacred fount whence I have drawn living waters for your refreshment. Nothing is my own, I have received everything from you, and to you I give it back, and whatever I am, that I am through you! I thank you, my father--I thank you, my brethren!
To-day--on the eve of that sacred day--the day of my new birth in the Lord--let me offer you all in one word the thanks of a life-time."
And all the brethren--with the exception of that one who was always irreconcilable--crowded round him and grasped his hands affectionately.
Aye! it was a rich and glorious harvest to the Lord that they were celebrating that day, and they were proud of it--proud of having brought up the boy so well--proud that they had all been so wise, and so good to him. Then the Abbot led him to the chapel that he might there make his last confession before the holy and solemn festival.
Long, long did Donatus kneel before the confessional, and the iron grating against which he pressed his brow was wet with his tears. For a secret sin had weighed upon his soul these three days past. "Oh father, father!" cried he from an oppressed heart, "I, your son, no longer appear before you pure as I did a few days since. Father! I dread to tell you. My eyes have drunk of the poison of woman"s beauty and it courses through my veins like a consuming fire. Always--always--I see before me the light curling hair, the rosy cheeks, the white throat as I saw it when her robe fell back, when she took off the clasp--the whole lovely form and figure. Augustine speaks truly when he says, "the eyes every day cast us into all sin and crime; what has been created that is more subtle than the eye?" My heart was pure, it harboured no thought but of G.o.d; but these eyes, subtle to betray me, have cast me into temptation, they have destroyed the peace of my soul, for even now they still bring the sinful image before my mind again and again.
They paint it on the blue sky, on the pillars of the church, on my prayer-book--nay, on the altar-cloth. I see it wherever I turn my eyes, it comes between me and my prayers. Oh father, how dare I, with this snare in my soul, bow my head to receive the consecrating oil; will it not hiss and dry up as if it were poured on hot iron?"
"Calm yourself, my son," said the Abbot. "There can be no virtue without a struggle. To be tempted is not to sin, and I know that during the last three days you have mortified and scourged yourself severely, and for three nights have not sought your bed, but have knelt here on the stones of the chapel pavement. He who does such penance for a small fault must certainly win grace and pardon! But it is true that all sin comes of a wanton eye, and it is written in the VIth chapter of Matthew, "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light; but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." So guard your eye henceforth, my son, and keep it single, that it may not gaze on forbidden things and that you may continue chaste and pure before G.o.d and man."
"Yes, father!" cried Donatus, raising his hand to Heaven. "And I here swear in the sight of all the Saints that I will act in accordance with your precepts. Never again shall my eye rest on the form of woman, never shall it be raised above the hem of her garment where it sweeps the ground, never will I be betrayed into a wish or a desire, or else may G.o.d"s Grace abandon me, and may He cast me into the deepest d.a.m.nation."
"Hold, pause, mad boy! That is a curse and not an oath," cried the horrified Abbot. "G.o.d"s grace is far greater than your sick soul can imagine; He pities even the sinner, and judges him after the measure of his strength, not according to his guilt. Would you prevent G.o.d"s grace and p.r.o.nounce your own d.a.m.nation when He in His eternal and fatherly mercies would most likely pardon you? Whither will your youthful vehemence carry you? Man may not purify himself by blind self-destroying zeal, but by faithful and humble submissiveness, by silent fulfilment of duty, by incessant inward struggles. Take this to heart, son of my soul, and may the Lord pardon you your wild mood; for you will fall again, and many a time, and must often need His saving grace."
It was now late; the door of the chapel closed behind the Abbot.
Donatus" confession was over; he remained alone, praying on the steps of the altar.
There is silence in earth and Heaven, not a breeze stirs the air, there is not a sound in the valley below. All is at rest after labour accomplished, waiting for Sunday, the day of rejoicing.
For all the human beings down in the valley belong to the Church, literally body and soul, and when the Church rejoices they too rejoice.
A church festival is a festival for them, and they know no others; on the eve of such a festival each one lays him down to sleep full of pious thoughts, so that no sinful dreams may scare away the angels which come down in the night to prepare the souls of the sleepers for the sacred day that is about to dawn. Silent, but busy the guardian spirits soar and float from hill to vale all the night through, till the sun rises and its first rays stream through the little cottage-windows, falling on the closed eyelids that open again to the light. Then the wakers rub their eyes with a wonderful sense of rapture. Sanctification lurks sweetly in their souls though hidden as yet and not fully understood, but in a few hours the consecrated lips of the Church will speak the words of absolution; then it will flash into consciousness like a revelation from Heaven.
The young novice for whom the festival was prepared was still lying on his face before his praying-stool, just as the Abbot had left him the evening before. All the night through he had lain there and prayed without moving, the bridegroom of Heaven; he had triumphed through fervent prayer, and overthrown all that was earthly. He had purified himself in the fires of devotion, and his soul burned and glowed whole and undivided for Her, the celestial Bride. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks pale with watching and prayer. For what prayer could indeed be strong, eager, and fervent enough to merit that grace of which no mortal is worthy, and least of all he--he the weak and erring novice who had scarcely mounted the first step towards perfection.
The morning-sun streamed brightly down on the towers and pinnacles of Marienberg, and threw golden disks of light through the circular panes on to the pavement of the silent chapel. The penitent saw them not, it was still night to him, for he lay there with his face closely hidden in his clasped hands.
The bell rang for matins; up flew the angels from the valley to rouse the bridegroom, and he felt their palm-branches waving over his head.
He roused himself from his acts of contrition, and hastened to the dormitory to dress, that he might appear in festive attire as a bridegroom, to receive that invisible Bride to whom his whole heart went forth in rapture.
Meanwhile down in the valley all were awake and busy; all souls were purified from sinful thoughts, and water from the sparkling mountain springs served to cleanse all bodies from the soil of labour. Rosy baby faces came out from the fresh moisture under their mothers" busy hands, like flowers after rain, with their bright shining eyes that looked undimmed upon the world. And many a wrinkle of care and weariness was washed from the brow of the old by the pure wonder-working glacier waters; the every day frock of frieze was exchanged for a decent Sunday dress of stuff, camlet or even better material. The maidens put on white linen gowns--the garb of innocence--not without a happy thrill of veneration, for they were to accompany the bridegroom as bridesmaids, when he walked in procession round the church; then they went out into the little gardens, resplendent with the glories of summer, carefully holding up their white gowns in the narrow paths that they might not sweep the dewy borders; they plucked the ever-sacred elder which must never be wanting at any solemnity whether joyful or sad; a few sprigs of hazel because under it the Blessed Virgin once took shelter in a storm, for which reason it has ever since been blest with peculiar and marvellous powers; then the juniper with its blackberries, from which the wholesome juniper-spirit is extracted, that they burn to counteract the evil spring-mists; tall-grown lilies and humble daisies--which blossomed under Mary"s tears when she was forced to fly into Egypt; marjoram, rue, and thyme--potent against all devilry; rosemary, hawkweed, and ground-ivy--all sacred blossoms and plants that grow under fortunate stars. Of these the girls made the festal garlands, carefully selecting the flowers according to their emblematic significance. Last of all they clambered up to break off some boughs of the Rosa pomifera, which first sprang from the innocent bloodshed by a pure maiden; which grew luxuriantly, high up on the wall, and when they tried to pull a branch that was too tough to yield, a sparkling shower of dew was shaken down upon them so that they had to take hasty flight with laughter and clamour as though from some saucy teasing companion.
Presently the tramp of horses coming from the direction of Mals broke the morning stillness. One of the girls in the garden farthest from the village peeped over the wall at the approaching party. A lady was riding foremost, she had given the reins to the horse and came rapidly onward, followed by two women on horseback and a few men servants; by her side rode a tall knight to guide and protect her. Close to the wall the lady paused and signed to the astonished girl. "Here--are they not going to ordain one of the monks up at the monastery to-day?" she called out.
"Yes--the bell will ring directly," was the answer.
The lady threw her bridle to the rider by her side and sprang from the horse before a servant could come to her a.s.sistance.
"Will you give me your linen frock?" she went on. "I will pay you for it as if it were a royal robe."
The girl laughed; she thought the lady was jesting.
"Come round and let me in," commanded the stranger.
"Dear Countess--I beg of you--what have you taken into your head?"