"And dare you actually look me in the face--can you bear that I should look at you? You liars and hypocrites--do you not tremble before me?"
"We tremble before no just man," said the Abbot, "for our consciences are pure. As to the unjust--them the Lord will punish."
"Spare your words!" cried the Count. "Every breath of your throat is a falsehood."
"My Lord Count," said the Abbot, "do you believe that we--"
"Believe!" interrupted the Count, "I believe nothing--I know.--Do you understand? Since my visit with the Duke I have lurked round your convent. The nurse whom you maltreated betrayed the track; the old man at Saint Valentine"s has confessed. He is dead and he made his last confession to _me_."
At those words, which fell upon them like a thunderbolt, the brethren turned pale and were dumb. Now was G.o.d"s judgment come upon them. But with a comprehension of the danger came resignation; if they had sinned, G.o.d might punish them--if they had done right, He would surely help them.
"Where is my son?" cried the Count impatiently, glancing round at the whole circle of monks.
"My Lord, at this moment he is doing penance for a heavy sin," said the Abbot in an uncertain voice.
"What sin?" asked the Count.
"A breach of obedience to the rules of our Order," explained the Abbot.
"Obedience! that is at an end! A Count of Reichenberg owes obedience to no man!"
"He is not a Count of Reichenberg--he is a brother of our Order; he has taken the vows and he cannot be absolved from them."
"It was a forced vow, against all law and justice--he was cheated into it!" shouted the Count. "I was lately with the Bishop of Chur and informed myself on the subject. If you refuse to give the boy up to me, I will accuse you before the Pope himself, and you will be laid under an interdict. For, as the Bishop told me, that is the law; Pope Celestin III. decreed that the decisions of the Church in Council at Toledo and Aix-la-Chapelle should come into force again, and that no Order might receive a child before he was of age without the consent of his parents. And will you hold him to a vow thus surrept.i.tiously extorted from him--will you a.s.sert your claim to stolen goods? Am I not his father and did I ever give my consent to his becoming a monk?
Answer!"
The brethren had come to a rapid understanding among themselves in Latin.
"Well and good, my Lord," replied the Abbot, "you speak truly, and according to the letter of the law you are in your rights when you require at our hands that which is your own. The only question is this: is that still yours which you threw away of your own free will and abandoned to destruction? I know very well that such an incredible instance of a perverted nature is not provided for by any law, and if you appeal against us the judgment will be in your favour; but, my Lord Count, you were no doubt also informed that the same Canon law permits young people when they come to full years of discretion to enter an order without their parents" consent. Are you or are you not aware of that?"
"Yes," said the Count, biting his lip.
"Well then, my Lord," continued the Abbot, "you may punish us according to the letter of the law, for that wherein we have sinned against the letter of the law--but you cannot break the vows your son has taken, for he is now of age and if he now renews them, he is answerable to the law."
"But he will not renew them now that his father is here to fetch him home to splendour and dominion," said the Count confidently. "Only bring him here and let me speak to him myself, and put my patience to no farther proof. A Reichenberg can never learn to wait."
Again a few Latin words pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth in a low whisper.
"If it please you to follow us into the refectory and refresh yourself with a cool draught, my Lord," said the Abbot. "You are exhausted and everything, whatever it may be, is better done when men have rested and strengthened themselves with a cup of wine."
"Very good--let us go in; and send me the young Count that he may empty the first bowl with his father," said the Count, somewhat pacified, for he thought the monks" opposition was broken, and his newly awakened fatherly feeling made his heart beat impatiently for the son to whom he must now make up for the neglect of twenty-one long years. So they went into the refectory where bread and wine had been set ready; still the Count would touch nothing,
"My son," said he; "first fetch my son."
The monks looked at each other in their difficulty; G.o.d had forsaken them--no farther escape was possible. After another short consultation father Correntian went "to fetch him." The Abbot stood like a condemned criminal at the foot of the cross on which he is to be crucified; "G.o.d help us! have mercy on our wrong-doing! Thou who canst read the heart, Thou knowest we meant it rightly!" Thus he prayed silently.
The brethren were one and all incapable of speech. "When the father sees the state of his son--what will happen?" That was the thought that filled every mind.
But Correntian came back alone.
"Your son refuses to appear," he said. "He has this very hour renewed his oath never to quit the cloister--and he will not see you."
Reichenberg laughed loud and wildly.
"You silly fellow! you crazy fool! Do you suppose that I--the Count of Reichenberg--can be sent home like a blockhead, with such an answer as that? Aye, you may glare at me with your wolfish eyes--they cannot pierce my mailed breast. Fetch the boy, on the spot--or I will search the building for him through and through."
"He must come, there is no help for it;" the Abbot whispered to Correntian. "You are not afraid that we cannot rely upon him now, when this severe punishment--"
Correntian smiled. "Be easy," he said; then turning to Reichenberg, "I will bring him to you, that he may tell you himself--then you will believe me."
The Count paced the room with long strides; was it near at last--this consummation--did he at last see the term set to half a life-time of remorse and goading despair? Oh! when he held his son in his arms, in those strong arms, nothing should tear him from them--he would make up for everything.
Minute after minute pa.s.sed, louder and faster beat the father"s heart--more and more shrank the terrified souls of the monks--"How will it end?"
Now--now close to the door--the footsteps of two men--but slow, much too slow for the father"s eager impatience. Reichenberg rushed to the door to meet him--the monks turned away not to witness the terrible scene. There stood the longed for son, pale and wasted, and his face covered with a blood-stained bandage. The father tottered back--his eyes fixed, petrified with horror at this vision of suffering. But no!
this is not he, he is deceived; this is not Donatus. "Donatus!" he cried, with a choked utterance, "Donatus, my son--where is he?"
"I am here," answered the youth. The father, to convince himself, s.n.a.t.c.hed away the bandage from his face--his son was before him--eyeless!
A cry broke from the strong man that made the monks" blood run cold; "Blind--blinded--my son--blinded. Who has done it?"
"I myself," said the young monk, in a firm voice.
"You--yourself? and why?" groaned the miserable father.
"Because it was G.o.d"s will."
There was a moment of silence; not one of the monks dared utter a word of consolation. But the torrent of blood that for a moment had been checked in its flow in the heart of the betrayed father, rushed wildly on again, and he turned on the monks in terrible fury,
"This then--this is what you have made of my son!
Executioners--murderers! A father"s pride mutilated and disfigured--the last scion of an ill.u.s.trious race! Woe to you! G.o.d shall requite you sorely for this service."
"Count Reichenberg," said the Abbot, "we are innocent of this blood, nor are your son"s eyes upon our conscience, for indeed they were the sunshine of our gloomy walls and everyone of us would willingly have given his own in lieu of his."
"Spare your speeches, Abbot, I do not believe them. Even if you have not yourselves been the executioners your accursed teaching has done it. Put out your eyes to serve G.o.d! Aye, that is your priestly notion of a hero. If you had given the boy a well-tempered sword in his hand that, for my part, he could have used against your enemies, he would never have committed such an outrage on himself! Oh G.o.d! great G.o.d, here I stand before Thy face; Thou knowest all my iniquity, Thou knowest wherein I have sinned--but the sorrow that is now rending my heart was of no purpose of Thine--no G.o.d can be so cruel--but only man." And he beat his brow in a frenzy of rage as if he would strike himself dead with his own hand.
Meanwhile the blind man stood by in silence, his hands folded, his head sunk on his breast; a picture so touching that even the strong man"s heart was melted to pity. "What shall I do?" he went on. "I am a lonely, childless man and you are a poor, maimed creature, a dishonour to the chivalrous house of Reichenberg--still you are my own blood and I feel that I can love you with all your infirmities. I will take you with me--Come, and like a beggar who picks up pot-sherds, I will gather up the remnants of my ruined race and carry them home under my roof--to weep over them. Come, my son." His voice broke as he spoke. "Your father will lay aside shield and spear and turn sick-nurse to tend the last of his race till we are carried out of the decaying house to which we two belong." And he took hold of his son"s arm to lead him away with him; but the blind man stood as if rooted to the spot, not a foot did he stir to follow his father.
The Count looked at him as if he could not believe it.
"My son!" he shouted in his ear, and he shook his arm as if to rouse him from a stupor, "my son--it is your father who calls you."
"Forgive me," said Donatus wearily, for fever induced by the wounds was beginning to exhaust his strength, "but that is not my father"s voice."
"In G.o.d"s name do not you hear me? It is I--your father--Reichenberg,"
urged the Count.
The blind youth shook his head. "I have no father but the Abbot."