The Cloister and the Hearth

C >> Charles Reade >> The Cloister and the Hearth


"Why, it is herself," he gasped.

"Isn't it!" cried Kate, and her hostility was softened. "You admire it?
I forgive you for frightening us."

"Am I in a mad-house?" said Ghysbrecht Van Swieten thoroughly puzzled.
"You show me a picture of the girl; and you say he painted it; and that
is a proof he cannot love her. Why, they all paint their sweethearts,
painters do."

"A picture of the girl?" exclaimed Kate, shocked. "Fie! this is no girl;
this is our blessed Lady."

"No, no; it is Margaret Brandt."

"Oh blind! It is the Queen of Heaven."

"No; only of Sevenbergen village."

"Profane man! behold her crown!"

"Silly child! look at her red hair! Would the Virgin be seen in red
hair? She who had the pick of all the colours ten thousand years before
the world began."

At this moment an anxious face was insinuated round the edge of the open
door: it was their neighbour Peter Buyskens.

"What is to do?" said he in a cautious whisper. "We can hear you all
across the street. What on earth is to do?"

"Oh, neighbour! What is to do? Why, here is the burgomaster blackening
our Gerard."

"Stop!" cried Van Swieten. "Peter Buyskens is come in the nick of time.
He knows father and daughter both. They cast their glamour on him."

"What! is she a witch too?"

"Else the egg takes not after the bird. Why is her father called the
magician? I tell you they bewitched this very Peter here; they cast
unholy spells on him, and cured him of the colic: now, Peter, look and
tell me who is that? and you be silent, women, for a moment, if you can;
who is it, Peter?"

"Well, to be sure!" said Peter, in reply; and his eye seemed fascinated
by the picture.

"Who is it?" repeated Ghysbrecht impetuously.

Peter Buyskens smiled. "Why, you know as well as I do; but what have
they put a crown on her for? I never saw her in a crown, for my part."

"Man alive! Can't you open your great jaws, and just speak a wench's
name plain out to oblige three people?"

"I'd do a great deal more to oblige one of you than that, burgomaster.
If it isn't as natural as life!"

"Curse the man! he won't, he won't--curse him!"

"Why, what have I done now?"

"Oh, sir!" said little Kate, "for pity's sake tell us; are these the
features of a living woman, of--of--Margaret Brandt?"

"A mirror is not truer, my little maid."

"But is it she, sir, for very certain?"

"Why, who else should it be?"

"Now, why couldn't you say so at once?" snarled Ghysbrecht.

"I did say so, as plain as I could speak," snapped Peter; and they
growled over this small bone of contention so zealously, that they did
not see Catherine and her daughter had thrown their aprons over their
heads, and were rocking to and fro in deep distress. The next moment
Elias came in from the shop, and stood aghast. Catherine, though her
face was covered, knew his footstep.

"That is my poor man," she sobbed. "Tell him, good Peter Buyskens, for I
have not the courage."

Elias turned pale. The presence of the burgomaster in his house, after
so many years of coolness, coupled with his wife's and daughter's
distress, made him fear some heavy misfortune.

"Richart! Jacob!" he gasped.

"No, no!" said the burgomaster; "it is nearer home, and nobody is dead
or dying, old friend."

"God bless you, burgomaster! Ah! something has gone off my breast that
was like to choke me. Now, what is the matter?"

Ghysbrecht then told him all that he told the women, and showed the
picture in evidence.

"Is that all?" said Eli, profoundly relieved. "What are ye roaring and
bellowing for? It is vexing--it is angering, but it is not like death,
not even sickness. Boys will be boys. He will outgrow that disease: 'tis
but skin-deep."

But when Ghysbrecht told him that Margaret was a girl of good character;
that it was not to be supposed she would be so intimate if marriage had
not been spoken of between them, his brow darkened.

"Marriage! that shall never be," said he sternly. "I'll stay that; ay,
by force, if need be--as I would his hand lifted to cut his throat. I'd
do what old John Koestein did t'other day."

"And what is that, in Heaven's name?" asked the mother, suddenly
removing her apron.

It was the burgomaster who replied:

"He made me shut young Albert Koestein up in the prison of the
Stadthouse till he knocked under. It was not long: forty-eight hours,
all alone, on bread and water, cooled his hot stomach. 'Tell my father I
am his humble servant,' says he, 'and let me into the sun once more--the
sun is worth all the wenches in the world.'"

"Oh, the cruelty of men!" sighed Catherine.

"As to that, the burgomaster has no choice: it is the law. And if a
father says, 'Burgomaster, lock up my son,' he must do it. A fine thing
it would be if a father might not lock up his own son."

"Well, well! it won't come to that with me and my son. He never
disobeyed me in his life: he never shall, Where is he? It is past
supper-time. Where is he, Kate?"

"Alas! I know not, father."

"I know," said Ghysbrecht; "he is at Sevenbergen. My servant met him on
the road."

Supper passed in gloomy silence. Evening descended--no Gerard! Eight
o'clock came--no Gerard! Then the father sent all to bed, except
Catherine.

"You and I will walk abroad, wife, and talk over this new care."

"Abroad, my man, at this time? Whither?"

"Why, on the road to Sevenbergen."

"Oh no; no hasty words, father. Poor Gerard! he never vexed you before."

"Fear me not. But it must end; and I am not one that trusts to-morrow
with to-day's work."

The old pair walked hand in hand; for, strange is it may appear to
some of my readers, the use of the elbow to couples walking was not
discovered in Europe till centuries after this. They sauntered on a long
time in silence. The night was clear and balmy. Such nights, calm and
silent, recall the past from the dead.

"It is a many years since we walked so late, my man," said Catherine
softly.

"Ay, sweetheart, more than we shall see again (is he never coming, I
wonder?)"

"Not since our courting days, Eli."

"No. Ay, you were a buxom lass then."

"And you were a comely lad, as ever a girl's eye stole a look at. I do
suppose Gerard is with her now, as you used to be with me. Nature is
strong, and the same in all our generations."

"Nay, I hope he has left her by now, confound her, or we shall be here
all night."

"Eli!"

"Well, Kate?"

"I have been happy with you, sweetheart, for all our rubs--much happier,
I trow, than if I had--been--a--a--nun. You won't speak harshly to the
poor child? One can be firm without being harsh."

"Surely."

"Have you been happy with me, my poor Eli?"

"Why, you know I have. Friends I have known, but none like thee. Buss
me, wife!"

"A heart to share joy and grief with is a great comfort to man or woman.
Isn't it, Eli?"

"It is so, my lass.

'It doth joy double,
And halveth trouble,'

runs the byword. And so I have found it, sweetheart. Ah! here comes the
young fool."

Catherine trembled, and held her husband's hand tight.

The moon was bright, but they were in the shadow of some trees, and
their son did not see them. He came singing in the moonlight, and his
face shining.



CHAPTER VIII

While the burgomaster was exposing Gerard at Tergou, Margaret had a
trouble of her own at Sevenbergen. It was a housewife's distress, but
deeper than we can well conceive. She came to Martin Wittenhaagen, the
old soldier, with tears in her eyes.

"Martin, there's nothing in the house, and Gerard is coming, and he is
so thoughtless. He forgets to sup at home. When he gives over work, then
he runs to me straight, poor soul; and often he comes quite faint. And
to think I have nothing to set before my servant that loves me so dear."

Martin scratched his head. "What can I do?"

"It is Thursday; it is your day to shoot; sooth to Say, I counted on you
to-day."

"Nay," said the soldier, "I may not shoot when the Duke or his friends
are at the chase; read else. I am no scholar." And he took out of his
pouch a parchment with a grand seal. It purported to be a stipend and a
licence given by Philip, Duke of Burgundy, to Martin Wittenhaagen, one
of his archers, in return for services in the wars, and for a wound
received at the Dukes side. The stipend was four merks yearly, to be
paid by the Duke's almoner, and the licence was to shoot three arrows
once a week, viz., on Thursday, and no other day, in any of the Duke's
forests in Holland, at any game but a seven-year-old buck or a doe
carrying fawn; proviso, that the Duke should not be hunting on that day,
or any of his friends. In this case Martin was not to go and disturb the
woods on peril of his salary and his head, and a fine of a penny.

Margaret sighed and was silent.

"Come, cheer up, mistress," said he; "for your sake I'll peril my
carcass; I have done that for many a one that was not worth your
forefinger. It is no such mighty risk either. I'll but step into the
skirts of the forest here. It is odds but they drive a hare or a fawn
within reach of my arrow."

"Well, if I let you go, you must promise me not to go far, and not to
be seen; far better Gerard went supperless than ill should come to you,
faithful Martin."

The required promise given, Martin took his bow and three arrows, and
stole cautiously into the wood: it was scarce a furlong distant. The
horns were heard faintly in the distance, and all the game was afoot.
"Come," thought Martin, "I shall soon fill the pot, and no one be the
wiser." He took his stand behind a thick oak that commanded a view of
an open glade, and strung his bow, a truly formidable weapon. It was
of English yew, six feet two inches high, and thick in proportion; and
Martin, broad-chested, with arms all iron and cord, and used to the bow
from infancy, could draw a three-foot arrow to the head, and, when
it flew, the eye could scarce follow it, and the bowstring twanged as
musical as a harp. This bow had laid many a stout soldier low in the
wars of the Hoecks and Cabbel-jaws. In those days a battlefield was not
a cloud of smoke; the combatants were few, but the deaths many--for they
saw what they were about; and fewer bloodless arrows flew than bloodless
bullets now. A hare came cantering, then sat sprightly, and her ears
made a capital V. Martin levelled his tremendous weapon at her. The
arrow flew, the string twanged; but Martin had been in a hurry to pot
her, and lost her by an inch: the arrow seemed to hit her, but it struck
the ground close to her, and passed under her belly like a flash, and
hissed along the short grass and disappeared. She jumped three feet
perpendicular and away at the top of her speed. "Bungler!" said Martin.
A sure proof he was not an habitual bungler, or he would have blamed
the hare. He had scarcely fitted another arrow to his string when a
wood-pigeon settled on the very tree he stood under. "Aha!" thought he,
"you are small, but dainty." This time he took more pains; drew his arrow
carefully, loosed it smoothly, and saw it, to all appearance, go clean
through the bird, carrying feathers skyward like dust. Instead of
falling at his feet, the bird, whose breast was torn, not fairly
pierced, fluttered feebly away, and, by a great effort, rose above the
trees, flew some fifty yards and dead at last; but where, he could not
see for the thick foliage.

"Luck is against me," said he despondingly. But he fitted another arrow,
and eyed the glade keenly. Presently he heard a bustle behind him, and
turned round just in time to see a noble buck cross the open, but too
late to shoot at him. He dashed his bow down with an imprecation. At
that moment a long spotted animal glided swiftly across after the deer;
its belly seemed to touch the ground as it went. Martin took up his bow
hastily: he recognized the Duke's leopard. "The hunters will not be far
from her," said he, "and I must not be seen. Gerard must go supperless
this night."

He plunged into the wood, following the buck and leopard, for that was
his way home. He had not gone far when he heard an unusual sound ahead
of him--leaves rustling violently and the ground trampled. He hurried in
the direction. He found the leopard on the buck's back, tearing him
with teeth and claw, and the buck running in a circle and bounding
convulsively, with the blood pouring down his hide. Then Martin formed a
desperate resolution to have the venison for Margaret. He drew his arrow
to the head, and buried it in the deer, who, spite of the creature on
his back, bounded high into the air, and fell dead. The leopard went on
tearing him as if nothing had happened.

Martin hoped that the creature would gorge itself with blood, and then
let him take the meat. He waited some minutes, then walked resolutely
up, and laid his hand on the buck's leg. The leopard gave a frightful
growl, and left off sucking blood. She saw Martin's game, and was
sulky and on her guard. What was to be done? Martin had heard that wild
creatures cannot stand the human eye. Accordingly, he stood erect, and
fixed his on the leopard: the leopard returned a savage glance, and
never took her eye off Martin. Then Martin continuing to look the beast
down, the leopard, brutally ignorant of natural history, flew at his
head with a frightful yell, flaming eyes, and jaws and distended. He had
but just time to catch her by the throat, before her teeth could crush
his face; one of her claws seized his shoulder and rent it, the other,
aimed at his cheek, would have been more deadly still, but Martin was
old-fashioned, and wore no hat, but a scapulary of the same stuff as his
jerkin, and this scapulary he had brought over his head like a hood; the
brute's claw caught in the loose leather. Martin kept her teeth off his
face with great difficulty, and griped her throat fiercely, and she
kept rending his shoulder. It was like blunt reaping-hooks grinding and
tearing. The pain was fearful; but, instead of cowing the old soldier,
it put his blood up, and he gnashed his teeth with rage almost as fierce
as hers, and squeezed her neck with iron force. The two pair of eyes
flared at one another--and now the man's were almost as furious as the
brute's. She found he was throttling her, and made a wild attempt
to free herself, in which she dragged his cowl all over his face and
blinded him, and tore her claw out of his shoulder, flesh and all; but
still he throttled her with hand and arm of iron. Presently her
long tail, that was high in the air, went down. "Aha!" cried Martin,
joyfully, and gripped her like death; next, her body lost its
elasticity, and he held a choked and powerless thing: he gripped it
still, till all motion ceased, then dashed it to the earth; then,
panting, removed his cowl: the leopard lay mute at his feet with tongue
protruding and bloody paw; and for the first time terror fell on Martin.
"I am a dead man: I have slain the Duke's leopard." He hastily seized
a few handfuls of leaves and threw them over her; then shouldered the
buck, and staggered away, leaving a trail of blood all the way his own
and the buck's. He burst into Peter's house a horrible figure, bleeding
and bloodstained, and flung the deer's carcass down.

"There--no questions," said he, "but broil me a steak on't, for I am
faint."

Margaret did not see he was wounded; she thought the blood was all from
the deer.

She busied herself at the fire, and the stout soldier stanched and bound
his own wound apart; and soon he and Gerard and Margaret were supping
royally on broiled venison.

They were very merry; and Gerard, with wonderful thoughtfulness, had
brought a flask of Schiedam, and under its influence Martin revived,
and told them how the venison was got; and they all made merry over the
exploit.

Their mirth was strangely interrupted. Margaret's eye became fixed and
fascinated, and her cheek pale with fear. She gasped, and could not
speak, but pointed to the window with trembling finger. Their eyes
followed hers, and there in the twilight crouched a dark form with eyes
like glowworms.

It was the leopard.

While they stood petrified, fascinated by the eyes of green fire, there
sounded in the wood a single deep bay. Martin trembled at it.

"They have lost her, and laid muzzled bloodhounds on her scent;
they will find her here, and the venison. Good-bye, friends, Martin
Wittenhaagen ends here."

Gerard seized his bow, and put it into the soldier's hands.

"Be a man," he cried; "shoot her, and fling her into the wood ere they
come up. Who will know?"

More voices of hounds broke out, and nearer.

"Curse her!" cried Martin; "I spared her once; now she must die, or I,
or both more likely;" and he reared his bow, and drew his arrow to the
head.

"Nay! nay!" cried Margaret, and seized the arrow. It broke in half: the
pieces fell on each side the bow. The air at the same time filled with
the tongues of the hounds: they were hot upon the scent.

"What have you done, wench? You have put the halter round my throat."

"No!" cried Margaret. "I have saved you: stand back from the window,
both! Your knife, quick!"

She seized his long-pointed knife, almost tore it out of his girdle, and
darted from the room. The house was now surrounded with baying dogs and
shouting men.

The glowworm eyes moved not.



CHAPTER IX

Margaret cut off a huge piece of venison, and ran to the window and
threw it out to the green eyes of fire. They darted on to it with a
savage snarl; and there was a sound of rending and crunching: at this
moment, a hound uttered a bay so near and loud it rang through the
house; and the three at the window shrank together. Then the leopard
feared for her supper, and glided swiftly and stealthily away with it
towards the woods, and the very next moment horses and men and dogs came
helter-skelter past the window, and followed her full cry. Martin and
his companions breathed again: the leopard was swift, and would not
be caught within a league of their house. They grasped hands. Margaret
seized this opportunity, and cried a little; Gerard kissed the tears
away.

To table once more, and Gerard drank to woman's wit: "'Tis stronger than
man's force," said he.

"Ay," said Margaret, "when those she loves are in danger; not else."

To-night Gerard stayed with her longer than usual, and went home prouder
than ever of her, and happy as a prince. Some little distance from home,
under the shadow of some trees, he encountered two figures: they almost
barred his way.

It was his father and mother.

Out so late! what could be the cause?

A chill fell on him.

He stopped and looked at them: they stood grim and silent. He stammered
out some words of inquiry.

"Why ask?" said the father; "you know why we are here."

"Oh, Gerard!" said his mother, with a voice full of reproach yet of
affection.

Gerard's heart quaked: he was silent.

Then his father pitied his confusion, and said to him:

"Nay, you need not to hang your head. You are not the first young fool
that has been caught by a red cheek and a pair of blue eyes."

"Nay, nay!" put in Catherine, "it was witchcraft; Peter the Magician is
well known for that."

"Come, Sir Priest," resumed his father, "you know you must not meddle
with women folk. But give us your promise to go no more to Sevenbergen,
and here all ends: we won't be hard on you for one fault."

"I cannot promise that, father."

"Not promise it, you young hypocrite!"

"Nay, father, miscall me not: I lacked courage to tell you what I knew
would vex you; and right grateful am I to that good friend, whoever he
be, that has let you wot. 'Tis a load off my mind. Yes, father, I love
Margaret; and call me not a priest, for a priest I will never be. I will
die sooner."

"That we shall see, young man. Come, gainsay me no more; you will learn
what 'tis to disrespect a father."

Gerard held his peace, and the three walked home in gloomy silence,
broken only by a deep sigh or two from Catherine.

From that hour the little house at Tergou was no longer the abode of
peace. Gerard was taken to task next day before the whole family; and
every voice was loud against him, except little Kate's and the dwarf's,
who was apt to take his cue from her without knowing why. As for
Cornelis and Sybrandt, they were bitterer than their father. Gerard
was dismayed at finding so many enemies, and looked wistfully into his
little sister's face: her eyes were brimming at the harsh words showered
on one who but yesterday was the universal pet. But she gave him no
encouragement: she turned her head away from him and said:

"Dear, dear Gerard, pray to Heaven to cure you of this folly!"

"What, are you against me too?" said Gerard, sadly; and he rose with a
deep sigh, and left the house and went to Sevenbergen.

The beginning of a quarrel, where the parties are bound by affection
though opposed in interest and sentiment, is comparatively innocent:
both are perhaps in the right at first starting, and then it is that
a calm, judicious friend, capable of seeing both sides, is a gift from
Heaven. For the longer the dissension endures, the wider and deeper it
grows by the fallibility and irascibility of human nature: these are
not confined to either side, and finally the invariable end is
reached--both in the wrong.

The combatants were unequally matched: Elias was angry, Cornelis and
Sybrandt spiteful; but Gerard, having a larger and more cultivated mind,
saw both sides where they saw but one, and had fits of irresolution,
and was not wroth, but unhappy. He was lonely, too, in this struggle.
He could open his heart to no one. Margaret was a high-spirited girl:
he dared not tell her what he had to endure at home; she was capable of
siding with his relations by resigning him, though at the cost of her
own happiness. Margaret Van Eyck had been a great comfort to him on
another occasion; but now he dared not make her his confidant. Her own
history was well known. In early life she had many offers of marriage;
but refused them all for the sake of that art, to which a wife's and
mother's duties are so fatal: thus she remained single and painted with
her brothers. How could he tell her that he declined the benefice she
had got him, and declined it for the sake of that which at his age she
had despised and sacrificed so lightly?

Gerard at this period bade fair to succumb. But the other side had a
horrible ally in Catherine, senior. This good-hearted but uneducated
woman could not, like her daughter, act quietly and firmly: still less
could she act upon a plan. She irritated Gerard at times, and so helped
him; for anger is a great sustainer of the courage: at others she turned
round in a moment and made onslaughts on her own forces. To take
a single instance out of many: one day that they were all at home,
Catherine and all, Cornelis said: "Our Gerard wed Margaret Brandt? Why,
it is hunger marrying thirst."

"And what will it be when you marry?" cried Catherine. "Gerard can
paint, Gerard can write, but what can you do to keep a woman, ye lazy
loon? Nought but wait for your father's shoon. Oh we can see why you and
Sybrandt would not have the poor boy to marry. You are afraid he will
come to us for a share of our substance. And say that he does, and say
that we give it him, it isn't yourn we part from, and mayhap never will
be."

On these occasions Gerard smiled slily, and picked up heart, and
temporary confusion fell on Catherine's unfortunate allies. But at last,
after more than six months of irritation, came the climax. The father
told the son before the whole family he had ordered the burgomaster
to imprison him in the Stadthouse rather than let him marry Margaret.
Gerard turned pale with anger at this, but by a great effort held his
peace. His father went on to say, "And a priest you shall be before the
year is out, nilly-willy."

"Is it so?" cried Gerard. "Then, hear me, all. By God and St. Bavon I
swear I will never be a priest while Margaret lives. Since force is to
decide it, and not love and duty, try force, father; but force shall not
serve you, for the day I see the burgomaster come for me, I leave Tergou
for ever, and Holland too, and my father's house, where it seems I have
been valued all these years, not for myself, but for what is to be got
out of me."

And he flung out of the room white with anger and desperation.

"There!" cried Catherine, "that comes of driving young folks too hard.
But men are crueller than tigers, even to their own flesh and blood.
Now, Heaven forbid he should ever leave us, married or single."

As Gerard came out of the house, his cheeks pale and his heart panting,
he met Reicht Heynes: she had a message for him: Margaret Van Eyck
desired to see him. He found the old lady seated grim as a judge. She
wasted no time in preliminaries, but inquired coldly why he had not
visited her of late: before he could answer, she said in a sarcastic
tone, "I thought we had been friends, young sir."

At this Gerard looked the picture of doubt and consternation.

"It is because you never told her you were in love," said Reicht Heynes,
pitying his confusion.

"Silence, wench! Why should he tell us his affairs? We are not his
friends: we have not deserved his confidence."