Talk we like old friends.Why are you buried alive?""Margaret, to escape temptation.My impious ire against those two had its root in the heart; that heart then I must deaden, and, Dei gratia, I shall.Shall I, a servant of Christ and of the Church, court temptation? Shall I pray daily to be led out on't, and walk into it with open eyes?""That is good sense anyway," said Margaret, with a consummate affectation of candour.
"'Tis unanswerable," said Clement, with a sigh.
"We shall see.Tell me, have you escaped temptation here? Why Iask is, when I am alone, my thoughts are far more wild and foolish than in company.Nay, speak sooth; come!""I must needs own I have been worse tempted here with evil imaginations than in the world.""There now."
"Ay, but so were Anthony and Jerome, Macarius and Hilarion, Benedict, Bernard, and all the saints.'Twill wear off.""How do you know?"
"I feel sure it will."
"Guessing against knowledge.Here 'tis men folk are sillier than us that be but women.Wise in their own conceits, they will not let themselves see; their stomachs are too high to be taught by their eyes.A woman, if she went into a hole in a bank to escape temptation, and there found it, would just lift her farthingale and out on't, and not e'en know how wise she was, till she watched a man in like plight.""Nay, I grant humility and a teachable spirit are the roads to wisdom; but when all is said, here I wrestle but with imagination.
At Gouda she I love as no priest or monk must love any but the angels, she will tempt a weak soul, unwilling, yet not loth to be tempted.""Ay, that is another matter; I should tempt thee then? to what, i'
God's name?"
"Who knows? The flesh is weak."
"Speak for yourself, my lad.Why, you are thinking of some other Margaret, not Margaret a Peter.Was ever my mind turned to folly and frailty? Stay, is it because you were my husband once, as these lines avouch? Think you the road to folly is beaten for you more than another? Oh! how shallow are the wise, and how little able are you to read me, who can read you so well from top to toe, Come, learn thine A B C.Were a stranger to proffer me unchaste love, I should shrink a bit, no doubt, and feel sore, but I should defend myself without making a coil; for men, I know, are so, the best of them sometimes.But if you, that have been my husband, and are my child's father, were to offer to humble me so in mine own eyes, and thine, and his, either I should spit in thy face, Gerard, or, as I am not a downright vulgar woman, I should snatch the first weapon at hand and strike thee dead."And Margaret's eyes flashed fire, and her nostrils expanded, that it was glorious to see; and no one that did see her could doubt her sincerity.
"I had not the sense to see that," said Gerard quietly.And he pondered.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and soon recovered her composure.
"Let not you and I dispute," said she gently; "speak we of other things.Ask me of thy folk.""My father?"
"Well, and warms to thee and me.Poor soul, a drew glaive on those twain that day, but Jorian Ketel and I we mastered him, and he drove them forth his house for ever.""That may not be; he must take them back.""That he will never do for us.You know the man; he is dour as iron; yet would he do it for one word from one that will not speak it.""Who?"
"The vicar of Gouda, The old man will be at the manse to-morrow, Ihear."
"How you come back to that."
"Forgive me: I am but a woman.It is us for nagging; shouldst keep me from it wi' questioning of me.""My sister Kate?"
"Alas!"
"What, hath ill befallen e'en that sweet lily? Out and alas!""Be calm, sweetheart, no harm hath her befallen.Oh, nay, nay, far fro' that." Then Margaret forced herself to be composed, and in a low, sweet, gentle voice she murmured to him thus:
"My poor Gerard, Kate hath left her trouble behind her.For the manner on't, 'twas like the rest.Ah, such as she saw never thirty, nor ever shall while earth shall last.She smiled in pain too.A well, then, thus 'twas: she was took wi' a languor and a loss of all her pains.""A loss of her pains? I understand you not.""Ay, you are not experienced; indeed, e'en thy mother almost blinded herself and said, ''Tis maybe a change for the better.'
But Joan Ketel, which is an understanding woman, she looked at her and said, 'Down sun, down wind!' And the gossips sided and said, 'Be brave, you that are her mother, for she is half way to the saints.' And thy mother wept sore, but Kate would not let her; and one very ancient woman, she said to thy mother, 'She will die as easy as she lived hard.' And she lay painless best part of three days, a sipping of heaven afore- hand, And, my dear, when she was just parting, she asked for 'Gerard's little boy,' and I brought him and set him on the bed, and the little thing behaved as peaceably as he does now.But by this time she was past speaking;but she pointed to a drawer, and her mother knew what to look for:
it was two gold angels thou hadst given her years ago.Poor soul!
she had kept then, till thou shouldst come home.And she nodded towards the little boy, and looked anxious; but we understood her, and put the pieces in his two hands, and when his little fingers closed on them, she smiled content.And so she gave her little earthly treasures to her favourite's child - for you were her favourite - and her immortal jewel to God, and passed so sweetly we none of us knew justly when she left us.Well-a-day, well-a-day!"Gerard wept.
"She hath not left her like on earth," he sobbed."Oh, how the affections of earth curl softly round my heart! I cannot help it;God made them after all.Speak on, sweet Margaret at thy voice the past rolls its tides back upon me; the loves and the hopes of youth come fair and gliding into my dark cell, and darker bosom, on waves of memory and music.""Gerard, I am loth to grieve you, but Kate cried a little when she first took ill at you not being there to close her eyes."Gerard sighed.
"You were within a league, but hid your face from her."He groaned.
