In 1473 Sybrandt began to fail.His pitiable existence had been sweetened by his brother's inventive tenderness and his own contented spirit, which, his antecedents considered, was truly remarkable, As for Gerard, the day never passed that he did not devote two hours to him; reading or singing to him, praying with him, and drawing him about in a soft carriage Margaret and he had made between them.When the poor soul found his end near, he begged Margaret might be sent for.She came at once, and almost with his last breath he sought once more that forgiveness she had long ago accorded.She remained by him till the last; and he died, blessing and blessed, in the arms of the two true lovers he had parted for life.Tantum religio scit suadere boni.
1474 there was a wedding in Margaret's house, Luke Peterson and Reicht Heynes.
This may seem less strange if I give the purport of the dialogue interrupted some time back.
Margaret went on to say, "Then in that case you can easily make him fancy you, and for my sake you must, for my conscience it pricketh me, and I must needs fit him with a wife, the best Iknow." Margaret then instructed Reicht to be always kind and good-humoured to Luke; and she would be a model of peevishness to him, "But be not thou so simple as run me down," said she, "Leave that to me.Make thou excuses for me; I will make myself black enow."Reicht received these instructions like an order to sweep a room, and obeyed them punctually.
When they had subjected poor Luke to this double artillery for a couple of years, he got to look upon Margaret as his fog and wind, and Reicht as his sunshine; and his affections transferred themselves, he scarce knew how or when,On the wedding day Reicht embraced Margaret, and thanked her almost with tears."He was always my fancy," said she, "from the first hour I clapped eyes on him.""Heyday, you never told me that.What, Reicht, are you as sly as the rest?""Nay, nay," said Reicht eagerly; "but I never thought you would really part with him to me.In my country the mistress looks to be served before the maid."Margaret settled them in her shop, and gave them half the profits.
1476 and 7 were years of great trouble to Gerard, whose conscience compelled him to oppose the Pope.His Holiness, siding with the Grey Friars in their determination to swamp every palpable distinction between the Virgin Mary and her Son, bribed the Christian world into his crotchet by proffering pardon of all sins to such as would add to the Ave Mary this clause: "and blessed be thy Mother Anna, from whom, without blot of sin, proceeded thy virgin flesh."Gerard, in common with many of the northern clergy, held this sentence to be flat heresy.He not only refused to utter it in his church, but warned his parishioners against using it in private;and he refused to celebrate the new feast the Pope invented at the same time, viz., "the feast of the miraculous conception of the Virgin."But this drew upon him the bitter enmity of the Franciscans, and they were strong enough to put him into more than one serious difficulty, and inflict many a little mortification on him.In emergencies he consulted Margaret, and she always did one of two things, either she said, "I do not see my way," and refused to guess; or else she gave him advice that proved wonderfully sagacious.He had genius, but she had marvellous tact.
And where affection came in and annihilated the woman's judgment, he stepped in his turn to her aid.Thus though she knew she was spoiling little Gerard, and Catherine was ruining him for life, she would not part with him, but kept him at home, and his abilities uncultivated.And there was a shrewd boy of nine years, instead of learning to work and obey, playing about and learning selfishness from their infinite unselfishness, and tyrannizing with a rod of iron over two women, both of them sagacious and spirited, but reduced by their fondness for him to the exact level of idiots.
Gerard saw this with pain, and interfered with mild but firm remonstrance; and after a considerable struggle prevailed, and got little Gerard sent to the best school in Europe, kept by one Haaghe at Deventer: this was in 1477.Many tears were shed, but the great progress the boy made at that famous school reconciled Margaret in some degree, and the fidelity of Reicht Heynes, now her partner in business, enabled her to spend weeks at a time hovering over her boy at Deventer.
And so the years glided; and these two persons, subjected to as strong and constant a temptation as can well be conceived, were each other's guardian angels, and not each other's tempters.
To be sure the well-greased morality of the next century, which taught that solemn vows to God are sacred in proportion as they are reasonable, had at that time entered no single mind; and the alternative to these two minds was self-denial or sacrilege.
It was a strange thing to hear them talk with unrestrained tenderness to one another of their boy, and an icy barrier between themselves all the time.
Eight years had now passed thus, and Gerard, fairly compared with men in general, was happy.
But Margaret was not.
The habitual expression of her face was a sweet pensiveness, but sometimes she was irritable and a little petulant.She even snapped Gerard now and then.And when she went to see him, if a monk was with him she would turn her back and go home.She hated the monks for having parted Gerard and her, and she inoculated her boy with a contempt for them which lasted him till his dying day.
Gerard bore with her like an angel.He knew her heart of gold, and hoped this ill gust would blow over.
