One Snowy Night Part 16

Nothing had yet been heard of Manning, the absent husband and father.

Isel still cherished an unspoken hope of his return; but Romund and Flemild had given him up for dead, while the younger children had almost forgotten him.

Another person who had pa.s.sed out of their life was the Jewish maiden, Countess. She had been married the year after the arrival of the Germans, and had gone to live at Reading: married to an old Jew whom she only knew by name, then no unusual fate for girls of her nation. From little Rudolph, who was just beginning to talk, she had parted most unwillingly.

"Ah! if you would give him to me!" she had said in German to Agnes, with a smile on her lips, yet with tears in the dark eyes. "I know it could not be. Yet if time should come that trouble befel you, and you sought refuge for the child, my heart and my arms would be open. Ah, you think, what could a poor Jewess do for you? Well, maybe so. Yet you know the fable of the mouse that gnawed the net in which the lion was caught. It might be, some day, that even poor Countess--"

Gerhardt laid his hand on the arm of the young Jewess, and Isel, who saw the action, trembled for the consequences of his temerity.

"Friend," he said, "I would, if so were, confide my child to you sooner than to any other outside this house, if your word were given that he should not be taught to deride and reject the Lord that died for him."

"You would take my word?" The dark eyes flashed fire.

"I would take it, if you would give it."

"And you know that no Court in this land would receive the witness of a Jew! You know it?" she repeated fierily.

"I know it," he answered, rather sadly.

"Yet you would take mine?"

"G.o.d would know if you spoke truth. He is the Avenger of all that have none other."

"He has work to do, then!" replied Countess bitterly.

"He would not be too busy, if need were, to see to my little Rudolph.

But I do not believe in the need: I think you true."

"Gerhardt, you are the strangest Christian that I ever knew! Do you mean what you say?"

"I mean every word of it, Countess."

"Then--you shall not repent it." And she turned away.

Little Rudolph fretted for a time after his nurse and playfellow. But as the months pa.s.sed on, her image grew fainter in his memory, and now, at seven years old, he scarcely remembered her except by name, Ermine having spoken of her to him on several occasions.

"I wonder you talk of the girl to that child!" Isel remonstrated. "It were better that he should forget her."

"Pardon me, Mother Isel, but I think not so. The good Lord brought her in our way, and how do I know for what purpose? It may be for Rudolph's good, no less than hers; and she promised, if need arose, to have a care of him. I cannot tell what need may arise, wherein it would be most desirable that he should at least recall her name."

"But don't you see, Ermine, even on your own showing, our Lord has taken her out of your way again?"

"Yes, now. But how do I know that it is for always?"

"Why, child, how can Countess, a married woman, living away at Reading, do anything to help a child at Oxford?"

"I don't know, Mother Isel. The Lord knows. If our paths never cross again, it will not hurt Rudolph to remember that a young Jewess named Countess was his loving friend in childhood: if they should meet hereafter, it may be very needful. And--" that dreamy look came into Ermine's eyes--"something seems to whisper to me that it may be needed.

Do not blame me if I act upon it."

"Well, with all your soft, gentle ways, you have a will of your own, I know," said Isel; "so you must e'en go your own way. And after September, Ermine, you'll be the only daughter left to me. Ah me!

Well, it's the way of the world, and what is to be must be. I am sure it was a good wind blew you in at my door, for I should have been dreadful lonely without you when both my girls were gone."

"But, dear Mother Isel, Flemild is not going far."

"Not by the measuring-line, very like; but she's going far enough to be Raven's wife, and not my daughter. It makes a deal of difference, that does. And Derette's going further, after the same fas.h.i.+on. I sha'n't see her, maybe, again, above a dozen times in my life. Eh dear! this is a hard world for a woman to live in. It's all work, and worry, and losing, and giving up, and such like."

"There is a better world," said Ermine softly.

"There had need be. I'm sure I deserve a bit of rest and comfort, if ever a hard-working woman did. I'll say nought about pleasure; more by reason that I'm pretty nigh too much worn out and beat down to care about it."

"Nay, friend," said Gerhardt; "we sinners deserve the under-world. The road to the upper lieth only through the blood and righteousness of our Lord Christ."

"I don't know why you need say that," returned Isel with mild resentment. "I've been as decent a woman, and as good a wife and mother, as any woman betwixt Grandpont and Saint Maudlin, let the other be who she may,--ay, I have so, though I say it that hadn't ought. But you over-sea folks seem to have such a notion of everybody being bad, as I never heard before--not even from the priest."

The Church to which Gerhardt belonged held firmly, as one of her most vital dogmas, that strong view of human depravity which human depravity always opposes and resents. Therefore Gerhardt did but enunciate a foundation-article of his faith when he made answer--

"'All the evil which I do proceeds from my own depravity.'"

"Come, you're laying it on a bit too thick," said Isel, with a shake of her head.

"He only speaks for himself, don't you hear, Mother?" suggested Haimet humorously.

Gerhardt smiled, and shook his head in turn.

"Well, but if all the ill we do comes of ourselves, I don't see how you leave any room for Satan. He's busy about us, isn't he?"

"He's 'a roaring lion, that goeth about, seeking whom he may devour'; but he can devour no man without his own partic.i.p.ation."

"Why, then, you make us all out to be witches, for it's they who enter into league with Satan."

"Do you know, Gerard," said Haimet suddenly, "some folks in the town are saying that you belong to those over-sea heretics whose children are born with black throats and four rows of teeth, and are all over hair?"

"I don't see that Rudolph resembles that description," was the calm reply of Gerhardt. "Do you?"

"Oh, of course we know better. But there are some folks that say so, and are ready to swear it too. It would be quite as well if you stayed quiet at home for a while, and didn't go out preaching in the villages so much. If the Bishop comes to hear of some things you've said--"

Isel and her daughters looked up in surprise. They had never imagined that their friend's frequent journeys were missionary tours. Haimet, who mixed far more with the outer world, was a good deal wiser on many points.

"What have I said?" quietly replied Gerhardt, stopping his carving-- which he still pursued in an evening--to sweep up and throw into the corner the chips which he had made.

"Well, I was told only last week, that you had said when you spoke at Abingdon, that 'Antichrist means all that is in contrast to Christ,' and that there was no such thing as a consecrated priest in the world."

"The first I did say: can you disprove it? But the second I did not say. G.o.d forbid that I ever should!"

"Oh, well, I am glad to hear it: but I can tell you, Halenath the Sacristan said he heard you."

"I wish that old chattering magpie would hold his tongue!" exclaimed Isel, going to the door to empty the bowl in which she had been was.h.i.+ng the cabbages for supper. "He makes more mischief than any man within ten miles of the Four-Ways."

"Haimet," said Gerhardt, looking up from the lovely wreath of strawberry-blossom which he was carving on a box, "I must not leave you to misapprehend me as Halenath has done. I never said there was no such thing as a consecrated priest: for Christ our Priest is one, of the Order of Melchizedek, and by His one offering He hath perfected His saints for ever. But I did say that the priests of Rome were not rightly consecrated, and that the Pope's temporal power had deprived the Church of true consecration. I will stand as firmly to that which I have said, as I will deny the words I have not spoken."