The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

A young man was tarantula bitten, or perhaps, like many more, fancied it. Fancy or reality, he had been for two days without sleep, and in most extraordinary convulsions, leaping, twisting, and beating the walls. The village musicians had only excited him worse with their music. Exhaustion and death followed the disease, when it gained such a head. Clement passed by and learned what was the matter. He sent for a psaltery, and tried the patient with soothing melodies; but if the other tunes maddened him, Clement's seemed to crush him. He groaned and moaned under them, and grovelled on the floor. At last the friar observed that at intervals his lips kept going. He applied his ear, and found the patient was whispering a tune; and a very singular one, that had no existence. He learned this tune and played it. The patient's face brightened amazingly. He marched about the room on the light fantastic toe enjoying it; and when Clement's fingers ached nearly off with playing it, he had the satisfaction of seeing the young man sink complacently to sleep to this lullaby, the strange creation of his own mind; for it seems he was no musician, and never composed a tune before or after. This sleep saved his life. And Clement, after teaching the tune to another, in case it should be wanted again, went forward with his heart a little warmer. On another occasion he found a mob haling a decently dressed man along, who struggled and vociferated, but in a strange language. This person had walked into their town erect and sprightly, waving a mulberry branch over his head. Thereupon the natives first gazed stupidly, not believing their eyes, then pounced on him and dragged him before the podesta, Clement went with them; but on the way drew quietly near the prisoner and spoke to him in Italian; no answer. In French' German; Dutch; no assets. Then the man tried Clement in tolerable Latin, but with a sharpish accent. He said he was an Englishman, and oppressed with the heat of Italy, had taken a bough off the nearest tree, to save his head. “In my country anybody is welcome to what grows on the highway. Confound the fools; I am ready to pay for it. But here is all Italy up in arms about a twig and a handful of leaves.”

The pig-headed podesta would have sent the dogged islander to prison; but Clement mediated, and with some difficulty made the prisoner comprehend that silkworms, and by consequence mulberry leaves, were sacred, being under the wing of the Sovereign, and his source of income; and urged on the podesta that ignorance of his mulberry laws was natural in a distant country, where the very tree perhaps was unknown, The opinionative islander turned the still vibrating scale by pulling' out a long purse and repeating his original theory, that the whole question was mercantile. “Quid damni?” said he, “Dic; et cito solvam.” The podesta snuffed the gold: fined him a ducat for the duke; about the value of the whole tree; and pouched the coin.

The Englishman shook off his ire the moment he was liberated, and laughed heartily at the whole thing; but was very grateful to Clement.

“You are too good for this hole of a country, father,” said he, “Come to England! That is the only place in the world, I was an uneasy fool to leave it, and wander among mulberries and their idiots. I am a Kentish squire, and educated at Cambridge University. My name it is Rolfe, my place Betshanger, The man and the house are both at your service. Come over and stay till domesday. We sit down forty to dinner every day at Betshanger. One more or one less at the board will not be seen. You shall end your days with me and my heirs if you will, Come now! What an Englishman says he means.” And he gave him a great hearty grip of the hand to confirm it,

“I will visit thee some day, my son,” said Clement; “but not to weary thy hospitality.”

The Englishman then begged Clement to shrive him. “I know not what will become of my soul,” said he, “I live like a heathen since I left England.”

Clement consented gladly, and soon the islander was on his knees to him by the roadside, confessing the last month's sins.

Finding him so pious a son of the Church, Clement let him know he was really coming to England. He then asked him whether it was true that country was overrun with Lollards and Wickliffites.

The other coloured up a little. “There be black sheep in every land,” said he. Then after some reflection he said gravely, “Holy father, hear the truth about these heretics. None are better disposed towards Holy Church than we English. But we are ourselves, and by ourselves. We love our own ways, and above all, our own tongue. The Norman could conquer our bill-hooks, but not our tongues; and hard they tried it for many a long year by law and proclamation. Our good foreign priests utter God to plain English folk in Latin, or in some French or Italian lingo, like the bleating of a sheep. Then come the fox Wickliff and his crew, and read him out of his own book in plain English, that all men's hearts warm to. Who can withstand this? God forgive me, I believe the English would turn deaf ears to St, Peter himself, spoke he not to them in the tongue their mothers sowed in their ears and their hearts along with mothers' kisses.” He added hastily, “I say not this for myself; I am Cambridge bred; and good words come not amiss to me in Latin; but for the people in general. Clavis ad corda Anglorum est lingua materna.”

“My son,” said Clement, “blessed be the hour I met thee; for thy words are sober and wise. But alas! how shall I learn your English tongue? No book have I.”

“I would give you my book of hours, father. 'Tis in English and Latin, cheek by jowl. But then, what would become of my poor soul, wanting my 'hours' in a strange land? Stay, you are a holy man, and I am an honest one; let us make a bargain; you to pray for me every day for two months, and I to give you my book of hours. Here it is. What say you to that?” And his eyes sparkled, and he was all on fire with mercantility.

Clement smiled gently at this trait; and quietly detached a MS. from his girdle, and showed him that it was in Latin and Italian.

“See, my son,” said he, “Heaven hath foreseen our several needs, and given us the means to satisfy them: let us change books; and, my dear son, I will give thee my poor prayers and welcome, not sell them thee. I love not religious bargains.”

The islander was delighted. “So shall I learn the Italian tongue without risk to my eternal weal, Near is my purse, but nearer is my soul.”

He forced money on Clement. In vain the friar told him it was contrary to his vow to carry more of that than was barely necessary.

“Lay it out for the good of the Church and of my soul,” said the islander. “I ask you not to keep it, but take it you must and shall.” And he grasped Clement's hand warmly again; and Clement kissed him on the brow, and blessed him, and they went each his way.

About a mile from where they parted, Clement found two tired wayfarers lying in the deep shade of a great chestnut-tree, one of a thick grove the road skirted. Near the men was a little cart, and in it a printing-press,