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

“What does that prove?” said Margaret deprecatingly. “I have seen my Gerard tame the birds in winter till they would eat from his hand.”

A look of pity at this parallel passed between the other two, but they were both too fond of her to say what they thought.

Joan proceeded to relate all the marvellous tales she had heard of this hermit's sanctity; how he never came out but at night, and prayed among the wolves, and they never molested him; and now he bade the people not bring him so much food to pamper his body, but to bring him candles.

“The candles are to burn before his saint,” whispered Reicht solemnly.

“Ay, lass; and to read his holy books wi'. A neighbour o' mine saw his hand come out, and the birds sat thereon and pecked crumbs. She went for to kiss it, but the holy man whippit it away in a trice. They can't abide a woman to touch 'en, or even look at 'em, saints can't.”

“What like was his hand, wife? Did you ask her?”

“What is my tongue for, else? Why, dear heart, all one as yourn; by the same token a had a thumb and four fingers.”

“Look ye there now.”

“But a deal whiter nor yourn and mine.”

“Ay, ay.”

“And main skinny.”

“Alas.”

“What could ye expect? Why, a live upon air, and prayer, and candles.”

“Ah, well,” continued Joan; “poor thing, I whiles think 'tis best for her to know the worst. And now she hath gotten a voice from heaven, Or almost as good, and behoves her pray for his soul. One thing, she is not so poor now as she was; and never fell riches to a better hand; and she is only come into her own for that matter, so she can pay the priest to say masses for him, and that is a great comfort.”

In the midst of their gossip, Margaret, in whose ears it was all buzzing, though she seemed lost in thought, got softly up, and crept away with her eyes on the ground, and her brows bent.

“She hath forgotten I am with her,” said Reicht Heynes ruefully.

She had her gossip out with Joan, and then went home.

She found Margaret seated cutting out a pelisse of grey cloth, and a cape to match. Little Gerard was standing at her side, inside her left arm, eyeing the work, and making it more difficult by wriggling about, and fingering the arm with which she held the cloth steady, to all which she submitted with imperturbable patience and complacency, Fancy a male workman so entangled, impeded, worried!

“Ot's that, mammy?”

“A pelisse, my pet.”

“Ot's a p'lisse?”

“A great frock. And this is the cape to't.”

“Ot's it for?”

“To keep his body from the cold; and the cape is for his shoulders, or to go over his head like the country folk. 'Tis for a hermit.”

“Ot's a 'ermit?”

“A holy man that lives in a cave all by himself.”

“In de dark?”

“Ay, whiles.”

“Oh.”

In the morning Reicht was sent to the hermit with the pelisse, and a pound of thick candles.

As she was going out of the door Margaret said to her, “Said you whose son Gerard was?”

“Nay, not I.”

“Think, girl! How could he call him Gerard, son of Eli, if you had not told him?”

Reicht persisted she had never mentioned him but as plain Gerard. But Margaret told her flatly she did not believe her; at which Reicht was affronted, and went out with a little toss of the head. However, she determined to question the hermit again, and did not doubt he would be more liberal in his communication when he saw his nice new pelisse and the candles.

She had not been gone long when Giles came in with ill news.

The living of Gouda would be kept vacant no longer.

Margaret was greatly distressed at this.

“Oh, Giles,” said she, “ask for another month. They will give thee another month, maybe.”

He returned in an hour to tell her he could not get a month.

“They have given me a week,” said he. “And what is a week?”

“Drowning bodies catch at strawen,” was her reply. “A week? a little week?”

Reicht came back from her errand out of spirits. Her oracle had declined all further communication. So at least its obstinate silence might fairly be interpreted.

The next day Margaret put Reicht in charge of the shop, and disappeared all day. So the next day, and so the next. Nor would she tell any one where she had been. Perhaps she was ashamed. The fact is, she spent all those days on one little spot of ground. When they thought her dreaming, she was applying to every word that fell from Joan and Reicht the whole powers of a far acuter mind than either of them possessed.

She went to work on a scale that never occurred to either of them. She was determined to see the hermit, and question him face to face, not through a wall. She found that by making a circuit she could get above the cave, and look down without being seen by the solitary. But when she came to do it, she found an impenetrable mass of brambles. After tearing her clothes, and her hands and feet, so that she was soon covered with blood, the resolute, patient girl took out her scissors and steadily snipped and cut till she made a narrow path through the enemy. But so slow was the work that she had to leave it half done. The next day she had her scissors fresh ground, and brought a sharp knife as well, and gently, silently, cut her way to the roof of the cave. There she made an ambush of some of the cut brambles, so that the passers-by might not see her, and couched with watchful eye till the hermit should come out. She heard him move underneath her. But he never left his cell. She began to think it was true that he only came out at night.

The next day she came early and brought a jerkin she was making for little Gerard, and there she sat all day, working, and watching with dogged patience.

At four o'clock the birds began to feed; and a great many of the smaller kinds came fluttering round the cave, and one or two went in. But most of them, taking a preliminary seat on the bushes, suddenly