The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

of that great book, Antiquity.”

      The friar groaned. Here was a Pope uttering heresy against his demigods.

      “'Tis the Vulgate I speak of. A history that handles matters three thousand years before him pedants call 'the Father of History.'”

      Colonna. “Oh! the Vulgate? I cry your holiness mercy. How you frightened me. I quite forgot the Vulgate.”

      “Forgot it? art sure thou ever readst it, Francesco mio?”

      “Not quite, your holiness. 'Tis a pleasure I have long promised myself, the first vacant moment. Hitherto these grand old heathen have left me small time for recreation.”

      His Holiness. “First then you will find in Genesis that God, having created the animals, drew a holy pleasure, undefinable by us, from contemplating of their beauty. Was it wonderful? See their myriad forms; their lovely hair and eyes, their grace, and of some the power and majesty: the colour of others, brighter than roses, or rubies. And when, for man's sin, not their own, they were destroyed, yet were two of each kind spared.

      “And when the ark and its trembling inmates tumbled solitary on the world of water, then, saith the word, 'God remembered Noah, and the cattle that were with him in the ark.'

      “Thereafter God did write His rainbow in the sky as a bond that earth should be flooded no more; and between whom the bond? between God and man? nay, between God and man, and every living creature of all flesh: or my memory fails me with age. In Exodus God commanded that the cattle should share the sweet blessing of the one day's rest. Moreover He 'forbade to muzzle the ox that trod out the corn. 'Nay, let the poor overwrought soul snatch a mouthful as he goes his toilsome round: the bulk of the grain shall still be for man.' Ye will object perchance that St. Paul, commenting this, saith rudely, 'Doth God care for oxen?' Verily, had I been Peter, instead of the humblest of his successors, I had answered him. 'Drop thy theatrical poets, Paul, and read the Scriptures: then shalt thou know whether God careth only for men and sparrows, or for all his creatures. O, Paul,' had I made bold to say, 'think not to learn God by looking into Paul's heart, nor any heart of man, but study that which he hath revealed concerning himself.'

      “Thrice he forbade the Jews to boil the kid in his mother's milk; not that this is cruelty, but want of thought and gentle sentiments, and so paves the way for downright cruelty. A prophet riding on an ass did meet an angel. Which of these two, Paulo judice, had seen the heavenly spirit? marry, the prophet. But it was not so. The man, his vision cloyed with sin, saw nought. The poor despised creature saw all. Nor is this recorded as miraculous. Poor proud things, we overrate ourselves. The angel had slain the prophet and spared the ass, but for that creature's clearer vision of essences divine. He said so, methinks. But in sooth I read it many years agone. Why did God spare repentant Nineveh? Because in that city were sixty thousand children, besides much cattle.

      “Profane history and vulgar experience add their mite of witness. The cruel to animals end in cruelty to man; and strange and violent deaths, marked with retribution's bloody finger, have in all ages fallen from heaven on such as wantonly harm innocent beasts. This I myself have seen. All this duly weighed, and seeing that, despite this Francesco's friends, the Stoics, who in their vanity say the creatures all subsist for man's comfort, there be snakes and scorpions which kill 'Dominum terra' with a nip, musquitoes which eat him piecemeal, and tigers and sharks which crack him like an almond, we do well to be grateful to these true, faithful, patient, four-footed friends, which, in lieu of powdering us, put forth their strength to relieve our toils, and do feed us like mothers from their gentle dugs.

      “Methinks then the Church is never more divine than in this benediction of our four-footed friends, which has revolted you great theological authority, the captain of the Pope's guards; since here she inculcates humility and gratitude, and rises towards the level of the mind divine, and interprets God to man, God the Creator, parent, and friend of man and beast.

      “But all this, young gentles, you will please to receive, not as delivered by the Pope ex cathedra, but uttered carelessly, in a free hour, by an aged clergyman. On that score you will perhaps do well to entertain it with some little consideration. For old age must surely bring a man somewhat, in return for his digestion (his 'dura puerorum ilia,' eh, Francesco!), which it carries away.”

      Such was the purport of the Pope's discourse but the manner high bred, languid, kindly, and free from all tone of dictation. He seemed to be gently probing the matter in concert with his hearers, not playing Sir Oracle. At the bottom of all which was doubtless a slight touch of humbug, but the humbug that embellishes life; and all sense of it was lost in the subtle Italian grace of the thing.

      “I seem to hear the oracle of Delphi,” said Fra Colonna enthusiastically.

      “I call that good sense,” shouted Jacques Bonaventura.

      “Oh, captain, good sense!” said Gerard, with a deep and tender reproach.

      The Pope smiled on Gerard. “Cavil not at words; that was an unheard of concession from a rival theologian.” He then asked for all Gerard's work, and took it away in his hand. But before going, he gently pulled Fra Colonna's ear, and asked him whether he remembered when they were school-fellows together and robbed the Virgin by the roadside of the money dropped into her box. “You took a flat stick and applied bird-lime to the top, and drew the money out through the chink, you rogue,” said his holiness severely.

      “To every signor his own honour,” replied Fra Colonna. “It was your holiness's good wit invented the manoeuvre. I was but the humble instrument.”

      “It is well. Doubtless you know 'twas sacrilege.”

      “Of the first water; but I did it in such good company, it troubles me not.”

      “Humph! I have not even that poor consolation. What did we spend it in, dost mind?”

      “Can your holiness ask? why, sugar-plums.”

      “What, all on't?”

      “Every doit.”

      “These are delightful reminiscences, my Francesco. Alas! I am getting old. I shall not be here long. And I am sorry for it, for thy sake. They will go and burn thee when I am gone. Art far more a heretic than Huss, whom I saw burned with these eyes; and oh, he died like a martyr.”

      “Ay, your holiness; but I believe in the Pope; and Huss did not.”

      “Fox! They will not burn thee; wood is too dear. Adieu, old playmate; adieu, young gentlemen; an old man's blessing be on you.”

      That afternoon the Pope's secretary brought Gerard a little bag: in it were several gold pieces.

      He added them to his store.

      Margaret seemed nearer and nearer.

      For some time past, too, it appeared as if the fairies had watched over him. Baskets of choice provisions and fruits were brought to his door by porters, who knew not who had employed them, or affected ignorance; and one day came a jewel in a letter, but no words.

      CHAPTER LXI

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      The Princess Claelia ordered a full-length portrait of herself. Gerard advised her to employ his friend Pietro Vanucci.

      But she declined. “'Twill be time to put a slight on the Gerardo, when his work discontents me.” Then Gerard, who knew he was an excellent draughtsman, but not so good a colourist, begged her to stand to him as a Roman statue. He showed her how closely he could mimic marble on paper. She consented at first; but demurred when this enthusiast explained to her that she must wear the tunic, toga, and sandals of the ancients.

      “Why, I had as lieve be presented in my smock,” said she, with mediaeval frankness.

      “Alack! signorina,” said Gerard, “you have surely never noted the ancient habit; so free, so ample, so simple, yet so noble; and most becoming your highness, to whom Heaven hath given