The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

took and washed the child.

      From head to foot she washed him in tepid water; and heroes, and their wrongs, became as dust in an ocean—of soap and water.

      While this celestial ceremony proceeded, Margaret could not keep quiet. She hovered round the fortunate performer. She must have an apparent hand in it, if not a real. She put her finger into the water—to pave the way for her boy, I suppose; for she could not have deceived herself so far as to think Catherine would allow her to settle the temperature. During the ablution she kneeled down opposite the little Gerard, and prattled to him with amazing fluency; taking care, however, not to articulate like grown-up people; for, how could a cherub understand their ridiculous pronunciation?

      “I wish you could wash out THAT,” said she, fixing her eyes on the little boy's hand.

      “What?”

      “What, have you not noticed? on his little finger.”

      Granny looked, and there was a little brown mole,

      “Eh, but this is wonderful!” she cried. “Nature, my lass, y'are strong; and meddlesome to boot. Hast noticed such a mark on some one else? Tell the truth, girl!”

      “What, on him? Nay, mother, not I.”

      “Well then he has; and on the very spot. And you never noticed that much. But, dear heart, I forgot; you han't known him from child to man as I have, I have had him hundreds o' times on my knees, the same as this, and washed him from top to toe in luke-warm water.” And she swelled with conscious superiority; and Margaret looked meekly up to her as a woman beyond competition.

      Catherine looked down from her dizzy height and moralized. She differed from other busy-bodies in this, that she now and then reflected: not deeply; or of course I should take care not to print it.

      “It is strange,” said she, “how things come round and about, Life is but a whirligig. Leastways, we poor women, our lives are all cut upon one pattern. Wasn't I for washing out my Gerard's mole in his young days? 'Oh, fie! here's a foul blot,' quo' I; and scrubbed away at it I did till I made the poor wight cry; so then I thought 'twas time to give over. And now says you to me, 'Mother,' says you, 'do try and wash you out o' my Gerard's finger,' says you. Think on't!”

      “Wash it out?” cried Margaret; “I wouldn't for all the world, Why, it is the sweetest bit in his little darling body. I'll kiss it morn and night till he that owned it first comes back to us three, Oh, bless you, my jewel of gold and silver, for being marked like your own daddy, to comfort me.”

      And she kissed little Gerard's little mole; but she could not stop there; she presently had him sprawling on her lap, and kissed his back all over again and again, and seemed to worry him as wolf a lamb; Catherine looking on and smiling. She had seen a good many of these savage onslaughts in her day.

      And this little sketch indicates the tenor of Margaret's life for several months, One or two small things occurred to her during that time which must be told; but I reserve them, since one string will serve for many glass beads. But while her boy's father was passing through those fearful tempests of the soul, ending in the dead monastic calm, her life might fairly be summed in one great blissful word—Maternity.

      You, who know what lies in that word, enlarge my little sketch, and see the young mother nursing and washing, and dressing and undressing, and crowing and gambolling with her first-born; then swifter than lightning dart your eye into Italy, and see the cold cloister; and the monks passing like ghosts, eyes down, hands meekly crossed over bosoms dead to earthly feelings.

      One of these cowled ghosts is he, whose return, full of love, and youth, and joy, that radiant young mother awaits.

      In the valley of Grindelwald the traveller has on one side the perpendicular Alps, all rock, ice, and everlasting snow, towering above the clouds, and piercing to the sky; on his other hand little every-day slopes, but green as emeralds, and studded with cows and pretty cots, and life; whereas those lofty neighbours stand leafless, lifeless, inhuman, sublime. Elsewhere sweet commonplaces of nature are apt to pass unnoticed; but, fronting the grim Alps, they soothe, and even gently strike, the mind by contrast with their tremendous opposites. Such, in their way, are the two halves of this story, rightly looked at; on the Italian side rugged adventure, strong passion, blasphemy, vice, penitence, pure ice, holy snow, soaring direct at heaven. On the Dutch side, all on a humble scale and womanish, but ever green. And as a pathway parts the ice towers of Grindelwald, aspiring to the sky, from its little sunny braes, so here is but a page between

      “the Cloister and the Hearth.”

      CHAPTER LXXIV

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      THE CLOISTER

      The new pope favoured the Dominican order. The convent received a message from the Vatican, requiring a capable friar to teach at the University of Basle. Now Clement was the very monk for this: well versed in languages, and in his worldly days had attended the lectures of Guarini the younger. His visit to England was therefore postponed though not resigned; and meantime he was sent to Basle; but not being wanted there for three months, he was to preach on the road.

      He passed out of the northern gate with his eyes lowered, and the whole man wrapped in pious contemplation.

      Oh, if we could paint a mind and its story, what a walking fresco was this barefooted friar!

      Hopeful, happy love, bereavement, despair, impiety, vice, suicide, remorse, religious despondency, penitence, death to the world, resignation.

      And all in twelve short months.

      And now the traveller was on foot again. But all was changed: no perilous adventures now. The very thieves and robbers bowed to the ground before him, and instead of robbing him, forced stolen money on him, and begged his prayers.

      This journey therefore furnished few picturesque incidents. I have, however, some readers to think of, who care little for melodrama, and expect a quiet peep at what passes inside a man, To such students things undramatic are often vocal, denoting the progress of a mind.

      The first Sunday of Clement's journey was marked by this. He prayed for the soul of Margaret. He had never done so before. Not that her eternal welfare was not dearer to him than anything on earth. It was his humility. The terrible impieties that burst from him on the news of her death horrified my well-disposed readers; but not as on reflection they horrified him who had uttered them. For a long time during his novitiate he was oppressed with religious despair. He thought he must have committed that sin against the Holy Spirit which dooms the soul for ever, By degrees that dark cloud cleared away, Anselmo juvante; but deep self-abasement remained. He felt his own salvation insecure, and moreover thought it would be mocking Heaven, should he, the deeply stained, pray for a soul so innocent, comparatively, as Margaret's. So he used to coax good Anselm and another kindly monk to pray for her. They did not refuse, nor do it by halves. In general the good old monks (and there were good, bad, and indifferent in every convent) had a pure and tender affection for their younger brethren, which, in truth, was not of this world.

      Clement then, having preached on Sunday morning in a small Italian town, and being mightily carried onward, was greatly encouraged; and that day a balmy sense of God's forgiveness and love descended on him. And he prayed for the welfare of Margaret's soul. And from that hour this became his daily habit, and the one purified tie, that by memory connected his heart with earth.

      For his family were to him as if they had never been.

      The Church would not share with earth. Nor could even the Church cure the great love without annihilating the smaller ones.

      During most of this journey Clement rarely felt any spring of life within him, but when he was in the pulpit. The other exceptions were, when he happened to relieve some fellow-creature.

      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