CHAPTER TWELVE.
REUNITED.
"With mercy and with judgment My web of time He wove, And ay the dews of sorrow Were lustred with His love: I'll bless the hand that guided, I'll bless the heart that planned, When throned where glory dwelleth, In Immanuel's land."
Mrs Cousins.
It was a very tiny house in Tower Street, at the corner of Mark Lane.There were but two rooms--above and below, as in Isel's house, but thesewere smaller than hers, and the lower chamber was made smaller still bya panel screen dividing it in two unequal parts.
The front division, which was a very little one, was a jeweller's shop;the back was larger, and was the family living-room. In it to-night thefamily were sitting, for business hours were over, and the shop wasclosed.
The family had a singular appearance. It consisted of four persons, andthese were derived from three orders of the animate creation. Two werehuman. The third was an aged starling, for whose convenience a wickercage hung in one corner; but the owner was hopping in perfect freedomabout the hearth, and occasionally varying that exercise by pausing togive a mischievous peck to the tail of the fourth, a very large whiteand tan dog. The dog appeared so familiarised with this treatment asscarcely to notice it, unless the starling gave a harder peck thanusual, when he merely moved his tail out of its way, accompanying theaction in specially severe cases by the most subdued of growls, anaction which seemed to afford great amusement to that impertinent andirrepressible fowl.
The relationship of the human inhabitants of the little chamber wouldnot have been easy to guess. The elder, seated on a cushioned bench bythe fire, was one whose apparent age was forty or perhaps rather more.She was a woman of extremely dark complexion, her hair jet-black, hereyes scarcely lighter--a woman who had once been very handsome, andwhose lost youth and beauty now and then seemed to flash back into herface, when eagerness, anger, or any other strong feeling lent animationto her features. The other was a young man about half her years, and asunlike her as he well could be. His long flaxen hair waved over a browas white as hers was dark, and his eyes were a light clear blue. He saton a stool in front of the fire, gazing into the charred wooden emberswith intent fixed eyes. The woman had glanced at him several times, butneither had spoken for above half an hour. Now she broke the silence.
"Well, Ralph?"
"Well, Mother?" echoed the youth with a smile. Both spoke in German--alanguage then as unfamiliar in England as Persian.
"What are you thinking about so intently?"
"Life," was the ready but unexpected answer.
"Past, present, future?"
"Past and future--hardly present. The past chiefly--the long ago."
The woman moved uneasily, but did not answer.
"Mother, if I am of age to-day, I think I have the right to ask you afew questions. Do you accord it?"
"Ah!" she said, with a deep intonation. "I knew it would come sometime. Well! what is to be must be. Speak, my son."
The young man laid his hand affectionately on hers.
"Had it not better come?" he said. "You would not prefer that I askedmy questions of others than yourself, nor that I shut them in my ownsoul, and fretted my heart out, trying to find the answer."
"I should prefer any suffering rather than the loss of thy love andconfidence, my Ralph," she answered tenderly. "To the young, it is easyto look back, for they have only just left the flowery garden. To theold, it may be so, when there is only a little way to go, and they willthen be gathered to their fathers. But half-way through the longjourney--with all the graves behind, and the dreary stretch of tracklessheath before--Speak thy will, Ralph."
"Forgive me if I pain you, Mother. I feel as if I must speak, andsomething has happened to-day which bids me do it now."
It was evident that these words startled and discomposed the mother.She had been leaning back rather wearily in the corner of the bench, asone resting from bodily strain. Now she sat up, the rich crimsonmantling her dark cheek.
"What! Hast thou seen--hast thou heard something?"
"I have seen," answered Ralph slowly, as if almost unwilling to say it,"a face from the long ago. At any rate, a face which carried my memorythither."
"Whose?" she said, almost in tones of alarm.
"I cannot tell you. Let me make it as plain as I can. You may be ableto piece the disjointed strands together, when I cannot."
"Go on," she said, settling herself to listen.
"You know, Mother," he began, "that I have always known and rememberedone thing from my past. I know you are not my real mother. Kindest andtruest and dearest of mothers and friends you have been to me; my truemother, whoever and wherever she may be, could have loved and tended meno better than you. That much I know: but as to other matters myrecollection is far more uncertain. Some persons and things I recallclearly; others are mixed together, and here and there, as if in adream, some person, or more frequently some action of such a person,stands out vividly, like a picture, from the general haze. Now, forinstance, I can remember that there was somebody called `Mother Isel':but whether she were my mother, or yours, or who she was, that I do notknow. Again, I recollect a man, who must have been rather stern to mychildish freaks, I suppose, for he brings with him a sense of fear.This man does not come into my life till I was some few years old; thereis another whom I remember better, an older friend, a man with lighthair and grave, kindly blue eyes. There are some girls, too, but Icannot clearly recall them--they seem mixed together in my memory,though the house in which I and they lived I recollect perfectly. But Ido not know how it is--I never see you there. I clearly recall a bigbook, which the man with the blue eyes seems to be constantly reading:and when he reads, a woman sits by him with a blue check apron, and Isit on her lap. Perhaps such a thing happened only once, but it appearsto me as if I can remember it often and often. There is another manwhose face I recall--I doubt if he lived in the house; I think he camein now and then: a man with brown hair and a pleasant, lively face, whooften laughed and had many a merry saying. I cannot certainly rememberany one else connected with that house, except one other--a woman: awoman with a horrible chattering tongue, who often left people in tearsor very cross: a woman whom I don't like at all."
"And after, Ralph?" suggested the mother in a low voice, when the youngman paused.
"After? Ah, Mother, that is harder to remember still. A great tumult,cross voices, a sea of faces which all looked angry and terrified me,and then it suddenly changes like a dream to a great lonely expanse ofshivering snow: and I and some others--whom, I know not--wander about init--for centuries, as it appears to me. Then comes a blank, and then--you."
"You remember better than I should have expected as to some things:others worse. Can you recollect no name save `Mother Isel'?"
"I can, but I don't know whose they are. I can hear somebody call fromthe upper chamber--`Gerard, is that you?' and the pleasant-faced mansays, `Tell Ermine' something. That is what made me ask you, Mother. Imet a man to-day in Cheapside who looked hard at me, and who made methink both of that pleasant-faced man, and also of the stern man; and asI had to wait for a cart to pass, another man and woman came and spoketo him, and he said to the woman, `Well, when are you coming to seeErmine?' The face, and his curious, puzzled look at me, and the name,carried me back all at once to that house and the people there. Helooked as if he thought he ought to know me, and could not tell exactlywho I was. And just as I came away, I fancied I heard another word ortwo, spoken low as if not for me or somebody to hear--somethingabout--`like him and Agnes too.' I wonder if I ever knew any one calledAgnes? I have a faint impression that I did. Can you tell me, Mother?"
"I will tell thee, Ralph. But answer me first. Wert thou always calledRalph?"
"I cannot tell, Mother," replied the youth, with an interested look. "Ifancy, somehow, that I once used to be called something not thatexactly, and yet very like it. I have tried to recover it,
and cannot.Was it some pet name used by somebody?"
"No. It was your own name--which Ralph is not."
"O Mother! what was it?"
"Wait a moment. Did you ever hear of any one called--Countess?"
She brought out the second name with hesitation, as if she spoke itunwillingly. The youth shook his head.
"Let that pass."
"But who was it, Mother?"
"Never mind who it was. No relative of yours--Rudolph."
"Rudolph!" The young man sprang to his feet. "That was my name! Iknow it was, but I never could get hold of it. I shall not forget itagain."
"Do not forget it again. But let it be for ourselves only. To theworld outside you are still `Ralph.' It is wiser."
"Very well, Mother."
This youth had been well trained, and was far more obedient to hisadopted mother than most sons at that time were to their real parents.With the Saxons a mother had always been under the control of an adultson; and the Normans who had won possession of England had by no meansabolished either the social customs or modes of thought of thevanquished people. In fact, the moral ascendancy soon rested with thesubject race. The Norman noble who dried his washed hands in the air,sneered at the Saxon thrall who wiped his on a towel; but the towel wasnone the less an article of necessary furniture in the house of theNorman's grandson. It has often been the case in the history of theworld, that the real victory has rested with the vanquished: but it hasalways been brought about by the one race mixing with and absorbing theother. Where that does not take place, the conquerors remain dominant.
"Now, my son, listen and think. I have some questions to ask. Whatfaith have I taught thee?"
"You have taught me," said Rudolph slowly, "to believe in God Almighty,and in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who suffered on the cross toexpiate the sins of His chosen."
"Is that the creed of those around us?"
"Mother, I cannot tell. One half of my brain answers, Ay, it is; butthe other half says, No, there is a difference. Yet I cannot quite seewhat the difference is, and you have always so strictly forbidden me tospeak to any one except yourself on religious subjects, that I have hadno opportunity to learn what it is. Others, when I hear them talking toyou, speak of God, of our Lord, and of our Lady, as we ourselves do: andthey speak of the holy Apostles and others of whom we always read in thebig book. Mother, is that the same big book out of which the grave-eyedman used to read? But they mention a great many people who are not inthe book,--Martin, and Benedict, and Margaret, and plenty more--and theycall them all `Saint,' but I do not know who they were. You never toldme about those people."
There was silence for a moment, till she said--"Thou hast learnt well,and hast been an obedient boy. In the years that lie before thee, thoumayest have cause to thank God for it. My questions are done: thoumayest ask thine."
"Then, Mother, who am I?" was the eager inquiry. "Thou art Rudolph, sonof Gerhardt of Mainz, and of Agnes his wife, who both gave their livesfor the Lord Christ's sake, fourteen years ago."
"Mother!--were my real parents martyrs?"
"That is the word which is written after their names in the Lamb's Bookof Life. But in the books written by men the word is different."
"What is that word, then, Mother?"
"Rudolph, canst thou bear to hear it? The word is--`heretic'."
"But those are wicked people, who are called heretics!"
"I think it depends on who uses the word."
Rudolph sat an instant in blank silence.
"Then what did my father believe that was so wrong?"
"He believed what I have taught you."
"Then were they wicked, and not he?"
"Judge for thyself. There were about thirty of thy father's countrymen,who came over to this country to preach the pure Word of God: and thosewho called them heretics took them, and branded them, and turned themout into the snow to die. Would our Lord have done that?"
"Never! Did they die?"
"Every one, except the child I saved."
"And that was I, Mother?"
"That was thou."
"So I am not an Englishman!" said Rudolph, almost regretfully.
"No. Thou seest now why I taught thee German. It is thine own tongue."
"Mother, this story is terrible. I shall feel the world a worse placeto my life's end, after hearing it. But suffer me to ask--who are you?We are so unlike, that sometimes I have fancied we might not be relatedat all."
"We are not related at all."
"But you are German?"
"No."
"You are English! I always imagined you a foreigner."
"No--I am not English."
"Italian?--Spanish?"
She shook her head, and turned away her face.
"I never cared for the scorn of these other creatures," she said in alow troubled voice. "I could give them back scorn for scorn. But itwill be hard to be scorned by the child whom I saved from death."
"Mother! I scorn you? Why, the thing could not be. You are all theworld to me."
"It will not be so always, my son. Howbeit, thou shalt hear the truth.Rudolph, I am a Jewess. My old name is Countess, the daughter ofBenefei of Oxford."
"Mother," said Rudolph softly, "you are what our Lady was. If I couldscorn you, it would not be honouring her."
"True enough, boy: but thou wilt not find the world say so."
"If the world speak ill of you, Mother, I will have none of it! Nowplease tell me about others. Who was Mother Isel?"
"A very dear and true friend of thy parents."
"And Ermine?"
"Thy father's sister--one of the best and sweetest maidens that God evermade."
"Is it my father that I remember, with the grave blue eyes--the man whoread in the book?"
"I have no doubt of it. It is odd--" and a smile flitted overCountess's lips--"that all thou canst recollect of thy mother should beher checked apron."
Rudolph laughed. "Then who is the stern man, and who the merry one?"
"I should guess the stern man to be Manning Brown, the husband of Isel.The merry, pleasant-faced man, I think, must be his nephew Stephen.`Stephen the Watchdog' they used to call him; he was one of the Castlewatchmen."
"At Oxford? Was it Oxford, then, where we used to live?"
"It was Oxford."
"I should like to go there again."
"Take heed thou do not so. Thou are so like both thy father and motherthat I should fear for thy safety. No one would know me, I think. Butfor thee I am not so sure. And if they were to guess who thou art, theywould have thee up before the bishops, and question thee, and brand theewith the dreadful name of `heretic,' as they did to thy parents."
"Mother, why would they do these things?--why did they do them?"
"Because they loved idols, and after them they would go. We worshiponly the Lord our God, blessed be He! And thou wilt find always,Rudolph, that not only doth light hate darkness, but the darkness alsohateth the light, and tries hard to extinguish it."
"Yet if they worship the same God that we do--"
"Do they? I cannot tell. Sometimes I think He can hardly reckon it so.The God they worship seems to be no jealous God, but one that hath nolaw to be broken, no power to be dreaded, no majesty to be revered. `IfI be a Master,' said the Holy One by Malachi the Prophet, `where is Myfear?' And our Lord spake to the Sadducees, saying, `Do ye nottherefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power ofGod?' They seem to be strangely fearless of breaking His most solemncommands--even the words that He spake to Moses in the sight of allIsrael, on the mount that burned with fire. Strangely fearless! whenthe Master spake expressly against making the commands of God of noeffect through man's tradition. What do they think He meant? Let themspill a drop of consecrated wine--which He never told them to be carefulover--and they are terrified of His anger: let them deliberately breakHis distinct laws, and they are not terrified at all. The world hasgo
ne very, very far from God."
They sat for a little while in silence.
"Mother," said Rudolph at last, "who do you think that man was whom Imet, that looked so hard at me, and seemed to think me like my parents?He spoke of `Ermine,' too."
"I can only guess, Rudolph. I think it might be a son of Mother Isel--she had two. The Ermine of whom he spoke, no doubt, is some girl namedafter thine aunt. Perhaps it may be a child of their sister Flemild. Icannot say."
"You think it could not be my aunt, Mother? I should like to know oneof my own kin."
"Not possible, my boy. She must have died with the rest."
"Are you sure they all died, Mother?"
"I cannot say that I saw it, Rudolph: though I did see the dead faces ofseveral, when I was searching for thee. But I do not see how she couldpossibly have escaped."
"Might she not--if she had escaped--say the same of me?"
Countess seemed scarcely willing to admit even so much as this.
"It is time for sleep, my son," she said; and Rudolph rose, lighted thelantern, and followed her upstairs. The chamber above was divided intwo by a curtain drawn across it. As Rudolph was about to pass beyondit, he stopped to ask another question.
"Mother, if I should meet that man again,--suppose he were to speak tome?"
A disquieted look came into the dark eyes.
"Bring him to me," she said. "Allow nothing--deny nothing. Leave me todeal with him."
Rudolph dropped the curtain behind him, and silence fell upon the littlehouse in Mark Lane.
A few hours earlier, our old friend Stephen, now a middle-aged man, hadcome home from his daily calling, to his house in Ivy Lane. He wasinstantly surrounded by his five boys and girls, their ages between sixand thirteen, all of whom welcomed him with tumultuous joyfulness.
"Father, I've construed a whole book of Virgil!"
"And, Father, I'm to begin Caesar next week!"
"I've made a gavache for you, Father--done every stitch myself!"
"Father, I've learnt how to make pancakes!"
"Father, I stirred the posset!"
"Well, well! have you, now?" answered the kindly-faced father. "You'reall of you mighty clever, I'm very sure. But now, if one or two of youcould get out of the way, I might shut the door; no need to let in moresnow than's wanted.--Where's Mother?"
"Here's Mother," said another voice; and a fair-haired woman of the ageof Countess, but looking younger, appeared in a doorway, drawing backthe curtain. "I am glad you have come, Stephen. It is rather a stormynight."
"Oh, just a basinful of snow," said Stephen lightly. "Supper ready?Gerard--" to his eldest boy--"draw that curtain a bit closer, to keepthe wind off Mother. Now let us ask God's blessing."
It was a very simple supper--cheese, honey, roasted apples, and brownbread; but the children had healthy appetites, and had not beenenervated by luxuries. Conversation during the meal was general. Whenit was over, the three younger ones were despatched to bed with abenediction, under charge of their eldest sister; young Gerard seatedhimself on the bench, with a handful of slips of wood, which he wasambitiously trying to carve into striking likenesses of the twelveApostles; and when the mother's household duties were over, she came andsat by her husband in the chimney-corner. Stephen laid his hand uponher shoulder.
"Ermine," he said, "dear heart, wilt thou reckon me cruel, if I carrythy thoughts back--for a reason I have--to another snowy night, fourteenyears ago?"
"Stephen!" she exclaimed, with a sudden start. "Oh no, I could neverthink _thee_ cruel. But what has happened?"
"Dost thou remember, when I first saw thee in Mother Haldane's house, mytelling thee that I could not find Rudolph?"
"Of course I do. O Stephen! have you--do you think--"
Gerard looked up from his carving in amazement, to see the mother whomhe knew as the calmest and quietest of women transformed into an eager,excited creature, with glowing cheeks and radiant eyes.
"Let me remind thee of one other point,--that Mother Haldane said Godwould either take the child to Himself, or would some day show us whathad become of him."
"She did,--much to my surprise."
"And mine. But I think, Ermine--I think it is going to come true."
"Stephen, what have you heard?"
"I believe, Ermine, I have seen him."
"Seen _him_--Rudolph?"
"I feel almost sure it was he. I was standing this morning near ChepeCross, to let a waggon pass, when I looked up, and all at once I saw ayoung man of some twenty years standing likewise till it went by. Thelikeness struck me dumb for a moment. Gerard's brow--no, lad, not thou!Thy mother knows--Gerard's brow, and his fair hair, with the very waveit used to have about his temples; his eyes and nose too; but Agnes'smouth, and somewhat of Agnes in the way he held his head. And as Istood there, up came Leuesa and her husband, passing the youth; andbefore I spoke a word about him, `Saw you ever one so like Gerard?'saith she. I said, `Ay, him and Agnes too.' We watched the lad crossthe street, and parting somewhat hastily from our friends, I followedhim at a little distance. I held him in sight as far as Tower Street,but ere he had quite reached Mark Lane, a company of mummers, goingwestwards, came in betwixt and parted us. I lost sight of him but for amoment, yet when they had passed, I could see no more of him--north,south, east, nor west--than if the earth had swallowed him up. I reckonhe went into an house in that vicinage. To-morrow, if the Lord will, Iwill go thither, and watch. And if I see him again, I will surelyspeak."
"Stephen! O Stephen, if it should be our lost darling!"
"Ay, love, if it should be! It was always possible, of course, that hemight have been taken in somewhere. There are many who would have nocompassion on man or woman, and would yet shrink from turning out alittle child to perish. And he was a very attractive child. Still, donot hope too much, Ermine; it may be merely an accidental likeness."
"If I could believe," replied Ermine, "that Countess had been anywherenear, I should think it more than possible that she had saved him."
"Countess? Oh, I remember--that Jewish maiden who petted him so much.But she went to some distance when she married, if I recollect rightly."
"She went to Reading. But she might not have been there always."
"True. Well, I will try to find out something to-morrow night."
The little jeweller's shop at the corner of Mark Lane had now beenestablished for fourteen years. For ten of those years, David andChristian had lived with Countess; but when Rudolph was old enough andsufficiently trained to manage the business for himself, Countess hadthought it desirable to assist David in establishing a shop of his ownat some distance. She had more confidence in David's goodness than inhis discretion, and one of her chief wishes was to have as fewacquaintances as possible. Happily for her aim, Rudolph's dispositionwas not inconveniently social. He liked to sit in a cushioned cornerand dream the hours away; but he shrank as much as Countess herself fromthe rough, noisy, rollicking life of the young people by whom they weresurrounded. Enough to live on, in a simple and comfortable fashion--abook or two, leisure, and no worry--these were Rudolph's desiderata, andhe found them in Mark Lane.
He had no lack of subjects for thought as he sat behind his tiny counteron the evening of the following day. Shop-counters, at that date, wereusually the wooden shutter of the window, let down table-wise into thestreet; but in the case of plate and jewellery the stock was toovaluable to be thus exposed, and customers had to apply for admissionwithin. It had been a very dull day for business, two customers onlyhaving appeared, and one of these had gone away without purchasing.There was one wandering about outside who would have been only too gladto become a customer, had he known who sat behind the counter. Stephenhad searched in vain for Rudolph in the neighbourhood where he had somysteriously vanished from sight. He could not recognise him under thealias of "Ralph le Juwelier," by which name alone his neighbours knewhim. Evening after evening he watched the corner of Mark Lane, a
nd somefifty yards on either side of it, but only to go back every time toErmine with no tale to tell. There were no detectives nor inquiryoffices in those days; nothing was easier than for a man to lose himselfin a great city under a feigned name. For Countess he never inquired;nor would he have taken much by the motion had he done so, since she wasknown to her acquaintances as Sarah la Juweliere. Her features were notso patently Jewish as those of some daughters of Abraham, and mostpeople imagined her to be of foreign extraction.
"It seems of no use, Ermine," said Stephen mournfully, when a month hadpassed and Rudolph had not been seen again. "Maybe it was the boy'sghost I saw, come to tell us that he is not living."
Stephen was gifted with at least an average amount of common sense, buthe would have regarded a man who denied the existence of apparitions asa simpleton.
"We can only wait," said Ermine, looking up from the tunic she wasmaking for her little Derette. "I have asked the Lord to send him tous; we can only wait His time."
"But, Wife, suppose His time should be--never?"
"Then, dear," answered Ermine softly, "it will still be the right time."
The morning after that conversation was waning into afternoon, whenRudolph, passing up Paternoster Row, heard hurried steps behind him, andimmediately felt a grasp on his shoulder--a grasp which seemed as if ithad no intention of letting him go in a hurry. He looked up in somesurprise, into the face of the man whose intent gaze and disconnectedwords had so roused his attention a month earlier.
"Caught you at last!" were the first words of his captor. "Now don'tfall to and fight me, but do me so much grace as to tell me your name ina friendly way. You would, if you knew why I ask you."
The kindliness and honest sincerity of the speaker's face were both soapparent, that Rudolph smiled as he said--
"Suppose you tell me yours?"
"I have no cause to be ashamed of it. My name is Stephen, and men callme `le Bulenger.'"
"Have they always called you so?"
"Are you going to catechise me?" laughed Stephen. "No--you are rightthere. Fifteen years ago they called me `Esueillechien.' Now, have youheard my name before?"
"I cannot say either `yes' or `no,' unless you choose to come home withme to see my mother. She may know you better than I can."
"I'll come home with you fast enough," Stephen was beginning, when theend of the sentence dashed his hopes down. "`To see your--mother!'That won't do, young man. I have looked myself on her dead face--orelse you are not the man for whom I took you."
"I can answer you no questions till you do so," replied Rudolph firmly.
"Come, then, have with you," returned Stephen, linking his arm in thatof the younger man. "Best to make sure. I shall get to know something,if it be only that you are not the right fellow."
"Now?" asked Rudolph, rather disconcertedly. He was not in the habit ofacting in this ready style about everything that happened, but requireda little while to make up his mind to a fresh course.
"Have you not found out yet," said Stephen, marching him into SaintPaul's Churchyard, "that _now_ is the only time a man ever has foranything?"
"Well, you don't let the grass grow under your feet," observed Rudolph,laughing.
Being naturally of a rather dreamy and indolent temperament, he was notaccustomed to getting over the ground with the rapidity at which Stephenled him.
"There's never time to waste time," was the sententious reply.
In a shorter period than Rudolph would have thought possible, theyarrived at the corner of Mark Lane.
"You live somewhere about here," said Stephen coolly, "but I don't knowwhere exactly. You'll have to show me your door."
"You seem to know a great deal about me," answered Rudolph in an amusedtone. "This is my door. Come in."
Stephen followed him into the jeweller's shop, where Countess satwaiting for customers, with the big white dog lying at her feet.
"I'm thankful to see, young man, that your `mother' is no mother ofyours. Your flaxen locks were never cut from those jet tresses. But Idon't know who you are--" he turned to her--"unless Ermine be right thatCountess the Jewess took the boy. Is that it?"
"That is it," she replied, flushing at the sound of her old name. "Youare Stephen the Watchdog, if I mistake not? Yes, I am Countess--orrather, I was Countess, till I was baptised into the Christian faith.So Ermine is yet alive? I should like to see her. I would fain haveher to come forward as my witness, when I deliver the boy unhurt to hisfather at the last day."
"But how on earth did you do it?" broke out Stephen in amazement. "Why,you could scarcely have heard at Reading of what had happened,--I shouldhave thought you could not possibly have heard, until long after all wasover."
"I was not at Reading," she said in a constrained tone. "I was livingin Dorchester. And I heard of the arrest from Regina."
"Do, for pity's sake, tell me all about it!"
"I will tell you every thing: but let me tell Ermine with you. And,--Stephen--you will not try to take him from me? He is all I have."
"No, Countess," said Stephen gravely. "You have a right to the lifethat you have saved. Will you come with me now? But perhaps you cannotleave together? Will the house be rifled when you return?"
"Not at all," calmly replied Countess. "We will both go with you."
She rose, disappeared for a moment, and came back clad in a fur-linedcloak and hood. Turning the key in the press which held the stock, shestooped down and attached the key to the dog's collar.
"On guard, Olaf! Keep it!" was all she said to the dog. "Now, Stephen,we are ready to go with you."
Olaf got up somewhat sleepily, shook himself, and then lay down close tothe screen, his head between his paws, so that he could command a viewof both divisions of the chamber. He evidently realised hisresponsibility.
Stephen had no cause to complain that Countess wasted any time. Shewalked even faster than he had done, only pausing to let him take thelead at the street corner. But when he had once told her that his homewas in Ivy Lane, she paused no more, but pressed on steadily and quicklyuntil they reached the little street. Stephen opened his door, and shewent straight in to where Ermine stood.
"Ermine!" she said, with a pleading cadence in her voice, "I havebrought back the child unhurt."
"Countess!" was Ermine's cry.
She took Ermine's hands in hers.
"I may touch you now," she said. "You will not shrink from me, for I ama Christian. But I have kept my vow. I have never permitted the boy toworship idols. I have kept him, so far as lay in my power, from allcontact with those men and things which his father held evil. God bearme witness to you, and God and you to him, that the poor scorned Jewesshas fulfilled her oath, and that the boy is unharmed in body and soul!--Rudolph! this is thine Aunt Ermine. Come and show thyself to her."
"Did I ever shrink from you?" replied Ermine with a sob, as she claspedCountess to her heart. "My friend, my sister! As thou hast dealt withus outcasts, may God reward thee! and as thou has mothered our Rudolph,may He comfort thee!--O my darling, my Gerhardt's boy!--nay, I couldthink that Gerhardt himself stood before me. Wilt thou love me alittle, my Rudolph?--for I have loved thee long, and have never failed,for one day, to pray God's blessing on thee if thou wert yet alive."
"I think I shall not find it hard, Aunt Ermine," said Rudolph, as hekissed without knowing it that spot on Ermine's brow where the terriblebrand had once been. "I have often longed to find one of my ownkindred, for I knew that Mother was not my real mother, good and true asshe has been to me."
Countess brought out from under her cloak a large square parcel, wrappedin a silken kerchief.
"This is Rudolph's fortune," she said.
Stephen looked on with some curiosity, fully expecting to see a box ofgolden ornaments, or perhaps of uncut gems. But when the handkerchiefwas carefully unfolded, there lay before them an old, worn book, in acarved wooden case.
Stephen--who could not read--
was a little disappointed, though themarket value of any book was very high. But Ermine recognised thefamiliar volume with a cry of delight, and took it into her hands,reading half-sentences here and there as she turned over the leaves.
"Oh, how have I wished for this! How I have wondered what became of it!Gerhardt's dear old Gospel-Book! Countess, how couldst thou get it?It was taken from him when we were arrested."
"I know it," answered Countess with a low laugh.
"But you were at Reading!" exclaimed Ermine.
"I was at Oxford, though you knew it not. I had arrived on a visit tomy father, the morning of that very day. I was in the crowd around whenyou went down to the prison, though I saw none of you save Gerhardt.But I saw the sumner call his lad, and deliver the book to him, biddinghim bear it to the Castle, there to be laid up for the examination ofthe Bishops. Finding that I could not get the child, I followed thebook. Rubi was about, and I begged him to challenge the lad to a trialof strength, which he was ready enough to accept. He laid down the bookon the window-ledge of a house, and--I do not think he picked it upagain."
"You stole it, sinner!" laughed Stephen.
"Why not?" inquired Countess with a smile. "I took it for its lawfulowner, from one that had no right to it. You do not call that theft?"
"Could you read it?"
"I could learn to do anything for Rudolph."
"But how did you ever find him?"
"We were living at Dorchester. Regina came to stay with me in thewinter, and she told me that you were to be examined before the King andthe bishops, and on what day. All that day I watched to see you passthrough the town, and having prepared myself to save the child if Ipossibly could, when I caught a glimpse of Guelph, who was among theforemost, I followed in the rabble, with a bottle of broth, which I keptwarm in my bosom, to revive such as I might be able to reach. Ermine, Ilooked in vain for you, for Gerhardt or Agnes. But I saw Rudolph, whomAdelheid was leading. The crowd kept pressing before me, and I couldnot keep him in sight; but as they went out of Dorchester, I ranforward, and came up with them again a little further, when I missedRudolph. Then I turned back, searching all the way--until I found him."
"And your husband let you keep him?" asked Ermine in a slightlysurprised tone.
"My oath let me keep him," said Countess in a peculiar voice.
"Are you a widow?" responded Ermine pityingly.
"Very likely," was the short, dry answer.
Ermine asked no more. "Poor Countess!" was all she said.
"Don't pity me for _that_," replied the Jewess. "You had better know.We quarrelled, Ermine, over the boy, and at my own request he divorcedme, and let me go. It was an easy choice to make--gold and downcushions on the one hand, love and the oath of God upon the other. Inever missed the down cushions; and I think the child found my breast assoft as they would have been. I sold my jewels, and set up a littleshop. We have had the blessing of the Holy One, to whom be praise!"
"That is a Jewish way of talking, is it not?" said Stephen, smiling. "Ithought you were a Catholic now."
"I am a Christian. I know nothing about `Catholic'--unless the idols inthe churches are Catholic, and with them I will have nought to do.Gerhardt never taught me to worship them, and Gerhardt's book has nevertaught it either. I believe in the Lord my God, and His Son JesusChrist, the Messiah of Israel: but these gilded vanities areabominations to me. Oh, why have ye Christian folk added your folly toGod's wisdom, and have held off the sons and daughters of Israel fromfaith in Messiah the King?"
"Ah, why, indeed!" echoed Ermine softly.
"Can you tell me anything of our old friends at Oxford?" asked Countesssuddenly, after a moment's pause.
"Yes, we heard of them from Leuesa, who married and came to live inLondon about six years ago," said Stephen. "Your people were all well,Countess; your sister Regina has married Samuel, the nephew of youruncle Jurnet's wife, and has a little family about her--one very prettylittle maid, Leuesa told us, with eyes like yours."
"Thank you," said Countess in a tone of some emotion. "They would notown me now."
"Dear," whispered Ermine lovingly, "whosoever shall confess Christbefore men,--not the creed, nor the Church, but Him whom the Fathersent, and the truth to which He bore witness--him will He also confessbefore our Father which is in Heaven. And I think there are a very fewof those whom He will present before the presence of His glory, whoshall hear Him say of them those words of highest praise that He everspoke on earth,--`She hath done what she could.'"
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