The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages

by Charles Reade

  CHAPTER I

  NOT a day passes over the earth, but men and women of no note do greatdeeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows. Of these obscureheroes, philosophers, and martyrs, the greater part will never be knowntill that hour, when many that are great shall be small, and the smallgreat; but of others the world's knowledge may be said to sleep: theirlives and characters lie hidden from nations in the annals that recordthem. The general reader cannot feel them, they are presented so curtlyand coldly: they are not like breathing stories appealing to his heart,but little historic hailstones striking him but to glance off his bosom:nor can he understand them; for epitomes are not narratives, asskeletons are not human figures.

  Thus records of prime truths remain a dead letter to plain folk; thewriters have left so much to the imagination, and imagination is so rarea gift. Here, then, the writer of fiction may be of use to thepublic--as an interpreter.

  * * * * *

  There is a musty chronicle, written in tolerable Latin, and in it achapter where every sentence holds a fact. Here is told, with harshbrevity, the strange history of a pair, who lived untrumpeted, and diedunsung, four hundred years ago; and lie now, as unpitied, in that sternpage, as fossils in a rock. Thus, living or dead, Fate is still unjustto them. For if I can but show you what lies below that dry chronicler'swords, methinks you will correct the indifference of centuries, and givethose two sore tried souls a place in your heart--for a day.

  * * * * *

  It was past the middle of the fifteenth century, Louis XI. was sovereignof France; Edward IV. was wrongful King of England; and Philip "theGood," having by force and cunning dispossessed his cousin Jacqueline,and broken her heart, reigned undisturbed this many years in Holland,where our tale begins.

  Elias, and Catherine his wife, lived in the little town of Tergou. Hetraded, wholesale and retail, in cloth, silk, brown holland, and, aboveall, in curried leather, a material highly valued by the middlingpeople, because it would stand twenty years' wear, and turn an ordinaryknife, no small virtue in a jerkin of that century, in which folk wereso liberal of their steel; even at dinner a man would leave his meatawhile, and carve you his neighbour, on a very moderate difference ofopinion.

  The couple were well to do, and would have been free from all earthlycare, but for nine children. When these were coming into the world, oneper annum, each was hailed with rejoicings, and the saints were thanked,not expostulated with; and when parents and children were all youngtogether, the latter were looked upon as lovely little playthingsinvented by Heaven for the amusement, joy, and evening solace of peoplein business.

  But as the olive-branches shot up, and the parents grew older, and sawwith their own eyes the fate of large families, misgivings and caremingled with their love. They belonged to a singularly wise andprovident people: in Holland reckless parents were as rare asdisobedient children. So now when the huge loaf came in on a gigantictrencher, looking like a fortress in its moat, and, the tour of thetable once made, seemed to have melted away, Elias and Catherine wouldlook at one another and say, "Who is to find bread for them all when weare gone?"

  At this observation the younger ones needed all their filial respect tokeep their little Dutch countenances; for in their opinion dinner andsupper came by nature like sunrise and sunset, and, so long as thatluminary should travel round the earth, so long _must_ the brown loaf goround their family circle, and set in their stomachs only to rise againin the family oven. But the remark awakened the national thoughtfulnessof the elder boys, and being often repeated, set several of the familythinking, some of them good thoughts, some ill thoughts, according tothe nature of the thinkers.

  "Kate, the children grow so, this table will soon be too small."

  "We cannot afford it, Eli," replied Catherine, answering not his words,but his thought, after the manner of women.

  Their anxiety for the future took at times a less dismal but moremortifying turn. The free burghers had their pride as well as thenobles; and these two could not bear that any of their blood should godown in the burgh after their decease.

  So by prudence and self-denial they managed to clothe all the littlebodies, and feed all the great mouths, and yet put by a small hoard tomeet the future; and, as it grew, and grew, they felt a pleasure themiser hoarding for himself knows not.

  One day the eldest boy but one, aged nineteen, came to his mother, andwith that outward composure which has so misled some persons as to thereal nature of this people begged her to intercede with his father tosend him to Amsterdam, and place him with a merchant. "It is the way oflife that likes me; merchants are wealthy; I am good at numbers;prithee, good mother, take my part in this, and I shall ever be, as I amnow, your debtor."

  Catherine threw up her hands with dismay and incredulity. "What leaveTergou!"

  "What is one street to me more than another? If I can leave the folk ofTergou, I can surely leave the stones."

  "What! quit your poor father now he is no longer young?"

  "Mother, if I can leave you, I can leave him."

  "What leave your poor brothers and sisters, that love you so dear?"

  "There are enough in the house without me."

  "What mean you, Richart? Who is more thought of than you? Stay, have Ispoken sharp to you? Have I been unkind to you?"

  "Never that I know of; and if you had, you should never hear of it fromme. Mother," said Richart gravely, but the tear was in his eye, "it alllies in a word. And nothing can change my mind. There will be one mouthless for you to feed."

  "There now, see what my tongue has done," said Catherine, and the nextmoment she began to cry. For she saw her first young bird on the edge ofthe nest trying his wings, to fly into the world. Richart had a calm,strong will, and she knew he never wasted a word.

  It ended as nature has willed all such discourse shall end: youngRichart went to Amsterdam with a face so long and sad as it had neverbeen seen before, and a heart like granite.

  That afternoon at supper there was one mouth less. Catherine looked atRichart's chair and wept bitterly. On this Elias shouted roughly andangrily to the children "sit wider! Can't ye: sit wider!" and turnedhis head away over the back of his seat awhile, and was silent.

  Richart was launched; and never cost them another penny: but to fit himout and place him in the house of Vander Stegen the merchant took allthe little hoard but one gold crown. They began again. Two years passed,Richart found a niche in commerce for his brother Jacob, and Jacob leftTergou directly after dinner, which was at eleven in the forenoon. Atsupper that day Elias remembered what had happened the last time; so itwas in a low whisper he said, "sit wider, dears!" Now until that moment,Catherine _would_ not see the gap at table, for her daughter Catherinehad besought her not to grieve to-night, and she had said, "No,sweetheart, I promise I will not, since it vexes my children." But whenElias whispered "Sit wider!" says she, "Ay! the table will soon be toobig for the children: and you thought it would be too small:" and havingdelivered this with forced calmness, she put up her apron the nextmoment, and wept sore.

  "'Tis the best that leave us," sobbed she, "that is the cruel part."

  "Nay! nay!" said Elias, "our children are good children, and all aredear to us alike. Heed her not! What God takes from us still seemsbetter than what he spares to us: that is to say, men are by natureunthankful--and women silly."

  "And I say Richart and Jacob were the flower of the flock," sobbedCatherine.

  The little coffer was empty again, and to fill it they gathered likeants. In those days speculation was pretty much confined to thecard-and-dice business. Elias knew no way to wealth but the slow andsure one. "A penny saved is a penny gained," was his humble creed. Allthat was not required for the business, and the necessaries of life,went into the little coffer with steel bands and florid key. They deniedthemselves in turn the humblest luxuries, and then, catching oneanother's looks, smiled; perhaps with a greater joy than self-indulgencehas to bestow
. And so in three years more they had gleaned enough to setup their fourth son as a master tailor, and their eldest daughter as arobe-maker, in Tergou. Here were two more provided for: their own tradewould enable them to throw work into the hands of this pair. But thecoffer was drained to the dregs, and this time the shop too bled alittle in goods if not in coin.

  THEY HAD TAUGHT HIM PENMANSHIP]

  Alas! there remained on hand two that were unable to get their bread,and two that were unwilling. The unable ones were 1, Giles, a dwarf, ofthe wrong sort, half stupidity, half malice, all head and claws andvoice, run from by dogs and unprejudiced females, and sided with throughthick and thin by his mother; 2, Little Catherine, a poor little girlthat could only move on crutches. She lived in pain, but smiled throughit, with her marble face and violet eyes and long silky lashes: andfretful or repining word never came from her lips. The unwilling oneswere Sybrandt, the youngest, a ne'er-do-weel, too much in love with playto work, and Cornelis, the eldest, who had made calculations, and stuckto the hearth, waiting for dead men's shoes. Almost worn out by theirrepeated efforts, and above all dispirited by the moral and physicalinfirmities of those that now remained on hand, the anxious couple wouldoften say, "What will become of all these when we shall be no longerhere to take care of them?" But when they had said this a good manytimes, suddenly the domestic horizon cleared, and then they used stillto say it, because a habit is a habit, but they uttered it halfmechanically now, and added brightly and cheerfully, "but thanks to St.Bavon and all the saints, there's Gerard."

  * * * * *

  Young Gerard was for many years of his life a son apart and distinct;object of no fears and no great hopes. No fears; for he was going intothe Church; and the Church could always maintain her children by hook orby crook in those days: no great hopes, because his family had nointerest with the great to get him a benefice, and the young man's ownhabits were frivolous, and indeed, such as our cloth merchant would nothave put up with in any one but a clerk that was to be. His trivialitieswere reading and penmanship, and he was so wrapt up in them that oftenhe could hardly be got away to his meals. The day was never long enoughfor him: and he carried ever a tinder-box and brimstone matches, andbegged ends of candles of the neighbors, which he lighted atunreasonable hours--ay, even at eight of the clock at night in winter,when the very burgomaster was abed. Endured at home, his practices wereencouraged by the monks of a neighboring convent. They had taught himpenmanship, and continued to teach him, until one day they discovered,in the middle of a lesson, that he was teaching them. They pointed thisout to him in a merry way: he hung his head and blushed: he hadsuspected as much himself, but mistrusted his judgment in so delicate amatter. "But, my son," said the elderly monk, "how is it that you, towhom God has given an eye so true, a hand so subtle yet firm, and aheart to love these beautiful crafts, how is it you do not colour aswell as write? a scroll looks but barren unless a border of fruit, andleaves, and rich arabesques, surround the good words, and charm thesense as those do the soul and understanding; to say nothing of thepictures of holy men and women departed, with which the several chaptersshould be adorned, and not alone the eye soothed with the brave andsweetly blended colours, but the heart lifted by effigies of the saintsin glory. Answer me, my son."

  At this Gerard was confused, and muttered that he had made severaltrials at illuminating, but had not succeeded well; and thus the matterrested.

  Soon after this a fellow-enthusiast came on the scene in the unwontedform of an old lady. Margaret, sister and survivor of the brothers VanEyck, left Flanders, and came to end her days in her native country. Shebought a small house near Tergou. In course of time she heard of Gerard,and saw some of his handiwork: it pleased her so well that she sent herfemale servant, Reicht Heynes, to ask him to come to her. This led to anacquaintance: it could hardly be otherwise, for little Tergou had neverheld so many as two zealots of this sort before. At first the old ladydamped Gerard's courage terribly. At each visit she fished out of holesand corners drawings and paintings, some of them by her own hand, thatseemed to him unapproachable: but if the artist overpowered him, thewoman kept his heart up. She and Reicht soon turned him inside out likea glove: among other things, they drew from him what the good monks hadfailed to hit upon, the reason why he did not illuminate, viz., that hecould not afford the gold, the blue, and the red, but only the cheapearths; and that he was afraid to ask his mother to buy the choicecolours, and was sure he should ask her in vain. Then Margaret Van Eyckgave him a little brush-gold, and some vermilion, and ultramarine, and apiece of good vellum to lay them on. He almost adored her. As he leftthe house Reicht ran after him with a candle and two quarters: he quitekissed her. But better even than the gold and lapis lazuli to theilluminator was the sympathy to the isolated enthusiast. That sympathywas always ready, and, as he returned it, an affection sprung up betweenthe old painter and the young caligrapher that was doubly characteristicof the time. For this was a century in which the fine arts and thehigher mechanical arts were not separated by any distinct boundary, norwere those who practised them: and it was an age in which artists soughtout and loved one another. Should this last statement stagger a painteror writer of our day, let me remind him that even Christians loved oneanother at first starting.

  Backed by an acquaintance so venerable, and strengthened by femalesympathy, Gerard advanced in learning and skill. His spirits, too, rosevisibly: he still looked behind him when dragged to dinner in the middleof an initial G; but once seated showed great social qualities: likewisea gay humour, that had hitherto but peeped in him, shone out, and oftenhe set the table in a roar, and kept it there, sometimes with his ownwit, sometimes with jests which were glossy new to his family, beingdrawn from antiquity.

  As a return for all he owed his friends the monks, he made themexquisite copies from two of their choicest MSS., viz., the life oftheir founder, and their Comedies of Terence, the monastery finding thevellum.

  The high and puissant Prince, Philip "the Good," Duke of Burgundy,Luxemburg, and Brabant, Earl of Holland and Zealand, Lord of Friesland,Count of Flanders, Artois, and Hainault, Lord of Salins and Macklyn--wasversatile.

  He could fight as well as any king going; and he could lie as well asany, except the King of France. He was a mighty hunter, and could readand write. His tastes were wide and ardent. He loved jewels like awoman, and gorgeous apparel. He dearly loved maids of honour, and indeedpaintings generally; in proof of which he ennobled Jan Van Eyck. He hadalso a rage for giants, dwarfs, and Turks. These last stood ever plantedabout him, turbaned, and blazing with jewels. His agents inveigled themfrom Istamboul with fair promises: but, the moment he had got them, hebaptized them by brute force in a large tub; and, this done, let themsquat with their faces toward Mecca, and invoke Mahound as much as theypleased, laughing in his sleeve at their simplicity in fancying theywere still infidels. He had lions in cages, and fleet leopards trainedby Orientals to run down hares and deer. In short, he relished allrarities except the humdrum virtues. For anything singularly pretty, ordiabolically ugly, this was your customer. The best of him was, he wasopen-handed to the poor; and the next best was, he fostered the arts inearnest: whereof he now gave a signal proof. He offered prizes for thebest specimens of "orfevrerie" in two kinds, religious and secular; itemfor the best paintings in white of egg, oils and tempera; these to be onpanel, silk, or metal, as the artists chose: item for the besttransparent painting on glass: item for the best illuminating and borderpainting on vellum: item for the fairest writing on vellum. Theburgomasters of the several towns were commanded to aid all the poorercompetitors by receiving their specimens and sending them with due careto Rotterdam at the expense of their several burghs. When this was criedby the bellman through the streets of Tergou, a thousand mouths opened,and one heart beat--Gerard's. He told his family timidly he should tryfor two of those prizes. They stared in silence, for their breath wasgone at his audacity: but one horrid laugh exploded on the floor like apetard. Gerard looked
down, and there was the dwarf, slit and fangedfrom ear to ear at his expense, and laughing like a lion. Naturerelenting at having made Giles so small, had given him as a set-off thebiggest voice on record. His very whisper was a bassoon. He was likethose stunted wide-mouthed pieces of ordnance we see on fortifications;more like a flower-pot than a cannon; but ods tympana how they bellow!

  Gerard turned red with anger, the more so as the others began to titter.White Catherine saw, and a pink tinge came on her cheek. She saidsoftly, "Why do you laugh? Is it because he is our brother you think hecannot be capable? Yes, Gerard, try with the rest. Many say you areskilful; and mother and I will pray the Virgin to guide your hand."

  "Thank you, little Kate. You shall pray to our Lady, and our mothershall buy me vellum and the colours to illuminate with."

  "What will they cost, my lad?"

  "Two gold crowns" (about three shillings and fourpence English money).

  "What?" screamed the housewife; "when the bushel of rye costs but agroat! What! me spend a month's meal and meat and fire on such vanity asthat: the lightning from Heaven would fall on me and my children wouldall be beggars."

  "Mother!" sighed little Catherine imploringly.

  "Oh! it is in vain, Kate," said Gerard, with a sigh. "I shall have togive it up, or ask the dame Van Eyck. She would give it me, but I thinkshame to be for ever taking from her."

  "It is not her affair," said Catherine, very sharply; "what has she todo coming between me and my son?" And she left the room with a red face.Little Catherine smiled. Presently the housewife returned with agracious affectionate air, and two little gold pieces in her hand.

  "There, sweetheart," said she, "you won't have to trouble dame ordemoiselle for two paltry crowns."

  But on this Gerard fell a-thinking how he could spare her purse.

  "One will do, mother. I will ask the good monks to let me send my copyof their 'Terence:' it is on snowy vellum, and I can write no better: sothen I shall only need six sheets of vellum for my borders andminiatures, and gold for my ground, and prime colours--one crown willdo."

  "Never tyne the ship for want of a bit of tar, Gerard," said thischangeable mother. But she added, "Well, there, I will put the crown inmy pocket. That won't be like putting it back in the box. Going to thebox to take out instead of putting in, it is like going to my heart witha knife for so many drops of blood. You will be sure to want it, Gerard.The house is never built for less than the builder counted on."

  Sure enough, when the time came, Gerard longed to go to Rotterdam andsee the duke, and above all to see the work of his competitors, and soget a lesson from defeat. And the crown came out of the housewife'spocket with a very good grace. Gerard would soon be a priest. It seemedhard if he might not enjoy the world a little before separating himselffrom it for life.

  The night before he went, Margaret Van Eyck asked him to take a letterfor her, and when he came to look at it, to his surprise he found it wasaddressed to the Princess Marie, at the Stadthouse, in Rotterdam.

  The day before the prizes were to be distributed, Gerard started forRotterdam in his holiday suit, to wit, a doublet of silver-grey clothwith sleeves, and a jerkin of the same over it, but without sleeves.From his waist to his heels he was clad in a pair of tight-fittingbuckskin hose fastened by laces (called points) to his doublet. Hisshoes were pointed, in moderation, and secured by a strap that passedunder the hollow of his foot. On his head and the back of his neck hewore his flowing hair, and pinned to his back between his shoulders washis hat: it was further secured by a purple silk ribbon little Kate hadpassed round him from the sides of the hat, and knotted neatly on hisbreast; below his hat, attached to the upper rim of his broadwaist-belt, was his leathern wallet. When he got within a league ofRotterdam he was pretty tired, but he soon fell in with a pair that wasmore so. He found an old man sitting by the roadside quite worn out, anda comely young woman holding his hand, with a face brimful of concern.The country people trudged by and noticed nothing amiss: but Gerard, ashe passed drew conclusions. Even dress tells a tale to those who studyit so closely as he did, being an illuminator. The old man wore a gown,and a fur tippet, and a velvet cap, sure signs of dignity: but thetriangular purse at his girdle was lean, the gown rusty, the fur worn,sure signs of poverty. The young woman was dressed in plain russetcloth: yet snow-white lawn covered that part of her neck the gown leftvisible, and ended half way up her white throat in a little band of goldembroidery: and her head-dress was new to Gerard; instead of hiding herhair in a pile of linen or lawn, she wore an open net-work of silvercord with silver spangles at the interstices: in this her glossy auburnhair was rolled in front into two solid waves, and supported behind in aluxurious and shapely mass. His quick eye took in all this, and the oldman's pallor, and the tears in the young woman's eyes. So when he hadpassed them a few yards, he reflected, and turned back, and came towardsthem bashfully.

  "Father, I fear you are tired."

  "Indeed, my son, I am," replied the old man; "and faint for lack offood."

  Gerard's address did not appear so agreeable to the girl as to the oldman. She seemed ashamed, and with much reserve in her manner said, thatit was her fault; she had underrated the distance, and imprudentlyallowed her father to start too late in the day.

  "No! no!" said the old man; "it is not the distance, it is the want ofnourishment."

  The girl put her arms round his neck, with tender concern, but took thatopportunity of whispering, "Father, a stranger--a young man!"

  But it was too late. Gerard, with simplicity, and quite as a matter ofcourse, fell to gathering sticks with great expedition. This done, hetook down his wallet, out with the manchet of bread and the iron flaskhis careful mother had put up, and his everlasting tinder-box; lighted amatch, then a candle end, then the sticks; and put his iron flask on it.Then down he went on his stomach and took a good blow: then looking up,he saw the girl's face had thawed, and she was looking down at him andhis energy with a demure smile. He laughed back to her: "Mind the pot,"said he, "and don't let it spill, for Heaven's sake: there's a cleftstick to hold it safe with;" and with this he set off running towards acorn-field at some distance.

  Whilst he was gone, there came by, on a mule with rich purple housings,an old man redolent of wealth. The purse at his girdle was plethoric,the fur on his tippet was ermine, broad and new.

  It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, the burgomaster of Tergou. He was old,and his face furrowed. He was a notorious miser, and looked onegenerally. But the idea of supping with the duke raised him just nowinto manifest complacency. Yet at the sight of the faded old man and hisbright daughter sitting by a fire of sticks, the smile died out of hisface, and he wore a strange look of pain and uneasiness. He reined inhis mule. "Why, Peter,--Margaret--" said he almost fiercely, "whatmummery is this!" Peter was going to answer, but Margaret interposedhastily, and said: "My father was exhausted, so I am warming somethingto give him strength before we go on." "What, reduced to feed by theroadside like the Bohemians," said Ghysbrecht, and his hand went intohis purse: but it did not seem at home there; it fumbled uncertainly,afraid too large a coin might stick to a finger and come out.

  At this moment who should come bounding up but Gerard. He had two strawsin his hand, and he threw himself down by the fire, and relievedMargaret of the cooking part: then suddenly recognizing the burgomaster,he coloured all over. Ghysbrecht Van Swieten started and glared at him,and took his hand out of his purse. "Oh," said he bitterly, "I am notwanted:" and went slowly on, casting a long look of suspicion onMargaret, and hostility on Gerard, that was not very intelligible.However, there was something about it that Margaret could read enough toblush at, and almost toss her head. Gerard only stared with surprise."By St. Bavon, I think the old miser grudges us three our quart ofsoup," said he. When the young man put that interpretation onGhysbrecht's strange and meaning look, Margaret was greatly relieved,and smiled gaily on the speaker.

  Meantime Ghysbrecht plodded on, more wretched in his wealth than thesein their po
verty. And the curious thing is that the mule, the purplehousings, and one half the coin in that plethoric purse, belonged not toGhysbrecht Van Swieten, but to that faded old man and that comely girl,who sat by the road-side fire to be fed by a stranger. They did not knowthis, but Ghysbrecht knew it, and carried in his heart a scorpion of hisown begetting. That scorpion is remorse; the remorse, that, not beingpenitence, is incurable, and ready for fresh misdeeds upon a freshtemptation.

  Twenty years ago, when Ghysbrecht was a hard and honest man, thetouchstone opportunity came to him, and he did an act of heartlessroguery. It seemed a safe one. It had hitherto proved a safe one, thoughhe had never felt safe. To-day he has seen youth, enterprise, and aboveall, knowledge, seated by fair Margaret and her father on terms thatlook familiar and loving.

  And the fiends are at his ear again.