Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/hourwillcomeata00firgoog
2. Vol. I and II are reprinted here as Collection of German Authors, Vols. 37 and 38.

COLLECTION

OF

GERMAN AUTHORS.

VOL. 37.

THE HOUR WILL COME BY W. von HILLERN.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

"All that Time brings, Time also sweeps away. Therefore have the fathers recorded the deeds of men for their grandchildren."

Goswin. Chronik von Marienberg. 13..

THE

HOUR WILL COME

A TALE OF AN ALPINE CLOISTER

BY

WILHELMINE von HILLERN,

AUTHOR OF

"THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER--WALLY)" ETC.

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

CLARA BELL.

IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I.

Copyright Edition.

LEIPZIG 1879

BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.

LONDON: SAMPSON LAW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD & Cie, 15 RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.

The Author reserves the Right of dramatizing this Tale.

THE HOUR WILL COME.

PROLOGUE.

ST. VALENTINE'S ON THE HEATH.

The heath or moorland plateau of Mals lies wide--spread, silent, and deserted where the lofty head of the Grossortler towers up, and overlooks it in eternal calm. It is five centuries ago--a mere moment in that world of everlasting snows; the keen autumn wind, as at this day, is rushing through the grey halms of the charlock, woodrush and heathgrasses, that have caught a doubtful, golden gleam reflected from the glaciers which are bathed in the glow of the sinking sun; as at this day, the gale packs the driving white clouds together in the still highland valley, as though to rest for the night. They heave and roll noiselessly, spreading a white, misty sheet over the withered heathgrass. The mirror-surface of the moorland tarn lies lead-coloured and dull, wrinkled by the night-breeze, and its icy waters trickle in tiny rills over the bare plain and down to the valley. All is the same as it is to this day! Only life is wanting, life warm and busy, which in these days is stirring in the villages and homesteads that dot the plain, and that have brought the dead moorland into tilth and fertility. Profound silence reigns over the immeasurable level, throughout its length and breadth no living thing stirs; it is as if this were indeed the neutral space between Heaven and Hell--a vast, eternal void! Only the monotonous murmur of the Etsch--that cold artery of the desolate heath--and the roar of the winds that sweep at night across the plateau; these are the eerie voices of this realm of death.

Woe to the lonely pilgrim who is wandering through the night in this boundless desert, in storm and snow, in impenetrable darkness; he is lost in nothingness, owned by neither Heaven nor Hell, and the earth knows him not! No ear can hear his cry for help, it is lost in vacancy; the raven and the wolf mark him down, but they tell no one of their mute prey.

It is true that pitying love has penetrated even to this wilderness and realm of death, and spreads her arms so far as they may reach; but they are but human arms, weak and inadequate for the great divine mind that animates them. Every evening, above the howling of the storm and the roaring of the highland lake, as dusk creeps on, the Vesper bell rings softly out like the beat of some metallic heart. Then a dull-red, flaring blaze is suddenly seen, which parts into wandering storm-blown flakes of flame that disperse themselves about the moor till they vanish in the mist and darkness. The shepherd and lay-brethren it is, who go forth with torches and biers from the Hospice of Saint Valentine in the moor, which pious faith has erected for the lost traveller here in the wilderness. Defying the warring elements, they seek in silent and fearless devotion the strayed, the perishing, and the hungry, and bring them in to the warm hearth of humanity. Happy is he whom they find, he is rescued--but the moor is wide, and they are but a forlorn little handful of men, not all-knowing nor all-seeing.

The sun went down early in angry red; it grows darker and darker. Heavy clouds are packed over the evening sky, the last glimmer of starlight is extinguished, all is as dark as though no light survived in Heaven or earth; for a moment even the howling, shrieking winds are silent, which nightly carry on their demon-dance round and across the heath; but from the distance looms a nameless, formless something, a thunder roll is heard, soft at first like the sound of slow, heavy wheels, then nearer and nearer--a terror, invisible, intangible but crushing, shakes the earth to its foundation. Slowly it surges on, like a deep groan of rage long controlled only to break out all the more fearfully in raving, annihilating fury. The snow-storm, the first of the year, sweeps down from the Grossortler over the bare trembling heath--a mighty, moving mass rolls on before it that breaks incessantly into powder, and is incessantly renewed--as if the winds had torn the eternal mantle of snow from the shoulders of the numberless glaciers, and were flinging it down from the heights. A giant wall reaches from earth to sky; snow, snow everywhere. Touched by the icy breath, the shapeless mists over lake and river curdle and turn to snow, the light evening-clouds form compact masses of snow--whirling pillars that bury everything in their wild dance; the very air is turned to snow, there is no tiniest space between sky and earth that is not filled with snow. The whole moor is overwhelmed in it, and is one vast, white bed, where the storm and night may work their wild will.

But hark! a cry of distress, from a spot between the two lakes and far, far from the sheltering Hospice. It is the cry of a human being that shares that fearful bed with the night and the storm--a woman who lies sunk to the knees under the cold, crushing coverlet of snow, and on her breast a newborn baby-boy, closely clasped in her stiffened arms and wrapped in her cloak. The milk which flows from the young mother's bosom to nourish her infant has frozen above her fluttering heart, and the tears on her closed lashes are turned to ice. There she lies. "Poor feeble mother, who has thrust thee out in this night of storm and tumult for your child to be born under the open sky?" Thus ask the storm and the wild uproar of the elements; and as if even they had pity for the wretched soul, the wind carries the mother's cry of anguish over her starving infant, bears it on its wings to the scattered party of seeking, rescuing monks. "Be quick, make haste before it is too late."

And they hear it, these bold wrestlers with death, themselves half-buried in the snow, and they set out, wading, digging, shovelling, till the sweat of their brows runs down on their frozen beards, ever listening without a word, without a sound after that tremulous wind-borne cry.

And these storm-proof hearts quake with dread and pity for the hapless wretch to whose help they are hastening; they go forward painfully on their deadly and toilsome way, heeding neither danger nor difficulty, with only one purpose and one aim before their eyes--a struggle for life with Death.

At last--it is close by--at last they hear a faint cry; even the death-stricken woman hears them approaching, she collects her remaining strength and once more opens her eye-lids, on which the restless whirling snow has already dropped a white shroud; a red gleam meets her sight, she hears the scraping of iron shovels, the burden that weighs on her breast and on her feet gets lighter and lighter--here are light and human voices--a shout of deliverance--of joy. Round her opened grave stand the snow-whitened storm-beaten group in a flood of red light from the flaring torches, their eyes shining with the divine light of devoted love which has triumphed over danger and death. And they raise her in their rough hands, they lift her out of her cold tomb, they wrap her and the naked child in warm hair-cloth coats and carry her home under the sheltering roof of holy Valentine.

"Salve, Frater Florentinus! we bring a precious prize," says one of the brethren triumphantly to the silver-bearded old man who opens the heavy creaking door. "A young mother and a new born boy--snatched from death."

"Deo gratias!" murmurs the old man in a voice husky from age. "The Lord will bless your labours. Come in quickly, the wind is blowing the snow in."

They step in and the door falls to with a groan. The storm outside snorts and rages and hurls against the door, like some wild beast robbed of its prey, but the door is tight and fast, and within all is quiet and warm; a smoking pine torch is burning in an iron bracket fixed to one of the pillars of the entrance hall, and throws wavering shadows and red lights on the grey stone walls and the black wooden crucifix which spreads out its arms to welcome all who enter.

"Come, hapless suffering mother, here you may find rest," says the old man compassionately, and he opens a low, iron-plated door at the farther end of the hall, through which the procession passes in silence into a room which is at once the guest-chamber, the kitchen, and the refectory of the pious brotherhood, and the only warm room in the little Refuge, whose walls are thicker than its rooms are wide. A vast chimney-place like a roof projects into the half-dark hall, its broad shadow cast on the vaulted roof by the crackling fire that burns beneath it. From the ceiling hangs a small iron oil-lamp covered with cobwebs and giving too dismal and dim a light to illuminate the whole room. Over the fire hangs a cauldron in which a warm mess is stewing for the brethren and for any one they may bring with them on their return, half-frozen, from the desert outside; the roughly hewn seats stand round an octagon table, which is immoveably fixed in the middle of the room on strong supports. The only decoration in the whole smoke-blackened hall is a picture of St. Valentine, who, himself of gigantic proportions, stands preaching the gospel on the open heath to a crowd of very small devotees; the thick clouds of smoke which, all the winter through, are puffed back from the chimney by the stormy gusts, have blackened this picture also; yet it is the most treasured possession of the brotherhood. It was painted by Father Columbanus of the monastery at Marienberg, and Father Columbanus was an enlightened and inspired man, to whom the saints were wont to appear in nightly visions that he might depict them. This picture of Saint Valentine was the last vision that he saw and painted, for he died shortly after; so it is of double value! Under the picture hangs a holy-water vessel of terra-cotta.

On the heavy, rough-hewn table there are wooden platters in which each man receives his share as it is taken out of the cooking pot, and a wooden spoon lies by each. This is all the furniture of the bare room; but such as it is, to the suffering, storm-lashed woman it is full of unspeakable comfort--a city of refuge from the raging wilderness without. She is silent, but her eye rests with an unearthly glitter on the rough, weather-beaten figures, who carry her at once to the chimney and with clumsy hospitality press her to take a little of the warm mess. Then, with a quiet bustle, they make her a couch by the glowing fire; a sack of straw, a pillow filled with white moss, and for coverlet a woolly sheep-skin--this is all the house has to offer, but it is a delicious couch after the fearful bed out on the moor--a couch prepared by careful and kindly human hands. With bashful awkwardness they untie the band of her tangled golden hair, take off her wet outside garment and wrap her in a warm, dry monk's frock, then they lay the frail and trembling form carefully on the bed and put the pale, half dead baby on her arm. The frozen fount of the mother's breast thaws under the warm wrapper, the child finds its natural food, and breathes and lives again. The brethren stand aside in silence, and tears run down their lean cheeks.

"May the holy mother of God protect thee--poor young mother!" says the grey-haired brother Florentinus, laying a little metal image of the Virgin on the suffering woman's breast. "We are unlearned men, unskilled in serving sick ladies and ignorant of what may comfort you in your suffering; but this image is of great virtue and famous for many miracles. It will bestow its grace on you too if your past life has not rendered you unworthy to receive it."

The young woman looked him calmly and frankly in the face.

"Holy brother," said she, "I am miserable and poor, and have not where to lay my head, but in that shelter which Heaven provides for the wretched under the sacred convent roof. But I was faithful, reverend brother, faithful and obedient at all times!" She pressed the image long and fervently to her lips, and silently told her sorrows to the All-pitying Mother.

"Most times when a young wife's first-born is brought into the world a loving grandmother bends over her bed and takes thought for everything, and a young father rocks his first-born tenderly on his arms. But I, O Mother of Grace! am cast off and homeless, and have no one but Thee."

And as the nourishing fount flows freely for her sucking child, the frozen fountain of her soul thaws too, and overflows from her closed eyelids in hot but restful tears. The Heavenly Mother bends lovingly and soothingly over her; the worn out woman rests her weary head on the unseen but omnipresent and ever-merciful bosom, and overcome by deadly exhaustion she falls asleep. The brethren slip off their wooden shoes, and walk barefoot on the stone flags so as not to disturb the exhausted woman. She looks to them like a martyr as she lies there--so calm, with the baby that has also gone to sleep looking like a glorified angel. The flickering fire throws changing lights and shadows on her crisply curling hair, making it seem like a crown of thorns; the brethren observe the resemblance, and point to it in silence.

Old Florentinus meanwhile does not forget temporal interests for the sake of eternal ones. He busily steals about the room on tip-toe, and carries the stranger's garments to the fire to dry, and for the first time he sees that there is a richly embroidered border at the hem of the dress, which glitters in the fire-light, and that the tattered shoes are embroidered by a skilful hand; he silently shows these ornaments to the brethren, and they shake their heads in astonishment. Then he lifts the cauldron from the fire, and dispenses the steaming contents into the platters with a sign to his companions; they obey the signal with but small alacrity, they are in no mood to eat. Noiselessly they draw up to the table, offer up a grace, and take the simple meal of barley and water standing. The thoughtful old man puts by a little of it for the sick woman. Then they cross themselves before the picture of St. Valentine, and withdraw each to his own cell, carefully closing the clumsy doors behind them. The old man only remains to watch the sick woman, and he seats himself in silence on the stone window-seat at the farther end of the room, telling his beads. The storm still roars round the house in long and violent gusts, but it can do it no mischief, for poor and bare as it is, it is built of strong masonry, a fortress against wind and weather, and the narrow air-openings are so deeply imbedded in the thick walls that no draught can pour in through them; only now and then the wind rushes howling down the chimney, and flings the crackling flames and smoke out into the room, so that the sick woman is startled from her painful slumbers; then all is still again. The child sighs softly in its sleep as if dreaming of future sorrow; the mother's breathing goes on in regular rhythm, and even the old watcher leans his weary head in the niche in the wall, and falls asleep. Only the gigantic saint on the wall preaches unweariedly on to his dwarfed heathen in the light of the dying lamp, and the little figures seem to move and dance dreamily in the growing darkness.

Suddenly a cry of pain broke from the lips of the sick woman; the old man rose and went to the bed-side. She lay there quite changed, almost unconscious, her eyes sunken, her lips blue; the hand of death had passed over her face. She was seized with a violent trembling, and the bed quaked under her.

"What is the matter?" asked the brother in alarm. "Will you have a little food? It is standing here by the fire--or shall I make you a drink of warming herbs?" and he hastily threw some more wood on to the embers.

"Good brother," she replied, and her white teeth showed below her upper lip like those of a corpse, "neither food nor drink can help me any more. As it must come, let it come--I am dying; and when I tell you that I walked with my unborn child from Görz as far as this, and that the boy was born on the heath where I was all alone and helpless, you cannot wonder at it. Hear my confession, and grant me extreme unction."

The old man's eyes overflowed with tears. "Alas, poor flower, who can so pitilessly have plucked you, and flung you away to wither, and fall to pieces in the winter-storm. And we are so unskilled in all medical knowledge, and must see you die so miserably when we would so willingly rescue you!"

"Do not weep for me, reverend father," she said calmly; "all is well with me, I am going to rest in the lap of our Blessed Mother. But my poor child--he loses his mother just as I am finding mine. Take charge of him, I beseech you, he has no one in the world--he is wholly forlorn!"

"It shall be as you wish," said the old man. "You may rely on that in perfect confidence--you may die in peace on that score."

"Then take my boy without delay to the venerable Abbot Conrad of Amatia at Marienberg. Tell him that the outcast wife of Swyker of Reichenberg sends the child to him as her last bequest, that she dedicated him to the church in a sorrowful hour, and the venerable man will help a poor soul to keep her vow."

"In the name of all the saints!" cried the monk. "You, the most noble lady of Reichenberg? You, the guardian spirit and good angel of all the country round! Married only nine months since, if we were rightly informed? How, tell me, how come you here in this wild spot without one of your friends, cast out like the poorest beggar or like some criminal!"

"You say rightly, reverend father," she said quietly, and a gleam of the reviving fire fell like a glory on her pale brow, "I was banished like a criminal, and thrust out to be a prey to the fowls of the air, I and the child, the son of a noble house. And yet I am not guilty of that of which I was accused, although God himself was pleased to bear witness against me." A fresh shivering fit came over her, and shook her as the autumn wind shakes the faded leaves from the trees.

"My time is short--I will make a short story," she said in a failing voice. "It is nine months to-day since the noble Lord of Reichenberg, as you know, married me from the house of Ramüss, and soon after we went to Görz, the gay court of Albert, the count of Tyrol and Görz.--Egno of Amatia, the companion of my childhood, went with us. Oh! would we had never gone there--I have never had an hour of happiness since! The countess of Eppan, a beautiful woman of courtly manners and accomplishments, stole my husband's heart and with it his confidence in me; I had to look on while it happened, helpless and with no one to counsel me, a simple woman, having grown up in a quiet town in the Lower Engadine--ignorant of the world and of its wickedness. And then--how can I say it--she whispered to my husband that I and Egno of Amatia--! Oh! reverend Brother, spare me, spare me--If death had not already frozen my blood with his cold breath I should blush purple with shame!"

"I understand you, noble Lady," said the old man.

"My husband believed the falsehood and--oh! that I should have to say it--disowned his child. He challenged Egno of Amatia to ordeal by combat. Reverend Father, the ways of the Almighty are inscrutable and wise--why He, who proves the heart and reins, abandoned the innocent, I cannot understand; but it was His holy will--and so it fell out. Egno fell, slain by my husband's hand. God himself was witness against me--and so my deluded husband cast me out--me and my child. 'Go--bring your child into the world to be meat for the birds and wolves, and if tender hands take pity on it, may it be accursed and they who rescue it also. It is the fruit of sinful love and by sinful love may it perish!' So he spoke and put me out of his house, and in order that the curse may not take effect, worthy father, I dedicated the child to the cloister before it saw the light, for where can it be safer than within convent walls. I was trying to reach St. Gertrude's, the convent in the Münsterthal--a well-beloved home.--There I thought to have given birth to my child. If it were a girl it was to belong to St. Gertrude--if a boy, I would take it to Marienberg. My brother is there and the Abbot is well known to me, and kindly disposed towards me--he is of the house of Amatia and will receive the child, who is an outcast for his relation's sake, and will bring it up to a holy life in the Lord, so that it can incur no curse and fall into no sinful love. Swear to me that you will report all this to him, faithfully--as I tell it to you--!"

"I swear it by this picture of the Blessed Virgin, who henceforth will be a mother to your son, born in sorrow. You have dedicated him to Heaven, and Heaven will accept him--because the gift is pure. I promise you in the name of the brethren of Marienberg that they will keep and cherish your child so that the curse may not be accomplished." And the old man sprinkled the baby with holy water and laid his withered hand in blessing on his head. The mother suddenly stretched herself out with a wonderful smile of peace. Her child was safe now, she could die content.

"Make haste, give me the last sacraments, I am near my end!" The old man went to wake the brethren--startled, they hurried out of their rooms and gathered round the dying woman's bed. She still breathed, but with difficulty, and speech had failed her; but her lips could still receive the sacred viaticum and smile.

All was still as death in the room; the brethren prayed softly, the old man concluded the sacred office and made the sign of the cross. Yet three more feeble breaths--and all was over. The old man closed the sightless eyes and gently took the sleeping infant from its dead mother's side.

"Come, poor little one, there is no home on earth for you--you belong to Heaven."

He wrapped the boy in a warm lamb-skin and lighted a torch at the sooty lamp.

"Where are you going, brother Florentine? Are you going out in this stormy night, and with the tender infant?" asked one of the brethren. "Shall we not accompany you!"

"No! the child's guardian spirit is with me--I need no human aid. You stay here to pray by the corpse."

"Wait at least till the morning," said even the rough shepherd, the secular Superior of the convent.

"A vow will not bear any postponement!" said the old man, and with the new-born child in his arms he quitted the room where its mother's body was lying. The baby was torn from its mother's breast, torn from the source of its life; and as if the unconscious child felt the sorrowful parting it struggled and cried and fought against the bony, masculine arm that carried it. The old man stepped out of the convent; once more the heath received the outcast and homeless infant with wild cries from the storm; the snowfall was over and an icy blast had frozen the endless expanse of snow quite hard. The old monk's steps crunched upon it, and the evanescent crystals sparkled with a million rays where the flare of the torch fell, so that he made his onward way through the darkness, in the midst of a glory of light. He felt as if it were Christmas Evening, and as if the angel who guided the three kings were leading him too on the way, to conduct the child to his Holy Companion in the manger--to the Child above all children and the city of salvation. The star on the angel's brow threw a soft light in his path, he felt the mighty fanning of his wings on his hoary temples, and he sang joyful praise to the Lord in his heart while he marched stoutly forward through that stormy, glorious night of wonders.

BOOK I.

UNDER A CURSE.

CHAPTER I.

High up on the rocks above the village of Burgeis stands a watch tower of faith, the monastery of Marienberg, with heaven-reaching towers and pinnacles, proudly looking far out and down into the night. Torn, and as though weary, the clouds hang about the mountain peaks that surround it, and the snow storm beats its exhausted wings against the mighty walls; it has spent its rage over night and its power is broken. Now and again between the parting clouds glimmers the pale crescent of the setting moon; below, in the valley, a cock crows betimes to announce the coming morning, but up in the convent as well as down in the village all are sunk in sleep, no ray of light illumines any one of the numberless rows of windows, with their small round panes set in lead; only in the porter's room on the ground floor a feeble light is burning and keeping watch for the sleeping door-keeper. Three blows of the huge iron ring on the back door are suddenly heard. The porter starts up, his lamp has burnt low, warning him that it will soon be morning. He goes out with his clattering bunch of keys in his hand; meanwhile the knocking has been hastily and imperatively repeated.

"Who is out there at this early hour?" He asks cautiously.

"The beginning and the end--an infant and an old man," is the answer.

"What am I to understand by that?"

"Open the door and then you will know."

"I must first fetch the Superior. At such an unwonted hour I cannot open to any one without his sanction." And he goes back into the house and wakes the Superior, who glances with alarm at the hour-glass thinking he has overslept himself. It will soon be the hour of matins.

"Come out quickly," cried the gatekeeper. "A stranger asks to be admitted--I dared not open the gate without your permission."

The Superior threw on his frock and cowl and stepped out.

"An old man and a child--as he says--" continued the porter, as they crossed the courtyard.

"Open the gate," said the Superior, as the wail of an infant apprised him that the stranger outside had spoken the truth. The porter obeyed and at the door, with the infant on one arm and in his other hand the torch, stood the old monk from St. Valentine's.

"Blessed be the Lord Christ! Brother Florentinus! How come you here this wild night--and what have we here for a whimpering visitor?" cried the Superior, admitting the old man.

"Aye, you would never have thought that my stiff old arms would be bringing round such a fragile, wriggling thing.--But take me quickly to the reverend Abbot that we may take counsel in the matter--for the child is hungry and needs womanly care."

"The bell will soon call to matins," said the Superior. "Wait here in the court-yard till the first stroke, and then you will be sure that no bad spirit crosses the threshold with you. Meanwhile I will go and announce you to his reverence, the Abbot."

"Aye, you are right, brother, the child must enter the convent at a lucky hour, for he must stay in for ever."

The Superior asked no more--the brethren were accustomed to suppress all curiosity and to accept inexplicable occurrences in silence. He went in and the gate-keeper remained outside with the old man. They stood there expectant, till the first stroke should sound that should scare away the hordes of bad night-spirits.

Florentinus extinguished his torch, for the light from the porter's window lighted up the narrow court-yard.

"To-day is a great festival, and the fathers were making preparations far into the night," said the porter. "You did not think of that?"

"I do not know what you mean," said the old man. "To-day is no saint's day?"

"This day, a hundred years ago, anno Domini 1150, the edifice of this godly house was begun by Ulrich of Trasp, and a great thanksgiving service is to be performed in honour of the noble founder."

"To be sure I might have known it. Your house is ten years younger than ours and we too, ten years since, had a thanksgiving to our founder, Ulrich Primele."

"But you must not let our reverend brethren hear you say that our foundation is younger than yours, for they may take it ill in you. You know of course that our holy house was built two hundred years ago at Schuls, and was only transferred here because at Schuls and at St. Stephen we were so often visited by fire and avalanches."

"I know, I know," nodded the old man. "I did not mean to cast any reflection on the venerable antiquity of your foundation. God grant it may increase and prosper. It is still a sure bulwark against the decay of all conventual discipline in these days--God save us--the rule of St. Benedict is often followed in outward semblance only, but your severity is everywhere famous."

"Now!" said the guardian, opening the door for the old man. Solemnly and with silvery clearness, the bell for matins rang out. Inside the convent, all was alive at once. One after another, the windows were lighted up but without noise, as in a magic lantern. Brother Florentinus stepped into the hall. Door after door opened, and the dark figures of the monks slipped out in their soft sandals, and glided noiselessly down to the chapel along the long corridor. The deepest "silentium" reigned in the dusky passages and halls--that sacred silence by which the still dormant soul prepares itself to wake up to prayer. But the crying of the hungry baby disturbed the solemn stillness, and the fathers paused in astonishment, and gathered full of wonder and bewilderment round the screaming child. The guardian called the old man to come into the refectory with the infant, and the brethren went in to matins, shaking their heads over this strange visit. The Abbot, a reverend man of near seventy years, was standing in the refectory when Florentinus entered.

"What is this strange story that our brother, the Prior, tells me? You, Florentinus, bring us a child--a new-born infant. Where, in the name of all the saints, did you pick it up, and what have we to do with the helpless baby?"

"Most reverend Abbot, kindly lend me your attentive ear, and then your questions will be answered. But first of all I beseech your grace to allow that a woman may be fetched out of the village to suckle the child, for it has been starving these three hours."

"That cannot be, Brother Florentinus; a woman in the convent! What are you thinking about? You know very well that our order allows no women but princesses to come within our walls."

"Your reverence, it must be," said Florentine fearlessly; "I promised the babe's dying mother in your name that it should be received this day within the sheltering walls of Marienberg, and 'he will help a poor soul to keep her vow,' the dying woman said. He is the child of the noble Lady of Reichenberg."

The Abbot clasped his hands.

"What--where did you see her?"

"We found her at night on the heath, where her child had been born out in the snow. She is now lying in our house at St. Valentine's--dead."

The Abbot grasped his forehead with his hand as if he thought he was dreaming.

"The Lady of Reichenberg, the angel of Ramüss! What has happened to her?"

"She was repudiated by her husband on account of your relative Egno of Amatia; he fell in trial by combat. But the wife was innocent nevertheless, the child is Swyker of Reichenberg's child; but he cast it out to the birds of the air, and loaded it with the heaviest curses. In order that the curses might not take effect, she dedicated it to the cloister."

The Abbot Conrad took the child tenderly in his arms.

"Yes, poor orphan, you shall find a home here; none on earth are motherless to whom the church opens her sheltering bosom."

Then he went to the door, and called the Superior.

"Hasten without delay down into the village, and find some good woman who will undertake to care for the infant's bodily needs; the convent will reward her richly. She may live in the Lady Uta's east turret-chamber; there she will be hidden from the eyes of the brethren; and you may also open the Lady Uta's chest for her use and the baby's. Make the room ready so that it may look comfortable and habitable, and that the woman may not feel as if she were a prisoner."

The guardian brother hurried away.

"The church must give to each severally that which he needs, why should she let the suckling starve that wants a mother's breast--she, the All-bountiful, the Mother of all," he went on, giving the child back to the old man. "In such an unprecedented case it is allowable to make an exception to the rule, to save a soul for the church."

"You are great and wise, my Lord Abbot," cried Florentinus with grateful joy, and rocking the child on his arm to quiet it. "It is strange how soon one gets used to a little thing like this. I have quite set my old heart on this little brat, it is so helpless and forsaken!"

"It is no longer helpless nor forsaken," said the Abbot gravely. "When matins are over, and the child has been properly attended to we will baptise it. Meanwhile tell me in detail all that has happened, for it must all be recorded in the chronicles of the monastery, as is fitting."

He seated himself in the deep arm-chair at the upper end of the table, supporting himself on the monstrous dragon's heads which formed the arms of the seat.

Brother Florentinus conscientiously narrated the melancholy occurrences of the night.

"The body must be fetched and interred in the church," said the Abbot, "but without any inscription, for if we are to carry out the dead lady's vows we must efface every trace of her. Nay, the boy himself must never learn who his parents were, so that none of his family may dispute our right to him."

"You are always wise and choose the right, most reverend Abbot," Florentinus again declared.

They heard a sound of hasty steps on the stone floor of the corridor, and the Prior knocked at the highly ornamented door.

"Come in, in the name of the Lord," cried the Abbot.

The door opened, and a handsome young woman entered, whose fine, tall figure was poorly clad in miserable rags. She remained standing timidly at the door.

"Here is a woman who will be a mother to the child, if your reverence thinks proper."

"What is your name?"

"Berntrudis."

"Only think, after the pious waiting maid of the Lady Uta of Trasp, our noble foundress."

"She was my great-grandmother's sister."

"You come of a good stock, so I hope the fruit too is of a good sort," said the Abbot kindly.

The woman was modestly silent.

"I know you already by sight. You are the wife of the fisherman whose business it is to catch fish in the lake for the convent."

"Yes."

"How old is your child?"

"Two weeks."

"Is it a girl or a boy?"

"A girl."

"And you feel that you can nurse another child as well?"

"Six, if you like," said the woman smiling, and showing two rows of dazzling white teeth.

"Good, healthy and strong," said the Abbot to the Superior; "but," he added in Latin, casting a thoughtful glance at the blooming figure before him, "the brethren must not come in her way, you must be answerable for no scandal coming of it." Then he said to the wet-nurse,

"Take the child then, in the name of the Lord. The Prior here knows where your room is, and will see that your own child is brought to you. You may go at your pleasure into the convent-garden so long as the brethren are at vespers or at their meals, but you must never on any account go outside the convent-walls. You are henceforth under the rules of the order, and must submit to live like a nun. Will you?"

The woman hesitated a little, but then said,

"Well--yes; it will not last for ever."

The old white-bearded men looked at each other and shook their heads,

"Oh women--women!"

"Take her away," said the Abbot to the Superior, laying the child in her arms. "Now do your duty, and the convent will give you a handsome reward."

The woman pressed the child compassionately to her bosom and was about to kiss him. But the Abbot checked her severely.

"You are never to kiss the child--do you hear? under the severest penalties; so that the boy may not be accustomed from his cradle to foolish caresses and wanton tenderness, for they are not seemly for a son and future servant of the Church. No woman's lips may ever touch him--not even those of his nurse."

The woman looked at the Abbot half-surprised and half-indignant.

"Oh! you poor, poor little child!" she murmured in her Rhætian dialect. "But--when no one sees us I will kiss you, all the same," she thought, and followed the Superior out of the room. The two old men looked at each other and again they shook their heads.

"Who would have thought of telling us, brother Florentinus, that at the end of our days we should be inspecting a wet-nurse?" said the Abbot laughing. "So it is, the unclean stream of life penetrates even the strongest convent walls and fouls the very foot of our sacred altars."

"It is the duty of the strong to help the weak," said Florentinus simply, "and such a humble labour of love disgraces no one, be he ever so high!"

The Abbot nodded assent.

"Now come to the chapel, brother Florentinus, else we shall miss the mass."

With slow steps they passed along the corridor and into the choir of the darkened church, which was lighted only by the scattered wax-lights of the brethren who were deciphering their manuscript breviaries. A grateful fragrance of pine-wood pervaded the consecrated place and, so far as the scattered tapers allowed, a number of festal garlands were visible, made of pine-branches and red-berried holly twisted round the pillars and carvings by the brethren who, during the night, had thus decorated the chapel for the coming anniversary; and with hearts lifted up in praise the two old men knelt down to perform their deferred devotions.

Meanwhile the Superior had conducted the wet nurse through the spacious building to the eastern tower. A shudder came over her as she felt her way up the narrow spiral stairs, while the pine torch held by the Prior--who let her pass on in front of him--threw her gigantic shadow on the steep steps before her, and the solid masonry on each side. It was so damp and cold, so uncannily still, so painfully narrow--she felt as if a weight lay on her breast. "Where am I going? How high will this take me?" She begins to get giddy. Turning after turning--always one turn more--till she turns round with the stairs, and the stairs with her--she feels as if she were spinning round and round on one spot and yet she gets higher and higher, farther and farther from mother earth on which till this day she has always walked, which hitherto she has tilled with her own hands, in poverty and want, but happy in her labour and free!

She climbed wearily up with the child, frequently treading on her gown, for she had never before mounted steps in her life; she had lived in a humble hut under a scanty straw-roof, or in the fields and meadows. She had never thought it possible that men should build such tall high dwellings, and she was seized by a secret terror, a real anguish of fear, lest she should never be able to get down again.

The Superior spoke to her. "Only a few steps more, and it will be done; we shall be at the top directly--in a moment." But the steps seemed to grow before her, and her guide's "directly" was half an eternity to the poor frightened soul. At last she almost hit her head against some wooden beams and rafters; she was under the roof, and before her was a small low door covered with curious iron-work; this was the turret-chamber which she was to inhabit. She stood despondingly in front of the door, but her guide opened it, stooped and went in before her--she too had to stoop in order not to hit her head as she entered the room. However, she was used to low doorways, that did not scare her, and inside the room it was not so inhospitable as on the dark, stone, spiral stairs. A first glimmer of day-light shone in through the lens-shaped panes of the turret window; it was only a narrow opening, high up in a deep niche in the wall, but three stone steps led up to it and a stone seat was built at the top of them so that one could look out at the distance or down into the valley according to fancy. A homely bedstead, brown with age, stood by the wall with a heavy wooden sort of roof, like a little house by itself, and curtains of faded Byzantine silk. Old and clumsy as it was, to the poor woman who was accustomed to sleep on nothing but straw, it appeared strangely magnificent, and she felt as if some one must be hidden in it--some grand personage, before whom she must bow low and speak softly so as not to disturb the sleeper. Puffy-cheeked cherubs were carved on the four bed-posts, just like round balls with wings attached to them. The walls were whitewashed and painted with saints; the little ivory crucifix over the embroidered but faded praying-stool seemed to greet her as a friend, and a cheerful fire crackled in the chimney. It was an ancient and venerable little room and it had an oppressive and solemn smell like that of a reliquary--partly of dried rose-leaves and partly of mould. The Prior showed her a large worm-eaten chest full of costly linen; as he opened the heavy lid the dust flew off in a cloud and little spiders scampered away.

"Look here," he said kindly, "You are in the room which was formerly occupied by the Lady Uta of Trasp, the wife of our blessed founder, when she came here on a visit from St. Gertrude's. She had this trunk full of linen clothes brought here for her use and desired that whoever might stop here as a guest should have the benefit of it for their use and comfort. So now you may wrap yourself and the baby in it; it will bring you a blessing, for it was spun by the innocent hands of the Lady Uta and her maids, and many a fervent prayer has been said over it." Berntrudis looked thoughtfully down at the linen garments; it touched her to think that her ancestress, the pious Berntrudis, should have helped with her hands to spin the web in which she, so long after, might clothe herself. But she would not waste time in unpacking the treasure, she pitied the hungry child.

"Go now, Brother Superior," said she, "while I give the child a drink, and when my husband comes with my little girl, send him up at once."

But the Prior put on a considering face. "What--" he said, "your husband up to you? That is not feasible; you heard--you are now under convent rule!"

The woman started up in horror.

"What! my husband may not come to see me! I shall never see him again? Then take your child back again. I will not stop. I will go away on the spot."

"Oh! what a wild fury!" exclaimed the horrified Prior, "to fly into such a passion at once; think of the sacred place you are in--would you cause a scandal among our chaste brethren by your foolish worldly affections?"

"That is all one to me. Only I must see my husband once more, else I shall die of heartache--if I had known it I would never have come--never, never."

"Think of the high wages--you will be made rich by the gratitude of the convent, your house will be raised, your husband freed most likely, absolved from his bondage to the convent--"

"That is all one to me," repeated the woman with increased vehemence. "If I can never see my husband I will not stop--do as you will," and she laid the baby on the bed and was hastening past the Prior and out of the room, but he held her back.

"In the name of all the Saints--stay; will you leave the poor child to starve? There is not another woman in the village who can nurse it and take care of it. Can you be so cruel?"

The woman burst into tears, and turned to the bed again.

"No, you shall not starve, poor little orphan--you cannot help it!" and she seated herself on the edge of the bed, took the child pitifully in her arms and unheedful of the monk clasped it to her breast; the child drank eagerly while her tears ran down upon it. The Prior turned away and stood puzzled. He remembered how in his childhood he had never dared to vex his mother while she was nursing his little brother for fear the baby should not thrive, if the milk were turned by her anger. What should he do now to soothe the wet-nurse?

"Listen to me," he said at last, "I know of another way out of the difficulty for you; I will allow you to see your husband again, outside the convent gate, now and then for half an hour; that I will take upon myself. If that will satisfy you, we are all content--the child, ourselves and you."

The woman sighed, but she nodded assent in silence. It was better than nothing, and she felt she could not let the child starve, she could never be happy with her husband again, if she had loaded her conscience with such a dreadful sin for his sake.

"Are you content with that?" asked the Prior again, for he had not seen her nod. The child had drunk till it was full and had gone to sleep; she laid it on the bed, she could not speak, but she went up to the Prior and kissed his hands in the midst of her tears.

"That is all right then," said he, glad of this happy turn, "I will see whether your husband is already waiting with the child and then you can speak with him at the little gate while we baptise this one. You shall be allowed to do so once every week. And I will get our brother, the carpenter, to carve you out a cradle that you may lay the baby in it, and you will see that you will not want for anything."

The monk closed the door behind him and the woman went up to the little loop-hole and pressed her hot brow against the small round panes. In the early dawn she could hardly see the roofs of Burgeis deep down in the valley and the scattered huts around it on the declivity and on the opposite side on the mountains freshly covered with snow. Hers was down there too, she could distinguish it quite plainly, for her sturdy, industrious husband had built it better and bigger than the others, and had loaded the thatch with heavy stones. The crowing of cocks from far and near came up from the depth below--so homelike! and hers among them--she knew his voice! She pressed her hand over her eyes--it was like a dream that she should be mounted up here in the lonely turret-chamber--so lonely; so high, high up, as if she were in prison.--Oh! if it were but a dream, if only she could wake up again in her husband's arms, in her own humble hut; never again would she follow any one who might come to tear her away from her husband's fond heart. How could she have done it--how ever could she have done it.

CHAPTER II.

Mass was over. The whole brotherhood had assembled in the underground founder's hall, to offer up a special thanksgiving before the effigies of the founders. This hall was the most ancient part of the whole building, and in it a hundred years ago the brethren had performed their devotions until the convent-buildings were complete. Bishop Adelgott of Chur had consecrated it, and remained there still in effigy. Since then it had been the custom to perform a thanksgiving-service every year on the founder's day, in honour of the venerable bishop and the noble patrons of the house, whose portraits were preserved there for the safe keeping of the subterranean vault.

Here also the pious feelings of the brethren had expressed themselves in beautifying care, and had clothed the damp walls down in the earth, where only roots can live, with the fresh green of the tree-tops that wave gaily in the upper air; the bright gleam of wax-tapers in two tall seven-branched candlesticks was reflected from the dark walls, as if the sun-shine, under which the busy convent-bees had gathered their store, had laid hidden in the wax itself, only awaiting its release. The natural incense of aromatic pine-wood filled the heavy underground atmosphere; thick translucent tears of resin hung yellow and sparkling from the freshly broken boughs, like drops of limpid topaz. The portraits of Ulrich of Trasp and his veiled wife Uta looked down with a gentle smile from thick wreaths of heath-plants and rue; and the text, "They only live who die to the world," which proceeded from the mouth of the founder on a golden ribband, shone in the light of the tapers like letters of fire. Over these the two shields of Ulrich of Trasp were displayed as precious relics; the shield of faith with a gold cross on a white field, which was presented to him by his companions in the faith in the Holy Land, and the shield of his house bearing a rainbow.

The thanksgiving was ended; but the Abbot detained the brethren for a hasty consultation. The fathers sat silent in a circle, and listened attentively to the Abbot's story of the fate of the hapless Lady of Reichenberg.

They are a circle of proud faces that look thoughtfully before them; proud of superhuman victories, proud of the consciousness of belonging to a band of men who by their iron strength of will have upheld the dignity of humanity, and have preserved the thoughts which can govern the world from the ruins of the decayed Roman Empire, from the horrible subversion of all social order; through the migrations of peoples, and the irruptions of barbarians; have saved them, and given them a sanctuary for the benefit of later and riper generations. Only one face accords ill with the quiet scene and its solemn setting; a good-humoured, crafty, smiling, Epicurean countenance with fat cheeks and piercing, sharp, glittering eyes under grey, bushy brows. It is brother Wyso, the registrar and historian of the monastery; the laughing philosopher who knows everything, and lets everything go its own gait. The world lies below him in a bird's-eye-view--so small, so insignificant--all humanity is to him like an ant-hill, and altogether amusing and comical; how they build, how they fight, how they marry, and at last are buried! he looks on at it all complacently, without love and without aversion, as at a colony of ants or a hive of bees. He never troubles himself with any enquiry as to how it began, and how it will end; he satisfies himself with the knowledge that it is. They dislike him in the cloister for this lukewarmness; then too he is "foul of mouth," and now and then gives utterance to loose speech that scandalises the brethren; for the rule of St. Benedict prohibits useless and gay discourse, unless it be to cheer the sick or the sorry; but they cannot accuse him of anything, for his conduct is irreproachable in all important matters, and much may be excused in a man of his learning. He needs must read of many unclean things and evil deeds of men, which are hidden from the other monks.

Brother Wyso is a man of between fifty and sixty years, stout and somewhat short of breath; for although Saint Benedict forbids the use of meat there are many other excellent gifts of God, and brother Wyso is very ready to give his attention to all permitted delicacies. On this occasion he makes a by no means cheerful face, for the Abbot has assembled them with fasting stomachs, and has not allowed them their morning-meal after the cold early mass. He pushes his short fat hands with a rueful shiver under the sleeves of his hood, and slaps the back of his left hand with the fingers of his right, casting a side-long glance meanwhile at his neighbour, brother Correntian, with a sort of mischievous curiosity as to whether any trace of the weakness of the flesh could be detected on his stony countenance; but he seems not even to perceive this, and his passive face is turned to the Abbot with unmoved attention. This brother is the strongest contrast to the smug little monk by whom he is sitting. A noble countenance is his, but furrowed by many a moral struggle, and set to stoniness by an assumed calm; a tall, lean form mortified by hair-cloth, scourging and chastisement; deep-set, dark, reproachful eyes--reproachful of the patience of Heaven that never falls on the sinner to smite him; of the light that shines alike on the evil and the good; of rosy cheeks and white arms, such as are often to be met in the village; in short of all that they gaze on, of all that thrives and rejoices or that is cherished or enjoyed. It seems as though it were darker just round him, as though he cast a deeper shadow than the others; and there is a wider space between his seat and those of his neighbours than between any of the rest. On his left hand sits Conrad of Ramüss, the brother of the deceased Lady of Reichenberg, a handsome man of about twenty. He has only lately come into the monastery, for he was a secular priest, and an eloquent speaker to the glory of the Lord. But his handsome person and the sweetness of his voice served the arch-enemy as weapons to turn against his pious efforts, and to turn all good into evil. There were too many foolish women who sinfully fell in love with him, and thought more of the sweet lips whence flowed the sacred lore than of the teaching itself; more of the servant than of his Lord. Such scandals vexed Conrad's honest zeal. It had too often occurred that ladies in the confessional had made him the confidant of their affection for himself, and had made the chaste blood mount to his cheeks for shame. So he fled from the world, laid these attractive gifts of nature in all humility on the altar of the Lord, and hid himself in cloistered solitude. Now for a year he has been a monk, and has never quitted his cell but for the services of the church and general refreshment with the brethren. Now all is peace in his soul, and though he knows that he is still very far from perfection, he strives towards it cheerfully and hopefully--his duties are his highest happiness, and what are all the joys of earth to him compared with this consciousness?

While the grey haired Abbot is speaking, his eyes linger with peculiar satisfaction on the high pure brow clustered round with fair curls, which rests thoughtfully on the slender white hand; and old Florentinus, standing behind the Abbot's throne, is involuntarily reminded of the still, peaceful corpse lying up there at St. Valentine's. Even in death the likeness is striking, and the tears which spring from the monk's eyes as he hears of his sister's hapless fate, confirm the relationship.

But many another grave and noble face is visible among the sombre circle in the light of the low-burning tapers, and with them many dry, hard and angular ones--as the same soil may bear very different fruits. There sits Bero, the oldest of the brethren, a modest and enlightened man, but of the severest principles; he has already been privately chosen to be the successor of Abbot Conrad I. when the old man should be gathered to the Holy Fathers of the Church. There is Conrad, surnamed Stiero or the bull, to distinguish him from Conrad the Abbot and Conrad of Ramüss; a man worthy of his surname,--a bull with a thick neck, and a broad, angular forehead moulded much as the heathen figured that Jupiter Ammon whom the Church overthrew after such a severe and bloody struggle. He is a man of no subtlety, but a strong bulwark of the faith and of the convent. So long as Conrad the Bull is there, no enemy will venture near, for his fist and his wrathful temper are everywhere known and none would brave them without good cause. There is brother Engelbert, the painter, who writes the exquisite illuminated manuscripts, Candidus the precentor, Porphyrius the sculptor, who chisels out the crosses and tombstones of the deceased brethren, Cyriacus, the Latin--and many more; Josephus, too, the lean brother-carpenter, sits modestly in the background little dreaming that his next task will be to make--an infant's cradle.

The Abbot finished his melancholy tale and ended with the words,

"You see, my brethren, the surges of the wicked world, rolling blindly on, have cast a young life on our sheltering shore. Yet, let us not say blindly--no, it is doubtless through some high purpose that this child has been brought to our house on the very anniversary of our founder's day. I have called you all together to take counsel with you as to whether we shall take him in or cast him out on the wild ocean of life?" "Take him in! take him in!" the majority of the brethren hastily exclaimed; but the sinister Correntian said, "Stay."

The brethren looked at him in surprise.

"If our venerable father, the Abbot, wishes to hear our opinion he may perhaps listen to my warning; reverend father, do not do it--my Brethren, do not receive this child within your walls."

The brethren muttered indignantly to each other, but he went on undisturbed. "It is accursed--it will bring the curse under our roof."

"A poor, innocent child!" murmured the circle of monks.

"Innocent or no it must expiate the sins of its parents, for even the mother is not free from guilt. She revelled in the dazzling levity of worldly joys, she consented so long to the courting attentions of the playmate of her youth that she excited her husband's jealousy, and who knows--if things had gone so far--how much farther--"

"Be silent!" thundered out a clear full voice. "Do not dare to calumniate the dead; her brother still lives to avenge her." Conrad of Ramüss stood before him with his fist raised and his lips pale and trembling. "I knew that chaste and lofty spirit as well as I know my own--she is dead--she died like a saint, and no stain shall come near her so long as my eyes are open and have tears to weep for her."

The scowling monk looked at him with a calm, cold, piercing gaze.

"What is this woman to you?"

"You have heard--my sister."

Correntian turned to the Abbot with an indescribable gesture of his head.

"I ask our venerable father--I ask all the brethren here in conclave--Has a Benedictine a sister?"

"No!" was the slow and soft reply--as if reluctantly spoken--from every man.

Conrad of Ramüss struck himself on the brow, and a bitter, burning tear forced its way from under his drooping lids. One minute of deep agonised silence, one brief struggle, and then the proud young head bowed humbly before the Abbot--"Punish me, my father--I had indeed forgotten myself."

"Ask your brother's forgiveness on your knees," said the Abbot sadly, "and for not having yet quite torn your heart free from all the earthly ties that hang about it, so that the evil demon of wrath could stir you up against your spiritual brother for the sake of an earthly sister--this you must expiate by a fortnight's nightly penance."

The young man kissed the Abbot's hand. "I thank you, father, for so mild a punishment." Then he knelt down before the offended monk and pressed the hem of his robe to his lips, "Forgive me, Brother."

The inflexible man raised him with the usual formula, "May God forgive you even as I do."

The brethren stood round in silence; not a face betrayed what one of them thought, but the culprit sank back on his seat as if exhausted, and cold sweat stood in drops on his forehead. Correntian went on, as if nothing had happened.

"And so I say the child must expiate the folly of a mother who thought more of her amusements than of God and her solemn and happy position, else would the Lord never have visited her with such a judgment. This child was dedicated to the Evil One ere yet it was born--it is his prey--we cannot snatch it from him, we shall only incite him to strive with us for its possession."

Then rose Conrad Stiero, the broad-browed: "Shame upon you, brother Correntian! How long have we Marienbergers been afraid of the Devil? In truth such cowardly counsel ill becomes you who boast of such a stony heart. Have we come to such a pass that we shall shut ourselves up in convent walls to pray and stuff in idle piety? Do you call that fighting for God when, so soon as we have to rescue a poor soul from the fires of hell, we put our fingers to the tips of our ears like burnt children and cry out, 'Oh!--it is hot--we will not touch it!' Give me the boy and I will go out with him into the wilderness, if you are afraid to keep him here--and wrestle for him with all Hell let loose!"

"You use too rough and uncouth a tongue, brother Stiero," said the Abbot. "But it shall be forgiven you for the sake of your good motive. Yes--brother Correntian, it seems to me that he is right and that it would be the first time if we now were to shrink like cowards when we have to snatch a soul from hell. How would God's kingdom prosper--of which we are the guardians--if it were not stronger than Hell."

"Aye, it is stronger," replied Correntian with eyes raised to heaven, "and it will and must one day triumph; the light must conquer the darkness; but as often as on earth the night swallows up the day, so often will the kingdom of darkness triumph over the kingdom of Light till the day of Redemption is come--the day when God's patience has an end and he destroys this earth."

"And shall we therefore withdraw from the fight like cowards?" asked the Abbot again.

"Nay, never could I think of saying such a thing," said Correntian. "But I ask you, what is the price of the struggle? Is this wretched child of sin and misfortune, whom the Devil already has in his power--is this I say a trophy worth struggling for with those evil spirits that every one would fain keep at a distance from his threshold? Besides a single handful may succumb, even if it belong to the victorious side; and so while the Church triumphs, churches and cloisters may fall; nay, even this our own convent, for they too are accursed who succour the child! If the blessing of the father can establish the childrens' houses and the curse of the mother overthrow them, will a father's curse be impotent think you? And how can you believe in the efficacy of a blessing, if you do not believe in the power of a curse?"

"God is righteous and does not punish the innocent," Bero was now heard to say. "And why have we been awakened from the darkness of heathenism to the bright light of the Holy Spirit, if like the ancients we persist in believing in a blind fate, conjured up by a curse?"

"The Devil--the Devil is the Fate of the ancients, and is at all times the same!" cried Correntian. "A parent's curse tears a rent in the divine order and in human nature, in which the seed of hell at once strikes root and, like a poisonous fungus, feeds its growth on all around it."

"Well--" said Bero with a bright look. "May be you speak the truth, brother Correntian, but if we were not fully capable of extirpating the brood of Hell by the power of the Holy Ghost and pure resolve there would be no such thing as guilt! We should be the helpless sport of Satan without any guilt or responsibility, and at the last judgment the Lord could not ask us, 'Why did ye this or that?'"

The Abbot and the brethren murmured assent; only Wyso and Correntian were silent.

"I ask you," Bero went on, "since God gives us the power to choose our own course of life and whether we will follow the path of virtue or of sin, can we prove incapable of guiding this boy into the way of righteousness if we all gather round him to watch every thought of his brain, every impulse of his heart, every glance, every breath."

"And yet it must come."

A voice like the breathing of a spirit spoke in the farthest corner of the hall; every eye turned towards the spot. A very small monk was leaning in the deepest shadow against a projecting pillar; his little grey figure was as inconspicuous as that of some little gnome, but his eyes were keen and bright, as if they could pierce the depths with their gaze, and their genial glance shone through the gloomy hall.

"What, is it you, brother Eusebius?" said the Abbot. "It is an event indeed when you quit your turret-cell to assist at the council of the brethren, and the occasion must have seemed to you a serious one for you to open your lips. Speak on--what do you mean? Who or what must come?"

The old man looked at him with a smile.

"Do you not understand me?" said he, and his eye rested thoughtfully on the excited circle. "There are only two sorts of just rights--the rights of Heaven and the rights of man. Man's rights are his share of the joys of Creation. If he casts them away of his own free impulse for the sake of the rights of Heaven he makes the highest effort of which man is capable, and the angels sing Hosannas over him. But never ought you to steal them from him--as in the case of this infant--for they are bestowed on him by his Maker, and it is Him whom you aggrieve. Bring the child up, but bring him up free; and leave him to choose, when he is ripe to make the choice. If he is called he will remain faithful, but let it be without compulsion. For if he is not called, better let him withdraw than that he should remain among you against his will, with a divided heart, half attached to the world and half to the Church--a tool with a flaw in it that shivers in the hand, and recoils on him who would use it. For the hour will come upon him which none can escape. Do you what you will--it must come upon him as it has come upon each of us. You know it well--only those that are called can triumph, and the weak fall in the conflict between pleasure and duty. Divisum est cor eorum, nunc interibunt--their heart is divided and they perish. And to you it can bring neither glory nor reward; for it depends upon the Spirit and not on the number of the servants of our Church, and never can an unwilling sacrifice be dear in the sight of the Lord."

Then Conrad Stiero struck his fist a mighty blow on the arm of his chair.

"What spirit, what human right?--'called' or 'not called!' We need strong arms to protect our venerable house, for we have fallen on evil times, and the nobles covet our goods and our authority. It is time to protect them as best we may. Shut him in and keep him close, then he will be ours and no one's else."

"I know of only one really sure way," said Correntian quietly, "and that is to blind the boy."

A cry of horror broke from every one.

"Shame on you, brother Correntian! are you a man?" cried Bero in wrath.

"You see how you start at an empty word! Ye feeble ones! Do you call the physician cruel who by one swift cut obviates future--nay eternal suffering? If any one had released me from the torment of sight and its myriad temptations while I was still slumbering in the cradle, I would have thanked him as my lifelong benefactor. However, fear nothing; I know well that no shedding of blood beseems us, and it was only an idea, suggested by the truest pity."

"You are a great man, Correntian, but fearful in your strength," said the Abbot, and the brethren agreed with a shudder.

But the little gnome leans unmoved and silent against his pillar; he feels no astonishment, no horror--he knows that there are many different growths in the Lord's garden; deadly poisonous plants by the side of wholesome and nutritious ones, and that each has its use and purpose. This brother Eusebius knows right well, for the hidden properties and relations of things are clear to his penetrating eye. He is the herbalist, the astronomer and the physician of the convent. He watches the still growth of roots and germs in the bosom of the earth as well as the course of the blood in the human body, and that of the stars in the immeasurable firmament, and in all he sees the same ordering, the same great inexorable law against which the creature for ever rebels, and which ever works out its own vengeance. But he says no more at present, for he sees that it would be in vain.

But Conrad Stiero would have no mistake as to his meaning,

"I say walls--they are the best security! Let Heaven and Hell fight for him, our walls are thick, and we will not let him go outside them."

The little man by the pillar folded his hands.

"Oh! human wit and human wisdom!" thought he.

"Allow me to say a few words," said Wyso, addressing the whole conclave, "and do not take what I say amiss. You are all dreamers, thrashing empty straw. The small thread of one's patience is easily broken when one has to listen to such idle talk on an empty stomach. What have we to do here with the Almighty and the devil? or which of them we may least offend? This is above all things a matter for the law, a trifle which it seems to me that you have all forgotten. If you have a mind to receive the child as a guest, and make a nursery of the old house, well and good, no one can prevent you; it is not forbidden either by canon law or by the rule of St. Benedict to give shelter to the homeless so long as they need it. But if you think of receiving the boy into the order--and your solemn talk seems to imply it--one of these days we shall find ourselves laid under ban and interdict, so that not even a thief on the gallows will ask absolution at our hands."

An uneasy movement ran through the conclave.

"Aha! now there is a stir in the ant-hill. But is it not so? Do you not remember that in the tenth canon of the Council of Trent under Pope Clement III. the Order was forbidden to receive as members children under years of discretion without the express consent of their parents? What? Have you any fancy to defy pope and bishop, church-law and interdict for the sake of this infant? I fancy that would be somewhat worse than a compact with the devil."

"Guard your lips, brother Wyso! remember Duramnus of Predan, who, as a punishment for his scandalous talk, was burdened for ever with a hideous, foul snout," threatened the Abbot. "You can never keep yourself from abuse and scoffing; what you say is good, but the way you say it is bad. Brother Wyso speaks the truth, my brethren," he continued, turning to the monks, who were ashamed of their own ignorance. "It appears that our senses are still clouded by sleep, or we should have thought of the new law. We cling too naturally to old usages, and it is difficult to accustom ourselves to such newfangled ways. However we must submit to them if we would not bring evil consequences on ourselves. It is true that the mother has given the child over into our keeping, but the father's consent is wanting, and so we cannot receive him. I say it with pain, for I would fain have held the vow of a dead woman as sacred. And I am grieved to thrust the child out among the wild waves of life. Still, so it must be, and we can but resign him to the mercy of him who clothes the lilies of the field."

At this point Conrad of Ramüss rose modestly.

"Pardon me, father, if I, though in disgrace, once more take part in your discussion."

"Speak, my son, only in a more becoming manner," answered the Abbot. Then the young monk went on,

"It is indeed true that we may receive no child without its father's will. But this child has no father. He who is called its father has cast it out and denied it; it is an orphan. Who--by the laws of the world--who takes its father's place, brother Wyso?"

"Its next blood-relation on the father's or the mother's side," replied Wyso.

"Well then," continued Ramüss, "I myself am its nearest relation, the boy's uncle, his mother's brother; I now am his father, and I dedicate him to the cloister."

A shout of joy from the brethren answered him.

"Amen, my son," said the Abbot. "I receive him at your hands, and I hope that we have acted rightly."

He turned to the pictures of the Tarasps. "Give him your blessing, noble and glorified masters, whose memory we this day keep holy." The conclave was over, they all crossed themselves before the pictures, and then went up into the light of day. They hastened to the sacristy to baptise the child, for the solemn tolling of the big bell was already calling the inhabitants of the valley to high-mass.

The morning-sun shot its bright beams through the tall arched windows, and scattered the mists and shadows that Correntian, the sinister friar, had conjured up.

"The light must be victorious!" This was the happy promise with which it filled all hearts.

The folding doors sprang open; the Prior entered with the child. It was prettily wrapped in the Lady Uta's white linen, and lay there flooded in a ray of morning sun-shine as if transfigured. And drawn by a strange and tender human emotion the younger monks gathered round the tiny brother that Heaven had sent them, and pressed a kiss of welcome on his sweet and innocent lips. And the celestial Mother of Sorrows smiled down on them from the wall as if she were indeed the mother of them all, and rejoiced to see her elder sons welcoming the new-born child as a brother.

No--this is no gift of hell--this heart-winning, sun-lighted child that rouses so pure and harmless a joy in every breast; and the Abbot lifts his hands in blessing, and says, "Donatus we will call him, my brethren, for he is given to us, and his name shall mean a gift."

"Yes, yes--he shall be called Donatus," cried the monks in delight.

"And now swear to me," continued the Abbot, "before we proceed to the sacred ceremony--swear to me on the innocent head of this infant--that you will help to preserve him for Heaven; that you will watch over the boy at every hour, and protect him from every temptation that may alienate him from us--and above all from that which is the devil's most dangerous weapon, to which many a youth has fallen a victim--from earthly love."

The brethren raised their hands in solemn asseveration and, like a pillar of sacred sacrificial incense, the steamy cloud from thirty throats rose to Heaven in one united breath, "We swear it!"

The brethren gathered round the child like a wall--stronger than those walls of stone of which brother Stiero had spoken, and brother Correntian towered above the rest like an invincible bulwark. But brother Eusebius silently shook his head and said to himself, "And yet it must come."

CHAPTER III.

There is an old story of a king of the dwarfs whose wife died in giving birth to the heir to the throne. This king chose a poor woman from the human race to be his son's wet-nurse, and as the woman would not come of her own free will the little dwarf-folk fetched her one night and brought her by force into the underground kingdom of the gnomes. The woman was not to be allowed to return till she had fulfilled her office of nurse to the little dwarf prince, and she lived a year in exile far from her people under the spell of the strange uncanny folks in their realm of ore and earth. She had to surrender all of her human nature, that gave joy to her heart in the fountain of life, by which the child was nourished--mother's milk and mother's love--but otherwise she might never be in any way human and her reward was barren gold. But she persevered, not for the sake of the gold only, but because motherly-love is so good a thing, a thing that grows with rapid increase, throwing out aerial roots that cling blindly to any support that is offered them. As the hen loves her changeling duckling, so the human foster-mother clung to her dwarf foster-child, and so the cloistered wet-nurse loved the child of the Church that had been forced upon her although she also felt that she was in a strange realm; in a realm between the grave and Heaven, quite other indeed and higher than the kingdom of the dwarfs, but inhabited too by uncanny beings outside and beyond all natural relationships, and having nothing in common with flesh and blood; and that the child to whom she was as a mother belonged to the same strange race. And the more deeply she felt this, the more painfully did her heart cling to the child to whom she had no right; that might never be truly human and that yet was nourished by the milk of a human mother. She knew not what her feeling was--it was a strange pity for the boy, so that she loved him almost better than her own child. Her own child had its natural belongings--a mother and a father--but this poor child had no one in the world. The cold and strong church-walls were its home and no human lip might ever touch it, nor its head ever rest on a soft warm human breast. And as if to compensate to it for all future privations she loved and kissed it with double fervour, and cradled it with double tenderness in her bosom.

Almost seven months had passed since the child was received into the monastery; a long time for the young and ardent wife who, as if it were a sin, could only slip away from time to time and by stealth to meet her husband behind the door where for months together the bitter wind blew the kisses away from their lips.

The cloistered nurse was sitting with her nursling at the dim little window in the east turret-room. It was a mild spring evening and death-like stillness reigned all round. Deep shadows fell on the bed of Lady Uta; one star threw its pale rays into the lonely room and they fell and were lost on the silk hangings, which Lord Ulrich had brought from the gorgeous East on his return from a pilgrimage. High up by the window something whisked by; it was a swallow flying home to the nest she had built at a giddy height on the ridge of the roof. The swallow was no better off indeed up there than Berntrudis herself--but she was free. So Berntrudis thought, and a deep sigh broke from her breast on which the children lay slumbering. In the corner, in Lady Uta's chest, she could hear the soft and regular sound of the death-tick, and the white linen hanging in the room--the linen woven by the chaste hands of the penitent Berntrudis of old--was stirred by the draught through the room to a ghostly flutter. But the warm living soul that sat by the window, looking longingly out to the distance--where human hearts might beat and not count it a sin--she was thinking neither of death nor of penance, but her pulses throbbed while she wondered how late it was and whether her husband would tap for her to-night at the convent gate? She closed her eyes and threw back her head while her full lips breathed a kiss upon the air--a message of love sent out to meet her looked-for husband. But he came seldom, he had quite run wild during this long separation; he was wandering about unsettled and discontented, she knew it well; and bitter anxiety gnawed at her heart.

Thus she waits evening after evening till her head-aches, and she throws herself wearily into bed. Then the soul of the heart-sick woman is nailed as with iron clamps to two opposite points--the present and the expected moment, and the farther these two points recede from each other the more the poor heart is torn--an invisible rack of which the tension almost cracks her heart-strings.

Out on the other side in the western wing brother Correntian was leaning his hot brow against his window panes and gazing out on the falling night. He had closed the window, for the evening breath of spring wafted up the sweet perfume of half-opened flowers, which soothed his senses--so he flung the window to. He who cannot resist the temptations of Satan in small things will never conquer him in great ones! So there he stood in the soft spring evening shut in by walls damp with the chills of winter, and he cast a reproving glance across to the eastern tower where the wet-nurse was housed. He hated this woman, he himself knew not why, but he hated her with a deadly hatred; as often as he met her--when occasionally she went down into the court-yard to fetch water or walked in the little garden with the child--he turned his eyes earthwards with horror and aversion, as if in the poor, sweet, blooming woman he beheld the snake that destroyed Paradise. He would have poisoned her with a glance, have torn her up like a root of sin if he could; he had to endure her presence, that he understood; but he could not leave her in peace in his thoughts, his hatred must needs pursue her even into her quiet turret-chamber--it dragged him nightly from his bed and forced him to go to his window, and watch and spy the strong walls that sheltered her, as the foe spies out in his antagonist's harness the joints through which he hopes to give him his death-blow. And he could see through those walls as though the stones were glass--he could always see her and loathe himself for doing so; see her wake in the morning and hold the children to her young and innocent breast--comb her long and waving hair--all--everything--he saw it all, whether he would or not. At this very moment he could see her, as she flung herself on her bed--and the kiss that her unguarded lips breathed into space.

But stay! what was that? was it a trick of his senses--the very spirit of his hatred that had taken bodily form and glided across the star-lighted court-yard to the eastern tower? He held his breath--he checked the beating of his heart.

A second figure stole along by its side and cautiously knocked at the little turret-door. The first, a sturdy, manly figure in a short tunic such as was worn by serfs, disappeared into the tower; the other--quite unmistakably the gatekeeper--glided back again and returned to the gate-house. It is the fisherman--the nurse's husband. He has bribed the gatekeeper and has stolen in to see his wife. Now--now he is up stairs, they are clasped in each other's arms.--Oh! shame and disgrace--that this should happen within the sacred precincts of the convent!

The monk was shivering as in an ague fit, all the suppressed fire in his blood broke out. Loathing, aversion--he knew not what--all the furies of hell were lashing him. He rushed raving down the rows of sleeping brethren.

"Up--get up--the cloister is defiled, do not suffer such disgrace. Up! holy Abbot--the nurse up there is receiving stolen visits by night from her husband. Is this house to be the abode of love making and shameful doings?"

The brethren flung on their cowls in hot haste; the Abbot came out in high wrath. "She promised me that she would obey the convent-rules and she is doubly guilty, if she has let in her husband and broken in on the peace of the cloister."

"We will soon have him out!" snorted Conrad Stiero, delighted that for once he should have a chance of fighting again.

"Are you possessed by the Evil One that you come screaming us out of our sleep like this?" said brother Wyso, bustling breathlessly up and treading on his untied shoe-strings as he went.

"Shame on you, brother Correntian," whispered he in his ear, "to spoil the poor woman's sport so--that is envy." Correntian started as if stabbed by a dagger--he threw a glance of flaming rage at Wyso and raised his hand threateningly. But he as quickly let it fall again, his face turned as pale as death, and his old stony calm suddenly overspread his wildly agitated features.

"That," said he, "is so base as to be unworthy of reply."

"A hypocrite even to yourself!" muttered Wyso between his teeth while the Abbot signed to the brethren to follow him. Then Conrad of Ramüss came modestly forward. "Most reverend abbot, permit that we--I and the younger brethren--remain behind. It seems to me that it is no scene for our eyes."

"True, you are right, brother Conrad," said the Abbot. "Accompany me alone, you elder brethren! but come softly, that we may not warn the evil-doers before we visit them with the penalty of sin."

So the stern judges went noiselessly across to the eastern tower with a lantern.

Up in the turret-room, there is whispering, soft laughter and crying, and silent happiness; the wife, taken quite by surprise, is folded in the arms of her husband intoxicated with delight. He has not told her why or how he has come, but the storm of joy in the poor soul that has thirsted so for love is so wild that she can only caress him and kiss him and will neither hear nor know anything, but that he is there--a lovely fulfilment of a spring night's dream.

But--voices on the stairs! coming up! A beam of light falls with fearful brightness through the crack of the door. Husband and wife start from their blissful dream; there is a loud and threatening knock, "Open the door to his reverence the Abbot," cried Conrad Stiero. There could be no delay.

"Be easy," said the man to his trembling wife, "am I not your plighted husband? What have you to fear?" and he went forward with a determined manner and let in the brethren.

"God and the Saints preserve us," said the Abbot as he went in. "Berntrudis--unworthy daughter of your pious ancestress, how dare you carry on such unseemly doings?"

"And what is the harm, reverend father," said the fisherman boldly. "If a wife makes love to her husband? I never heard any one call such doings unseemly!"

Correntian, who was carrying the lamp, lifted it up and let its full light fall on the undaunted speaker's face. It was a handsome, bold, manly countenance, not free from the traces of a wild life. The deep lines on the forehead showed that it was long since a woman's loving hand had smoothed it, his neglected doublet of frieze plainly told of wild wanderings in wind and weather. Correntian took it all in at a glance, he understood in that instant as if by inspiration all that the man had suffered, and, instead of pitying him, he longed to thrust a dagger into that broad breast where just now the woman had lain--the eager, loving woman that he scorned and hated. And as if some suspicion, some comprehension of this hostile glance had dawned upon the man's mind he answered with a wrathful flash from his large eyes, and for all at once the humble serf was turned into a raging fiend checked by no sense of bashfulness.

"Ay, you may look at me, monk," he exclaimed threateningly in his broad Rhætian accent, "I am what you have made me. Am I not smooth and fine enough for you great lords? You take away the dearest thing a man has--take it away as you did from me, so that he wanders alone about the fields and woods, and then do you think he will care to smarten himself up and streak himself down?"

"Woe upon you! what are you saying!" cried the Abbot. "You break in like a thief on the peace of the convent, you bribe the gatekeeper, you are guilty of such dreadful sin, and then you dare to speak like that?"

"I speak like one whose measure is full, and overfull. I have nothing but this woman and you take her away from me--take away a man's married wife and his heart out of his body, to suckle a strange child. What is the child to me that I am to sacrifice all that is dearest to me to him? Seven months have I borne it patiently and that is enough. The brat there can do without a wet-nurse now. My own child has shared its food with him long enough--look here what a stunted plant it has grown, while the strange brat has thriven and got strong; my heart ached in my body when I saw the poor little thing again!--I tell you plainly, for I am not clever at lying, I came to steal my wife away, my sacred property. But now I ask you--as you have found me out--give me back my wife and my child. I desire neither reward nor thanks, but I will have back what is my own."

"Spare your words, we have shown you too much favour in listening to you so long. What if we did take an impure and sinful woman within our sacred cloister walls against all law and usage, do you think we did so without any necessity and simply for our pleasure? The sacred vow of a dead woman which we were bound to honour was the solemn duty which compelled us to such an abominable proceeding. And when we received your wife we hoped that the sanctity of the place and the sacredness of her office would purify her vain heart so that she would not succumb to the temptations of sensual pleasures and base impulses and would cause no scandal to our chaste brethren. This indeed she solemnly vowed, and oh! Berntrudis, how badly you have kept your word! Alas! that the pure child of the Church should be compelled to drink from so impure a vessel. Willingly would I spare him this, of that you may both be very sure. Still, so it must be, we cannot yet dispense with your services, and if you had remained true to your duty, at the end of your probation we would have rewarded you and raised you up in the sight of God and man. As it is we must force you to do that which you do not do willingly. And you," he continued to the husband, "you who have broken into our house like a weasel into a dove-cot, in contempt of our prohibition under the severest penalties--you may thank us for the mild punishment we impose--you are under a ban not to come within a mile round the convent so long as we need the offices of your wife. You must go up to the moorland lake and catch fish for us there till the winter-storms next sweep down on the heath."

A cry of horror from the husband and wife answered this frightful sentence, the gentle Abbot had no conception of its cruelty. What could he know--a calm old man whose blood ran so sluggishly in his veins--of the passion and longing and torment of two hearts that have grown into one, when they are torn asunder?

Only one there present understood it; he who stood silent, his nails dug into his crossed arms--and yet of pity he knew nothing, that unsparing zealot who had no mercy on others because he knew of no mercy on himself. "I am suffering--you may suffer too" was the frightful thought by which, in his self-torment, he released himself from the duty of loving his neighbour. There he stood, the stony man, with an unmoved stare--the chaste and stern Correntian.

But Wyso shook his head and said to the Abbot in Latin, "Go no farther."

Berntrudis had fallen crying into her husband's arms and hid her face on his broad and labouring breast; but Correntian stepped forward with a hasty gesture, "Stand apart!" he said with pale lips. "Do not offend our eyes by such a sight."

The man lifted his sturdy head and the words he had kept between his teeth with so much difficulty broke out, "This is too much! Who is to forbid me kissing my wife--who can force me to believe that it is a sin when husband and wife make love to each other? You--you make a sin of it by forbidding it. By what right do you forbid a man and his wife to see each other--by what right do you put asunder those whom God and the Church have joined together?"

"The Church can bind and it can loose," said the Abbot wrathfully. "Do not call us to account."

"Why waste so many words?" muttered Correntian between his teeth. "He is the convent's bondsman--he and his wife; you can do what you like with him."

"You--with your gloomy corpse-face--" cried the infuriated man. "You are my enemy--even if you said nothing I could see it in your face. What have I done to you that you pour gall into the poor serf's little drop of happiness?"

"Now--come away, we are tired. Do you think we are going to spend the whole night arguing with you as to whether or no you will do the Abbot's bidding?" Conrad Stiero now threw in.

The veins in the fisherman's forehead were swollen with rage and he raised his fist threateningly.

"I am going," he said, "but not without my wife and child," and he put his arm round Berntrudis. "Let me pass or mischief will come of it!"

The Abbot drew back terrified, even brother Wyso started back, only Correntian remained immoveable. Stiero set his broad back against the door, but with a heavy lurch of his shoulder the fisherman pushed him almost off his balance, as if lifting a door off its posts.

"Oho! is that what you mean?" cried the monk, eager to fight, "then you do not know Conrad Stiero!" And with a mighty blow of his fist on his opponent's forehead he sent the strong man staggering back with a heavy fall on to the floor. "I will teach you to behave yourself, you clown!" said Stiero, kneeling on the vanquished man, and he bound his hands with the cord which he took from round his own waist. The woman had sunk on the ground by the side of her husband, and Correntian made a movement--only one--as though he would raise and support her; but he started back in horror of himself and left her lying there.

Stiero desired the man to rise. "You have found out now that we are no women under our cowls, to be frightened by violence. Now kneel down, poor wretch, and crave for mercy, for your life is no safer than that of a mad dog."

The man, with his hands tied across each other, stood silent in a stupor of despair; he knelt down as Stiero bid him, but he did not utter a word, he fixed his sullen gaze on no one, he knew his fate and had lost all hope.

"What do you think, my brethren," said the Abbot turning to the others, "shall we give him up to the provost to be judged?"

"Yes!" replied Correntian.

"Then his sentence is pronounced; he has lifted his hand against a priest, his life is forfeited," said the Abbot.

The woman gave a piercing shriek of anguish and fell at Correntian's feet.

"Pity--mercy!" she sobbed out almost mad with terror, and she clasped his knees with all the strength of despair, for she too felt that her ruin was lowering in those sinister eyes. A scarlet flush lighted up the monk's pale face--as the northern lights flash across a winter midnight-sky--he flung her from him and clung to the bed-post for support.

"If you do not have some regard for the nurse you will kill the boy," said a voice suddenly in Latin, and father Eusebius was seen standing by the unhappy woman as if he had sprung out of the ground.

"God be thanked!" muttered brother Wyso. "Here at length is a reasonable man."

Eusebius had looked on at the proceedings, silent and unobserved till it was necessary to speak; he raised the trembling woman from the floor, and kindly comforting her he led her to the bed on which she sank down powerless. Correntian let go the bed-post he was clasping, as if it had suddenly turned to hot iron.