“there are days of deepest sorrow
in the season of our life;
there are wild, despairing moments,
there are hours of mental strife;
there are times of stony anguish,
when the tears refuse to fall;
but the waiting time, my brothers,
is the hardest time of all.”
sarah doudney.
beside a gothic window, and under a groined stone roof, that afternoon sat a monk at his work. the work was illumination. the room was bare of all kinds of furniture, with the exception of a wooden erection which was chair and desk in one. on the desk lay a large square piece of parchment, a future leaf of a book, in which the text was already written, but the illuminated border was not yet begun. there was a pen in the monk’s hand, with which he was about to execute the outline; but the pen was dry, and the old man’s eyes were fixed dreamily upon the landscape without.
“‘in wisdom hast thou made them all,’” he murmured half audibly. “o lord, ‘the earth is full of thy riches!’”
it was early morning, for the illuminator was at work betimes. from a little cottage visible across the green, he saw a peasant go forth to his daily work, his wife watching him a moment from the door of the hut, and two little children calling to him lovingly to come back soon.
“and life also is full of thy riches,” whispered the solitary monk. “this poor hind hath none other riches than what thine hand hath given him. is he in truth the poorer for it? we live on thy daily bounty even more than he; for like thy lilies, we toil not, neither do we spin. yet thou hast given to him, as sweetening to his toil, solace denied by thy holy will to us. wherefore denied to us? because we are set apart for thee. so were thy priests of old, in thy temple at jerusalem: yet it was not denied to them. why should we love thee less for loving little children?”
the monk turned back abruptly to his work.
“ah me! these be problems beyond mine art. and whatso be the solving of the general matter, i have no doubt as to thy will for me. the joys of earth be not for me; but thou art my portion, o lord! and i am content—ay, satisfied abundantly. maybe, on the golden hills of the urbs beata, we shall find joys far passing the sweetest here, kept for that undefouled company which shall sue the lamb whithersoever he goeth. and could any joy pass that?”
the venerable head was bent over the parchment, upon which the grotesque outline of a griffin began to grow, twisted round a very conventional tree, with the stem issuing from its mouth, and its elongated tail executing marvellous spiral curves. the illuminator was taken by surprise the next instant, and the curve of the griffin’s tail then pending was by no means round in consequence.
“alway at work, father wilfred?” (a fictitious person.)
“bertram lyngern,” said the monk calmly, “thou hast marred my griffin.”
“what, have i made him a wyvern?”
“that had less mattered. a twist of his tail is square, thy sudden speech being the cause thereof.”
“let be, father wilfred. ’tis a new pattern.”
the monk smiled, but shook his head, and proceeded to erase the faulty strokes by means of a large piece of pumice-stone. bertram sat contemplating his friend’s work, curled up in the wide stone window-ledge, to which he had climbed from the horse-block below it. the lattice was open, so there was no hindrance to conversation.
“i would i were a knight!” said bertram suddenly, after a few minutes’ silence on both sides.
“to wear gilded spurs?” inquired wilfred calmly resuming his pen, and going on with the griffin.
“thou countest me surely not such a loon, father wilfred? no,—i long to be great. i feel as though greatness stirred within me. but what can i do,—a squire? if i were a knight i could sign my shoulder with the holy cross, and go fight for our lord’s sepulchre. that were something worth. but to dangle at the heels of my lord edward all the day long, and fly an half-dozen hawks, and meditate on pretty sayings to the lady’s damsels, and eat venison, and dance—father wilfred, is this life meet for a man’s living?”
the illuminator laid his pen down, and looked up at the lad.
“bertram,” he said, “just fifty years gone, i was what thou art, and my thoughts then were thine.”
“thou wert, father?” responded bertram in an interested tone. “well, and what was the end?”
“the end is not yet. but the next thing was, that i did as thou fain wouldst do:—i signed me with the good red cross, and i went to the holy land.”
“and thou earnest back, great of name, and blessed in soul?”
“i came back, having won no name, and with no blessing, for i knew more of evil than when i set forth.”
“but, father, at our lord’s sepulchre!” urged bertram.
“youngling,” said wilfred, a rare, sweet smile flitting across his lips, “dost thou blunder as mary did? is the lord yet in the sepulchre? ‘he is not here; he is risen.’ and why then should his sepulchre be holier than other graves, when he that made the holiness is there no longer?”
“but where then is our lord?” asked bertram, rather perplexed.
“he is where thou wouldst have him,” was the quiet answer. “if that be in thine heart, ay:—and if no, no.”
bertram meditated for a little while upon this reply.
“but seest thou any reason, father, wherefore i should not become a great man?” he said, reverting to his original topic.
“i see no reason at all, bertram lyngern, wherefore thou shouldst not become a very great man.”
still bertram was dissatisfied. he had an instinctive suspicion that his great man and wilfred’s were not exactly the same person.
“but what meanest by a great man, father?”
“what meanest thou?”
“i mean a warrior,” said the lad, “dauntless in war, and faithful in love—brave, noble, and high-souled, alway and every whither.”
“and so mean i.”
“but i mean one that men shall talk of, and tell much of his noble deeds and mighty prowess.”
“were he less brave without?”
“he were less puissant, father.”
wilfred did not reply for a minute, but devoted himself to hanging golden apples from the stiff boughs of his very medieval tree.
“the heroes of the world and those of the church,” he said at last, “be rarely the same men. a man cannot be an hero in all things. the warrior is not the statesman, nor is neither of them the bishop. thou must choose thy calling, lad.”
“yet a true hero must be an hero all the world over, father—in every calling.”
“how much hast heard of one master vegelius?”
“never afore this minute.”
“i thought so much.”
“who was he?” inquired bertram.
“the best and most cunning limner of this or any land.”
“oh! only a scriptorius?”
“only a scriptorius,” said the monk quietly—not at all offended. “and it may be that he never heard of some of thy heroes.”
“my heroes are alexander and charlemagne,” said bertram proudly. “he must have heard of them.”
wilfred dipped his pen in the ink with a rather amused smile.
“now, father wilfred!”
“i was only thinking, lad, that when i set up my hero, he shall not be a man that met his death in a wine-butt.”
“what?—oh! alexander. well, we have all our failings,” admitted bertram, reluctant to give up his favourite.
“thou sayest sooth, lad.”
“father wilfred, who is thine hero?”
“wist thou who is god’s hero?” asked the illuminator, laying down his pen, and fixing his eyes on the boy. “god himself once told men who was their greatest. and who was it, countest?”
“was it charlemagne?” eagerly responded the unchronological bertram.
“‘among men that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than—’”
“whom?” interpolated the boy, when wilfred paused.
“‘john the baptist.’”
bertram’s face fell with a most disappointed look.
“why, what did he? how was he great?”
“he was great in four matters, methinks, in one whereof only thou or i may not have leave to follow him. in that he foreran our lord, his deed is beyond our reach: but in three other concernments, in no wise. firstly, he preached christ.”
“that the priests do,” interjected bertram.
“do they so?” asked wilfred rather drily. “secondly, he feared not, when need were, to gainsay a master in whose hand lay his life. and lastly, he knew how to deny himself.”
“but, father wilfred! all those be easy enough.”
“be they so, lad? how many times hast tried them?”
“in good sooth, never tried i any of them,” said bertram honestly.
“then wait ere thou say so much.”
there was another pause; and then bertram found another question.
“father wilfred, what thinkest of sir john de wycliffe?”
“i never brake bread with him, lad,” said the monk, busy with the griffin.
“but what thinkest?”
“how should i know?”
evidently the illuminator did not mean to commit himself.
“is he a great man or a small?”
“god wot,” said the monk.
“hugh calverley saith he is the greatest man that ever lived,” said bertram.
“greater than saint john baptist?”
“his work is of the like sort,” pursued bertram meditatively. “’tis preaching and reproving men of their sins.”
“god speed all his work!” said the monk.
“father, what didst after thy turning back from holy land?”
“what all men do once a life. what thou wilt do.”
“marry, what so?”
“why, i became a fool.”
“father wilfred! i counted thee alway a wise man.”
“a sorry blunder, lad,” said wilfred, putting in the griffin’s teeth.
“wouldst say a court fool?”
“nay—a worser fool than that.”
“how so?”
“i trusted a woman,” answered wilfred,—bitterly, for him.
“father! hadst thou ever a lady-love?”
bertram’s interest was intense at this juncture.
“go to, bertram lyngern!” answered the monk, looking up with a smile. “be thy thoughts on lady-loves already? nay, lad; she that i trusted was a kinswoman—no love. little love in very deed was there betwixt us. and yet”—his voice altered suddenly—“i knew what that was too—once.”
“and she mocked thee, trow?” asked bertram, who expected a small sensation novel to spring out of this avowal.
wilfred worked in silence for a minute. then he said in a low tone, “forty years’ violets have freshened and faded on her grave; nor one of all of them more fair ne sweet than she.” but there was something in his manner which said, “question me no further.” and, curious as bertram was, he obeyed the tacit request.
“and what stood next in thy life, father?”
“this, lad,” said the monk, touching his cowl.
bertram did not consider this by any means satisfactory.
“well! all said, father wilfred, we come back to the first matter. what wouldst thou do an’ thou wert i?”
“soothly, that wis i not,” said the illuminator rather drily. “what thou shouldst do an’ thou wert i, might be easier gear.”
“well—and that were?”
“to set claws unto this griffin.”
“now, father wilfred! my work is not to paint griffins.”
“what thy work is, do,” replied the monk sententiously.
“but ’tis sheer idlesse! ’tis not work at all. it is but to wait till i am called to work.”
“the waiting is harder than the work,” replied wilfred, again laying down his pen. “if thou be well assured that waiting is thy work, wit thou that ’tis matter worthy of the wits of angels, for there is no work harder than to wait for god.”
“but ’tis not work, father!”
“if thou so think, thou art not yet master of that art.”
“of what art?”
“waiting.” wilfred’s pen pursued its journey for a moment before he added, “lad, this that i am on is but play and revelry. but the lack thereof—the time passed in awaiting till the lad that enscribeth the text have fresh parchment ready—that is work.”
bertram frowned and pursed his lips as if he could not see it.
“for forty years, bertram, all the wisdom of the wisest nation in the world was sometime taught unto a man named moyses. his work was to lead the chosen folk of god into the land that god should give them. but at the end of that forty years, he was but half learned. so for other forty years, he was sent into a wilderness for to keep sheep.”
“why, he were past work then!”
“nay, he was but then ready for it.”
“and did he lead the folk after all?”
“he did so.”
“and what gave him our lord for guerdon, when his toil was done?”
“was the work no guerdon?” responded wilfred thoughtfully. “well, lad, he gave him—a grave in moab, far away from home and friends and country, and from his land.”
“father, what mean you? that was no guerdon!”
“then thou wist not that jewels be alway covered with stone-crust, ere the cutter polish them?”
“soothly, father, i can see the stone-crust yonder, but verily mine eyes be too weak to pierce to the gem.”
“ah! our eyes be rarely strong enough for that. it taketh god’s eyes many times. they say,”—wilfred went on dreamily, scanning the white clouds which floated across the blue—“they say, the old writers of the jews, that this man moyses died by the kiss of god. methinks that were brave payment for the grave in moab. and after all, every man of us must have his grave dug some whither. is it of heavy moment, mewondereth, whether men delve it in the swamps of somerset or in the priory at langley? god shall see the dust as clear in either; and shall know, moreover, to count it his treasure.”
“father wilfred, where wouldst thou fain be buried?”
“what matter, lad?”
“i know where i would:—in the holy minster at canterbury, nigh unto the tomb of edward the prince, that was so great an hero, and not far from the blessed shrine of saint thomas the martyr.”
“ah!” said the monk with a sigh, “there is a little church among the hills of cumberland, that i had chosen rather. but the days of my choosing are over. i would have god choose for me.”
“but that might be the sea, father wilfred, or the traitors’ elms (tyburn.) by london, or the plague dead-pit.”
“child! when the lord cometh with all his saints, there will be no labels on the raised bodies, to note where the dust was found lying.”
and wilfred turned back to his desk, and took up his pen. both were silent for a time; but it was the old monk who resumed the conversation.
“thou wouldst fain attain greatness, bertram,” he said. “shall i tell thee of two deeds done but this sennight past, that i saw through yonder lattice as i sat at my painting? go to! i saw, firstly, a poor shepherd lad crossing the green one morrow, on his needful toil, clad in rough russet; and another lad lesser than he, clad in goodly velvets and brave broidery, bade him scornfully thence out of his sight, calling him rascal, fool, lither oaf, and the like noisome words—the shepherd lad having in nowise offended save by his presence. and i say, lad, that was a little deed—the deed of a little soul; a mean, base deed; and he that did it, except god touch his heart, will never be a great man.”
“but, father wilfred! i saw it—it was the lord edward; and he is great even now, and like to be greater.”
“mark my words, lad,—he will never be a great man.”
bertram looked as if he thought the proposition incomprehensible.
“well, the day thereafter,” pursued wilfred, “i was aware, in the very same place, of other two lads—bravely clad, though not so brave as he—bearing betwixt them a pail of water, for the easement of an halt and aged wife that might scarce lift it from the ground. and i heard the one say to the other, as they came by this lattice,—‘how if some of our fellows see us now?’—with his answer returned,—‘be it so; we do no wrong.’ and i say, boy, that was a great deed, the deed of a great soul; and i look for both those lads to be great men, though i verily think the greater to have been he that was in no wise shamed of his deed.”
bertram’s face was crimson, for he very well knew that on this occasion the heroes of wilfred’s adventure were himself and his friend, hugh calverley. he remembered, moreover, that he had felt ashamed, and afraid to be seen, and had taken his share in the act, partly from his own kindness of heart, but partly from a wish to retain hugh’s good opinion.
“shall i tell thee another tale, lad?”
“prithee, father, so do.”
“touching greatness in a woman?”
“by my lady saint mary! can a woman be great?”
“methinks, bertram, she was,” said wilfred quietly, “but it was not of saint mary, nor of any other saint, that i had intent to tell thee, but of one whom no pope ever took the pain to canonise, and who yet, as methinks, was the greatest woman of whom ever i heard. it may perchance astound thee somewhat, to learn that i am not purely an english man. my mother came from far over seas,—from dutchland, (germany.) in the dominions of the duke’s grace of austria. and when she was a young maid, at home in her country, that befel of which i am about to tell thee. it happed that in the court of the emperor’s majesty, (note 1) which at that time was albright (albert) the first, was a young noble, by name rudolph, count von der wart. my mother was handmaid unto my lady gertrude his wife, and she spake right well of her mistress. a young gentle lady, said she, meek and soft of speech, loving and obedient unto her lord, and in especial shamefaced, shrinking from any public note of herself or any deed she did. this lady had not been wed long time, when the emperor albright died. and he died by poison. some among his following had given it; and his judges sat to try whom. god wot who it were, and assoil (forgive) him! but some men thought that his cousin, sir henry of luxemburg, which was emperor at after him, had been more in his place at the bar than on the bench. the sentence of the court was that divers men were cast for death. and one of them thus convinced (convicted) was the young count von der wart.”
“but was he not innocent, father?”
“he was innocent. but he was doomed to the awful death of the wheel, and he suffered it.”
“pity of his soul!” cried bertram indignantly.
“and when the news was brought to the lady gertrude, she went white as death, and fell back in a swoon into the arms of my mother.”
“and she was borne to her bed, and brake her heart, and so died!” interjected bertram, who thought that this would be the proper poetical ending of the story.
“thou shalt hear. when the day of execution came, a great throng of men gathered in the market-place for to see the same. and when all was done,”—wilfred evidently shrank from any lingering over the harrowing details—“when the dusk fell, and the prisoners had suffered their torments, such as yet overlived were left bound on the wheel to die there. left, amid the jeers and mockings of the fool (foolish) throng, which dispersed not, but waited to behold their woe—left, with unbound wounds, to the chill night, and with no mercy to look for saving mercy of god. but no sooner were the executioners gone, than, lapped in a furred cloak, the lady gertrude left her house, and went out into the midst of the cruel, taunting crowd.”
“but what did she?”
wilfred’s answer was in that low, tremulous voice, which would have hinted to a more experienced listener that his sympathies were deeply stirred by the story he was telling.
“she climbed up on the great wheel, lad, and sat upon the rim of it; and she did off her fur cloak, and laid it over her dying lord; and when that served not, so strong was the shivering which had seized him, she stripped off her gown, and spread that over him likewise. and when in his death-thirst he craved for water, she clomb down again, and drew from the well in her shoe, for she had nought else:—and there sat she, all that woeful night, giving him to drink, bathing his brows, covering his wounds, whispering holy and loving words. and when the morrow brake, there below were the throng, mocking her all they might, and calling her by every evil name their tongues might utter.”
“how could she hear it, and abide?” (bear) broke forth bertram.
“did she hear it?” answered wilfred in the same low voice. “ah, child! love is stronger than death. so, when all was over—when count rudolph’s eyes had looked their last upon her—when his voice had whispered the last loving word—‘gertrude, thou hast been faithful until death!’—and it was not till high noon,—then she laid her hand upon his eyes, and clomb down from the wheel, and went back to her void and lonely home. boy, i never heard of any woman greater than gertrude von der wart.” (note 2.)
“i marvel how she bare it!” said bertram, under his breath.
“and to worsen her sorrow,” added wilfred, “when day brake, came the duke’s grace of austria, and his sister, queen agnes of hungary, and all their following, to behold the scene—men and women amongst whom she had dwelt, that had touched hand or lip with her many a time—all mocking and jibing. methinks that were not the least bitter thing for her to see—if by that time she could see anything, save rudolph in his agony, and god in his heaven.”
“and after that—she died, of force?” said bertram, clinging still to the proper and conventional close of the tale.
“she was alive thirty years thereafter,” replied wilfred quietly, turning his attention to a bunch of leaves which ended a bough of his tree.
bertram privately thought this a lame and impotent conclusion. for a few minutes he sat thinking deeply, while wilfred sketched in silence.
“father wilfred!” the boy broke forth at last, “why letteth god such things be?”
“if thou canst perceive the answer to that, lad, thou hast sharper sight than i. god knoweth. but what he doth, we know not now. passing that word, none other response cometh unto us from him unto whose eyes alone is present the eternal future.”
“must we then never know it?” asked bertram drearily.
“ay—‘thou shalt know hereafter.’ yet this behest (promise) is given alonely unto them that sue the lamb whithersoever he goeth above; and they which begin not that suing through the mire of the base court, shall never end it in the golden banquet hall.”
“but what is it to sue the lamb?” replied bertram almost impatiently.
wilfred laid down his pen, and looked up into the boy’s face, with one of his sweet smiles flitting across his lips. the sketch was finished at last.
“dear lad!” he said lovingly, “bertram lyngern, ask the lamb to show thee.”
note 1. a title at this time restricted to the emperor of germany. the first english king to whom it was applied, was richard the second. it is often said that henry the eighth was the first to assume it, but this is an error.
note 2. it is surely not the least interesting association with the castle of the wartburg, whose best-known memories are connected with luther, to remember that it was the home of rudolph and gertrude von der wart.
