Catherine groaned."There, give it up without more ado," said she.
"You two are chained together for life; and if God is merciful, that won't be for long; for what are you neither maid, wife, nor widow.""Give it up?" said Margaret; "that was done long ago.All I think of now is comforting him; for now I have been and made him unhappy too, wretch and monster that I am."So the next day they both went to Gouda.And Gerard, who had been praying for resignation all this time, received her with peculiar tenderness as a treasure he was to lose; but she was agitated and eager to let him see without words that she would never marry, and she fawned on him like a little dog to be forgiven.And as she was going away she murmured, "Forgive! and forget! I am but a woman."He misunderstood her, and said, "All I bargain for is, let me see thee content; for pity's sake, let me not see thee unhappy as Ihave this while."
"My darling, you never shall again," said Margaret, with streaming eyes, and kissed his hand.
He misunderstood this too at first; but when month after month passed, and he heard no more of her marriage, and she came to Gouda comparatively cheerful, and was even civil to Father Ambrose, a mild benevolent monk from the Dominican convent hard by - then he understood her; and one day he invited her to walk alone with him in the sacred paddock; and before I relate what passed between them, I must give its history.
When Gerard had been four or five days at the manse, looking out of window he uttered an exclamation of joy."Mother, Margaret, here is one of my birds: another, another: four, six, nine.Amiracle! a miracle!"
"Why, how can you tell your birds from their fellows?" said Catherine.
"I know every feather in their wings.And see; there is the little darling whose claw I gilt, bless it!"And presently his rapture took a serious turn, and he saw Heaven's approbation in this conduct of the birds as he did in the fall of the cave.This wonderfully kept alive his friendship for animals;and he enclosed a paddock, and drove all the sons of Cain from it with threats of excommunication, "On this little spot of earth we'll have no murder," said he.He tamed leverets and partridges, and little birds, and hares, and roe-deer.He found a squirrel with a broken leg; he set it with infinite difficulty and patience; and during the cure showed it repositories of acorns, nuts, chestnuts, etc.And this squirrel got well and went off, but visited him in hard weather, and brought a mate, and next year little squirrels were found to have imbibed their parents'
sentiments, and of all these animals each generation was tamer than the last.This set the good parson thinking, and gave him the true clue to the great successes of mediaeval hermits in taming wild animals,He kept the key of this paddock, and never let any man but himself enter it; nor would he even let little Gerard go there without him or Margaret."Children are all little Cains," said he.In this oasis, then, he spoke to Margaret, and said, "Dear Margaret, Ihave thought more than ever of thee of late, and have asked myself why I am content, and thou unhappy.""Because thou art better, wiser, holier than I; that is all," said Margaret promptly.
"Our lives tell another tale," said Gerard thoughtfully."I know thy goodness and thy wisdom too well to reason thus perversely.
Also I know that I love thee as dear as thou, I think, lovest me.
Yet am I happier than thou.Why is this so?""Dear Gerard, I am as happy as a woman can hope to be this side of the grave.""Not so happy as I.Now for the reason.First, then, I am a priest, and this, the one great trial and disappointment God giveth me along with so many joys, why, I share it with a multitude.For alas! I am not the only priest by thousands that must never hope for entire earthly happiness.Here, then, thy lot is harder than mine.""But Gerard, I have my child to love.Thou canst not fill thy heart with him as his mother can, So you may set this against you.""And I have ta'en him from thee; it was cruel; but he would have broken thy heart one day if I had not.Well then, sweet one, Icome to where the shoe pincheth, methinks.I have my parish, and it keeps my heart in a glow from morn till night.There is scarce an emotion that my folk stir not up in me many times a day.Often their sorrows make me weep, sometimes their perversity kindles a little wrath, and their absurdity makes me laugh, and sometimes their flashes of unexpected goodness do set me all of a glow, and I could hug 'em.Meantime thou, poor soul, sittest with heart -"Of lead, Gerard; of very lead."
"See now how unkind thy lot compared with mine, Now how if thou couldst be persuaded to warm thyself at the fire that warmeth me.""Ah, if I could?"
"Hast but to will it.Come among my folk.Take in thine hand the alms I set aside, and give it with kind words; hear their sorrows:
they shall show you life is full of troubles, and as thou sayest truly, no man or woman without their thorn this side the grave.