CHAPTER XXX.
THE “KNIGHT OF ST. MARY” AND RIZPAH AT THE
GRAVE OF THEIR SONS.
“I am ascending unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.”—Jno. xx. 17.
The Teutonic knight was standing in silent contemplation of a pile of ruins, from the center of which rose a number of stately columns like so many mourners about a grave. These were all left of a stately old temple. Art had done nobly here once; now desolation was master, even the name of the structure being forgotten. The priest approached, questioning within himself as to how he would address Sir Charleroy, when they met. As he drew nearer, he thought here are two temples in decay. There came to his mind out of the distant past a vision of Sir Charleroy as he was when he stood erect, ruddy-cheeked and every wit a man by his bride’s side, the time of the wedding at Damascus. The priest, contrasting the man before him, now aged and solemn faced, with what he was then, thought “of the two ruined temples, the man is the sadder one. A quarter of a century slipping over a life, though with noiseless feet, generally leaves its tracks; if pain and passion have been the companion of the years, havoc is wrought.” Solemnly, and in measured tones, the priest’s meditations having given him free utterance, he spoke, quoting the words long before sadly pronounced by the Savior concerning Jerusalem’s holy place: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
Sir Charleroy slowly, very slowly, turning his eyes upon the speaker, observed him from head to foot, but uttered not a word.
Again the priest spoke: “Time has so changed both knight and priest, that they forget themselves; nor is it therefore wonderful, they should not remember each other.”
“Father Adolphus! Miriamne’s work?”
“What matter whose act if we see God back of the actor. I’ve a message from on high!”
“Why, thou dost astound me!”
“Methinks no man more needs astounding. May righteousness enter the gates opened by wonder, and so move thee into Rizpah’s home and thine; death is there!”
“Is there? has been! When love was slain, I shut out its bleeding form with the mourning robes of a long forgetfulness.
“There are hopes that die to live no more; so there are homes which bereft of their household Penates are doomed to grim ruin forever. See these giant dwellings. They tell it all.
“Thou art a Christian, I believe; but like the disciples, Cleopas and Luke, with eyes holden; not discerning the Lord.
“Just as some, having embalmed the body, looked into the tomb at a napkin only, seeing merely the place where He lay. Though puzzled that the grave’s seal was broken, they were still blind to the miracle of a new dawn, simultaneous with the unclasping of night’s grim arms. They had heard of the resurrection to be, yet they reasoned that the Promiser was surely dead. Love alone, in the person of Mary Magdalene, most loving because most forgiven, overleaped all doubts, disappointments and fears, to hie away in the thinning darkness, in an utter abandonment to her trust in the words of Him, to whom her heart was given. That was love indeed.”
“Oh, priest, ’tis so. A woman; a woman; leading in religion! I do not much bepraise her, for she, being a woman, easily could believe, where men doubted.”
“It would have been cruel to have crossed her faith, would it not, Sir Charleroy?”
“Yes, on my soul, yes!”
“Then go to the bier of thy boys. Let love overleap all obstacles.”
“But let me rest, priest. I’ve had the full draught of trouble’s cup. I’m quit of further conflict.”
“Thou believest? Listen:
“To whom also he shewed himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God——
“Christian Cross-bearing knight, hear me! The suffering Savior could never have revealed Himself, as the Almighty, Risen Christ, if there had been no cross. By what He suffered He had gain of power. Thy wrinkles, disciplines and all such like, fit thee now to minister in the chamber of death; even where now of all places on earth, thou art needed.”
“But my case is so peculiar, my home so unnatural!”
“Is there no balm in Gilead, Sir Charleroy? If thou and she have been great sinners, He’s a great Savior, and more, a patient one. Hast thou thought how He lingered near His followers in an overplus of love, lured from the triumphs of heaven, to personally deal, all comfortingly, all encouragingly, peculiarly with individuals? For thirty-three years in the flesh he wandered about, doing good, healing all those oppressed of the devil; but the finest hours of all His life lay in those forty days between the resurrection and the ascension. Well might He say to Mary: ‘Touch me not,’ when in love, she fain would have retarded Him by sentimental fondling. Listen now:
“‘I have not yet ascended: Go to my disciples, say to them: I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God!’ He was making a sublime accent along golden steps, and the number of those steps were ten and two, even as the number of Israel’s tribes.”
“I do not comprehend this mysticism, though the word-frame is beautiful.”
“Then know it. On the cross, Immanuel cried: ‘It is finished!’ Glorious salvation’s work was finished; but then He lingered still to bless, especially His friends. Count the steps. He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast the seven devils and who doubtless clung to the Savior, her only hope, her only deliverance from the awful realities of the tragedy in her soul. Thy Rizpah was never so ill as Magdalene, yet surely she is worthy as much tenderness.”
“Secondly. Jesus appeared to His mother; love’s appearing. I see her now, in mind, by the record here unnamed—left in the sacred privacy of her grief; too stricken to minister, but close to the triumph, because all needful of its blessing. I see a third step—Jesus, by special appointment, meeting the backsliding fisherman of Tiberias, now gone away to his nets, persuading himself he had done and suffered enough, even as does Sir Charleroy to-day.”
“I’ve been called Pilate. Go on. Call me Peter; I can bear it.”
“Fourthly. The Christ joined Luke and Cleopas, the Greek proselytes, now doubters; but the chill of their misgivings was burned away in hearts inflamed, while they journeyed to Emmaus.”
“Now call me Luke-Cleopas, priest. I’ve the chill of the doubts, I’m sure.”
“Fifthly. He came to His own little church-of-the-upper-room, to breathe on it peace and to display His all-convincing body; then He waited a week for a special unfoldment to Thomas, the all-doubter, leaving him filled with all faith.”
“Oh, that He’d come to Sir Charleroy!” said the knight.
“He does, but the knight’s eyes are holden, and he starves while toiling for fish in a dead sea. Listen to these words by the shore of Tiberias:
“‘Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.
“‘And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
“‘Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord.
“‘Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and giveth them, and fish likewise.’
“Oh, Sir Charleroy, cast in the net on the right side, then come and dine.”
“But I’m an odd man; not like others.”
“He that is All Fullness later appeared to multitudes of every clime, the representatives of the Church universal, ever full of odd people; again to the apostle of good works, James, called the pillar of faith. The tenth appearing was at Bethany, as the blesser and promiser to all. After that he showed himself to Paul, proof that he was a returning Christ, and, last of all, to John on Patmos. This the John that was care-taker of Mary, the mother; John, the all-loving. I read each page of the glowing Apocalypse as a love-letter from heaven to a mother, from a Son who carries eternally within His glorious heart the image of the woman great chiefly for her great love of Him. She loyally followed Him to the grave; He lovingly followed her beyond it. When he set John to picturing heaven as a virgin-bride and His Church as a woman clothed with the sun, Christ had surely the choicest of women, Mary, in His heart.”
“And the Heart of Heaven might well lovingly remember the mystical Rose,” quoth the knight.
“As heaven loved Mary, so should noble men love ‘bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh,’ as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it.”
“Thou wert never wed, good priest?”
“No; perhaps ’tis well so. I’ve had a work in helping those who were wed unhappily, to peace; forgetting, in serving their need, my own joy.”
“Then thou hast no idea of what it is to deal with a Rizpah as a wife.”
“I know she’s a woman; a marvel in her fidelity to her children. She may have infirmities, but there was a woman, bowed grievously for eighteen years, fully restored by one kind touch of the man, Jesus, ever all-pitiful and tender toward women.”
“But that one was willing to be healed.”
“No; she was trying to hide, but the Savior called her out, just to heal her.”
“Now, then, let me cross swords at close quarters, since thou dost press me. I ask thee, as a Christian priest, wouldst thou have me tolerate the sins of heresy in my own home? Remember, Jezebel, she beguiled Ahab, her daughter, Athaliah, and her husband, Jehoram, also, into gravest transgressions. So God’s people were led, little by little, to the groves of Astarte. I think I’ve a good parallel: Jezebel was the daughter of a priest, so this Rizpah of Bozrah. With her hot temper, pride of exalted birth, and a mouthful of arguments; a man meets such a woman as a pigmy, to crouch, or as a knight, to resist.”
“The name Jezebel means ‘chaste.’ Her pious namers must have respected chastity once. Her practices were all loyalty to Ahab and her children, though her theories may have been odious. All that is recorded of them, which engenders hate for her memory, is the hatefulness of the way she pressed her creeds upon others, the Jews. Which the more like Jezebel—Sir Charleroy or Rizpah?”
“But Rizpah was ardent to lay our love, and our children on her altar. Like the women who brought their jewels to Aaron to be transmuted into the golden calf! I could only protest, and I did.”
“Did not the men of Egypt and Israel first proclaim the worship of Apis? Were not the women merely following their lords? There are many women who defile their jewels because, with contempts that turn their hearts to ashes, their lords do not, as they should, wear both the wives and the jewels on strong and loyal hearts.”
“Oh, I perceive! Rizpah has been parading to thee her family troubles. A true woman would have rather given herself to nest-hiding.”
“Thou hast not hidden thy nest, but, like a wandering bird, fled it.”
“She never asked my aid; she left me in London.”
The knight was charging blindly, and defeated.
“It was not for her to crave, but for thee to lavishly bestow. She left thee? What better could Abigail have done than turn her beautiful countenance and good understanding away from churlish Nabal, who lived chiefly to gloat about the cross on which he had placed her?”
“Does the sacrist advocate divorce?”
“No! No rupture of the tie sealed in heaven; but when by recriminations a home becomes a living burial, a hell, then two houses are better than one. I feel here keenly, knight. My mother had a monstrous man, my father, in wedlock. He left her to battle single-handed for her little ones. Her patient, sad face comes ever before me. Oh, how she eschewed all other men, though courted by worthier than he; how she strove to hide my father’s faults and taught us, his children, to try to respect him! I was but a youth when he died, but I tell thee I dared not look upon his coffined face lest I should curse him, then and there!”
The knight cowered as if from a malediction.
“There, there! for heaven’s sake pause, Sacrist! Abashed at home, lashed by the teacher of the faith I’ve suffered to defend, I’ll be driven to flee to the wandering Bedouin, or to death!”
“They say Lucifer, unable to commit suicide, plunges headlong into the abyss when thwarted in any design.”
“Call me Lucifer; another epithet!”
“There are no black gulfs into which thou canst flee from the memories which conscience points to when duty is contemned.”
“Is it the priest’s purpose to harass my soul?”
“No; but rather to lead it back to its peace that thou didst leave long ago. There is only one way of return, that a very Via Dolorosa. Mary along it walked with her son, her God and Savior, to the cross and the resurrection! By the cross God gives, we go to our glory.”
“I’ve tried my best to be a loyal, Christian knight. Give me, at least, that award.”
“I can not praise justly; I dare not flatter; I must in all faithfulness say thou hast yet to learn the alphabet of loyalty, as interpreted by that glorious pair, Mary and the Christ—the triumphant Eve, the triumphant Adam. Thou hast been following afar off, nearer the flickering of Judas’ illusive lantern than to Him who pleaded amid His griefs, all self-forgetting, with His Roman guards to let His little band of followers depart unharmed. The woman whom thou exaltest as the queen of hearts is, after all, not thy pattern. Judas and Mary are in lasting contrast; he all treason, she fidelity’s choicest fruit. It is well to see to it to which one is the nearer. Oh, Gethsemane, garden of touching contrasts! There love was most grossly interpreted by the shrines of Baaltis; there most grandly interpreted by love’s sublimest offering that night the Saviour agonized. There twice the enemy of man did his almost worst; once by the rites of the groves, once in the wracking temptations of the Man of Sorrows. The arch-fiend was baffled, and then the ingenuity of hell was taxed to one last, most terrific and dastardly assault. What thinkest thou was the climax? The last effort to blot out the hope of man was made through betrayal by a kiss; the finest sign of affection befouled by treason! When the wedded betray each other, alas, for the world!”
Sir Charleroy surrendered now, exclaiming:
“Oh, Father Adolphus; again I see there is a mist on my knightly cross! I’m unworthy to wear the sign. It has been an emblem of death; I see it now an emblem of life and love.”
“Will the knight look on the dead faces of his sons?”
“Yes, yes! In the name of God, yes! Lead me as a child, for I’m nothing more.”
The knight was in the throes of transformation. He and the priest walked side by side, mostly in silence, broken anon, only by questions of Sir Charleroy’s, like these:
“Am I worth saving? Shall I ever become able to fully sound and truly express, in life, the depths of all thou hast told me? And Rizpah! what will Rizpah say or do?”
The old priest answered ever:
“‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ Himself shall give thee light!’”
The lone burial cave was reached. Nigh the two biers stood Rizpah and Miriamne and but a little way off Sir Charleroy and the priest. The maiden, with surprised joy, saw the two men, but Rizpah, busy with her thoughts, never lifted her eyes. The latter drew a slab away from the entrance of the tomb and then moaned: “Better I’d never been a mother.”
Father Adolphus seized the opportunity to say in deep, entreating tones:
“‘I will ransom them from the power of the grave: I will redeem them from death.’”
The mother supposing it was some kindly neighbor, still unnoticing any thing but the speaker’s voice, moaned on, sitting nigh the tomb-door, between the dead, a hand on each.
Then the old shepherd drew nearer, saying:
“Sisters of Israel, only believe. Beyond this stony gate there is an eternal home fairer than any dream. There all broken homes shall rise in joy, their treasures reunited and happy.”
Now Rizpah rose, and observing the speaker silently for a moment, she did not seem offended at the priest’s presence. Misery had overcome, at least for the time, her prejudice. Presently she exclaimed:
“My family reunited in heaven? Ah! that can not be, and if it were so, what joy to ever repeat the bickering, blamings and wrongs of this poor miserable life?”
“Thou wilt know as thou art known there and see eye to eye,” said the missioner.
“Oh, if it could be only so!”
“Wouldst like it so?”
“Yes, by the grave of my darlings, I swear it! I loved them with my life madly. All the love I had was concentrated in them. I knew when I began idolizing them that I had loved before full well my husband and daughter. I knew this, because the love I withdrew from them rushed forth to the boys. But my idols are dead, and now if my love do not dry up, it will hunger, feed on me myself, then turn to ferocity wolf-like.”
“Perhaps a husband restored may fill and enlarge thy heart. There never was a great sorrow but there stood near it a great joy,” spoke the priest.
“Ah, he is stubborn, I, perhaps, proud. Immensity is between me and Sir Charleroy.”
“Hast thou not yet had enough of pride’s dead sea apples?”
“Alas! why ask me?”
“If thou art ready for a better day, he may be.”
“Ready? I’ve always been. What I did for conscience sake and these children is done. What he did to me he only can undo, as far as the past can be undone.”
Then Miriamne waved her hand to her father, unseen by Rizpah, entreatingly, as if to say: “Come, but not too quickly, a little nearer.”
Sir Charleroy complied and not as a laggard, for Rizpah seemed changed from what she was in London. He now saw her as in those golden early days at Gerash. But the truth was, the change was chiefly in himself.
“Rizpah!”
“Sir Charleroy de Griffin!” replied the woman addressed deliberately, and apparently emotionlessly, as she fixed her eyes upon the knight. Then her eyes turned toward the tomb, seemingly inviting his to follow there their course. She stepped back and glanced from man to tomb, by the glance saying more plainly than words:
“That is thy work. Thou didst open that grave in my pathway.”
The knight stood by her side and put forth his hand to clasp hers, but with a respectfulness that betokened the cavalier and one not quite certain of his welcome.
Then spake Father Adolphus:
“Remember Damascus, both of you. Come, Miriamne,” he continued, drawing the maiden aside, “I’ve a giant’s grave to show thee.”
The priest and the maiden moved to a turn in the road and passed behind the crumbled wall of a Roman palace.
“But, Father Adolphus, where now? What of the giant’s grave?”
“Be content, girl. I mean the grave of mad love grown to mad hate. It will be made and deep enough by thy parents, but they can best make it alone.”
And Miriamne fell upon her knees in silent, grateful prayer; a great burden that had borne her down for years seemed lifted from off her. The Miserere that had wailed through her life so long now changed to an Easter anthem.
Father Adolphus after a time recalled her by a single question:
“Dost see the fierce woman and the vultures fleeing away before the coming of our Christian Mother of Sorrows?”
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE ROSE, QUEEN OF HEARTS IN THE GIANT CITY
There had come a great change to the home of the De Griffins at Bozrah, without and within. Shrubs and vines grew about the old stone house in profusion, birds sang contentedly at its casements, and kittens, undisturbed, played around its doors. These were tokens of the new inner life.
The queen of that domestic palace was happy; its king restored to his rights and duties; therefore there was abounding delight and peace within and without. Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, the two mature wed-lovers that abode there, had, out of all their estrangements and tribulations, come to understand at last that love grows out of law and is more than a sentiment, free to go when lured or flee from that which burdens. It was to them like a revelation from heaven to find that love is the vassal of the will and can be made to go where it ought, as well as be reined back from lawless rovings. They found there was great satisfaction in their efforts to be very agreeable to each other. Sir Charleroy constantly assured Rizpah of his belief that they were now more really lovers than they had been in those fervent days at Gerash. She believed this new creed with the avidity of a heart sore with long waitings for its proclaiming.
The knight bethought himself of a graceful advance, and introduced the matter with a sort of parable. “I’ve been thinking to-day that the only man whom I ever felt like kissing, the man who loved me to the full of his great heart, is present with us in spirit these days to joy over our reconciliation. I’ve felt a strange thrill at times which made me think I was touched by the glowing heart of Ichabod.”
“Ichabod?”
“Yes; he that fell in our defense the day of that perilous battle with those Mamelukes, near Gerash. Ah, he had the heart of a mastiff, the soul of a martyr!”
“Thy love is constant. But what’s in thy hand?”
The knight had hoped for the question.
“A token I took from his corpse. It was given him by a Copt priest, whose life he saved in Egypt. See.”
“I see a stone in a gold setting; on the stone an image, I think of a woman? I’ve noticed it with thee before.”
“I knew it! Once I thought thou didst observe it askance, as if a trifle jealous. Well, no more secrets, no more jealousies. What says Rizpah?”
“I say amen; and yet I say tell all, or none; either way I shall be content. Love’s trust, when full, has few questions and no doubts.”
“Nobly spoken, but yet I must tell all. The image is of Neb-ta, from the country of Hamites.”
“What an odd figure! Her head-dress, a basket!”
“The basket on her head and the little house by her side betoken that she was the presiding spirit of domestic life. I love Neb-ta! She ever reminds me of woman at her best, as a mother brooding her chicks.”
“Praise be the Patriarchs; they left us testimonies which makes it needless to go to Egypt for precepts concerning home-love!” responded the wife.
“But, Rizpah, thou dost divert me! Wait; I’m coming around with the patriarchs, by way of Jerusalem, to Bozrah.”
“Now, that’s a fine parade; I await it,” the woman, with quick reply, answered.
“Tradition says this Neb-ta will stand before Osiris and Isis in the judgment ‘hall of truth,’ where another deity styled ‘divine wisdom’ opens the books of men’s earthly deeds. As the great Anubis weighs them, Neb-ta stands by ready to cut away the failings of those weighed. When the scale of their merit is lacking, she herself leaps into it, to weigh it down in their behalf.”
“A pretty myth for grim old Nile Land!”
“It proves man’s belief that at last he’ll need help.”
“It is strange those women degraders should have allotted one of that sex so fine a part in the hereafter.”
“It illustrates the constant conviction in men’s hearts that woman’s sympathy abides to the last.”
“In some men’s hearts, say. All are not equally just.”
“I’ll be direct, Rizpah, and sincere. I’ve felt an indescribable unworthiness of all I enjoy here in the house saved and brightened by my wife. I’ve been saying, ‘Oh, that some one like Neb-ta would cut off my failings and enrich my merit.’”
Sir Charleroy, after this long journey around about, felt relieved. He had made his confession and waited his absolution.
Rizpah’s eyes brightened up, and, though bedewed, shone with the luster of gleaming affection.
He knew full well how to interpret that look, and evinced the quality of the interpretation by quickly embracing her. There passed between them salutations having the purity of manna, the lusciousness of Escol’s grapes.
“Will Sir Charleroy need to go to Egypt for a Neb-ta?”
“No, never, while I’ve an all-forgiving, all-blessing Rizpah!”
Encouraged by the success attending one simile, he attempted another later:
“I was thinking,” tenderly replied the knight, “that I’ve sinned against God in the name of religion, and unconsciously offered ‘the female lamb.’”
“Pardon my stupidity, but yet I do not gather what is thy meaning.”
“My Rizpah has been sacrificed for years.”
The wife tried to reply, “I’m no lamb without blemish;” but her tears and his passionate embrace, checked her utterance. To those without, there is much incomprehensible in the estrangements and reconciliations of human pairs, made utterly one in wedlock. If, since the Incarnate died for love, and the Temple’s veil was rent, there has been on earth an unrevealed Holiest of Holy places, it has been where wed lives, alienated, have been reunited. It is like a sacrilege to attempt its depicting to stranger eyes or ears. Many, for themselves, have been within that holy place; each twain meeting its own peculiar and varied experiences. But, having come forth with a natural and most meritorious reverence for the events of such supreme hours, they are wont to withdraw from human curiosity all that transpired, as completely as they hide from the world their souls’ dealings with God. They who have never been within that Holy Place, can not understand about what there transpires; those that have been there, defend their sacred right to keep from all the world that which they saw and felt, by refusing to give audience to the experiences of others.
Sir Charleroy and Rizpah, at the time of the foregoing conversation, entered serenely, lovingly that Holy Place. Then they took, as it were, wings of memory and shields of faith. The grim giant house was forgotten. Its walls seemed to thin away, until they had to themselves a broad, but secluded world. There was light, but not exposure; repentance, mutual, and forgiveness, not only free, but in every syllable seeming to have balm for healing. There followed an unutterable sense of getting nearer and nearer to each other. They felt as if they had but one will, and that guided by God; one mind, and that clear and heaven soaring. The only sense of being two, was in their beating hearts, and then two hearts seemed more blessed than one; for being two, there was the joy of their beatings for and against each other. Words fail; it would be sacrilege to go further. Let the curtain drop. Leave them with a thousand angels, winged and liveried in white, with wands of silence to keep watch and ward until morning!
On the morrow they knew that both had surrendered and both conquered. And by a paradox, to those uninitiated, each rejoiced as much in the surrender each had made, as in the victory which had been won by the one defeated. Defeat and victory was their common wealth. There was a full community between them, and that made both rich, whatever their possessings. Thenceforward, between them, there was perfect frankness and consideration; no sarcasms, no recriminations, and hence no need of foils nor masks. Christ had captured the Crusader’s heart, and he was now, as never before, able to reveal the King of his soul to Rizpah. She moved unconsciously into a beauty of character like unto that of Mary, and her heart began singing a ‘Magnificat.’ The woman was transformed, if possible, more completely than the man. For years amid hurtings she had schooled herself to reticence, and had been an enigma to all who knew her; but now, under the rising of this new sun, she opened as the blossom of early spring. Sir Charleroy, indeed all who knew her, attested delight and surprise; but Rizpah was as much surprised at herself as any other could be at her.
“I didn’t know I could,” she exclaimed often with laughter and tears. She seemed to break away and run from her former self as one from some phantom, as a child from a reputed witch, or a freed bird from a prisoning cage. She saw herself growing in all these things every moment and exclaimed, in the rush of feeling; “I could fly, I’m sure!” Then tenderly, “I would not, my mate, for a thousand worlds, unless thou couldst fly with me. No, no, Charleroy, watch my wings; they are thine; cut them if they grow or flutter for rising. If they do, they’ll do it themselves, without my willing.” Again the sacredness of the holiest came over them.
“Oh, Rizpah, I know, I knew this wealth of love was in thee; I’ve wondered often why I could not find it.”
“I did not know it, my lover king; I’m glad thou hast found it, for thy finding feeds me with light and glory! I’m carried back to Gerash and Damascus.”
“I think not. There were flaming swords at Eden’s Gate, after the fall. No going back; but the swords gave light for departure into broader places. I think that’s the symbol of the sword and the flame, Rizpah.” Again he spoke: “Hadrian built a temple of Venus over the tomb of Christ, but Hadrian and Venus are no more in power and there has been a resurrection from that tomb.”
“Ah, Sir Charleroy, I’m a child in thy creed, but I’m comforted by thy resurrection hopes, especially since conversing yesterday more freely than ever with our lovely child of God, Miriamne.”
“Hers is an angel’s visit, wife.”
“And angel-like, with filial spirit, she comes, this time, with request for our consent to an act of great import to her.”
“So; and what may it be? Though I know it can only be good.”
“She came to tell us, that she desires publicly to profess the religion of the Naz——of Jesus.”
Sir Charleroy felt a twinge of an old pain, and for a moment queried within: “Will the old struggle over faiths again confront us?” But he dismissed it with an unexpressed “Impossible, we’re all changed!” Then replied he quietly with a question. “Does the dear girl fully understand the seriousness of the act? If she do and then acts, I’ll be glad to commit her to Christ as her Bridegroom and King.”
“We cannot be with her always, and she seems determined to go through life unwed.”
“A Neb-ta, an angel spinster, mothering other people’s chicks! But what says my Rizpah of our daughter’s purpose to profess her faith?”
“I? This: God being my Helper, I’ll never again stand between Him and any soul, except it be to pray for that soul’s health.”
Just then the maiden entered bearing a lamp which suddenly lighted the room, now well nigh in darkness. She presented a most striking and suggestive figure. Her eyes were full of her heart’s chief question, and, standing in the light of her own bearing, she seemed to fitly represent the part she had borne in that household.
Sir Charleroy, anticipating his daughter’s question, greeted her with promptness thus: “Sunshine, thy purpose I know. It’s all between God and thyself. Go gladden Father Adolphus and Cornelius with an early profession.”
She was filled with surprise, and voiced its chief cause:
“Cornelius? He’s at Jerusalem!”
“Well, if so, ’tis wonderful, since I met him here to-day.”
“I wonder,” she meditated, meanwhile speaking her thoughts as if unconscious of those about her, “What brought him here?”
“Oh,” replied the father, “he says ‘to see Father Adolphus about the church of Jerusalem;’ but Father Adolphus says ‘the young man came because he could not help it, to see his good angel.’”
“‘His good angel!’ Whom?”
“Now, Sunrise, guess! When thou dost so, to make short work, begin with the good angel of us all, Miriamne.”
Miriamne lifted her hand reprovingly, but the tell-tale crimson hung confession on her cheeks, while her lips, wreathed in smiles, told her pleasure.
“Well, now, will my father go with me to good Adolphus about my profession?”
“As thou mayst like, but it will be easier to reduce three to two than four to two!”
Again the uplifted, reproving hand and the blush and Miriamne ran out.
“Do not reöpen that question settled once; it can only pain us both to recur to it.”
“‘Reöpened!’ ‘Settled!’” exclaimed Cornelius. “Not with me. Nothing in silence can settle it; and it is always open to me, sleeping or waking.”
“The consciousness of duty done comes like the breezes of Galilee, turning all moanings to a song within me.”
“Oh, Miriamne, who is it decrees that we, belonging, all, each, to the other, should be torn asunder ruthlessly? Duty, conscience! Hard metallic words when they describe the links of a chain! Ah, our misconceptions often bind us to pain; this one I cannot bear!”
“And yet, Cornelius, you told me in that Adriatic storm you could as easily drown a passion rising against righteousness as you could drown the body then, by a plunge into the billows!”
“You held me back when I moved forward to show how easily I could make the plunge.”
“But then you had no intention of leaping to death!”
“Not while held back by Miriamne!”
“I? Poor, weak I, hold you?”
“To me your touch has ever had persuasion and might! Oh, woman, you lead me captive to your will in chains riveted, unyielding, and yet of golden delights.”
“Say not so. We have each a great mission, but apart.”
“Apart! The decree that settles our courses that way is monstrous. It is not of God. He ordained that our race go in pairs. And when He set up the new kingdom of Jesus, its heralding disciples were sent forth two by two. As Moses needed his Hobab, Christ his confidants, so need I a yoke-fellow. I’ve no ambition to live, much less to work, unless I have my heart’s idol with me.”
“Illusion.”
“Call it ‘Maya’ if you like; but ‘Maya,’ Brahm’s wife, illusion, made the universe visible to him. So say those ancient mythologians. I can see nothing without my Miriamne!”
“Oh, man, hold; nor pain me further! I cannot help you. How can I, since my own chosen work seems too great for me! I’m like a mere shell, drifting with the tides, without sail or helm; the harbor unknown. I only know I carry a precious pearl, truth, and that there are those who need it. I must bear it to them.”
“I’m a shell, without helm or sail, and have the same pearl. Let me voyage with you.”
“And—what?”
“In all brevity—marry me!”
“That cannot be, I fear. I’d rather be the——. Can’t I be your ideal as Mary?” She blundered amid her efforts to express herself, and the tell-tale blush betokened defeat.
“Yes; be my Mary, and let me take the place as your Joseph. Mary was a wife and mother. The greatest of God’s works in the old dispensation was to translate men; in the new dispensation, seeking to surpass the old, He presented a perfect woman, in her highest estate, as the queen of a home!”
The woman was silent for time. There then seemed to her to be two Miriamnes, and the debate was transferred from being between the young man and herself to these two which she seemed to be. One Miriamne said “Yield,” one “Be firm.” One said, “He has the better reasons,” one said “Nay;” one said, “It is pleasant to be overcome,” the other said “Maya, Maya, Maya!” Then recovering herself she exclaimed, “I wish the priest were here; he’d guide us by the Divine word.”
“I have a holy text,” and drawing a line at a venture, the youth repeated these words:
“‘God said it is not good that man should be alone!’”
She smiled and stammered:
“Oh, Cornelius! I want to admire you and lean on you as my guide, teacher, pastor; but you meet all my approaches that way, transformed to a lover.”
“Maya! Maya! Miriamne; let the illusion work; sleep the Leathen sleep; yield to love’s dream; then comes the full noon to awaken to marriage joy. Thou wilt find, not above thee but at thy side, then, the teacher, guide; shepherd as well; but also the husband.”
Miriamne had reached a point of hesitancy, which is, in all lives, just a step from surrender, and the lover, made alert by his ardor, perceived the advantage. Though a prey to hopes and fears, an incarnation of paradoxes, in which bashfulness contested with audacity for control of the will, he gathered all his powers into a grand charge. With a tender vehemence he stormed the citadel of the heart before him. First he imprisoned her hand in his; he had done so before. Now it fluttered strangely; presently it rested as a bird; at first as if frightened, then helpless, then content. All that followed may be easily imagined. Suffice to say that Cornelius Woelfkin just then believed life worth living and the universe made visible, though not by an illusion.
Just as many another of Eve’s daughters placed as she in a tempest of delights, she confessed her capitulation by a series of retorts, which gave her relief from tears by affording apologies for laughter.
“No woman ever so loved as I now? You men all talk that way at betrothal!”
“‘To death!’ Miriamne, ’twill be true with me.”
“Yes, at betrothal and when their wives are dead, they say men are very affectionate. But, Cornelius, remember I’ll expect sweets between times. Do not love me to death at first, vex me to death later, then go mad for love’s sake after I’m gone!”
He vowed, protested and assured; she believed him without the shadow of a doubt. They were irrevocably committed to each other now. There was a rush of thoughts, plannings, questionings and hopes. Two lives apart converging, becoming mysteriously one. Over them arose that wondrous sun which illumines some betrothal days. They were both very happy, very proud, and also each to the other very beautiful. The harmless conceits of love possessed them and they persuaded themselves easily that they were at the center of all things, even of the infinite love of God. The glow of their own hearts brightened to them all things immediately about them, and they entered that arcana of delights where secret blessings may be experienced but can not be depicted. They ate of that hidden manna which is reserved alone for those who sincerely love and are loved. No being ever loved as they, who afterward despised or regretted the enchantment, although it brought some pain or at the last ended in disappointment. None ever having been for a season in that Beulah-Land but wishes himself there again. None who comprehends the thrillings of lover days can fail to envy more or less, if they are loveless, those who are in love as these twain were.
Much of the ridiculing of this grand passion, affected by some, is after all the result of envy, secretly longing for that beyond its reach. Sometimes the enraptured themselves attempt this deriding, but theirs is an hysterical laughter, a feeble effort to rest from the intensity of their rapture or to hide their secret from others. The laughter of all such as the foregoing is hollow and eventually turns the shame back upon the ridiculers who would cover others with it; for love, while it is an angel of sunshine, has also the power of carrying to every heart which shamefully entreats it remorse, humiliation and pains as numberless as nameless.
Cornelius and Miriamne, the young reformers, having embarked fully upon the full, glowing, exalting, triumphant tide of their love were themselves reformed and transformed. A while ago each was willing to die for the world, now each was willing to die, if need be, for the other and not for humanity’s sake, unless some way the heart’s idol was to be part of the reward of that sacrifice. This new tide carried them quickly to that place of paradoxical oscillations, the place where the lover is one moment utterly self-denying, the next utterly grasping; willing to be annihilated one instant in behalf of another, and then in an avariciousness without a parallel on earth, the next moment willing to annihilate the universe rather than be bereft of the one object deemed above all others.
The young lovers passed through the usual, often experienced, often depicted, old, old, ever new phases of this relation. The fire kindled in their hearts sped from center to center of their beings, the laughter of secret joy quivered along every nerve of each. Each was happier than it was possible to tell, even that other one that awakened the joy. Their gait, their blushing cheeks, their flashing eyes, and their words proclaimed unmistakable the complete coronation of love. They believed, and perhaps properly, that they were enjoying the seraphic, exuberant, mellow, yet exciting delights of an hundred ordinary lives merged into one. Each in turn, over and over, in repetitions that tired neither to utter nor to hear, said to the other: “I love you.” A rain of impassioned kisses made reply. Time was not observed; they forgot their former hurry, that pushed them earnestly, ever toward duty, when they were committed to being reformers. They were only and completely lovers now, and lovers are beings whose existence is in a heaven where there are no clocks. The sun set over Bozrah while the twain communed, but there was so much light in their hearts they did not observe the lull of night around them. Existence seemed to them a living fullness, a soaring upward without friction or effort, and they incarnated that which at last makes heaven, perfect desire perfectly satisfied. They were presently recalled to the things outside of themselves by the sound of some one approaching.
“It’s Father Adolphus. I know his step,” remarked Miriamne.
Cornelius, remembering his recent, successful assault, was encouraged to attempt another. His heart whispered to him: “Why not make this matter final now?” His heart seemed to grow pale and trembled at its own whispering, until he himself grew pale and trembled throughout his whole being, at the audacity of the thought. But love’s suggestions are ever very domineering; this one dominated the man instantly, and he acted on it.
“Miriamne, why not permit Father Adolphus now to seal our betrothal with his blessing?”
“He will bless us, I know,” quoth the maiden, evasively; but she knew what her lover meant full well. Not only so, her heart, against her judgment, was siding for the blessing.
The youth felt certain he had carried one line of defense, and now went charging onward, determined to carry all before him.
“Yes; he will bless us, I know, if we ask him. I’ll ask him, and then, Miriamne, mine, I’ll call thee no more sister, but wife.”
“Oh, you are in such a hurry! This is all too sudden. I—only wanted to be engaged—not married, perhaps, for years. We could work for the Master—”
She was interrupted, as victorious lovers usually interrupt.
Just then the priest entered. Miriamne tried to greet him with a smile and a sentence, but she was under a spell. She seemed to herself to be a different woman than she was when he last met her guide. She spoke a few meaningless words, which were lost in the vigorous utterance of her companion, as he explained the betrothal and requested its ratification.
The aged man of God looked tenderly down on both, and then questioned:
“Miriamne, I know his heart toward thee; is thine resting on his?”
The maiden drooped her eye-lids, but the tell-tale blush on her cheek gave answer.
“Shall I commit you to each other before God, forever!”
Her hand rose in an effort to restrain, but it fell back into her lap, as if unwilling to do so.
“Bless us quickly, good father, I pray you,” spoke Cornelius.
“Clasp four hands crossed,” said the priest.
The maiden’s hands joined those of the young man, and yet one drew back a little, as if to say, Wait. The motion was slight; then she found voice.
“But, Father Adolphus, do you think God will condemn, if we do?”
“God made such as ye are to love each other. What says thy conscience? Speak frankly now, girl; thou art with those that care for thee with an eternal regard.”
“My conscience does not condemn, and I commit all I am to the guidance of you two men. I feel quiet and safe in the committal.”
And the solemn sealing words were soon spoken.
“Shall I pronounce you husband and wife?” questioned the priest.
Cornelius, like a knight in full charge desirous of taking all before him as trophy, exclaimed quickly, confidently: “Yes, yes, all!”
Then Miriamne recovered herself in the emergency, and with maidenly dignity and tenderness, yet with unalterable firmness, said: “Nay.”
“But, Miriamne—”
The youth could proceed no further. He was defeated by the glance that met his, filled with pious, kindly, yet firm dissent. She spoke then freely.
“Before God we are affianced; the first step, as an Israelite, I’ve taken. We are now bound to each other forever. I am proud to wear the yoke of betrothal. We must wait before the final words are spoken, until we’ve seen my parents, and until God has given us further wisdom.”
She prevailed. Shortly after the foregoing, Cornelius, taking a tender farewell, returned to his work at Jerusalem.