The gatekeeper on awaking had sought everywhere for the key in the utmost terror, but he had said nothing for fear of being punished, and as Donatus came in he started up angrily--"Who dared have done it?" But he was pacified as soon as he recognized him.

"You!" he said smiling. "Oh! you may be forgiven, for you are to be trusted."

"Aye, you are indeed to be trusted," said a voice suddenly behind him, and Correntian stood in the doorway of the little gate-house.

"Oh, Correntian!" cried the youth, making a movement as though to throw himself on his breast; but Correntian drew back a step.

"That will do," he said. "You know the rules of our order forbid such caresses. But I repeat it--you are to be trusted--for as you have come back to-day you now will never flee!"

CHAPTER V.

The day was drawing to its close. It was a sultry evening; lead coloured clouds swept across the sky; the swallows flew uneasily round and round the convent towers, their wings widely spread as if the heavy storm rack weighed upon them and hindered their flight. The veiled sunlight threw but a faint shadow on the sundial, pointing to the Roman _VII_.

Vespers were ended, the brethren were walking in the garden, silent for the most part and oppressed by the stormy atmosphere; not a leaf was stirring, even the bees hummed but lazily as they went from flower to flower, inconstant to each and seeking no plunder.

The Abbot detained Donatus as he was going into the house.

"Where are you going all alone, Donatus?" he called out. The youth stood still, but was silent, and the Abbot beckoned him to come back to his side.

"What ails you, my son?" he asked. "You seem to be ill. Your temples are throbbing and your eyes have a feverish wandering glitter; you have refused every kind of nourishment since yesterday--Tell me what ails you?"

"Nothing, father; I am quite well."

"Then some new temptation a.s.sails you, my son; for it is of no avail to tell me that all is well with you as usual," said the Abbot, and he drew him aside into a retired vine-alley. "You cannot deceive me, for I have brought you up from the time when you were four years old. My watchful eye has been upon you night and day, in joy and in grief, in health and in sickness. I know every line of your face and mark every shade that pa.s.ses over it, and you have become so completely one with me that every throb of your heart is felt in mine, and every burden that weighs on your soul oppresses mine. You cannot deceive me, and I am filled with a cruel forboding, as if some fearful evil were lowering over your darkened brow."

Donatus breathed painfully under the Abbot"s searching gaze; he was like a sick man who conceals his sufferings the longest from those that love him most. His eyes fell; an unutterable and tender sorrow came over him for the faithful guardian whom he purposed to betray in so frightful a manner as soon as sleep should have closed his watchful eyes.

"You are silent! You are concealing some evil from me?" continued the Abbot. "For I never before saw you thus. I am not satisfied at your having had so much private talk with Correntian since yesterday--and indeed one of the brethren declared that he had seen you steal at night to Correntian"s cell! What can you two have to say to each other?--Why, he has been your mortal enemy ever since you were old enough to think!

How is this! when such an unnatural alliance is formed there must be some terrible trouble or dividing of heart at the bottom of it. You are young and generous, you indeed may forget and honestly forgive--but not Correntian--never. He is a rock on which many a poor young heart has struck and bled to death when only a loving hand was needed to rescue it. It is this hard nature of his that alienates him from us all, and it is with the greatest anxiety that I see you falling into his power."

Donatus walked on in silence and reserve by the side of the Abbot, who waited in vain for his answer.

Presently the Abbot stood still, as if he would force the young man to look at him. "My son," he said, "Do you remember the evening when that sinister man tore you from your nurse"s lap, and how you struggled and screamed till I came and took you in my arms? Do you remember how you threw your arms round my neck and clung to me, and how I myself put you into your little bed, and you would not leave go of my hand till you had sobbed yourself to sleep? This heart of mine is still the same as when you found refuge in it, these arms are the same as those to which you then ran for protection; throw yourself into them again, my son, and shake off the burden that torments you, so that I may once more protect you against the powers of darkness that threaten you."

Donatus could bear it no longer; tears rushed to his eyes, and crying out, "My father, my dearest father!" he threw himself into the Abbot"s arms. The two men stood clasped in a mute embrace, but at this instant of sacred silence Correntian came hurrying up.

"For G.o.d"s sake," he cried, "go in! The storm is just over our heads, and it will be a fearful one," and he dragged them apart as if in dutiful anxiety for their safety.

They went into the house in silence. It was now bed-time; the younger brethren went to the dormitories, the elders each to his own cell.

"Good night, my son," said the Abbot, and his eye once more rested on Donatus with a mournful and searching glance. "Remember my words! And one thing more: Go up to brother Eusebius, and see if he needs anything. I am sorry that he should have felt too feeble to-day to come to table. Besides a talk with the wise old man will do you as much good, as a cooling draught." Then he called to the other brethren, "See, all of you, to the fires and lights, it will be a dreadful night.

At midnight we perform the ma.s.s for the soul of the Lady Uta; see that you none of you oversleep yourselves!"

Up in Eusebius" cell, as the Abbot had desired him, sat Donatus, opposite to his old friend in the dim light from the little window; the lurid clouds swept on in endless succession, grey on darker grey.

Eusebius was weaker than usual, but he was sitting up half-buried in books, parchments and instruments, writing-materials, rulers, compa.s.ses, and what not. For of all the fields over which the human mind had roamed there was not one which father Eusebius, in his quiet cell, had not explored and investigated. While he talked Donatus"

fingers were unconsciously playing in their fevered restlessness with the thousand objects that were lying about, and thus his hand fell on a large pair of compa.s.ses; they were half open, and the two sharp points were parted. He took them up as if absorbed in reflection, he closed his eyes and laid the two points on his eye-lids.

"I could easily put my eyes out with these," said he thoughtfully.

"Both at once with one blow. With a knife or dagger I should have to strike twice, and even if I had the courage for the first--for the second never--no never!"

Eusebius took the compa.s.ses out of his hand, and laid them on the table. "What mad words are you saying! What has put such hideous ideas into your head?"

Donatus looked wildly at him; his eyes glared strangely in the gloom that had gradually spread itself in the little room.

"I have often thought lately that a man who would fain avoid all love must put his eyes out," he said in a low and strangely tremulous voice, like a broken lute jarred by the wind.

Eusebius shook his head slowly and disapprovingly.

"Of what use would that be?" he said. "It would come all the same.

However sadly a man may picture it to himself, and fancy he has hedged himself in from it--man"s wit and man"s presumption always succ.u.mb to it; nay, even if he tore out his eyes and stopped his ears, it would be of no avail. Who would dare suppose he could prevent a tree from budding and sprouting in February? He can pull off the leaves, and cut off the branches, but he can not stop the rising sap that is working within. And it is not the devil that stirs the sap in the tree, and the blood in man--no, it is all wonderfully ordered by G.o.d the Lord who has made us thus. And though one of us may have succeeded in resisting the law of nature, it is only by some special grace of G.o.d who has stood by him, and helped him with particular favour; but that which he has vanquished in the fight is not the devil, but his own weakness which hindered him from freeing himself from the universal law to which all creatures are subject."

Donatus started up in horror. "Woe is me," he cried, "I may not listen to you! What spirit possesses you, your very words are a crime, G.o.d help you!" And s.n.a.t.c.hing up the compa.s.ses with which he had been playing, the boy fled from the room.

"Donatus!" called the old man, rising hastily to follow him. But a strange dizziness came over him, and he sank back in his chair; his hands and feet alike refused their service. The door of the cell had fallen shut, the old man was alone with his books and ma.n.u.scripts. He looked up in silent resignation at the wide and stormy heavens. The winds were rushing and roaring round the tower, nearer and nearer came the storm--but to the old man it seemed as if all that surrounded him were pa.s.sing into the far, far distance. Farther and farther away sounded the rolling thunder, and the outlines of the narrow walls that enclosed him grew fainter and fainter. They were parting asunder, vanishing away, these earthly walls and bonds, and infinity lay before him.

The hour-gla.s.s on the table had run down; it was the hour at which he was wont to turn it, and as the last grain of sand ran through, the old habit made him try to put out his hand; but the hand fell helpless by his side--the sand had ceased to run. The thunders paused, the winds held their breath, the light was extinguished. "And yet it will come!"

he whispered with his last sigh, and the liberated soul soared away into the empyrean without pain or struggle. There he sat silent and peaceful--the lonely dreamer, his head sunk on his breast, his hands folded--sleeping the eternal sleep.

A thunder-clap came crashing down on the convent, such a clap as shook the old building to the foundations, and all that were living crossed themselves in terror; only the still sleeper up in his solitary tower will wake and tremble no more. The brethren had all shrunk away to their beds; Correntian only remained without, calmly defying the uproar of the elements. Suddenly there was a repeated hasty and terrified knocking at the convent-gate; the porter did not hear it for the roaring of the storm, but at last it caught Correntian"s ever watchful ear. He went in and opened the door; outside there stood a strange child clothed in rags; her beseeching eyes shone with a weird brightness in the darkness, the storm and rain tossed her waving hair and it shone with a reddish gleam in the fitful flashes of the lightning.

"Where is Donatus?" asked the trembling child.

"Donatus!" exclaimed Correntian in horror. "Are the messengers of h.e.l.l sent for him already? Away with you--your eyes shine in the darkness like an owl"s--your feet shall not cross this sacred threshold!" and he made the sign of the cross over her; but she folded her hands over her innocent bosom and threw herself at the priest"s feet.

"My lord! my lord! my mother is dying, she was Donatus" nurse--she asks to see him; just once more grant her this last comfort."

Correntian pushed her wildly from him, "His nurse--is she there in spite of our prohibition? And has that snake engendered another snake that the race may not die out? Away with you, leave clasping my knees, or I will crush you like an adder."

"My lord! my lord!" cried the child wildly. "My mother is dying down there in the wood--without shelter--in the storm and rain. Pity, oh, pity--Donatus, where is he? Oh Donatus!" The storm carried away her words, the door closed with a loud clatter; no one could hear her cry of anguish, for it could not reach the monks in the dormitory, above the rushing and roaring of the rain in the dragon-headed gargoyles.

"Alas! and woe!" rang through the night. "Woe!" howled the storm from the forest as though with a human voice--"Woe!" groaned the whole terror-stricken earth under the crashing thunderbolts which fell clap upon clap in inextinguishable fury, rending the trees to their roots.

Dumbly and silently the old stronghold of faith stood on the giddy height, facing the unchained elements with its stony brow; and the uproarious strife raged round about it, as if it were bent on tearing it from its rocky foundations and hurl it into the roaring abyss. What is the meaning of all this fury and tumult, why have the whole rage and might of the elements concentrated themselves on this spot, why does the hand of Terror knock so fearfully at these silent gates, of all others, to-night?

They are the agonised cries of Nature, the eternal mother, over one of her children who this night is outraging her and himself; who is struggling in solitude with the very madness of self-annihilation, with none by to pity him. She rouses the brethren from their sleep, she thunders in their ears, she shouts to them in the wailing of the storm and in torrents of tears, "Rise up--save your brother!" They hear the warning indeed, but they understand it not; they start in horror from their beds and cross themselves, "Help, oh Lord! What is Thy purpose with us?" They pray in impotent terror and are full of some unspeakable fear, but they know not whence it came nor how it will end.

Now long drawn groans came up from the forest, each deeper than the last, striking as it were at the very roots of the building, collecting their forces for one mighty blow, one overwhelming shock. The house stood firm, but the beams groaned and the boards cracked under the pressure; the lime fell from the walls with a dull crack and the lead and tiles torn from the roof were flung with a rattle like hail on the stones of the court-yard and on the garden-beds, crushing and devastating everything. The fiery tongues from the clouds licked the spires with unsated greediness, discharging their electric tension with a deafening roar; and as if the waters of the abyss would fain extinguish the fires of heaven, they rushed in wild and foaming torrents from the mountains into the valleys, dragging the uprooted trees with them in their fall and dashing against the rampart-like wall as if they were Nature"s battering-rams.

"Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us!" prayed the brethren who had gathered together; a little trembling flock in the middle of the dormitory. Suddenly one of the brethren grasped his neighbour"s arm, "Look," he exclaimed, "up there in the eastern turret-window--do you see a light?" The monks could hardly look up, for at every instant the sky was all aflame and they hid their faces in fear. But it was true, they all saw it now--up in the window of the Lady Uta"s room there was in fact a dim light. Was it a fire?

had the lightning struck it? No, for it remained always the same. The brethren were seized with superst.i.tious horror; was Lady Uta"s ghost watching over her bequests--or was it Stiero the strong, now long since dead, and of whom it was said that he always walked when all the elements of nature were in revolt? The monks stood gazing helplessly, hardly daring to breathe, and half-blinded by the flashes. Should they call the Abbot? should they let him know? At this instant there was a blast so mighty that it seemed as if every joint and seam must part--as if the very earth must be blown out of its course, and they heard a crash on the pavement of the court-yard, while the windows flew open and the vessels and utensils danced on the shelves. It was the copper roof of the eastern tower that had fallen; the light in the turret window was extinguished. The monks fell on their knees, mechanically stammering out Paternosters. But what was that? Was it not a cry of pain from the tower? The brethren held their breath to listen, they convulsively clasped their rosaries in their cold hands and pressed them to their trembling hearts. There it was again--their blood ran cold, a long drawn cry of anguish was audible above the howling of the storm and the roaring of the waters.

At this moment the door was flung open and the Abbot rushed in, his lamp in his hand.