Chapter VI: Conclusion (2)

Nor merely is sorrow efficient in those who hope, but in even a higher sense does it attach to the character of Saviour. Apollo is, therefore, fabled to have been an exile from heaven and a servant of Admetus; indeed, Danaüs, in "The Suppliants" of Æschylus, appeals to Apollo for protection on this very plea, addressing him as "the Holy One, and an exiled God from heaven." Thus Hercules was compelled to serve Eurystheus; and his twelve labors were typed in the twelve signs of the zodiac. Æsculapius and Prometheus both suffered excruciating tortures and death for the good of men. And Dionysus--himself the centre of all joy--was persecuted by the Queen of Heaven and compelled to wander in the world. Thus he wandered through Egypt, finding no abiding-place, and finally, as the story runs, came to the Phrygian Cybele, that he might know in their deepest meaning--even by the initiation of sorrow--the mysteries of the Great Mother. And, very significantly, it is from this same initiation that _His_ wanderings have their end and his world-wide conquest its beginning; as if only thus could be realized the possibility both of triumph for himself and of hope for his followers. For these wanderers can find rest only in a _suffering_ Saviour, by the vision of whose deeper Passion they lose their sense of grief,--as Io on Caucasus in sight of the transfixed Prometheus, and the Madonna at the Cross.

It is worthy of more attention than we can give it here, yet we cannot pass over in silence the fact, so important in this relation, that Grecian Tragedy, in all its wonderful development under the three great masters, was directly associated, and in its ruder beginnings completely identified, with the worship of Dionysus. And this confirms our previous hint, that the same element which made tragedy possible for Greece must also be sought for in the development of its faith. There are those who decry Grecian faith,--at the same time that they laud the Grecian drama to the skies: but to the Greeks themselves, who certainly knew more than we do as regards either, the drama was only an outgrowth of their faith, and derived thence its highest significance. Thus the mystic symbolism of the dramatic Choruses, taken out of its religious connections, becomes an insoluble enigma; and naturally enough; for its first use was in religious worship,--though afterwards it became associated with traditionary and historic events. Besides, it was supposed that the tragedians wrote under a divine inspiration; and the subjects and representations which they embodied were for the most part susceptible of a deep spiritual interpretation. Indeed, upon a careful examination, we shall find that very many of the dramas directly suggest the two Eleusinian movements, representing first the flight of suppliants--as of the Heraclidae, the daughters of Danaüs, and of Oedipus and Antigone--from persecution to the shrine of some Saviour Deity,--and finally a deliverance effected through sacrifice or divine interposition. Examples of this are so numerous that we have no space for a minute consideration.

But certainly it is plain that the Eleusinia, as being more central, more purely spiritual, must in the thought of Greece have risen high above the drama. The very dress in which the _mystae_ were initiated was preserved as most sacred or deposited in the temple. Or if we insist upon measuring their appreciation of the Festival by the more palpable standard of numbers,--the temple at Eleusis, by the account of Strabo, was capable of holding even in its mystic cell more persons than the theatre. To be sure, the celebration was only once in five years,--but it was all the more sacred from this very infrequency. Nothing in all Greece--and that is saying very much--could compare with it in its depth of divine mystery. If anything could, it would have been the drama; but no wailings were ever heard from beneath the masks of the stage like the wailings of Achtheia,--no jubilant song of the Chorus ever rose like the paean of Dionysiac triumph.

* * * * *

Thus was the name of Dionysus connected with the palace and the temple, with the sepulchral court of death and the dramatic representations of life,--and everywhere associated with our Lady.

Sometimes, indeed, she seems to overshadow and hide him from our vision. Thus was it when the Eumenides in their final triumph swept the stage, and victory seemed all in the hands of invisible Powers, with no human participant: even as throughout the Homeric epos there runs an undercurrent of unutterable sadness; because, while to the Gods there ever remains a sure seat upon Olympus, unshaken by the winds, untouched by rain or snow, crowned with a cloudless radiance,--yet upon man come vanity, sorrow, and strife; like the leaves of the forest he flourisheth, and then passeth away to the "weak heads of the dead," ([Greek: nekuon amenaena karaena],) conquered by purple Death and strong Fate.

To the eye of sense, and in the circumscribed movements of this world, the desolation seems complete and the defeat final. But the snows of winter are necessary to the blossoms of spring,--the waste of death to the resurrection of life; and from the vastest of all desolations does our Lady lead her children in the loftiest of all flights,--even from all sorrow and solitude,--from the wastes of earth and the desolation of Æons, to ineffable joy in her Saviour Lord.

* * * * *

VICTOR AND JACQUELINE.

I.

Jacqueline Gabrie and Elsie Méril could not occupy one room, and remain, either of them, indifferent to so much as might be manifested of the other's inmost life. They could not emigrate together, peasants from Domrémy,--Jacqueline so strong, Elsie so fair,--could not labor in the same harvest-fields, children of old neighbors, without each being concerned in the welfare and affected by the circumstances of the other.

It was near ten o'clock, one evening, when Elsie Méril ran up the common stairway, and entered the room in the fourth story where she and Jacqueline lodged.

Victor Le Roy, student from Picardy, occupied the room next theirs, and was startled from his slumber by the voices of the girls. Elsie was fresh from the theatre, from the first play she had ever witnessed; she came home excited and delighted, ready to repeat and recite, as long as Jacqueline would listen.

And here was Jacqueline.

Early in the evening Elsie had sought her friend with a good deal of anxiety. A fellow-lodger and field-laborer had invited her to see the play,--and Jacqueline was far down the street, nursing old Antonine Duprè. To seek her, thus occupied, on such an errand, Elsie had the good taste, and the selfishness, to refrain from doing.

Therefore, after a little deliberation, she had gone to the theatre, and there forgot her hard day-labor in the wonders of the stage,--forgot Jacqueline, and Antonine, and every care and duty. It was hard for her, when all was ended, to come back to compunction and explanation, yet to this she had come back.

Neither of the girls was thinking of the student, their neighbor; but he was not only wakened by their voices, he amused himself by comparing them and their utterances with his preconceived notions of the girls. They might not have recognized him in the street, though they had often passed him on the stairs; but he certainly could have distinguished the pretty face of Elsie, or the strange face of Jacqueline, wherever he might meet them.

Elsie ran on with her story, not careful to inquire into the mood of Jacqueline,--suspicious of that mood, no doubt,--but at last, made breathless by her haste and agitation, she paused, looked anxiously at Jacqueline, and finally said,--

"You think I ought not to have gone?"

"Oh, no,--it gave you pleasure."

A pause followed. It was broken at length by Elsie, exclaiming, in a voice changed from its former speaking,--

"Jacqueline Gabrie, you are homesick! horribly homesick, Jacqueline!"

"You do not ask for Antonine: yet you know I went to spend the day with her," said Jacqueline, very gravely.

"How is Antonine Duprè?" asked Elsie.

"She is dead. I have told you a good many times that she must die. Now, she is dead."

"Dead?" repeated Elsie.

"You care as much as if a candle had gone out," said Jacqueline.

"She was as much to me as I to her," was the quick answer. "She never liked me. She did not like my mother before me. When you told her my name, the day we saw her first, I knew what she thought. So let that go. If I could have done her good, though, I would, Jacqueline."

"She has everything she needs,--a great deal more than we have. She is very happy, Elsie."

"Am not I? Are not you, in spite of your dreadful look? Your look is more terrible than the lady's in the play, just before she killed herself. Is that because Antonine is so well off?"

"I wish that I could be where she is," sighed Jacqueline.

"You? You are tired, Jacqueline. You look ill. You will not be fit for to-morrow. Come to bed. It is late."

As Jacqueline made no reply to this suggestion, Elsie began to reflect upon her words, and to consider wherefore and to whom she had spoken. Not quite satisfied with herself could she have been, for at length she said in quite another manner,--

"You always said, till now, you wished that you might live a hundred years. But it was not because you were afraid to die, you said so, Jacqueline."

"I don't know," was the answer,--sadly spoken, "Don't remind me of things I have said. I seem to have lost myself."

The voice and the words were effectual, if they were intended as an appeal to Elsie. Fain would she now exclude the stage and the play from her thoughts,--fain think and feel with Jacqueline, as it had long been her habit to do.

Jacqueline, however, was not eager to speak. And Elsie must draw yet nearer to her, and make her nearness felt, ere she could hope to receive the thought of her friend. By-and-by these words were uttered, solemn, slow, and dirge-like:--

"Antonine died just after sundown. I was alone with her. She did not think that she would die so soon. I did not. In the morning, John Leclerc came in to inquire how she spent the night. He prayed with her. And a hymn,--he read a hymn that she seemed to know, for all day she was humming it over. I can say some of the lines."

"Say them, Jacqueline," said the softened voice of Elsie.

Slowly, and as one recalls that of which he is uncertain, Jacqueline repeated what I copy more entire:--

"In the midst of life, behold,
Death hath girt us round!
Whom for help, then, shall we pray?
Where shall grace be found?
In thee, O Lord, alone!
We rue the evil we have done,
That thy wrath on us hath drawn.
Holy Lord and God!
Strong and holy God!
Merciful and holy Saviour!
Eternal God!
Sink us not beneath
Bitter pains of endless death!
Kyrie, eleison!"

"Then he went away," she continued. "But he did not think it was the last time he should speak to Antonine. In the afternoon I thought I saw a change, and I wanted to go for somebody. But she said, 'Stay with me. I want nothing.' So I sat by her bed. At last she said, 'Come, Lord Jesus! come quickly!' and she started up in her bed, as if she saw him coming. And as if he were coming nearer, she smiled. That was the last,--without a struggle, or as much as a groan."

"No priest there?" asked Elsie.

"No. When I spoke to her about it, she said her priest was Jesus Christ the Righteous,--and there was no other,--the High-Priest. She gave me her Bible. See how it has been used! 'Search the Scriptures,' she said. She told me I was able to learn the truth. 'I loved your mother,' she said; 'that is the reason I am so anxious you should know. It is by my spirit, said the Lord. Ask for that spirit,' she said. 'He is more willing to give than earthly parents are to give good gifts to their children.' She said these things, Elsie. If they are true, they must be better worth believing than all the riches of the world are worth the having."

The interest manifested by the student in this conversation had been on the increase since Jacqueline began to speak of Antonine Duprè. It was not, at this point of the conversation, waning.

"Your mother would not have agreed with Antonine," said Elsie, as if there were weight in the argument;--for such a girl as Jacqueline could not speak earnestly in the hearing of a girl like Elsie without result, and the result was at this time resistance.

"She believed what she was taught in Domrémy," answered Jacqueline, "She believed in Absolution, Extreme Unction, in the need of another priest than Jesus Christ,--a representative they call it." She spoke slowly, as if interrogating each point of her speech.

"I believe as they believed before us," answered Elsie, coldly.

"We have learned many things since we came to Meaux," answered Jacqueline, with a patient gentleness, that indicated the perplexity and doubt with which the generous spirit was departing from the old dominion. She was indeed departing, with that reverence for the past which is not incompatible with the highest hope for the future. "Our Joan came from Domrémy, where she must crown the king," she continued. "We have much to learn."

"She lost her life," said Elsie, with vehemence.

"Yes, she did lose her life," Jacqueline quietly acquiesced.

"If she had known what must happen, would she have come?"

"Yes, she would have come."

"How late it is!" said Elsie, as if in sleep were certain rest from these vexatious thoughts.

Victor Le Roy was by this time lost in his own reflections. These girls had supplied an all-sufficient theme; whether they slept or wakened was no affair of his. He had somewhat to argue for himself about extreme unction, priestly intervention, confession, absolution,--something to say to himself about Leclerc, and the departed Antonine.

Late into the night he sat thinking of the marvel of Domrémy and of Antonine Duprè, of Picardy and of Meaux, of priests and of the High-Priest. Brave and aspiring, Victor Le Roy could not think of these things, involved in the names of things above specified, as more calculating, prudent spirits might have done. It was his business, as a student, to ascertain what powers were working in the world. All true characters, of past time or present, must be weighed and measured by him. Result was what he aimed at.

Jacqueline's words had not given him new thoughts, but unawares they did summon him to his appointed labor. He looked to find the truth. He must stand to do his work. He must haste to make his choice. Enthusiastic, chivalrous, and strong, he was seeking the divine right, night and day,--and to ascertain that, as it seemed, he had come from Picardy to Meaux.

Elsie Méril went to bed, as she had invited Jacqueline to do; to sleep, to dream, she went,--and to smile, in her dreaming, on the world that smiled on her.

Jacqueline sat by the window; leaned from the window, and prayed; her own prayer she prayed, as Antonine had said she must, if she would discover what she needed, and obtain an answer.

She thought of the dead,--her own. She pondered on the future. She recalled some lines of the hymn Antonine had repeated, and she wished--oh, how she wished!--that, while the woman lived, and could reason and speak, she had told her about the letter she had received from the priest of Domrémy. Many a time it had been on her lips to tell, but she failed in courage to bring her poor affairs into that chamber and disturb that dying hour. Now she wished that she had done it. Now she felt that speech had been the merest act of justice to herself.

But there was Leclerc, the wool-comber, and his mother; she might rely on them for the instruction she needed.

Old Antonine's faith had made a deep impression on the strong-hearted and deep-thinking girl; as also had the prayers of John Leclerc,--especially that last prayer offered for Antonine. It seemed to authenticate, by its strong, unfaltering utterance, the poor old woman's evidence. "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," were strong words that seemed about to take possession of the heart of Jacqueline.

Therefore, while Elsie slept, she prayed,--looking farther than the city-streets, and darkness,--looking farther than the shining stars. What she sought, poor girl, stood in her silent chamber, stood in her waiting heart. But she knew Him not, and her ear was heavy; she did not hear the voice, that she should answer Him, "Rabboni!"

II.

A fortnight from this night, after the harvesters had left the fields of M. Flaval, Jacqueline was lingering in the twilight.

The instant the day's work was done, the laborers set out for Meaux, Their haste suggested some unusual cause.

John Leclerc, wool-comber, had received that day his sentence. Report of the sentence had spread among the reapers in the field and all along the vineyards of the hill-sides. Not a little stir was occasioned by this sentence: three days of whipping through the public streets, to conclude with branding on the forehead. For this Leclerc, it seemed, had profanely and audaciously declared that a man might in his own behalf deal with the invisible God, by the mediation of Christ, the sole Mediator between God and man. Viewed in the light of his offence, his punishment certainly was of the mildest. Tidings of his sentence were received with various emotion: by some as though they were maddened with new wine; others wept openly; many more were pained at heart; some brutally rejoiced; some were incredulous.

But now they were all on their way to Meaux; the fields were quite deserted. Urged by one desire, to ascertain the facts of the trial, and the time when the sentence would be executed, the laborers were returning to the town.

Without demonstration of any emotion, Jacqueline Gabrie, quiet, silent, walked along the river-bank, until she came to the clump of chestnut-trees, whose shadow fell across the stream. Many a time, through the hot, dreadful day, her eyes turned wistfully to this place. In the morning Elsie Méril had promised Jacqueline that at twilight they would read together here the leaves the poor old mother of Leclerc gave Jacqueline last night: when they had read them, they would walk home by starlight together. But now the time had come, and Jacqueline was alone. Elsie had returned to town with other young harvesters.

"Very well," said Jacqueline, when Elsie told her she must go. It was not, indeed, inexplicable that she should prefer the many voices to the one,--excitement and company, rather than quiet, dangerous thinking.

But, thus left alone, the face of Jacqueline expressed both sorrow and indignation. She would exact nothing of Elsie; but latterly how often had she expected of her companion more than she gave or could give!

Of course the young girl was equal to others in pity and surprise; but there were people in the world beside the wool-comber and his mother. Nothing of vast import was suggested by his sentence to her mind. She did not see that spiritual freedom was threatened with destruction. If she heard the danger questioned, she could not apprehend it. Though she had listened to the preaching of Leclerc and had been moved by it, her sense of truth and of justice was not so acute as to lead her willingly to incur a risk in the maintaining of the same.

She would not look into Antonine's Bible, which Jacqueline had read so much during the last fortnight. She was not the girl to torment herself about her soul, when the Church would save it for her by mere compliance with a few easy regulations.

More and more was Elsie disappointing Jacqueline. Day by day these girls were developing in ways which bade fair to separate them in the end. When now they had most need of each other, their estrangement was becoming more apparent and decided. The peasant-dress of Elsie would not content her always, Jacqueline said sadly to herself.

Jacqueline's tracts, indeed, promised poorly as entertainment for an hour of rest;--rest gained by hours of toil. The confusion of tongues and the excitement of the city pleased Elsie better. So she went along the road to Meaux, and was not talking, neither thinking, all the way, of the wrongs of John Leclerc, and the sorrows of his mother,--neither meditating constantly, and with deep-seated purpose, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!"--neither on this problem, agitated then in so many earnest minds, "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Thus Jacqueline sat alone and thought that she would read by herself the tracts Leclerc had found it good to study. But unopened she held the little printed scroll, while she watched the home-returning birds, whose nests were in the mighty branches of the chestnut-trees.

She needed the repose more than the teaching, even; for all day the sun had fallen heavily on the harvesters,--and toiling with a troubled heart, under a burning sun, will leave the laborer not in the best condition for such work as Jacqueline believed she had to do.

But she had promised the old woman she would read these tracts, and this was her only time, for they must be returned that night: others were waiting for them with an eagerness and longing of which, haply, tract-dispensers see little now. Still she delayed in opening them. The news of Leclerc's sentence had filled her with dismay.

Did she dread to read the truth,--"the truth of Jesus Christ," as his mother styled it? The frightful image of the bleeding, lacerated wool-comber would come between her and the book in which that faith was written for maintaining which this man must suffer. Strange contrast between the heavy gloom and terror of her thoughts and the peaceful "river flowing on"! How tranquil were the fields that spread beyond her sight! But there is no rest or joy in Nature to the agitated and foreboding spirit. Must we not have conquered the world, if we serenely enter into Nature's rest?

Fain would Jacqueline have turned her face and steps in another direction that night than toward the road that led to Meaux: to the village on the border of the Vosges,--to the ancient Domrémy. Once her home was there; but Jacqueline had passed forth from the old, humble, true defences: for herself must live and die.

Domrémy had a home for her no more. The priest, on whom she had relied when all failed her, was still there, it is true; and once she had thought, that, while he lived, she was not fatherless, not homeless: but his authority had ceased to be paternal, and she trusted him no longer.

She had two graves in the old village, and among the living a few faces she never could forget. But on this earth she had no home.

Musing on these dreary facts, and on the bleeding, branded image of Leclerc, as her imagination rendered him back to his friends, his fearful trial over, a vision more familiar to her childhood than her youth opened to Jacqueline.

There was one who used to wander through the woods that bordered the mountains in whose shadow stood Domrémy,--one whose works had glorified her name in the England and the France that made a martyr of her. Jeanne d'Arc had ventured all things for the truth's sake: was she, who also came forth from that village, by any power commissioned?

Jacqueline laid the tracts on the grass. Over them she placed a stone. She bowed her head. She hid her face. She saw no more the river, trees, or home-returning birds; heard not the rush of water or of wind,--nor, even now, the hurry and the shout; that possibly to-morrow would follow the poor wool-comber through the streets of Meaux,--and on the third day they would brand him!

She remembered an old cottage in the shadow of the forest-covered mountains. She remembered one who died there suddenly, and without remedy,--her father, unabsolved and unanointed, dying in fear and torment, in a moment when none anticipated death. She remembered a strong-hearted woman who seemed to die with him,--who died to all the interests of this life, and was buried by her husband ere a twelvemonth had passed,--her mother, who was buried by her father's side.

Burdened with a solemn care they left their child. The priest of Domrémy, and none beside him, knew the weight of this burden. How had he helped her bear it? since it is the _business_ of the shepherd to look after the younglings of the flock. Her hard earnings paid him for the prayers he offered for the deliverance of her father from his purgatorial woes. Burdened with a dire debt of filial love, the priest had let her depart from Domrémy; his influence followed her as an oppression and a care,--a degradation also.

Her life of labor was a slavish life. All she did, and all she left undone, she looked at with sad-hearted reference to the great object of her life. Far away she put all allurement to tempting, youthful joy. What had she to do with merriment and jollity, while a sin remained unexpiated, or a moment of her father's suffering and sorrow could be anticipated?

How, probably, would these new doctrines, held fast by some through persecution and danger, these doctrines which brought liberty to light, be received by one so fast a prisoner of Hope as she? She had pledged herself, with solemn vows had promised, to complete the work her mother left unfinished when she died.

Some of the laborers in the field, Elsie among them, had hoped, they said, that the wool-comber would retract from his dangerous position. Recalling their words, Jacqueline asked herself would she choose to have him retract? She reminded herself of the only martyr whose memory she loved, the glorious girl from Domrémy, and a lofty and stern spirit seemed to rouse within her as she answered that question. She believed that John had found and taught the truth; and was Truth to be sacrificed to Power that hated it? Not by a suicidal act, at least.

She took the tracts, so judging, from underneath the stone, wistfully looked them over, and, as she did so, recalled these words: "You cannot buy your pardon of a priest; he has no power to sell it; he cannot even give it. Ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, upbraiding not. 'If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him!'"

She could never forget these words. She could never forget the preacher's look when he used them; nor the solemnity of the assenting faith, as attested by the countenances of those around her in that "upper room."

But her father! What would this faith do for the departed?

Yet again she dared to pray,--here in this solitude, to ask for that Holy Spirit, the Enlightener. And it was truly with trembling, in the face of all presentiments of what the gift might possibly, must certainly, import to her. But what was she, that she could withstand God, or His gift, for any fear of the result that might attend the giving of the gift?

Divinely she seemed to be inspired with that courageous thought. She rose up, as if to follow the laborers who had already gone to Meaux. But she had not passed out from the shadow of the great trees when another shadow fell along her path.

III.

It was Victor Le Roy who was so close at hand. He recognized Jacqueline; for, as he came down the road, now and then he caught a glimpse of her red peasant-dress. And he accepted his persuasion as it had been an assurance; for he believed that on such a night no other girl would linger alone near the place of her day's labor. Moreover, while passing the group of harvesters, he had observed that she was not among them.

The acquaintance of these young persons was but slight; yet it was of such a character as must needs increase. Within the last fortnight they had met repeatedly in the room of Leclerc's mother. On the last night of her son's preaching they had together listened to his words. The young student with manly aspirations, ambitious, courageous, inquiring, and the peasant girl who toiled in fields and vineyards, were on the same day hearkening to the call, "Ho, every one that thirsteth!" with the consciousness that the call was meant for them.

When Victor Le Roy saw that Jacqueline perceived and recognized him, he also observed the tracts in her hand and the trouble in her countenance, and he wondered in his heart whether she could be ignorant of what had passed that day at Meaux, and if it could be possible that her manifest disturbance arose from any perplexity or disquietude independent of the sentence that had been passed on John Leclerc. His first words brought an answer that satisfied his doubt.

"She has chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her," said he, as he came near. "The country is so fair, could no one of them all except Jacqueline see that? Were they all drawn away by the bloody fascination of Meaux? even Elsie?"

"It was the news that hurried her home with the rest," answered she, almost pleased at this disturbance of the solitude.

"Did that keep you here, Jacqueline?" he asked. "It sent me out of the city. The dust choked me. Every face looked like a devil's. To-morrow night, to-morrow night, the harvesters will hurry all the faster. Terrible curiosity! And if they find traces of his blood along the streets, there will be enough to talk about through the rest of the harvesting. Jacqueline, if the river could be poured through those streets, the sacred blood could never be washed out. 'Tis not the indignity, nor the cruelty, I think of most, but the barbarous, wild sin. Shall a man's truest liberty be taken from him, as though, indeed, he were not a man of God, but the spiritual subject of his fellows? If that is their plan, they may light the fires,--there are many who will not shrink from sealing their faith with their blood."

These words, spoken with vehemence, were the first free utterance Victor Le Roy had given to his feelings all day. All day they had been concentrating, and now came from him fiery and fast.

It was time for him to know in whom and in what he believed.

Greatly moved by his words, Jacqueline said, giving him the tracts,--

"I came from Domrémy, I am free. No one can be hurt by what befalls me. I want to know the truth. I am not afraid. Did John Leclerc never give way for a moment? Is he really to be whipped through the streets, and on the third day to be branded? Will he not retract?"

"Never!" was the answer,--spoken not without a shudder. "He did not flinch through all the trial, Jacqueline. And his old mother says, 'Blessed be Jesus Christ and his witnesses!'"

"I came from Domrémy," seemed to be in the girl's thought again; for her eyes flashed when she looked at Victor Le Roy, as though she could believe the heavens would open for the enlightening of such believers.

"She gave me those to read," said she, pointing to the tracts she had given him.

"And have you been reading them here by yourself?"

"No. Elsie and I were to have read them together; but I fell to thinking."

"You mean to wait for her, then?"

"I was afraid I should not make the right sense of them."

"Sit down, Jacqueline, and let me read aloud. I have read them before. And I understand them better than Elsie does, or ever will."

"I am afraid that is true, Sir. If you read, I will listen."

But he did not, with this permission, begin instantly.

"You came from Domrémy, Jacqueline," said he. "I came from Picardy. My home was within a stone's throw of the castle where Jeanne d'Arc was a prisoner before they carried her to Rouen. I have often walked about that castle and tried to think how it must have been with her when they left her there a prisoner. God knows, perhaps we shall all have an opportunity of knowing, how she felt when a prisoner of Truth. Like a fly in a spider's net she was, poor girl! Only nineteen! She had lived a life that was worth the living, Jacqueline. She knew she was about to meet the fate her heart must have foretold. Girls do not run such a course and then die quietly in their beds. They are attended to their rest by grim sentinels, and they light fagots for them. I have read the story many a time, when I could look at the window of the very room where she was a prisoner. It was strange to think of her witnessing the crowning of the King, with the conviction that her work ended there and then,--of the women who brought their children to touch her garments or her hands, to let her smile on them, or speak to them, or maybe kiss them. And the soldiers deemed their swords were stronger when they had but touched hers. And they knelt down to kiss her standard, that white standard, so often victorious! I have read many a time of that glorious day at Rheims."

"And she said, _that_ day,' Oh, why can I not die here?'" said Jacqueline, with a low voice.

"And when the Archbishop asked her," continued Victor, "'Where do you, then, expect to die?' she answered, 'I know not. I shall die where God pleases. I have done what the Lord my God commanded me; and I wish that He would now send me to keep my sheep with my mother and sister.'"

"Because she loved Domrémy, and her work was done," said Jacqueline, sadly. "And so many hated her! But her mother would be sure to love. Jeanne would never see an evil eye in Domrémy, and no one would lie in wait to kill her in the Vosges woods."

"It was such as you, Jacqueline, who believed in her, and comforted her. And to every one that consoled her Christ will surely say, 'Ye blessed of my Father, ye did it unto me!' Yes, to be sure, there were too many who stood ready to kill her in all France,--besides those who were afraid of her, and fought against our armies. Even when they were taking her to see the Dauphin, the guard would have drowned her, and lied about it, but they were restrained. It is something to have been born in Domrémy,--to have grown up in the very place where she used to play, a happy little girl. You have seen that fountain, and heard the bells she loved so much. It was good for you, I know."

"Her prayers were everywhere," Jacqueline replied. "Everywhere she heard the voices that called her to come and deliver France. But her father did not believe in her. He persecuted Jeanne."

"A man's foes are of his own household," said Victor. "You see the same thing now. It is the very family of Christ--yes! so they dare call it--who are going to tear and rend Leclerc to-morrow for believing the words of Christ. A hundred judges settled that Jeanne should be burned; and for believing such words as are in these books"--

"Read me those words," said Jacqueline.

So they turned from speaking of Joan and her work, to contemplate another style of heroism, and to question their own hearts.

Jacqueline Gabrie had lived through eighteen years of hardship and exposure. She was strong, contented, resolute. Left to herself, she would probably have suffered no disturbance of her creed,--would have lived and died conforming to the letter of its law. But thrown under the influence of those who did agitate the subject, she was brave and clear-headed. She listened now, while, according to her wish, her neighbor read,--listened with clear intelligence, intent on the truth. That, or any truth, accepted, she would hardly shrink from whatever it involved. This was the reason why she had really feared to ask the Holy Ghost's enlightenment! So well she understood herself! Truth was truth, and, if received, to be abided by. She could not hold it loosely. She could not trifle with it. She was born in Domrémy. She had played under the Fairy Oak. She knew the woods where Joan wandered when she sought her saintly solitude. The fact was acting on her as an inspiration, when Domrémy became a memory, when she labored far away from the wooded Vosges and the meadows of Lorraine.

She listened to the reading, as girls do not always listen when they sit in the presence of a reader such as young Le Roy.

And let it here be understood--that the conclusion bring no sorrow, and no sense of wrong to those who turn these pages, thinking to find the climax dear to half-fledged imagination, incapable from inexperience of any deeper truth, (I render them all homage!)--this story is not told for any sake but truth's.

This Jacqueline did listen to this Victor, thinking actually of the words he read. She looked at him really to ascertain whether her apprehension of these things was all the same as his. She questioned him, with the simple desire to learn what he could tell her. Her hands were very hard, so constant had been her dealing with the rough facts of this life; but the hard hand was firm in its clasp, and ready with its helpfulness. Her eyes were open, and very clear of dreams. There was room in them for tenderness as well as truth. Her voice was not the sweetest of all voices in this world; but it had the quality that would make it prized by others when heart and flesh were failing; for it would be strong to speak then with cheerful faith and an unfaltering courage.

Jacqueline sat there under the chestnut-trees, upon the river-bank, strong-hearted, high-hearted, a brave, generous woman. What if her days were toilsome? What if her peasant-dress was not the finest woven in the looms of Paris or of Meaux? Her prayers were brief, her toil was long, her sleep was sound,--her virtue firm as the everlasting mountains. Jacqueline, I have singled you from among hordes and tribes and legions upon legions of women, one among ten thousand, altogether lovely,--not for dalliance, not for idleness, not for dancing, which is well; not for song, which is better; not for beauty, which, perhaps, is best; not for grace, or power, or passion. There is an attribute of God which is more to His universe than all evidence of power. It is His truth. Jacqueline, it is for this your name shall shine upon my page.

And, manifestly, it is by virtue of this quality that her reader is moved and attracted at this hour of twilight on the river-bank.

Her intelligence is so quick! her apprehension so direct! her conclusions so true! He intended to aid her; but Mazurier himself had never uttered comments so entirely to the purpose as did this young girl, speaking from heart and brain. Better fortune, apparently, could not have befallen him than was his in this reading; for with every sentence almost came her comment, clear, earnest, to the point.

He had need of such a friend as Jacqueline seemed able to prove herself. His nearest living relative was an uncle, who had sent the ambitious and capable young student to Meaux; for he gave great promise, and was worth an experiment, the old man thought,--and was strong to be thrown out into the world, where he might ascertain the power of self-reliance. He had need of friends, and, of all friends, one like Jacqueline.

From the silence and retirement of his home in Picardy he had come to Meaux,--the town that was so astir, busy, thoroughly alive! Inexperienced in worldly ways he came. His face was beautiful with its refinement and power of expression. His eyes were full of eloquence; so also was his voice. When he came from Picardy to Meaux, his old neighbors prophesied for him. He knew their prophecies, and purposed to fulfil them. He ceased from dreaming, when he came to Meaux. He was not dreaming, when he looked on Jacqueline. He was aware of what he read, and how she listened, under those chestnut-trees.

The burden of the tracts he read to Jacqueline was salvation by faith, not of works,--an iconoclastic doctrine, that was to sweep away the great mass of Romish superstition, invalidating Papal power. Image-worship, shrine-frequenting sacrifices, indulgences, were esteemed and proved less than nothing worth in the work of salvation.

"Did you understand John, when he said that the priests deceived us and were full of robberies, and talked about the masses for the dead, and said the only good of them was to put money into the Church?" asked Jacqueline.

"I believe it," he replied, with spirit.

"That the masses are worth nothing?" she asked,--far from concealing that the thought disturbed her.

"What can they be worth, if a man has lived a bad life?"

"_That_ my father did _not!_" she exclaimed.

"If a man is a bad man, why, then he is. He has gone where he must be judged. The Scripture says, As a tree falls, it must lie."

"My father was a good man, Victor. But he died of a sudden, and there was no time."

"No time for what, Jacqueline? No time for him to turn about, and be a bad man in the end?"

"No time for confession and absolution. He died praying God to forgive him all his sins. I heard him. I wondered, Victor, for I never thought of his committing sins. And my mother mourned for him as a good wife should not mourn for a bad husband."

"Then what is your trouble, Jacqueline?"

"Do you know why I came here to Meaux? I came to get money,--to earn it. I should be paid more money here than I got for any work at home, they said: that was the reason. When I had earned so much,--it was a large sum, but I knew I should get it, and the priest encouraged me to think I should,--he said that my heart's desire would be accomplished. And I could earn the money before winter is over, I think. But now, if"----

"Throw it into the Seine, when you get it, rather than pay it to the liar for selling your father out of a place he was never in! He is safe, believe me, if he was the good man you say. Do not disturb yourself, Jacqueline."

"He never harmed a soul. And we loved him that way a bad man could not be loved."

As Jacqueline said this, a smile more sad than joyful passed over her face, and disappeared.

"He rests in peace," said Victor Le Roy.

"It is what I must believe. But what if there should be a mistake about it? It was all I was working for."

"Think for yourself, Jacqueline. No matter what Leclerc thinks or I think. Can you suppose that Jesus Christ requires any such thing as this of you, that you should make a slave of yourself for the expiation of your father? It is a monstrous thought. Doubt not it was love that took him away so quickly. And love can care for him. Long before this, doubtless, he has heard the words, 'Come, ye blessed of my father!' And what is required of you, do you ask? You shall be merciful to them that live; and trust Him that He will care for those who have gone beyond your reach. Is it so? Do I understand you? You have been thinking to _buy_ this good _gift_ of God, eternal life for your father, when of course you could have nothing to do with it. You have been imposed upon, and robbed all this while, and this is the amount of it."

"Well, do not speak so. If what you say is true,--and I think it may be,--what is past is past."

"But won't you see what an infernal lie has been practised on you, and all the rest of us who had any conscience or heart in us, all this while? There _is_ no purgatory; and it is nonsense to think, that, if there were, money could buy a man out of it. Jesus Christ is the one sole atonement for sin. And by faith in Him shall a man save his soul alive. That is the only way. If I lose my soul, and am gone, the rest is between me and God. Do you see it _should_ be so, and must be so, Jacqueline?"

"He was a good man," said Jacqueline.

She did not find it quite easy to make nothing of all this matter, which had been the main-spring of her effort since her father died. She could not in one instant drop from her calculations that on which she had heretofore based all her activity. She had labored so long, so hard, to buy the rest and peace and heavenly blessedness of the father she loved, it was hardly to be expected that at once she would choose to see that in that rest and peace and blessedness, she, as a producing power, had no part whatever.

As she more than hinted, the purpose of her life seemed to be taken from her. She could not perceive that fact without some consternation; could not instantly connect it with another, which should enable her to look around her with the deliberation of a liberated spirit, choosing her new work. And in this she was acted upon by more than the fear arising from the influences of her old belief. Of course she should have been, and yet she was not, able to drop instantly and forever from recollection the constant sacrifices she had made, the deprivation she had endured, with heroic persistence,--the putting far away every personal indulgence whose price had a market value. Her father was not the only person concerned in this work; the priest; herself. She had believed in the pastor of Domrémy. Yet he had deceived her. Else he was self-deceived; and what if the blind should strive to lead the blind? _Could_ she accept the new faith, the great freedom, with perfect rejoicing?

Victor Le Roy seemed to have some suspicion of what was passing in her thoughts. He did not need to watch her changeful face in order to understand them.

"I advise you to still think of this," said he. "Recall your father's life, and then ask yourself if it is likely that He who is Love requires the sacrifice of your youth and your strength before your father shall receive from Him what He has promised to give to all who trust in Him. Take God at his word, and you will be obliged to give up all this priest-trash."

IV.

Victor Le Roy spoke these words quietly, as if aware that he might safely leave them, as well as any other true words, to the just sense of Jacqueline.

She was none the happier for them when she returned that night to the little city room, the poor lodging whose high window overlooked both town and country, city streets and harvest-fields, and the river flowing on beyond the borders of the town,--no happier through many a moment of thinking, until, as it were by an instant illumination, she began to see the truth of the matter, as some might wonder she did not instantly perceive it, if they could omit from observation this leading fact, that the orphan girl was Jacqueline Gabrie, child of the Church, and not a wise and generous person, who had never been in bondage to superstitions.

For a long time after her return to her lodging she was alone. Elsie was in the street with the rest of the town, talking, as all were talking, of the sight that Meaux should see to-morrow.

Besides Jacqueline, there was hardly another person in this great building, six stories high, every room of which had usually a tenant at this hour. She sat by her window, and looked at the dusky town, over which the moon was rising. But her thoughts were far away; over many a league they wandered.

Once more she stood on the playground of her toilsome childhood. She recalled many a year of sacrificing drudgery, which now she could not name such,--for another reason than that which had heretofore prevented her from calling it a sacrifice. She remembered these years of wrong and of extortion,--they received their proper name now,--years whose mirth and leisure she had quietly foregone, but during which she had borne a burden that saddened youth, while it also dignified it,--a burden which had made her heart's natural cheerfulness the subject of self-reproach, and her maiden dreams and wishes matter for tears, for shame, for confession, for prayer.

Now Victor Le Roy's words came to her very strangely; powerfully they moved her. She believed them in this solitude, where at leisure she could meditate upon them. A vision more fair and blessed than she had ever imagined rose before her. There was no suffering in it, and no sorrow; it was full of peace. Already, in the heaven to which she had hoped her toil would give him at length admission, her father had found his home. There was a glory in his rest not reflected from her filial love, but from the all-availing love of Christ.

Then--delay the rigor of your judgment!--she began,--yes, she, this Jacqueline, began to count the cost of what she had done. She was not a sordid soul, she had not a miserly nature. Before she had gone far in that strange computation, she paused abruptly, with a crimsoned face, and not with tearless eyes. Counting the cost! Estimating the sacrifice! Had, then, her purpose been less holy because excited by falsehood and sustained through delusion? Was she less loving and less true, because deceived? And was she to lament that Christ, the one and only Priest, rather than another instrumentality, was the deliverer of her beloved from the power of death?

No ritual was remembered, and no formula consulted, when she cried out,--"It is so! and I thank Thee! Only give me now, my Jesus, a purpose as holy as that Thou hast taken away!"

But she had not come into her chamber to spend a solitary evening there. Turning away from the window, she bestowed a little care upon her person, smoothed away the traces of her day's labor, and after all was done she lingered yet longer. She was going out, evidently. Whither? To visit the mother of John Leclerc. She must carry back the tracts the good woman had lent her. Their contents had firm lodgement in her memory.

Others might run to and fro in the streets, and talk about the corners, and prognosticate with passion, and defy, in the way of cowardice, where safety rather than the truth is well assured. If one woman could console another, Jacqueline wished that she might console Leclerc's mother. And if any words of wisdom could drop from the poor old woman's lips while her soul was in this strait, Jacqueline desired to hear those words.

Down the many flights of stairs she went across the court, and then along the street, to the house where the wool-comber lived.

A brief pause followed her knock for admittance. She repeated it. Then was heard a sound from within,--a step crossing the floor. The door opened, and there stood the mother of Leclerc, ready to face any danger, the very Fiend himself.

But when she saw that it was Jacqueline, only Jacqueline,--an angel, as one might say, and not a devil,--the terrible look passed from her face; she opened the door wide.

"Come in, child! come in!"

So Jacqueline went into the room where John had worked and thought, reasoned, argued, prayed.

This is the home of the man because of whom many are this night offended in the city of Meaux. This is the place whence issued the power that has set the tongues to talking, and the minds to thinking, and the hearts to hoping, and the authorities to avenging.

A grain of mustard-seed is the kingdom of heaven in a figure; the wandering winds a symbol of the Pentecostal power: a dove did signify the descent of God to man. This poor chamber, so pent in, and so lowly, so obscure, has its significance. Here has a life been lived; and not the least does it import, that walls are rough and the ceiling low.