CHAPTER XXV.

CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM.

“Furl we the sail and pass with tardy oar Through these bright regions, casting many a glance Upon the dream like issues and romance Of many-colored life that Fortune pours Round the Crusaders till, on distant shores, Their labors end.”—WORDSWORTH.

Miriamne’s welcome at the “Retreat of the Palestineans,” at London, was most cordial. The Grand Master of the returned knights and his wife received her as a daughter; the companion knights vied with each other in efforts to serve the child of their once honored comrade, Sir Charleroy de Griffin. But the maiden never for a moment lost sight of her mission. No sooner had she been bidden to rest than she questioned as to her father’s welfare. The Grand Master attempted to assure her that she might recuperate after her journey, but she only the more urged her desire to be taken to her parent at once.

“Worthy Master, dalliance would not be rest, but torture, to me. Being now so near my father, I’m filled with a ruling, all-exciting longing to see him, at once!”

“Be patient, daughter, for a little season; all is done for him that can be. The princely revenues of the knights of Europe are at the behest of each of our veterans, as he hath need.”

“Ah! but your wealth can not provide him what I bring—a daughter’s love!”

“And yet, daughter, since you press me, I must explain that he is under a cloud which would make thy offering vain at present.”

“There is no need, kind commander, to make evasive explanations. I have been forewarned of my father’s troubles of mind.”

“But he is violent at times, and we are compelled to keep him secluded in the asylum of our brotherhood.”

“Good Master, that but the more increases my ardor to hasten a meeting with him. I want to try the cure of love upon him; I’ve all faith in its efficacy. When may I go?”

The foregoing was a sample of Miriamne’s words each day. Her appeals touched all hearts and finally over-persuaded the medical attendants, who, in fact, began to fear lest refusal would unsettle the maiden’s mind. She was all vehemence and urgency on this subject.

The meeting was a sorrowful and brief one.

She was not prepared for such a spectacle as her father presented, and her cry, “Take me to him,” was changed to one more vehement now:

“Take me away!”

Terror supplemented her utter disappointment. To both feelings there was added a sense of humiliation. She imagined her return to Bozrah, empty-handed; the possible gibes of her mother and others. Her great faith seemed fruitless and her enthusiasm ebbed. Then she began to question within herself whether or not, after all, the new faith she had embraced was not a splendid illusion! She was in “Doubting Castle,” with “Giant Despair,” and the mighty, impelling question, “What wilt Thou have me to do?” little by little lost its grip on her will. It had seemed to her the voice of God; now it seemed little more than the echo of words heard in a dream. She was moved now by a desire to get away from something, but she could not define the thing. Certainly she desired to escape her disappointment, but not knowing how, she sought to get away from its scene. If she could have run away from herself she would have been glad to have done so. She fled from the asylum, as soon as night came to hide her flight. She had not strength to go far, and the Asylum park of many acres of lawns and groves, afforded her solitude; that that she now chiefly desired. The night the desolate girl thus went forth was a lovely one; a reflection of that other night of sorrow when she fled from the old stone-house home to the chapel of Adolphus at Bozrah. And the memory of that night returned to the girl with some consoling. Again she looked up to the firmament and was calmed by the eternal rest that seemed on all above, and again she yearned to go up further to the only seeming haven of righteousness and peace.

Then came the reaction; the prolonged tension had done its work, and the young woman dropped down on the earth. How long she lay in her blank dream she knew not. If during its continuance she in part recovered consciousness, she had no desire nor strength to rise or throw off her weakness.

Ere long her absence was known at the Grand Master’s and an eager search was instituted. Foremost in the quest was the young chaplain of the knights and his quest brought him first to the object of search.

“Can I aid my lady?” said the chaplain, in kindly tones, standing a little distance away from her, in part through a feeling of delicacy akin to bashfulness, and in part fearing lest by any means he should affright her.

The young woman lay motionless; her eyes closed; her face as the face of the lifeless. Receiving no answer, the man questioned within himself: “Is she dead?” Fear emboldened him, and he essayed active assistance. Delicately, gently, firmly he raised up the prostrate woman. She seemed to realize that some one was assisting her, but she was very passive. Her head, drooping, rested on the young man’s shoulder, and she sighed a weary, broken sentence:

“I’m so glad you came, Father Adolphus!”

“Not Father Adolphus, but one rejoiced to serve a friend of his.”

The maiden was silent a few moments, as if listening to words coming to her from a distance, through confusions. Memory was struggling to re-enforce semi-consciousness. Then came comprehension; she realized the presence of a stranger, and, with an effort, stood erect. Her eyes turned on the chaplain’s face with questionings, having in them mingled surprise, timidity and rebuke. The man interpreted her glance and made quick reply:

“At my lady’s services, the Chaplain of the Palestineans. We are all anxious at the Grand Master’s concerning yourself.”

“Anxious for me!” She found words to say that much, and hearing her own words she recalled her recent thoughts of herself, as one being very miserable and very worthless. She turned her eyes from the young man toward the woodland, in the darkness appearing like a gateway to black oblivion. She yearned to bury herself in the oblivion utterly, and her looks betrayed the thought. The youth gently touched her arm, saying:

“Despair has no place here; the Palestineans vanquish it.”

She then looked down toward where she had been lying, both nerves and will weakening. It seemed to her a bed, even on the earth, were inviting, especially so if she could take there a sleep that knew no waking.

The young man had ministered to his fellow-beings long enough to have become a good interpreter of hearts. He discerned the thoughts of the one before him, and offered prompt remedies, words wisely spoken:

“Our faith makes us all hope to see our guest happy ere long.”

Then she gave way to a flood of tears. The tears moved the man to exercise His professional function, and forgetting all else he spoke as a comforter to a sorrowing woman. She listened, but, except for her sobs, was silent until he questioned: “Shall I stay to guide back to the ‘Refuge,’ or return to send help?”

She answered by turning toward him a face pale and blank, lighted alone by eyes all appealing. He interpreted the look and continued: “I’ll tarry to aid. Shall we now seek the ‘Refuge?’”

Then she exclaimed, “Alas, there seems no refuge for me!”

“The troubles of Miriamne de Griffin enlist all hearts at this place, I assure you.”

“And this, your kindness, with your happiness ever before me, but makes to myself my own desolation more manifest! Ah, I’m but a hulk in a dark tide!”

“Lady, say not so, I beseech you. Look, there!” Languidly, mechanically, she turned her eyes in the direction the speaker pointed; then suddenly drew back from sight of a white apparition, standing out boldly from a background of dark shrubbery. Her nerves all unstrung were for the moment victimized by superstitious dreads.

“Only, calm, pure marble; a fear-slayer; not fear-invoker! Look at its pedestal!” assuringly spoke the chaplain. The maiden did as bidden and slowly read, repeating each word aloud: “_Sancta-Maria-Consolatrix-Afflictorum._”

“By easy interpretation: ‘Mother of Jesus, consoler of the sorrowing!’” responded the young man.

“Ah, like all consolations nigh to me, this is only stone and set in deep shadows! It can not come to me!”

“True, yon form is passionless stone; but the truth eternal, which it emblemizes, is living and fervent.”

“Life and fervor? Death and sorrow submerge both!”

“There is mother-love in the heart of God; to one so nearly orphan as my friend, it must be comforting to look up believing that in heaven there are fatherhood, motherhood and home! This is the sermon in yon stone.”

Then the chaplain gently, reverently drew the sorrow stricken maiden toward the “Refuge” and she followed, unresisting. As they moved along, she essayed to seek further acquaintance with her guide.

“May I know the chaplain’s name?”

“Certainly; to those that are intimates, ‘Brother’ or ‘Friend;’ for such I’ve renounced my former self and name.”

“But if I should need and wish to send for you? I might. I could not call for ‘Brother.’”

“Ah, I’m by right, ‘Cornelius Woelfkin;’ yet the names are misnomers, since I’m not kin to the wolf, nor am I ‘a heart-giving light’ as my name implies; at least if I give light it is but dim.”

The meeting of the young people, apparently accidental, was in fact an incident in a far-reaching train of Providences. The young woman was in trouble and needing such sympathy as one who was both young and wise could give; the young man was courteous, pure-minded, wise beyond his years, free from the conceits common to young men of capacity, and being a natural philanthropist, naturally sympathetic. The young woman was at the age that yearns for a girl friend, and needs a mother’s counsel; the young man had much of his mother in his make-up; enough to fit him to win his way into the confidence and fine esteem of a refined and trusting young woman; but not enough to make him effeminate. Somehow he exactly met the needs of Miriamne’s life. He could advise her as sincerely and wisely as a mother and companion her as affectionately as a girl friend. Having neither girl friend nor mother, the young chaplain became both to her.

They were both impressible and inexperienced in the matters that belong to the realms of the heart, in its grander emotions; therefore with a charming simplicity they outlined their intentions and the limitations of their relations. They assured each other, again and again, probably in part to assure themselves, that they were to be very true and very sensible young friends. Their converse often ran along after this manner.

“We understand each other so well!”

“Yes, and are so well adapted to each other!”

“We have had too much experience to spoil this helpful relation between us, by giving away to any sway of the romantic emotions.”

“There has seldom been in the world a friendship between a young man and young woman so exalted and wise as ours is.”

They agreed that she should call him “brother,” and he should call her “sister.” At first they said they wished they were indeed akin by ties of blood; though in time they were glad they were not. In this they were like many another pair who have had such a wish, and in their case as in many another like it, the wish, was a prediction of its own early demise.

Among the works of art in the park of the Palestineans was a commanding bronze of Pallas-Athene, the goddess believed by her pagan devotees to be the patroness of wisdom, art and science. She was the Virgin of the Romans and the Greeks, their queenly woman, deemed by her wisdom ever superior to Mars, god of war. She was represented bearing both spear and shield; but these as emblems of her moral potencies. In a word, she was the result of the efforts of those ancients to express a perfection that was virgin and matchless, because too fine and exalted to have an equal. Between the “White Madonna” and this Minerva, Chaplain Woelfkin and the Maid of Bozrah often walked, back and forth, in very complacent conversations. They desired themes, the ideals afforded them; they were in a frame of mind that delighted in Utopianism, and the effigies of the women guided their day-dreams. Youth, quickened by dawning, though as yet unperceived, love, naturally begins building a Pantheon filled with fine creations. That is the time of hero-worship in general; afterward comes the iconoclastic period when every idol is cast down to make place for the only one that the heart crowns. Cornelius praised sincerely Miriamne, when she said she would be as the Græco-Roman goddess—very wise, very pure, very strong. Day by day, he believed she was becoming like Minerva. Then he thought it very fine for the maiden to emulate the goddess in every thing, even her perpetual virginity. Again, walking near the Madonna and discoursing of her as the ideal of womanhood, as the mother, the minister, the saint, the maiden said she would emulate the latter; the chaplain in his heart prayed that she might.

Once he finely said: “A pure, patient woman is God’s appointed and best consoler of the afflicted. Miriamne, be like Mary, and Sir Charleroy will find restoration.”

The young woman was encouraged by the words to increase her efforts in her father’s behalf. Now she did so not only because prompted by a sense of duty, but because filial love seemed a fine ornament for a maiden. Birds in mating-times put on their finest plumage; men and women do likewise. The chaplain was a humanitarian by profession, and naturally joined the maiden in her efforts for her father’s recovery. So their thoughts and their works ran in parallel lines. They had unbounded delight in their companionship and common efforts. This delight they innocently explained to themselves as the natural result and reward of their fine, exalted, frank, wise, brother-like, sister-like friendship. In hours of their supremest satisfaction they generously expressed sorrow for the world at large, because so few in it knew how to attain such bliss as they enjoyed. In a word, they were a very fine and a very innocent pair, a complete contrast with Rizpah and Sir Charleroy at Gerash. The latter took their course under the torrid influences of Astarte of the brawny Giants, the former moved forward charmed and led by those things that were held to be the belongings of the fine women whose statues graced the park of the Palestineans. Miriamne asked wisdom later of her elect counselor, and he advised her to send letters to Bozrah urging her mother to join her in London, in efforts in behalf of their insane kinsman.

The young man very wisely argued: “He is a fragment, flung out of a wrecked home; his perturbed mind is clouded by the wild passions of a misled heart. We must balance his brain by calming his heart. He is filled with hatings, and love alone is hate’s cure. If the past losses be recovered, he must be brought back to the place of loss.”

Miriamne wrote to her mother, glad to please her counselor by so doing, and yet almost hopeless of gaining any answer that was favorable. The maiden renewed her visit to her father’s lodge in the asylum. She was not permitted, nor did she then desire, to see her parent. She shuddered when she remembered the one dreadful meeting of the beginning, and was content to sit outside the door of his cell or keep, day by day, to perform such little services as she could. Sometimes she would call the insane man by his name, or title; sometimes she would call out: “Father, would you like to see Miriamne?” or “Father, your daughter is here.” At other times she would sit near his door singing Eastern songs, especially such as she had heard were favorites of her parents in their younger days.

Days passed onward, and there appeared no result beyond the fact that when she was thus engaged the knight became very quiet. At the suggestion of Chaplain Woelfkin, she changed her method, and began in hearing of the knight a recital of the history of Crusader days. In this she was encouraged, for an attendant told her that her father each day, when she began, drew close to his barred door to listen. As she came near the time of the Acre campaign, the knight’s face was flushed with interest. Having followed the narrative up to the fall of the city and the flight of Sir Charleroy and his comrades, she paused. Then she was surprised and delighted at once, for the incarcerated man in a voice both calm and natural, ejaculated the words: “Go on!”

Miriamne would have rushed to the prison door had not Cornelius, who stood not far away, motioned her to remain seated and to continue. For a moment she was at a loss how to proceed, but then she bethought herself of an experiment. She described by a kind of a parable the career of her father, as follows:

“And the noble knight, after years of illness, was found by his loving daughter. Under her kindly care he recovered, and at her earnest request he returned to his home in Palestine. There he spent many happy years with his reunited family, consisting of a wife, daughter and twin sons. He is living there now, and all that family agree that theirs is the most happy and loving home on earth.”

“It’s a lie! a lie!” almost shouted the lunatic. “Sir Charleroy is not there. He went mad; the devil stole his skull and left his brain uncovered to be scratched by a million of bats. That’s why he went mad; I know him; he went mad, and is mad yet, and you get away with your lying!”

The daughter fled in terror at the succeeding outburst of wild profanity; but she was still rejoiced, that a chord of memory had been struck. It gave a harsh response, yet it gave a response, and that was much. She continued her efforts as before. The interviews were not fruitless, but they were costing her fearfully. She complained to no one, yet her youthful locks, in a few months streaked with silver, told the story of suffering.

One day there was delivered at the Grand Master’s a huge package directed to herself. Miriamne, filled with wonder, called help to open the case. Just under the cover she beheld a letter. She knew the handwriting. It was her mother’s. Her heart took a great leap, and as a flash of joy there ran through her mind the thought:

“Mother has sent something to help. Perhaps it’s her clothing, and she is coming!”

Tremblingly Miriamne read the epistle. How formal:

“MIRIAMNE DE GRIFFIN:—Thou went’st without my leave. Do not return till sent for. Thou left’st a loving mother for a worthless father, and this is a daughter’s reward. Thou dost say Sir Charleroy is mad. I knew it, and think that the curse is descending on thee. But I doubt not the man has cunning in his madness, and has prompted thee to inveigle me into his toils again. Once he had me in England, and there he put me on the rack of his merciless temper and lust! Shame on him for that time! Shame on me if he have opportunity to repeat it! I send thee a comforter. Put it before his eyes, and tell him that the woman of Bozrah is before him. Tell him that she, like Rizpah of old, is true to the death to her sons, and, while waking, never forgets to curse the vultures!”

No love was added. There was no name appended. Miriamne felt like one disowned. She dreaded to examine the contents of the case; but a servant, who began the opening just then, spread it out. As she suspected, after she had read the letter, it was the (to her) hateful picture of ancient Rizpah.

It was evening, and the maiden sought a refuge from her troubles in the park. It was, on her part, another flight from the face of Rizpah of Gibeah; another seeking of solitude from man that she might gain that sense of nearness to the Eternal Father under the calm, silent stars of His canopy. It was like that flight from the old stone house of Bozrah to the chapel of Father Adolphus that she had made long before.

The maiden’s course brought her to the “White Madonna,” and there she found her counselor and brother, the chaplain. He had heard that Miriamne was desponding that day, and had bent his course hither, confident that the “_Consolatrix Afflictorum_” would prove a tryst. The scenery around Pallas Athene was the finer by far, but to a troubled heart there was the more allurement in the place where the love of heaven was expressed. The Minerva expressed self-sufficiency; the “White Madonna,” God’s sufficiency. One expressed justice, culture, the perfection of human gifts, regnant and victorious; the other spoke of welcome, healing, mercy, and help for those who were in pitiable needs. The virgin evolved by the philosophers of the Greeks was a concept touching but few of humanity, and fitted to be crowned only in a world of perfections, such as has not yet existed. The “White Madonna” depicted a real character who had a human heart and heavenly traits, and that easily found acceptance in human affections.

The maiden and her counselor sat together for a long time; she speaking of her social miseries, he of God’s remedies; she describing the thickness of the night about her; he telling her in beautiful parables that there was a refuge and an asylum, though the night obscured all for a time. As they conversed the rising moon flooded the “White Madonna” with silvering light, and the chaplain rapturously exclaimed:

“See, the moon gets its light from the sun, and gives it to the image. We do not see the sun, but we see its work and glory reflected! So God hands down from heaven to His children, by His angels and ministers, the powers and blessings that they need. Miriamne, we have a Father who forgets none and is munificent to all!”