CHAPTER XXX.

THE “KNIGHT OF ST. MARY” AND RIZPAH AT THE GRAVE OF THEIR SONS.

“Courage, for life is hasting To endless life away; The inner fires unwaiting, Transfigure our dull clay.”

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“Lost, lost are all our losses; Love set forever free; The full life heaves and tosses Like an eternal sea; One endless, living story; One poem spread abroad, And the sun of all our glory Is the countenance of God.”—GEORGE MCDONALD.

“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?”