The Forest of Vazon by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous [Anonymous]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781409963318
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Dodo Press
Published: 2009-04-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER V.

AFFLICTION.

"The race of Thor and Odin

Held their battles by my side,

And the blood of man was mingling

Warmly with my chilly tide."

Danube and the Euxine.—AYTOUN.

Father Austin received his pupil's companion with the courtesy due to her distress, but with much misgiving. After tending his patient, whose situation was critical, he paced thoughtfully towards the cell in which he had placed her, revolving in his mind the difficulties of the case. His amazement was intense when he slowly opened the door. The maiden was kneeling, her back towards him; before her was the little picture of the Madonna; she was praying aloud; her words were simple but passionately pathetic; she threw herself and her lover upon the mercy of the Holy Mother with a trust so absolute, a confidence so infinite, that the monk could hardly refrain from tears. How had he been blinded! as he looked and listened the scales fell from his eyes: he humbly owned his error.

The noise of his step startled her; she rose and looked at him inquiringly. "Maiden," he said, answering her appealing look, "his fate is in the hands of God, whose ears are ever open to the prayers of those that fear Him."

Often and often had Jean spoken to her of Father Austin; she loved him already, but she had yet to fathom the nobleness of his soul. His single-heartedness and abnegation of self, his tenderness and quick sympathy (virtues tempering his fierce abhorrence of Paganism), his stern reprobation of the evil, and his yearning for the good, in the untutored barbarians among whom he laboured, were gradually revealed in the discourses which they held daily while Jean lay between life and death. Reaping and garnering what Jean had sown, he scattered fresh seed, opening out to her the great history of God in man. Qualities hitherto unsuspected in her developed; if an apt pupil, she was an instructive teacher of the wealth of charity and purity that dwells in an untainted woman's heart. And she had another friend: the hermit watched over her with touching care and assiduity. He appeared strangely attracted to her; the holy fathers marvelled to see this rough being, who had seemed to them an animal to be feared while pitied, caring for the maiden's comfort with a woman's gentleness: he seemed never weary of contemplating her, sometimes murmuring to himself as he did so. Any little delicacy that the island could afford, game, fish, shellfish, was provided for her by him. Once, thinking her couch hard, he disappeared and returned bearing, whence none knew, soft stuffs better fitted for her tender form; on this occasion the whole man seemed transformed, when he stepped in with a smile in his big frank eyes, and a ruddy glow on his bronzed scarred cheeks, placed his offering at her feet, and strode away. Strange, too, to say, Hilda seemed to return the feeling: happy in the presence of Austin, she was yet with him as the pupil with the master; but with the recluse she was gentle, affectionate, and even playful.

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