No; one had seen them, and had guessed their intent, and now arrived panting and breathless on the brink, with a long rope, terminated by a large iron hook, in his hand. Behind him came a second individual in a black cassock, but he had girded up his loins to run the better.
The man threw the rope just as the bodies rose to the surface—it missed and they disappeared once more. He watched—a moment of suspense—again they rose; he threw once more. Would the hook catch? Yes; it is entangled in the cord with which they have bound themselves, and they are saved! It is an easy task now to draw them to the land.
"My children! my children!" said the Chaplain, "why have ye attempted self-murder; to rush unsummoned into the presence of your Judge? Had we not been here ye had gone straight to eternal misery."
The boys struggled on the shore, but the taste of the cold water had tamed them. The sense of suffocation was yet upon them; they could not speak, but their immersion was too brief to have done them much harm, and after a few minutes they were able to walk. No other words were said, and their rescuers led them towards a low building of stone.
It was a building of great extent—a quadrangle enclosing half an acre, with an inner cloister running all round. In the centre rose a simple chapel of stern Norman architecture; opening upon the cloister were alternate doors and unglazed windows, generally closed by shutters, in the centre of which was a thin plate of horn, so that when the weather necessitated their use, the interiors might not be quite destitute of light. On one side of the square was the dining-hall, on the other the common room; these had rude cavernous chimneys, and fires were kindled on the hearths; there was no upper story. In each of the smaller chambers was a central table and three or four rough wooden bedsteads.
In the cloisters were scores of hapless beings, men and boys, some lounging about, some engaged in games now long forgotten; some talking and gesticulating loudly. All races which were found in England had their representatives—the Norman, the Saxon, the Celt.
It was the recreation hour, for they were not left in idleness through the day; the community was mainly self-supporting. Men wrought at their own trades, made their own clothes and shoes, baked their own bread, brewed their own beer, worked in the fields and gardens within the outer enclosure. The charity of the outside world did the rest, upon condition that the lepers never strayed beyond their precincts to infect the outer world of health.
The Chaplain, himself also enclosed, belonged to an order of brethren who had devoted themselves to this special work throughout Europe—they nearly always took the disease.[13] Father Ambrose quite understood, when he entered upon his self-imposed task, that he would probably die of the disease himself, but neither priests, physicians, nor sisters were ever wanting to fulfil the law of Christ in ministering to their suffering brethren, remembering His words: "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me."
The day was duly divided: there was the morning Mass, the service of each of the "day hours" in the chapel, the hours of each meal, the time of recreation, the time of work; all was fixed and appointed in due rotation, and could the poor sufferers only have forgotten the world, and resigned themselves to their sad fate, they were no worse off than the monks in many a monastery.
But the hideous form of the disease was always there; here an arm in a sling, to hide the fact the hand was gone; here a footless man, here an eyeless one; here a noseless one, there another—like poor Evroult—with holes through the cheek; here the flesh livid with red spots or circles enclosing patches white as snow—so they carried the marks of the most hideous disease of former days.