THE CLOISTER
The two friars reached Holland from the south just twelve hours after Luke started up the Rhine.
Thus, wild-goose chase or not, the parties were nearing each other, and rapidly too. For Jerome, unable to preach in low Dutch, now began to push on towards the coast, anxious to get to England as soon as possible.
And having the stream with them, the friars would in point of fact have missed Luke by passing him in full stream below his station, but for the incident which I am about to relate.
About twenty miles above the station Luke was making for, Clement landed to preach in a large village; and towards the end of his sermon he noticed a grey nun weeping.
He spoke to her kindly, and asked her what was her grief.
“Nay,” said she, “'tis not for myself flow these tears; 'tis for my lost friend. Thy words reminded me of what she was, and what she is, poor wretch, But you are a Dominican, and I am a Franciscan nun.”
“It matters little, my sister, if we are both Christians, and if I can aid thee in aught.”
The nun looked in his face, and said, “These are strange words, but methinks they are good; and thy lips are oh, most eloquent, I will tell thee our grief.”
She then let him know that a young nun, the darling of the convent, and her bosom friend, had been lured away from her vows, and after various gradations of sin, was actually living in a small inn as chambermaid, in reality as a decoy, and was known to be selling her favours to the wealthier customers, She added, “Anywhere else we might, by kindly violence, force her away from perdition, But this innkeeper was the servant of the fierce baron on the height there, and hath his ear still, and he would burn our convent to the ground, were we to take her by force.”