“When thou art queen, child, thou shalt win him! He is further on the way than was Terig.”
She sat at his feet. “O my father, tell me of wedded life in the land that Christ trod, and the lands where His Church grows! Although virginity be the highest, still even the other must be more beautiful there than here.”
Victorinus kept silence for a little, pondering what he should say to this barbarian girl whom he had brought to Christ, for whom he felt affection, from whom he hoped nothing less than action that should turn forest thousands into Christians.
He thought it was more beautiful there than here. Here was a rude equality, a practical freedom of woman, stepping by the side of man, that grated harshly upon all his sensibilities. He never denied that the soul of woman was as valuable as the soul of man. That came from Christ; it must be; it was taken so. But Christ had been about the business of the City of God, and had given to Cæsar that which was Cæsar’s. Christ, saying naught of the matter, had therefore let rest with man, so long as man was upon this earth, man’s authority over woman. That was man’s due since he was God’s creature and woman but drawn from him in his sleep, his dream, as it were; man’s due since Eve had sinned and tempted Adam, and God had said, Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee! Christ had let that rest. As was fitting! said underneath the breath a man within Victorinus. Where Christ had said naught, Paul had affirmed. Yea! let it rest. It is as it should be! in effect had said Paul.—Victorinus’s mind dwelled upon the Jewish scriptures, and saw that all through it has been as it should be.
His mind returned to that Pagan life into which he had been born, which had flowed about him, which yet flowed. That Pagan life was in the power of dæmons—Jove, Apollo, Mercury, all dæmons! But even in that life God guided some things underneath, as it were through hidden ways. Splintered notions must have come, down brought from Eden and Noah’s time and Father Abraham, whirled across in some wind to Greece and Italy. Even there existed some fitnesses in common life that the dæmons had not blasted. The subordination of woman in all places where the governing word must fall—that had come by the breath of God! Even in paganry the female dæmons weighed less, ruled in lower places than the male. Even the dæmons could not overturn the Eden word.
Victorinus’s imagination touched and tasted all the sweet humilities that in ages Eve had put on. He loved them in her; familiar they were and dear! This barbarous people in their northern clime, kept by dæmons huge, uncouth and dark, were even further than the old Pagan world from the Eden wind. Naught in them so honestly shocked, so scandalized him, as did that freedom in forest and field and house of the barbarian women. Hardly might it be said that they did not war; ofttimes he heard of them going in number with the men. That was barbarous, abhorrent! They were not now found among the priests, though it was said that it had been so. But there were prophetesses among them, greatly listened to. That might pass; it had been so in Bible land and other lands; so that they were curbed, and man ruled in the Church! But in these forests they gave their word in council; they with the men chose policies, laws and rulers. Victorinus’s mind recoiled violently. And outdoors and within they spoke freely as did the men; they held their own; they would or they would not! A king might rule men and women, though no further than they would; the priest of the grove might chain men and women with the dæmon’s chain; the old might claim reverence from the young. But man as man was not ruler, nor was woman as woman ruled.
Victorinus liked best the way to which he was used, liked it perhaps not wholly alone because he was used to it. Because he liked it best he truly thought it more beautiful. These forest ways were but more dæmon ways for entrapping souls! Pride was a horrible evil, and pride in woman most horrible.... He thought of his mother and sisters and all his women kindred, and their gentle virtues. In memory their ways caressed him, soothing, pleasing him. Man needed contrast, foil....
By now he had for Alleda a fatherly solicitude, affection. She was his convert, the soul saved—and the dedicated means to great ends. He thought now, sitting here pondering the matter, that he would make that which he had wrought as perfect as he could. He would plant Christ in the centre, and around flowers that should be of that Gardener’s garden—flowers of faith, humility and obedience. He would plant them in all the ways, earthly and heavenly, so that nowhere should the dæmons be able to approach, because the flowers’ beauty and fragrance should drive them back. In all the alleys of pride he would plant them.
His mind had over-travelled all this in much less time than it has taken to tell.
Alleda sat beneath a green and spreading beech, and before her across the glade rose the little church, and the house of the Christians and the garden that they worked in. She was nineteen. Her knees were bent, her head was bowed to the great and flowering Presence in her heart. She was not now inclined to look aside at things brought forward to see if they truly glowed and warmed in that Presence, or if the Presence extended not to them its mantle of light. She was in an attitude to take them on authority, and she was not perfected in disentangling authorities.