"I will go. Can we measure the mercy of the Lord?"
"Will you?" said the rejoiced creature, starting on her feet, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven—"may the Lord grant the prayer that you pray!"
It so happened, that no one passed during this interview; and, as the monk followed the rapid steps of the woman, he often looked anxiously around, hoping he might not be observed.
As they entered the dwelling, a child came running forward to meet its mother: Father John shrunk from the little one, as if its touch would have been pollution, and approached the sick man. His dim eyes brightened as they fell upon the monk, and he strove to rise in his bed, but sank back on the pillow.
"Do not disturb yourself," said the father, in a soothing tone; and, as the wretched wife left the room, he prepared himself to listen to the dark catalogue of long-growing crime. Father John exhorted and encouraged, and with all the fervour of his soul joined the dying man's prayer for mercy. It seemed as if the spirit had lingered for the parting consolations of religion; for scarcely were the last prayers said, ere a slight tremor was perceptible through the whole frame; the eyes fixed, the jaw fell, and the soul went forth to judgment.
Father John, rejoicing that he had listened to the woman's prayer, knelt a few minutes in earnest supplication for the departed, and then rose; but ere he left the cottage, he gently informed the unfortunate Jane of the event.
It would be a vain task to attempt a description of what followed—of the agony with which she threw herself by the bed, and kissed the cold hand and cold cheek, and upbraided herself as the cause of his sins, and sorrows, and early death; of the desolation that filled her heart as she looked on the dead, and felt that there was no one now, except the little child, with whom she dare claim affinity; of the feeling with which, on the following evening, assisted by a singularly charitable neighbour, she deposited the body of him she had loved, in an unhallowed grave, at the bottom of the garden, and went forth in the darkness of that night, with the child in her arms, to seek, as a wandering mendicant, the charity of strangers.
It is said, that charity covers a multitude of sins; but how often does an uncharitable spirit convert that into sin which may in reality be an act of benevolence; or, at worst, nothing more than the weakness of humanity? Father John's attention to the dying man was thus distorted. He was unfortunately perceived parleying with the woman, and followed to Gray's cottage, by a person employed to watch his motions. The information was instantly conveyed to Calverley; and as Father John left the cottage, he started at beholding two officers from the abbey, standing at a sufficient distance to avoid the contamination of the dwelling, but near enough to prevent the egress of any one without their observation. Concealment was impossible; so he stepped boldly forward, and with the brothers one on each side, proceeded in silence to the abbey, where he was instantly conducted to his cell, and the door closed and bolted upon him.
His heart swelled for an instant as the brothers retired; but the indignant flash presently passed from his eyes, and he rejoiced that no selfish consideration had prevented him from, as far as in him lay, saving the guilty soul of the deceased.
The next morning the monk was summoned before the abbot; and with the same calm and dignified demeanor that generally characterized him, he obeyed the summons. The two brethren who had conducted him from Gray's cottage, stood at the table, and the abbot proceeded to say, that upon the oath of a respectable witness, he had been observed conversing with an excommunicated woman, and accompanying her to her house, and that those two brethren (pointing to the officers) were ready to avow they had beheld him leave it. "Now," continued Sudbury, "what have you to say? Did you converse with the woman?"