Finally, upon my solemn assurance that I was not an Englishman, and would not write a book and put him and the pulpit therein, he promised to tell me all he knew about it.
Accordingly, by arrangement with him, I loitered in the cathedral one evening after vespers until the faithful had finished their devotions and left the church.
Taking a couple of rush-bottom chairs from one of the huge pyramids of them piled up at the lower end of the building, we seated ourselves just outside the grand portal, and the old man began his recital. Years have since gone by, and I cannot repeat it in his quaint manner; but, substantially, he thus told me the
Story Of The Carved Oak Pulpit.
Henry Verbruggen was heart and soul an artist. Gay, careless, pleasure-loving, he appeared to live but for two things; his art, first, and then his amusements.
Verbruggen married Martha Van Meeren, the pretty, the timid, the good Martha Van Meeren. In the mirage of his artist's enthusiasm her sweetness, her grace, her beauty, made her at first appear to him a sylph, a muse, an angel.
Alas! though gentle and attractive, Martha was, after all, only a woman, of the earth, earthy. In a quiet, well-ordered household Martha would have been a treasure; but in the eccentric home of the artist she was out of her element.
A pattern of neatness and economy, an accomplished Flemish house-wife, a neat domicil and well-spread table possessed for Martha more attraction than the imaginary world of beauty in which her artist husband revelled, even when poverty threatened or want oppressed them. Poor Martha! In vain she remonstrated; in vain she implored. Henry would neglect his work; he would be idle and spend his days at the cabaret, in the society of those who were even more idle and more dissipated than himself.
Thus years went on. Martha was not happy. A tinge of moroseness shaded the clear sunshine of her usual mildness. Occasionally, too, she came out of her quiet sadness and found sharp words of reproof for Henry, and anger for the companions who kept him from home. And so it came about that soon, in Verbruggen's eyes, Martha appeared harsh and repulsive. Then swiftly followed dispute and recrimination. His early enchantment had disappeared; Martha was not the wife for him, thought Verbruggen. He should have had one as careless, as enthusiastic as himself. Would such a wife have suited him, think you—you who know the human heart?