"Oh, folly, folly! Woe to you if you carry on such night-magic and witches arts--we can never go on together, for these are not the ways that lead to the Light."
The girl had cried out with alarm when she saw him break the hazel-rod that she had been searching for all her life and had never found till the last new-moon; with that wand all she had ever hoped for had fallen into ruins--all the splendour of the kingdom of the blessed that it was to have opened to her--the help of the beneficent phantoms--all, all was gone. But worse even than the loss of her joys was her "Angel's" wrath and the words he had spoken; their ways could never lie together. The child threw herself at his feet crushed with despair, and wept bitterly. "Forgive me--I only meant to do it that they might release you from the convent and so I might always stay with you. Only tell me what I am to do so that you may never be angry with me again. I will do anything in the world that you tell me. If you wish that I should hunger and fast, I will do it, and if you wish that I should die, I will die--only be kind to me again, I beseech you."
The blind man laid his hand lovingly on the child's innocent head, and a strange emotion came over him as he felt her trembling beneath his touch. "Do not tremble, young soul! You have had pity on me and I will have pity on you. I will save you from the ways of error and darkness; I will show you a path to the blessed--but to the truly blessed. It opens not to wishing rods nor spring-herbs--only by penance and prayer may it be found."
"Aye, my lord, teach me to act according to your will, as I guide your blindness do you guide me where you see while I am blind."
"Amen!" said Donatus, and he felt as though the tears which he could no longer shed fell back like heavenly dew on the drought of his lonely heart. God had sent him this soul to be saved by him for Heaven. For the first time in his life he had found something he could call his own, and he felt that she was wholly his, absolutely given up to him, and that her salvation was in his hand. Thus must a father feel when a child is born to him.
He clasped the girl's head as if he wished to grasp this new-born joy, and said only one word; "My child!" but in a tone like the soft melodious ripple of the newly melted snow as it trickles down from the cliff under the beams of the first spring-sunshine; and the girl bowed under the touch of her "Angel's" hand, speechless and motionless, as though she feared to disturb the miracle even by drawing breath.
The soft breath of noon bore the perfume of lilies and roses from the graves in the churchyard, and the little screech-owl[[3]] shouted from the wood his cry of "Come here, come here." The girl listened to the call knowing what it betokened, but she only smiled at it; for her life had but just begun--a life in which there is no death. And as soon as Donatus released her she sprang up, and her shout of joy went up to Heaven like the song of the lark, and she ran through the little gate in the wall into the church-yard and flung herself down by the first grave to pray in front of its wooden cross. But she could not pray--could not think; she flung her arms round the cross and pressed her cheek against it as against her mother's breast. Brother Porphyrius meanwhile, sitting under the wall, shook his head.
"We have been deceived in her, Donatus, she is not a spirit, but a child of man like us, and God only knows whence she came, for her paths lie through the darkness as she herself told us--"
"But I shall lead her to the Light!" interrupted Donatus.
"Be not presumptuous--to me there is something uncanny about her since I have learnt that she is of this world; she is too fair for an earthly maiden and I am uneasy about you." Donatus smiled in melancholy but proud calmness as in the morning.