“The eager hearts, the souls of fire
Who pant to toil for God and man,
And view with eyes of keen desire
The upland way of toil and pain;
But God, through ways they have not known
Will lead His own.”
It was a strange sight that the Molard presented that day.
There were priests and their army, each with a laurel leaf in their caps, brilliant with banners and crosses; there was a second company which had brought the city banner, now planted by the magistrates' orders in the midst of the armed priests. There was the third band, headed by Canon Wernli, and consisting principally of priests. There were even the women and the children armed with their "little swords and hatchets." There were the magistrates anxiously protesting, but overborne by numbers, and practically helpless.
This was what the little band of Protestants had to face when they marched from Baudichon's house and took up their position on two sides of the square, so pitifully few in comparison that it seemed as if the first assault of the enemy must mean annihilation.
But still the assault lingered.
Their appearance had been the signal for an outburst of threats and insults; the Catholics seized their weapons, the cannon were loaded, even the women and children made ready their ammunition of stones, but ere a blow was struck or a stone thrown, a fresh element appeared which entirely altered the position of affairs.
It was nothing more than the arrival of a party of merchants from Friburg, with which state and with Berne an alliance had lately been renewed.
Astonished and horrified, they threw themselves into the breach. They pointed out to the Huguenots that they could have no chance in a conflict where they were so outnumbered.
“We have no wish to fight," was the reply. Only to be left in peace.”
They turned to the priests next, asking them how they could disgrace themselves by stirring up the people to murder one another, but their words were only as fuel to the fire of the priests' fury. Leaving them, they addressed themselves to the magistrates, reminding them that it was their duty to quell the riot and prevent bloodshed, a fact of which the magistrates were only too clearly aware.
Then they pleaded with the Catholics. Did they really wish to shed the blood of their own neighbors and friends? "Why don't you let the priests fight it out themselves?" they asked.
The spirit of the mob began to veer round.
“After all, why should we get killed for the priests?" they reasoned among themselves, with that strange change of front that crowds will occasionally show. "We have been fools to let them lead us to fight their quarrels against our neighbors.”
A new cry was raised.
“Let us make peace.”
Quick to take advantage of the opportunity, the magistrates dispersed the crowd, under penalty of being hanged. The people scattered to their homes and silence reigned again on the Molard.
Dr. Morand made his way hurriedly to Baudichon's house. Prayer had been turned into praise, tears into joy, but he and Greta met with a cloud over their joy. In the swift revolution of feeling, in the very joy of reunion, there was still a shadow.
“Where is Béril now?" was the uppermost thought in both minds.
“I will take you home first,” the Doctor said, "then I will give myself to the search.”
But when they reached home it was to find Béril there before them. Poor Greta was quite overcome; she simply clung to Béril and cried. "Oh Béril, you don't know how wretched I have been," she sobbed. "It would have been dreadful enough if we had been all together, but not knowing where you were, and feeling it was all my fault that you were lost—oh, I did not know how to bear it! It has been the most miserble day in my life. But do tell us all about it." Béril found herself the center of attraction. The Doctor's keen face had shown an unwonted emotion as he took her hands in his, and for the first time kissed her, as he might have done one of his own children. As for the little ones, they clung closely to her; the boys ensconced themselves at her feet and plied her with questions, while Greta sat silent beside her, their hands clasped closely.
Bruno became quite the hero of the hour.
“At first when I was seized I regretted that I had not taken him," Béril said, "but I was very glad afterward, for Gerard came straight back and let him loose, and came to look for me. And the dear old dog knew my voice, for I was singing, and would not go past the house.”
Bruno came in for a great deal of extra petting after that and the two girls became closer friends than ever; but how to help Gerard—how to show his gratitude to the boy for all he had done—was the question that troubled Dr. Morand.
He wondered how it could have escaped his eye—what Béril had discovered at once—that the boy was gently born; besides that, the beauty of his carving was a great surprise, and without being a connoisseur, he saw that the boy had talent far above the average, if not indeed actual genius.
“Who taught you, Gerard?" he questioned.
“No one," Gerard returned. He was wonderfully changed since that night. The old bitterness and gloom had gone from his face, even his bearing was changed; but he still found it hard to break through his long habit of reserve to anyone but the girl whose frank eyes had never revealed anything but sympathy, kindness and understanding. "It has been my only resource," he went on with an effort "the only thing I could take any interest in, the only thing but Mignonne that I cared for—till now.”
“You have a great gift," the physician mused. "Even your roughest attempt is full of life and character. You ought not to be wasting your time with Bruyere, drudging and toiling for him. All your time ought to be given to this work. What becomes of what you do?”
“I let my master have it," the boy explained. "He says he can sometimes sell it for a trifle.”
“A trifle!" Dr. Morand repeated, with an annoyed laugh. "And who retains the trifle—himself, I suppose?”
“Exactly; but there is Mignonne as well as myself to keep, monsieur." The Doctor shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
“I owe you a great debt, my boy," he said. "The whole I cannot pay, but I would fain do what I can. This life you are living is not fit for you; would you not like to be set free from it, and give all your time to your carving?”
The boy's face lit up for a second, then paled again.
“I am bound to him for another two years, monsieur," he said, simply. "Five years ago, when I was but eleven, and we were left alone in the world, Mignonne and I, I bound myself to him for seven years; there was no other way in which I could earn a living and a shelter for us both. We have had this room to ourselves ever since." He glanced round the garret as he spoke, with a whimsical smile, crowded as it was from floor to ceiling with a heterogeneous collection of his master's stock-in-trade, which left very little space available for food and clothes. “It was the only condition which he would accept. I was such a little chap at first, he said he should lose on the bargain for years. The carving has helped a bit to equalize matters, he says. Once or twice he has even given me something extra for Mignonne, when the carving has specially pleased him. But all this winter I have been working on this panel.”
He showed the doctor the panel of which Béril had already told him, and the sight of it almost prepared him for the defeat he suffered later at the hand of old Bruyere, when he sought out the old man for an interview and tried to arrange for Gerard's release. But, his efforts were in vain, although he offered almost more money than his somewhat limited income and decidedly big family justified. Old Bruyere would not hear of it; the boy had made and signed the agreement, and must keep it, was all the answer Dr. Morand could get.
The physician regretted his defeat all the more because the Comte de la Tour had consented to Béril's staying on with the Morands for the present on condition that they moved into a larger house where Béril was to have her own set of rooms, and a French governess.
This would mean almost certainly losing sight of Gerard, who had very few moments to call his own, and would scarcely be able to get to the simple little meetings held from house to house.
“I had hoped to have set you free," he said to Gerard afterward, "but it seems that it is not to be. Mayhap it was my own way I was seeking, not my Lord's. You have another Master than Bruyere now, dear lad; one is your Master even Christ, and He knows why He is leaving you here. These are some words Master Farel wrote us but a few days gone, pointing those of us Gospelers who are tempted to look to Berne for help and succor to Christ Himself. As far as I understand, the Lord, when He means to do a very great work, desires that He alone should have the honor and glory. He desires to work in you, as in the good and faithful Abraham, who, against hope, believed in hope, without doubting one of the holy promises of God. You have your Testament, my lad, God's very Word; you have Christ Himself. 'Tis no hard thing to be shut up to these. If I can help you at any time, let me, for we are brothers; in the meantime, I leave you with One Who can and will help you everywhere and at every time.”
He was speaking to himself as well as to Gerard, for those were troubled times for the Gospelers in Geneva.
The priests had not forgotten, nor forgiven, their defeat on Good Friday. Their enmity was only waiting for a fresh occasion, an opportunity to strike—this time in earnest.
The Huguenots were learning to dread the great feasts of the church, finding how the priests used them to play on the emotions of the Catholics and stir them up to the destruction of the heretics, as a work most acceptable to God. Early in May came a very special one, known as the Feast of the Holy Winding Sheet. This sheet, according to the priests, was the very linen cloth in which the body of the Lord Jesus was wrapped when He was buried, and which still retained the imprint of His face. This had by some miraculous means found its way to Geneva, and on May the Fourth was exhibited, with great pomp and ritual to the faithful.
Dr. Morand dreaded this day, and not, alas! vainly.
Greta returned from the Festival in a glow of enthusiasm.
“Oh, Béril, if only you would come with me," she said. "It is all so different from those cold poor meetings where you all go just to read and pray and preach. Oh, the glorious music—the singing—the robes—everything beautiful and fitting to the praise of God. And Canon Wernli, if you could only have seen him towering above everyone else, and carried away in such an ecstasy as he lifted up for us the holy relic, you would have thought he was the very angel that rolled the stone from the sepulcher.”
Béril might have been more moved by this description, had not her previous recollections of the gigantic Canon consisted of the fact that he had been the leading spirit in the proposed massacre of Good Friday, and also the one who had run upon Farel to run him through with his sword.
Nor, did Greta know that directly after divesting himself of the robes she so much admired, he had hurried to the Vicar's house to plan another massacre of the Huguenots.
Night came on—a very dark night. The little household slept quietly, recking nothing of the danger that threatened. Dr. Morand had been called out to a patient.
It was late when he returned, and there was a look on his face next morning that none of them had ever seen before. Béril guessed that something very wrong had happened to rob it of its habitual pleasant peacefulness.
“Yes, you are right," he admitted, when she ventured to question him. "Last night was the darkest for the Gospel that we have ever seen, and what it will lead to none can yet foresee.
“All we know is that a third council was held at the vicar's house after the service in the Cathedral, and another massacre planned. Canon Wernli was the leader, and, armed from head to foot, urged on the attack. Armed Catholics rushed about the streets, urging the Huguenots to fight, but none struck a blow until Ami Perrin—you know the clever, impulsive, hot-headed fellow he is—being attacked, retaliated and almost killed his opponent. It was the signal for a general fight. The Molard was filled with a riotous mob, Peter Wernli, in the thick of it, shouting wild oaths and striking right and left with his halbert. A Huguenot snatched it from him and broke it in pieces, but he simply drew his two-edged sword and hewed them down, so defended by his armor no one could touch him.”
“But how did it end?" Béril asked breathlessly.
“It ended," the physician's voice was very troubled, "alas that I must tell you, Béril, it ended in his death. A passer-by—a poor carman, came up, found a weak spot in his armor and thrust in his sword. The Canon staggered to the entrance of a house, and then sank bleeding and dead upon the stairs.”
“Dead!" Béril repeated with white lips.
“Dead," the doctor echoed. "The house, alas! is that of the Chautemps, and what the end will be, none can yet say. The priests spent the night in hunting down our people, but none were found. Not till this morning was the Canon's death discovered, but the price will yet have to be paid. May God help us all, for though one man sinned, the many will pay the price!”