‘His (friend) my rank is amongst men.'
A FEW days afterward some ladies were seated at work in a quiet room of the house adjoining the Church of Bethlehem. The room was large, and well furnished, though in a style which fashionable folk of the fifteenth century pronounced decidedly antiquated. It was hung with good, though faded, tapestry; while a spinet, and a case containing books, testified to the cultivation of the inmates.
Two of the ladies occupied a kind of dais, rather apart from the rest. One of them was advanced in years. Her long, close-fitting robe of black had no ornament save a rosary with a golden cross, and her gray hair was gathered up under a plain silken hood—to have worn the high-peaked Bohemian headdress would have been ‘a sign of worldly conformity.' Parma Oneshka was that phenomenon so rare in the Middle Ages—an unmarried lady of mature years, not a nun. Being one of that company of devout and honorable women who had gathered around the walls of Bethlehem, she was looked upon as a religious person—a kind of beguine, though of a higher social rank, like an uncloistered nun without the vows. Her face, which showed signs of declining health, was strong and full of character. In youth it had been a hard face, perhaps, but the hand, not always an unkindly one, which added the wrinkles, had softened the stern, uncompromising lines. The keen gray eyes were keen enough still for seeing or for service;—they could see a great deal more than the work upon which she was engaged, a garment of canvas or coarse linen, intended doubtless for the poor.
Zedenka sat before her, similarly occupied. But her slender fingers drew the clumsy needle in and out of the coarse stuff with nervous rapidity, and her heightened color and sparkling eyes showed that she was listening to the conversation of her aged friend with some strong feeling, apparently not altogether pleasurable.
Patina Oneshka was saying, ‘It was well done of thy father and the rest to protest against the deed of the Council, which was an insult to the whole Bohemian nation. But it is not well done of them to talk as if the Gospel began with Master John Huss, and will be heard no more now he is gone. A great deal too much there is, even amongst the faithful, of the spirit St. Paul rebuked in the men of Corinth. "Who then is Paul," quoth he, "and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?" ‘Who then, I would ask, is Master John Huss, except the same? For that matter, I remember him myself, a poor boy singing in the church choir, and glad enough to eat his basin of pease porridge with a crust of rye bread for a spoon. It was said he did menial work for the professors in return for leave to attend their lectures. I wot well he found it hard to keep himself at college; nor could he have done it at all but for the lord of Hussenec̆, the father of him that now is, who used to give him now and then a gown or a pair of shoes. So he got his learning—so much of it as he had, which I never heard was anything remarkable. I have known those who in acquaintance with the classic authors of antiquity, and also with the writings of the Fathers, were as far beyond him as he was beyond poor Archbishop A.B.C.—who burned Master Wickliffe's books, though he could not read them, and learned his alphabet after his consecration.'
‘There be plenty of doctors well learned in the classics and the Fathers,' said Zedenka. ‘Yet not one of them can speak to the heart as he did. His words are life and fire.'
‘There are words of other men, however, likely to outlast them. There is more weight in one of the "sentences" of my father, than in a whole treatise of Master John Huss. You think I say so because I am his daughter? No; of a truth I say so because so it is. Master Matthias of Janov, and Master John Mille, those holy servants of God, knew and loved well the Bohemian writings of my father, for he was the first to write with classic elegance the tongue of our people. They held him a master in the teaching of morality. Ah, those were men indeed! There were giants in the land in those days! Would we had them among us now! Truly, our Bohemia is in sore need of them.'
‘Only in that case we might be tempted to forget that Paul and Apollos are nothing,' observed Zedenka mischievously.
‘Thy tongue is shrewd,' said Parma Oneshka, raising her keen eyes from her work and bending them on the face of her young companion. ‘But rest content, my child. I had no thought of speaking against Master John Huss, as indeed I could not, for he was ever a holy and blameless man of God. Only I would say, "Call no man your father on earth."'
‘I suppose that means, except one's own father,' said Zedenka, who well knew that Parma Oneshka absolutely worshipped the memory of her father, the knight of Stitny, unquestionably a man of deep thought and great piety, whose works had much acceptance amongst the faithful in Bohemia.
‘That which pleases the multitude is not always that which lasts the longest,' said Parma Oneshka.
‘However, I will not talk of these things to thee. Thou art young, and the young like best that which shines upon the surface. Only this I say: I have bequeathed unto thee—for, of all who are left now on earth, I love thee, child, the best—the books of my father, which are written in his own hand. I meant Master John to have them after me—so much younger as he was than I—but God willed it otherwise. Now they are for thee. When thy hair is gray as mine, and thou halt borne as many sorrows, then, I think, if thou livest so long, thou wilt begin to understand them.'
Zedenka was touched. Laying down her work, she put her hand caressingly on the withered hand of Parma Oneshka. ‘I shall hold them dear for your sake,' she said.
‘I know it, my child. But I would have thee hold them dearer far for his sake; for, though men know it not, they have never seen his like since-nor will they. But I would ask thee, Zedenka, what thou meanest to do about the queen? Thou canst not surely disregard the wish she has so graciously expressed to see thee? '
‘I see not how I can go to the palace,' said Zedenka with some embarrassment.
‘What should hinder thee? '
‘Dear Pánna, there be many things,' said Zedenka hesitating.
‘I see them not. Thy father is here to conduct thee, and his new squire, a very gentle youth, to wait upon you both.'
‘It likes me not to go, in any wise, without my mother,' said Zedenka, with much less than her usual frankness and self-possession.
‘If that be thy trouble, child, thou knowest I have access at all times to the queen, and I will present thee. None, save thy mother, hath more right to do this thing for thee.'
Zedenka bent her face over her work, yet could not prevent its showing her perplexity. To decline the offer would have been impossible, to accept it reluctantly would have been ungracious. How could she confess to her friend that her real difficulty was the lack of the dress and the ornaments which the daughter of a baron of Bohemia ought to wear upon such an occasion? Her mother had not known the queen was then in the Hradschin, and therefore had not foreseen the contingency; and she could not trouble her father about it in the midst of his present cares and embarrassments. At last she said, faintly enough, ‘I thank you, Parma.'
‘I will speak to thy father. No doubt he will be here anon to inquire after thy health; or else he will send that likely youth, his squire, who seems to be well affected to the Gospel, though he is a foreigner. Prithee, has the knight of Chlum no other squire at present? What has become of the gentleman he took with him to Constance? '
‘Vavrence and Bilek have entered the service of our cousin of Latzembock. As he was going to the Kaiser, it pleased him well to have them.'
‘Thy cousin of Latzembock is no credit to thee or to us. Is it true that he has purged himself, on his knightly oath, of suspicion of heresy? '
‘I had not heard of it,' said Zedenka.
Parma Oneshka bestowed a very keen glance upon her. Before the journey to Constance there had been some talk of an alliance, for which, as the parties were cousins, a papal dispensation would have been required. But, although the young girl's face still wore an unusual flush, Latzembock was by no means answerable for it; nor did it cost her anything, save cousinly concern, when her friend continued, ‘If he has done that, I hope thy father and thine uncles will never speak to him again.'
‘But he might disown heresy,' said Zedenka, ‘for we are not heretics.'
‘We must let men call us what they count us, child. Did they not call the Master of the house "Beelzebub?" As for me, I had as lief be called "heretic" as Johannite, and far liefer than by the newfangled name of Hussite; yet that also I suppose we must bear. Ah, here comes thy gallant young squire. He is welcome.'
Hubert entered, looking very handsome in the crimson mantle and tunic which the ladies of Pihel had embroidered for him. The velvet cap with its single plume he held in his hand, as he bowed low and gracefully, making suitable salutation to all who were present, then standing respectfully before the lady of the house and the daughter of his lord.
‘My lord hath sent me to commend him with all respect and observance unto the noble Parma Oneshka, and with all affection unto my lady his daughter,' he said. ‘I was also to inquire after the health of the noble ladies, and to receive their commands.'
To this long sentence, spoken in very correct Bohemian, a suitable answer was returned by the elder lady, and Hubert continued, addressing himself to her, ‘My lord would know, Palma, if he hath your gracious permission to wait upon you before vespers. He hath somewhat to communicate to you, and also to his daughter.'
‘A father is ever welcome to his daughter; and a true knight, like Pan Jan z Chlum, is ever welcome unto me,' said Parma Oneshka graciously.
Here Zedenka put in a word: ‘Dost know, Master Hubert, if my father hath had a letter from Pihel? '
‘I think not, Parma.' He might have spoken more decidedly, since the good knight could have received nothing unknown to him, for he attended him all day, and at night slept at his feet on a truckle-bed. On the present occasion, he knew very well what his lord had to tell, but of course refrained from the slightest intimation that he did so.
His next duty, not a hard one, was to drink the health of the ladies in a cup of good Gascon wine. This was served to him by a bower woman of mature age and staid demeanor, whom Pánna Oneshka summoned by a little silver bell.
He would then have taken his departure, but Parma Oneshka detained him, ostensibly to question him about his impressions of Prague, but really to ascertain his religious opinions. To his surprise and admiration, she spoke to him in excellent Latin, having heard from Zedenka that he had been formerly a scholar of the Sorbonne. His answers pleased her greatly; although no indulgent critic, she was satisfied with their Latin, and more than satisfied with their theology. She looked on him with the kind of interest—half-wistful, half-pathetic—which the aged, whose days are well-nigh over, so often feel for the young, who have all the glorious possibilities and all the terrible perils of their lives before them. She ended by presenting him with a gold ducat, a kind of gift which in those days was considered quite suitable and proper, even between equals.
Hubert made due acknowledgments, and said ere he withdrew he would get Wenzel, the cupmaker and goldsmith, with whom he lodged, to put a clasp to it, that he might wear it in his cap underneath the badge of his lord. This rather surprised the practical Zedenka, who thought Master Hubert might have used the gold to buy some of the many things he must have fancied in the great city. But at least he was proving himself no inapt scholar in the ways and fashions of chivalry.
The story Chlum had to tell was on this wise. Amongst the many friends whom he met at Prague were Petr de Svoyshin, and his wife Páni Anna de Frimbuck. Svoyshin was Master of the Royal Mint of Bohemia, a position of great gain as well as of much influence and importance. The Mint was at Kuttenburg, in the neighborhood of the rich silver mines, and Svoyshin usually resided there, in what was called the Welsh castle.' He was a zealous Hussite, and his wife, Rani Anna, was yet further advanced. She was a lady of excellent gifts,' much hated by the priests. She felt for Huss that devoted personal love which no man ever evoked more abundantly. In the last letter which he wrote to his friends in Bohemia— if not the last letter he ever penned—he had made of her and of her lord a very earnest request, which had reference to his best and dearest friend,' the Knight of Chlum; be asked them, for the love of him, to defray the charges Chlum had incurred on his account in Constance.
Dying lips do not often ask in vain. But to fulfill this prayer Rani Anna would have pawned her last jewel, and her lord would have said to her, ‘Do all that is in thine heart.' Such sacrifices were not needed, however. Wealth was theirs; more than sufficed.
At their invitation, Chlum came to their lodging. Hubert, who attended him as usual, remained standing at the lower end of the room, where also a notary was present, with pens, ink, and paper.
Meanwhile Chlum and his friends conversed together. The state of the country would have provided them with an inexhaustible theme, if the thoughts of all had not turned rather to Constance and to what was done there. Svoyshin held in his hand the paper with the figures on it in the writing of Zedenka. ‘Do you think, my friend,' he asked presently, ‘that this is a true and faithful account of all the moneys you expended in Constance, and in going and returning?'
‘Yes, so far as I know. But give it back to me, I pray you, or destroy it if you will, for it is worth no more than the paper it stands upon. It is true that a year ago, when the Kaiser gave the business in charge to Duba and to me, it was understood he would defray the cost of it. But would to God that were the only obligation he failed in!'
‘Since he failed in the greater,' said the lady, 'I am not sorry that he has failed also in the less. Only those who loved the dear master should spend their substance for him.'
Chlum felt the same, but he had small skill in saying what he felt. He only bowed to the lady, and turned to Svoyshin once more. ‘I can guess your reason for desiring it of me,' he said, pointing to the paper. ‘You have heard, it may be, some idle talk amongst our knights and barons, as if I did not all I might have done, and you must needs try to silence it, like the good friend you are. You may spare your pains. God knows if I kept back my gold, if I would have kept back my life! That is enough for me.'
‘Ay, friend, enough for thee, but not for us. Thinkest thou there are none but thyself who loved him, and would fain spend somewhat for his sake? '
‘Ay, many. But it was not given unto those many to do it. It was given unto me.'
The lady understood him better than her lord. She rose from her chair, and laid her hand upon his arm. ‘Sir knight,' she asked, ‘will you be generous and give of your abundance—of the abundant honor God has given to you—a little share also unto us? '
‘I do not understand you, Páni Anna.'
‘Then read this,' said Svoyshin, placing a paper in his hand. ‘You know the writing.'
Chlum was much moved. ‘A letter of his!’ he exclaimed.
He took it eagerly and read: 'for my sake, although perhaps dead in the body, do not allow any loss to happen to Lord John, the faithful and worthy knight and my good benefactor. I entreat you for the Lord God's sake, dear Lord Petr, Master of the Mint, and Lady Anna.'
The words of praise and kindness went straight to the strong man's heart. A mist rose before his eyes, the letter almost dropped from his hand—almost, not quite; it was too precious for that. He said in a low voice, ‘Keep your gold, and let me keep this. I am repaid.'
‘You shall have both, sir baron,' said the lady; you have earned them. ‘And take therewith the thanks of every true Bohemian, now and in the after-time.'
' That the business may be settled at once,' said Svoyshin, ‘the silver is with us here; and you notary hath it ready, kop by kop, in full tale, to deliver unto you.'
Chlum did not answer. In his strong, silent soul, that had no voice for its own conflicts, a conflict was raging. His heart clung desperately to the sacrifice he had been allowed to make for the man he loved. For him, that sacrifice had become a possession, a sacred treasure. For him, giving had been changed into receiving; and it was receiving which would be a great and bitter giving up, a veritable sacrifice. Could he give up so?
But Master John willed it. It was right; right in all ways and for all reasons. Others, who were dependent on him, ought not to suffer for his sake, that he might please himself. Moreover, what was he more than others, that he should want to keep the best things for himself? What was he? He was Master John's best and dearest friend, his other self;' he was ' that faithful and worthy knight, his good benefactor,' who was thought of tenderly, whose cares and interests occupied him even on the very eve of martyrdom. That was enough. Gold and silver might come or go, they could neither give nor take away such joy as that. It had been easy to spend and be spent; it was harder, much harder, not to be allowed to spend anything at all; but with those words in his heart he could do it. All that Master John willed should be surely done.
At last he said, bowing his stately head as one who pays homage, or yields observance to some higher law: ‘My noble friends, I take what you offer, and—I thank you.' There was perhaps a little hesitation in the last words. Then, with that quiet suppression of all emotion which sometimes evidences the deepest emotion of all, he passed at once to practical detail. ‘My squire, Master Hubert, who is also an excellent secretary, having served in that calling at Constance, can do the reckoning; or, if you will, I will send a notary.'
So, in few words, the matter was settled. But not thus lightly and easily, with so many 'kops' of silver groschen, could Bohemia pay the debt she owed to ‘that faithful and worthy knight,' John of Chlum. Well may her artist-son, in his great picture, place near the pathetic figure of the martyr, as he stands for the last time before his judges, the martial form and noble, sorrowful face of the faithful friend, holding in his hand the historic hammer which nailed his fearless protest to the cathedral-door. Let no man deem that heroic protest against successful wrong is all in vain. Every such protest is recorded, not alone on high—where He that is higher than the highest regardeth—but in His book of remembrance here below, wherein are the things that make nations and mold the future of humanity. But for Chlum and his companions the story of the last days of Huss would probably have been very different; and almost certainly it would never have been fully known to the world. He succeeded in surrounding with a blaze of notoriety, which the moral grandeur of the victim changed into a halo of glory, the sacrifice he could not prevent.