The Chaplet of Pearls eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 659 pages of information about The Chaplet of Pearls.

The Chaplet of Pearls eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 659 pages of information about The Chaplet of Pearls.

He hardly remembered receiving the hurt, and was at first too busy to heed it, or to call off any one attention, until a dread of falling, and being trodden on, had seized him and made him speak; and indeed he was so dizzy that Berenger with difficulty kept him on his feet over the bridge, and in the court lifted him in his arms and carried him almost fainting into the cloister, where by the new-made grave still knelt the black-veiled mourner.  She started to her feet as the soldier spoke to her, and seemed at first not to gather the sense of his words; but then, as if with an effort, took them in, made one slight sound like a moan of remonstrance at the mention of the place, but again recollecting herself, led the way along a stone passage, into which a flight of stairs descended into the apsidal chancel, roughly boarded off from the rest of the church.  It was a ruinous, desolate place, and Berenger looked round in dismay for some place on which to lay down his almost unconscious burthen.  The lady bent her head and signed towards the stone sedilia in the wall; then, after two ineffectual essays to make her voice audible, choked as it was with long weeping, she said, low and huskily, ’We will make him more comfortable soon;’ and added some orders to the soldier, who disappeared up the stairway, and Berenger understood that he was gone to fetch bedding.  Then taking from under her heavy mourning cloak a large pair of scissors, she signed to Berenger how to support his brother, while they relieved him of his corslet, sword-belt, and doublet.  The soldier had meantime returned with an old woman, both loaded with bedding, which she signed to them to arrange in one of the little bays or niches that served to form a crown of lesser chapels around the chancel.  She flung aside her muffling cloak, but her black hood still hung far over her face, and every now and then hand or handkerchief was lifted as if to clear her eyes from the tears that would not cease to gather and blind her; and she merely spoke when some direction to an assistant, some sympathetic word to the patient, was needed.  Even Philip in his dizzy trance guessed that he was succeeding to the bed whence one much dearer had gone to his quieter rest in the cloister.  Before he was laid there, however, the bugle sounded; there was a loud shout, and Philip exclaimed, ‘Go, brother!’

‘Trust him to me, sir,’ said the sunken, extinguished voice; ’we will do our best for him.’

He was forced merely to lift Philip to the bed, and to hurry away, while the soldier followed him saying, consolingly, ’Fear not, sir, now our Lady of Hope has him.  Nothing goes ill to which she sets her hand.’

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The Chaplet of Pearls from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.