A month later George and Susan were married, and Farmer Merton’s debts paid.

Robinson wisely went back to Australia, and more wisely married an honest serving-maid.  He is respected for his intelligence and good nature, and is industrious and punctilious in business.

When the assizes came on neither Robinson nor George was present to prosecute, and their recognisances were forfeited.  Meadows and Crawley were released, and Meadows went to Australia.  His mother, who hated her son’s sins, left her native land at seventy to comfort him and win him to repentance.

“Even now his heart is softening,” she said to herself.  “Three times he has said to me ‘That George Fielding is a better man than I am.’  He will repent; he bears no malice, he blames none but himself.  It is never too late to mend.”

* * * * *

The Cloister and the Hearth

“The Cloister and the Hearth” a Tale of the Middle Ages, is by common consent the greatest of all Charles Reade’s stories.  A portion of it originally appeared in 1859 in “Once a Week,” under the title of “A Good Fight,” and such was its success in this guise that it increased the circulation of that periodical by twenty thousand.  During the next two years Reade, recognising its romantic possibilities, expanded it to its present length.  As a picture of the manners and customs of the times it is almost unsurpassable; yet pervading the whole is the strong, clear atmosphere of romantic drama never allowing the somewhat ample descriptions to predominate the thrilling interest with which the story is charged.  Sir Walter Besant regarded it as the “greatest historical novel in the language.”  Swinburne remarked of it that “a story better conceived, better constructed, or better related, it would be difficult to find anywhere.”

I.—­Gerard Falls in Love

It was past the middle of the fifteenth century when our tale begins.

Elias, and Catherine his wife, lived in the little town of Tergon in Holland.  He traded, wholesale and retail, in cloth and curried leather, and the couple were well to do.  Nine children were born to them; four of these were set up in trade, one, Giles, was a dwarf, another, little Catherine, was a cripple.  Cornelis, the eldest, and Sybrandt, the youngest, lived at home, too lazy to work, waiting for dead men’s shoes.

There remained young Gerard, a son apart and distinct, destined for the Church.  The monks taught him penmanship, and continued to teach him, until one day, in the middle of a lesson, they discovered he was teaching them.  Then Gerard took to illuminating on vellum, and in this he was helped by an old lady, Margaret Van Eyck, sister of the famous brothers Van Eyck, who had come to end her days near Tergon.  When Philip the Good, Count of Flanders, for the encouragement of the arts, offered prizes for the best specimens of painting on glass and illumination on vellum, Gerard decided to compete.  He sent in his specimens, and his mother furnished him with a crown to go to Rotterdam and see the work of his competitors and the prize distribution.  Gerard would soon be a priest, she argued; it seemed hard if he might not enjoy the world a little before separating himself from it for life.