He spent a restless night, and the early summer dawn brought him to his
open window with that desire which every man feels, after a troubled
day and broken rest, to see the world fresh and clean again, as if
nothing had happened--as the writing is smoothed from the wax of the
tablet before a new message can be written. Gilbert listened to the
morning sounds,--the crowing of the cocks, the barking of the dogs, the
calls of peasants greeting one another,--and he breathed the cool dawn
air gratefully, without trying to understand what the Queen wanted of
him.
CHAPTER XIII
The Crusade became a fact on that day when the sovereigns of France and
Guienne together took the scarlet cross from Bernard's hand. But all
was not ready yet. Men were roused, and the times were ripe, but not
until the Abbot of Clairvaux had given Europe the final impulse could
the armies of the King and of the Queen, and of Conrad, who was never
to be crowned Emperor in Rome, begin the march of desperate toil and
weariness that lay between their homes and their death. From Vezelay
the master preacher and inspirer of mankind went straight to Conrad's
court, doing the will of others in faith and without misgiving of
conscience, to the greater glory of God, yet haunted in sleep and
waking by the dim ghosts of ruin and defeat. He prophesied not, and he
saw no visions, but he who was almost the world's physician in his day
felt fever in its pulse and heard distraction in the piercing note of
its rallying-cry.
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