Emily Sarah Holt

“ Shrive me for obeying the Bishop, and bringing doom upon the heretics! Nay, witch!—art thou so far gone down the black road that thou reckonest such good works to be sins?”
And the sumner laughed bitterly.
“It is thy confession of sin wherewith I deal,” answered Haldane sternly. “It is thy conscience, not mine, whereon it lieth heavy. Who is it that goeth down the black road—the man that cannot rest for the haunting of dead faces, or the poor, harmless, old woman, that bade him seek peace from the Church of God?” ”

“ Men, women, lads! you’ve repeated the deed of Iscariot this day, for you’ve betrayed innocent blood—you have slain your benefactor and friend. Go home and ask God and the saints to forgive you—if they ever can. How they sit calm above yonder, and stand this world, is more than I can tell.—Poor, harmless, kindly soul! may God comfort thee in His blessed Heaven! And for them that have harried thee, and taken thy life, and have the black brand of murder on their souls, God pardon them as He may! ”

“ And dropping her voice to a whisper, Haldane emerged from the screen, and desired the applicant to enter.
It was a very handsome young woman who came in, on whose face the indulgence of evil passions—envy, jealousy, and anger—had left as strong a mark as beauty. She crossed herself as she stepped over the threshold.
“Have you a charm that will win hearts?” she asked.
“Whose heart do you desire to win?” was the reply.
“That of Wigan the son of Egglas.”
“Has it strayed from you?”
“I have never had it. He loves Brichtiva, on the other side of the wood, and he will not look on me. I hate her. ”

“ But sins that are not so destroyed have to be borne by the sinner himself.”
“Well, I call that cowardice,” said Haimet, drawing a red herring across the track, “to want to burden somebody else with your sins. Why not have the manliness to bear them yourself?”
“If you are so manly,” answered Gerhardt with another of his quiet smiles, “will you oblige me, Haimet, by taking up the Castle, and setting it down on Presthey?”
“What are you talking about now? How could I?”
“Much more easily than you could atone for one sin. What do you call a man who proposes to do the impossible?” ”

“ Is it any sin to punish a heretic? Father Dolfin saith it is a shining merit, because they are God’s enemies, and destroy men’s souls. I have not sinned. It must be Satan that torments me thus; it can only be he, since he is the father of heretics, and they go straight to him. Can’t you buy him off? I ’ll give you any gold to get rid of those faces! Save me from them if you can!”
“I cannot. I have no power in such a case as thine. Get thee to the priest and shrive thee, thou miserable sinner, for thy help must come from Heaven and not from earth.” ”

“ The God they worship seems to be no jealous God, but one that hath no law to be broken, no power to be dreaded, no majesty to be revered. ‘If I be a Master,’ said the Holy One by Malachi the Prophet, ‘where is My fear?’ And our Lord spake to the Sadducees, saying, ‘Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the Scriptures, neither the power of God?’ They seem to be strangely fearless of breaking His most solemn commands—even the words that He spake to Moses in the sight of all Israel, on the mount that burned with fire. ”

“ Deary me, these girls! they’re a sorry lot, the whole heap of ’em! I don’t know where you’re going to find one, Derette.”
“Put it in the Lord’s hands, and He will find you one.”
“I’ll tell you what, Gerard, I never heard the like of you,” answered Isel, setting her pan swinging by its chain on the hook over the fire. “You begin and end every mortal thing with our Lord, and you’re saying your prayers pretty nigh all day long. Are you certain sure you’ve never been a monk?”
“Very certain, friend,” said Gerhardt, smiling. “Is not the existence of Agnes answer enough to that?” ”

“ Ermine and Derette they are. I can never forget a conversation I once had with Gerard, when he took me back to the Castle from Isel’s house; I did not think so much of it at the time, but it came to me with power afterwards, when he had sealed his faith with his blood.”
“Ah! there’s nothing like dying, to make folks believe you,” commented Roscius.
“Can’t agree with you there, friend,” answered Stephen with a smile. “There is one other thing, and that is living. A man may give his life in a sudden spurt of courage and enthusiasm. ”

“ And did He not die for Countess too?”
“I thought He died for those who are in holy Church; and Countess is a wicked heathen Jew.”
“Yes, for holy Church, which means those whom God has chosen out of the world. How can you know that Countess is not some day to be a member of holy Church?”
“Ermine, they are regular wicked people!”
“We are all wicked people, till God renews us by His Holy Spirit.”
“I’m not!” cried Flemild indignantly; “and I don’t believe you are either.”
“Ah, Flemild, that is because you are blind. Sin has darkened our eyes; we cannot see ourselves.” ”

“ If Derette had not been a young person of original ideas and very independent spirit, the audacious notion which she was now entertaining would never have visited her mind.
This was no less than a visit to the Castle, to beg one of the cast-off gowns of the women of the household. Dresses wore long in the Middle Ages, and ladies of rank were accustomed to make presents of half-worn ones to each other. Derette was not quite so presumptuous as to think of addressing the Countess—that, even in her eyes, seemed a preposterous impossibility ”

“ There is nothing but trouble for a poor woman in this world. And me as good as a widow, and worse, too. Haimet! Flemild! whatever are you about?”
“Mother,” said Flemild in politic wise, “I have brought you some help. These good women here seek lodging for the night—any decent kind will serve them—and they offer to pay for it in work. It will be such a rest for you, Mother, if you will take in one or two; and don’t you think Franna would do the same, and old Turguia be glad of the chance?”
Isel stood with the basin in her hand, and a look half vexed, half amused, upon her face. ”

“ Depend upon it, lads, ‘I will’ can do a deal of work. ‘I can’ is very well, but if ‘I will’ does not help him, ‘I can’ will not put many pennies in his pocket. ‘I can’—‘I ought’—‘I will’—those are the three good fairies that do a man’s work for him: and the man that starts work without them is like to turn out but a sorry fellow.”
It was for Ermine’s sake, that he might retain a hiding place for her if necessary, that Stephen continued to keep up the house in Ivy Lane. The ordinary custom was for a tradesman to live over or behind his shop. ”

“ Will ye do penance for the same?”
“No,” answered Gerhardt.
“Let them have one more chance,” said King Henry in a low voice. “If they are unsound on one point only, there might yet be hope of their conversion.”
“They are unsound on every point, my Lord,” replied Lincoln irascibly; “but at your desire I will test them on one or two more.—Tell me, do ye believe that the souls of the dead pass into Purgatory?”
“We do not.”
“Do you pray for the dead?”
“No.”
“Do you invocate the blessed Mary and the saints, and trust to their merits and intercession?”
“Never. We worship God, not men.” ”

“ Christian hesitated no longer.
“David! There is one without, calling on us. And it must be one we knew of old, for it calls me by my old name. Pray thee, get up, and let the poor soul in; ’tis not a night for a dog to tarry without, never speak of a human creature, who must be in some trouble.”
David sat up and listened.
“I hear nothing, Wife. I think thou must have been dreaming.” ”

“ And ‘no man liveth to himself’: it is very seldom that you can bring suffering on one person only. It is almost sure to run over to two or three more. And as the troubles of every one of them will run over to another two or three, like circles in the water, the sorrow keeps ever widening, so that the consequences of one small act or word for evil are incalculable. It takes God to reckon them.”
“Eh, don’t you, now!” said Isel with a shudder. “Makes me go all creepy like, that does. I shouldn’t dare to do a thing all the days of my life, if I looked at every thing that way.” ”

“ Anania continued to make disagreeable remarks at times, but gradually even she became more callous on the question, and nobody else ever said any thing.
“I do wonder if Father Vincent have given her a word or two,” said Isel. “She hasn’t took much of it, if he have. If she isn’t at me for one thing, she’s at me for another. If it were to please the saints to make Osbert the Lord King’s door-keeper, so as he’d go and live at London or Windsor, I shouldn’t wonder if I could get over it!”
“Ah, ‘the tongue can no man tame,’” observed Gerhardt with a smile. ”

“ Ermine lived in an age when it was a most extraordinary occurrence for a woman to have any power to dispose of herself in marriage, and such a thing was almost regarded as unnatural and improper. She held out her hand to Stephen.
“I will go where the Lord sends me,” she said simply. “Dear Mother Haldane saved my life, and she has more right to dispose of me than any one else. Be it so.”
“When folks are wed, they commonly have gifts made them,” said Haldane with a smile. “I haven’t much to give, and you’ll think my gift a queer one: but I wish you’d take it, Ermine. It’s Gib.” ”

“ Why, just look at Reinbald the Chaplain—who’d ever take him for a priest, with his long curls and his silken robes, and ruffling up his hair to hide the tonsure?”
“Ay, there are men who are ashamed of nothing so much as of the cross which their Master bore for them,” admitted Gerhardt sorrowfully. “And at times it looks as if the lighter the cross be, the less ready they are to carry it. There be who would face a drawn sword more willingly than a scornful laugh.” ”