Note 1. Priest. All Jews named Cohen are sons of Aaron.
Chapter Nine.
Paying the Bill.
“’Tis hard when young heart, singing songs of to-morrow,
Is suddenly met by the old hag, Sorrow.”
Leigh Hunt.
Father Bruno was walking slowly, with his hands one in the other behind him, about a mile from Bury Castle. It was a lovely morning in April, and, though alone, he had no fear of highwaymen; for he would have been a bold sinner indeed who, in 1236, meddled with a priest for his harm. An absent-minded man was Father Bruno, at all times when he was free to indulge in meditation. For to him:—
“The future was all dark,
And the past a troubled sea,
And Memory sat in his heart
Wailing where Hope should be.”
He was given to murmuring his thoughts half aloud when in solitude; and he was doing it now. They oscillated from one to the other of two subjects, closely associated in his mind. One was Belasez: the other was a memory of his sorrowful past, a fair girl-face, the likeness to which had struck him so distressingly in hers, and which would never fade from his memory “till God’s love set her at his side again.”