“O Aunt!—when they were heretics?”
“No, nor murderers neither—without they’d murdered me, and then I reckon I shouldn’t have been there to look at ’em.”
“But the priests say they are worse than murderers—they murder men’s souls.”
“I’m alive, for aught I know. And I don’t expect to say my Paternoster any worse than I did seven years gone.”
“How do you know they haven’t bewitched you?” asked Anania in a solemn tone.
“For the best of all reasons—that I’m not bewitched.”
“Aunt Isel, I’m not so sure of that. If those wretches—”
“O Anania, do let Mother be!” pleaded Flemild. “It is her pain that speaks, not herself. I told you she was suffering.”
“You did; but I wonder if her soul isn’t worse than her body. I’ll just give Father Dolfin a hint to look to her soul and body both. They say those creatures only bewitched one maid, and she was but a poor villein belonging to some doctor of the schools: and so frightened was she to see their punishment that she was in a hurry to recant every thing they had taught her. Well! we shall see no more of them, that’s one good thing. I shouldn’t think any of them would be alive by the end of the week. The proclamation was strict—neither food nor shelter to be given, nor any compassion shown. And branded as they are, every body will know them, you see.”
Stephen came in while his sister-in-law was speaking.