“Evil eye be stricken blind!
Cords about thy heart unwind!
Tell the truth, and shame the fiend!”
The sumner set down the cup with a wry face.
“Mother, I will confess all save the names, which I know not. I am sumner of my Lord of Lincoln, and I took these German heretics four months gone, and bound them, and cast them into my Lord’s prison. And on Sunday, when they were tried, I guarded them through the town, and thrust them out of the East Gate. Did I do any more than my duty? There were women and little children among them, and they went to perish. They must all be dead by now, methinks, for no man would dare to have compassion on them, and the bitter cold would soon kill men so weak already with hunger. Yet they were heretics, accursed of God and men: but their faces were like the faces of the angels that are in Heaven. Two of those faces—a mother and a little child—will never away from me. I know not why nor how, but they made me think of another winter night, when there was no room for our Lady and her holy Child among men on earth. Oh take away those faces! I can bear no more.”
“Did they look angrily at thee?”
“Angry! I tell you they were like the angels. I was pushing them out at the gate—I never thought of any thing but getting rid of heretics—when she turned, and the child looked up on me—such a look! I shall behold it till I die, if you cannot rid me of it.”
“My power extends not to angels,” replied Haldane.
“Can you do nought for me, then?” he asked in hopeless accents. “Must I feel for ever as Herod the King felt, when he had destroyed the holy innocents? I am not worse than others—why should they torture me?”
“Punishment must always follow sin.”
“Sin! 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.”