She
looked on him with sternness,--with all but horror; and he, his face
flushed with wine, which he had tossed off as he passed through the hall
to steady his nerves for the coming storm, looked at her with smiling
defiance, the result of long estrangement between mother and son.
"Well, my lady," said he, ere she could speak, "I heard that this good
fellow was here, and came home as fast as I could, to see that he told you
as few lies as possible."
"He has told me," said she, "that you have robbed the Church of God."
"Robbed him, it may be, an old hoody crow, against whom I have a grudge of
ten years' standing."
"Wretched, wretched boy! What wickedness next? Know you not, that he who
robs the Church robs God himself?"
"And he who harms God's people," put in the monk from behind the chair,
"harms his Maker."
"His Maker?" said the lad, with concentrated bitterness. "It would be a
gay world, if the Maker thereof were in any way like unto you, who call
yourselves his people. Do you remember who told them to set the peat-stack
on fire under me ten years ago? Ah, ha, Sir Monk, you forget that I have
been behind the screen,--that I have been a monk myself, or should have
been one, if my pious lady mother here had had her will of me, as she may
if she likes of that doll there at her knee.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40