Vain to have builded
minsters in his honor, and heaped the shrines of his saints with gold.
Vain to have fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and washed the feet of
His poor, that I might atone for my own sins, and the sins of my house.
This is His answer. He has taken me up, and dashed me down: and naught is
left but, like Job, to abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes--of I
know not what."
"God has not deserted you. See, He has sent you me!" said Hereward,
wondering to find himself, of all men on earth, preaching consolation.
"Yes, I have you! Hold me. Love me. Let me feel that one thing loves me
upon earth. I want love; I must have it: and if God, and His mother, and
all the saints, refuse their love, I must turn to the creature, and ask it
to love me, but for a day."
"For ever, mother."
"You will not leave me?"
"If I do, I come back, to finish what I have begun."
"More blood? O God! Hereward, not that! Let us return good for evil. Let
us take up our crosses. Let us humble ourselves under God's hand, and flee
into some convent, and there die praying for our country and our kin."
"Men must work, while women pray. I will take you to a minster,--to
Peterborough."
"No, not to Peterborough!"
"But my Uncle Brand is abbot there, they tell me, now this four years; and
that rogue Herluin, prior in his place.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321