She heard words now
incomprehensible. That men who most of them lived no better than their own
serfs; who could have no amount of wealth, not even the hope of leaving
that wealth to their children,--should cling to wealth,--struggle, forge,
lie, do anything for wealth, to be used almost entirely not for
themselves, but for the honor and glory of the convent,--indicates an
intensity of corporate feeling, unknown in the outer world then, or now.
The monastery would be ruined! Without this manor, without that wood,
without that stone quarry, that fishery,--what would become of them?
But mingled with those words were other words, unfortunately more
intelligible to this day,--those of superstition.
What would St. Etheldreda say? How dare they provoke her wrath? Would she
submit to lose her lands? She might do,--what might she not do? Her bones
would refuse ever to work a miracle again. They had been but too slack in
miracle-working for many years. She might strike the isle with barrenness,
the minster with lightning. She might send a flood up the fens. She
might--
William the Norman, to do them justice, those valiant monks feared not;
for he was man, and could but kill the body. But St. Etheldreda, a virgin
goddess, with all the host of heaven to back her,--might she not, by
intercession with powers still higher than her own, destroy both body and
soul in hell?
"We are betrayed.
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