Hilda Lewis by The Witch & the Priest (epub)

Author:The Witch & the Priest (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2013-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

“I wanted to comfort my poor girl, to wipe away the blood; but I dared not. This terrible mating was her punish­ment. The Master had judged; who was I to deny his justice? Neither then nor afterwards did I throw her a word of com­fort for fear of Philip. Philip would not hesitate to denounce me, any more than she had hesitated to denounce her sister.

It was sad these days in the cottage; yes, and bitter too. Meg went about with a vacant look. I wondered, sometimes, whether she was losing what wits she had. Philip would stand over her, flinging her taunts; asking whether she had conceived yet of the Master. And she would pat her own full belly. Meg would flush or she would pale; sometimes she would lift a hand to her face as though there were tears she must wipe away; and she would stare, surprised, when the hand came away dry. Grief and horror festered in her heart—grief for the slain child; horror of the Master.

Yes, I was sorry for Margaret; but I feared Philip.

Once I came upon Meg when I was gathering faggots in the wood; it was in a dark place and she was kneeling; and she was trying to pray. It was your lord’s prayer. But she could not say it. Lead us into temptation, she kept saying. Lead us, lead us into temptation. She knew it was wrong, you could tell it by the way she shook her puzzled head. She did not know how to set it right. For it is not permitted to us to take your lord’s prayer upon our tongue; and, if we should try to pray, the Master confuses the mind and we cannot find the words. We may use them only in the casting of spells . . . and in the order which He permits.

So there she went on kneeling and her empty eyes lifted to the sky. If your god is as merciful as you say, priest, why did he not help her that day?”

“The further we run from God, the longer it takes to run to Him again,” Samuel Fleming said.

“That is only commonsense.” Joan Flower sighed. “Ah well! My home had grown strange and sad; I was frightened lest my fool had not yet learnt her lesson. There were days I could bear it no longer. I would leave home in the early morning and wander the countryside asking myself why everything that had started so fair had turned to ashes in my mouth. Sometimes when I had forgotten to put a piece of bread in my pocket I would stop at a house where no-one knew me; but they would not give me so much as a crust; and sometimes they would threaten to set the dogs on me.”

“The Devil’s Mark was plain in your face.”

“But it was the mark on my body brought me to my death.”

“It was yourself that set them searching for it. You had justice.”

“Your god offers more than justice—if we are to believe you, priest.

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