Transgressions by Erastes

Author:Erastes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Press

Michael Giddings sat and listened with the same degree of patient concentration that he had given to Hopkins. His chin in one hand, his light blue eyes steady and welcoming, he drew Jonathan out skillfully, almost imperceptibly. Asking a subtle question here, interrupting at a vital point, and artfully changing the subject then returning to it later so that the two streams did not seem to connect.

And while Jonathan spoke, at first haltingly and then with more confidence, Michael listened, and as he listened, he learned.

It was a gift he had developed young. Inquisitive and bright, he’d been called; the son of a clergyman, he had learned to read early. He had been fascinated with the glorious, golden glow of illuminated Latin long before he had managed to make any sense of English. He had learned the trick of observing people; perched up high in the gallery during his father’s sermons, he absorbed the edicts of the church like a sponge, believing every word of fire and brimstone, pain and redemption, hell and damnation that spewed from his father’s mouth. Fascinated, the boy had watched the congregation. He watched the pious and the bored. Learned when people were not paying attention and when they were dissembling. Discerned who did not believe, who pretended to do so and who truly did. While he was still young, before his father even considered him able to be a part of the church, he would mingle with the crowds after services, hearing, listening, learning what people said, gradually knowing that sometimes it was not what people said, but what they did not say that was important. Not their words, but how they acted, the looks they gave each other, the way their bodies spoke when their mouths did not.

In Michael’s world, his father’s church was everything—a place of worship, a meeting place, the center of the village. The pastor was the hub of it all, the driving force, God’s own guardian against the Popish threat. Michael’s father was a holy terror; anyone who did not come to church was shunned, and their place in village life destroyed piecemeal, until the offender fled or crawled back, repenting on his or her knees. Absenteeism was rare. No one missed church unless they were unable to walk. Samuel Gidding’s ways of forgiving the defaulters were so stringent that grown men did not repeat the offence, and their fear of such violence being administered to their wives and children was enough to make them ensure that the entire family attended, regular as clockwork.

This then, was the world that Michael grew up in, flourished in. He learned to count by counting the congregationand reporting back any missing names, he learned his arithmetic from counting the offerings from the faithful, and he learned that it was not what you knew, but rather what you could convince others what you believed that was important.

And all this he learned in his father’s church.

Jonathan was an open book to Michael. The young man did not want to say anything about his home life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.