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017 - Book 2 Chapter 5 · Bridal Wreath

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  Speaker 1: Book two, Chapter five of the Bridal Wreath by sigared Onset.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter five
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  Speaker 1: at Nonoseetter. The days went by as before Christen's time
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  Speaker 1: was passed between the dormitory and the church, the weaving room,
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  Speaker 1: the book hall, and the refectory. The nuns and the
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  Speaker 1: convent folk gathered in the pot herbs and the fruits
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  Speaker 1: from the herb garden and the orchard. Holy Cross Day
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  Speaker 1: came in the autumn with the procession. Then there was
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  Speaker 1: the fast before Michaelmas. Christin wondered. None seemed to mark
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  Speaker 1: any change in her, But she had ever been quiet
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  Speaker 1: when amongst strangers and Ingebjorg, Philippus's daughter, who was by
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  Speaker 1: her night and day, was well able to chatter for
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  Speaker 1: them both. Thus no one marked that her thoughts were
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  Speaker 1: far away from all around her. Ere Land's paramour, she
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  Speaker 1: said to herself. She was Erelan's paramour. Now. It seemed
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  Speaker 1: now as though she had dreamed it all the eve
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  Speaker 1: of Saint Margaret's Mass, that hour in the barn, the
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  Speaker 1: knights in her bower at Skog. Either she had dreamed
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  Speaker 1: it or else. All about her now was a dream.
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  Speaker 1: But one day she must waken, one day it must
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  Speaker 1: all come out. Not for a moment did she think
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  Speaker 1: aught else than that she bore Erelan's child within her.
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  Speaker 1: But what what happened to her when this came to light?
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  Speaker 1: She could not well think. Would she be put into
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  Speaker 1: the black hole or be sent home? She saw dim
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  Speaker 1: pictures of her father and mother far away. Then she
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  Speaker 1: shut her eyes, dizzy and sick, bowed in fancy beneath
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  Speaker 1: the coming storm, and tried to harden herself to bear it,
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  Speaker 1: since she thought it must end by sweeping her forever
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  Speaker 1: into Arland's arms, the only place where now she felt
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  Speaker 1: she had a home. Thus was there in this strained
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  Speaker 1: waiting as much of hope as terror, as much of
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  Speaker 1: sweetness as of torment. She was unhappy, but she felt
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  Speaker 1: her love for Herland as it were a flower planted
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  Speaker 1: within her, And spite of her unhappiness, it put forth
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  Speaker 1: fresher and richer blooms each day. That last night, when
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  Speaker 1: he had slept by her side, she had felt, as
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  Speaker 1: a faint and fleeting bliss that there awaited her a
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  Speaker 1: joy and happiness in his arms such as she had
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  Speaker 1: not yet known. She thrilled now at the thought of it.
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  Speaker 1: It came to her like warm, spicy breaths from sun
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  Speaker 1: heated gardens. Wayside Brat Inga had flung the word at her.
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  Speaker 1: She opened her arms to it and pressed it to
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  Speaker 1: her bosom. Wayside Brat was the name they gave to
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  Speaker 1: the child begotten in secret. In woods or fields. She
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  Speaker 1: felt the sunshine and the smell of the pines in
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  Speaker 1: the forest pasture. Each new creeping tremor, each sudden pulse
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  Speaker 1: beat in her body. She took as a reminder from
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  Speaker 1: the unborn babe that now she was come out into
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  Speaker 1: new paths. And were they never so hard to follow?
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  Speaker 1: To the end? She was sure they must lead to Erlon.
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  Speaker 1: At the last, she sat betwixt Ingebjorg and sister Astrid
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  Speaker 1: and sewed at the great tapestry of knights and birds
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  Speaker 1: amidst leafy tendrils. And as she sewed, she thought of
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  Speaker 1: how she should fly when the time was come and
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  Speaker 1: it could no longer be hidden. She saw herself walking
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  Speaker 1: along the highways, clothed like a poor woman. All she
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  Speaker 1: owned of gold and silver she bore within a bundle
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  Speaker 1: in her hand. She bought herself shelter on a farm
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  Speaker 1: somewhere in a faraway countryside. She went as a serving wench,
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  Speaker 1: bore the water carrier's yoke upon her neck, worked in
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  Speaker 1: the byres, baked and washed, and was cursed because she
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  Speaker 1: would not tell who was the child's father. Then Herelon
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  Speaker 1: came and found her. Sometimes she dreamed that he came
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  Speaker 1: too late. She lay snow white and fair in the
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  Speaker 1: poor peasant's bed. Erelon stooped as he came in at
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  Speaker 1: the door. He had on the long black cloak he
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  Speaker 1: had used to wear when he came to her by
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  Speaker 1: night at skulk. The woman led him forward to where
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  Speaker 1: she lay. He sank down and took her cold hands.
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  Speaker 1: His eyes were sad as death. Dost thou lie here
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  Speaker 1: my one delight bent with sorrow? He went out with
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  Speaker 1: his tender son clasped to his breast in the folds
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  Speaker 1: of his cloak. Nay, she thought, not in good sooth
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  Speaker 1: that it would so far. She had no mind to die.
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  Speaker 1: Ereln should have no such sorrow. But her heart was
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  Speaker 1: so heavy it did her good to dream these dreams.
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  Speaker 1: Then for a moment it stood out, cold and clear
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  Speaker 1: as ice, before her, the child. That was no dream
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  Speaker 1: that must be faced. She must answer one day for
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  Speaker 1: what she had done, and it seemed as if her
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  Speaker 1: heart stood still with terror. But after a little time
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  Speaker 1: had gone by, she came to think twas not so sure.
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  Speaker 1: After all she was with child. She understood not herself
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  Speaker 1: why she was not glad. It was as though she
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  Speaker 1: had lain and wept beneath a warm covering, and now
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  Speaker 1: must get up in the cold. A month went by,
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  Speaker 1: then two. Now she was sure that she had been
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  Speaker 1: spared this ill, hap and empty and chill of soul.
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  Speaker 1: She felt yet a happier than before in her heart.
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  Speaker 1: There dawned a little bitterness toward ere Lon. Advent drew nearer,
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  Speaker 1: and she had heard neither from or of him. She
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  Speaker 1: knew not where he was, and now she felt she
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  Speaker 1: could not bear this fear and doubt. It was as
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  Speaker 1: though a bond betwixt them had snapped. Now she was afraid, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: might it not so befall that she should never see
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  Speaker 1: him more? All she had been safely linked to once
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  Speaker 1: she was parted from now, and the new tie that
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  Speaker 1: bound her to her lover was such a frail one.
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  Speaker 1: She never thought that he would mean to play her false.
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  Speaker 1: But there was so much that might happen. She knew
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  Speaker 1: not how she could go on any longer, day after day,
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  Speaker 1: suffering the tormenting doubt of this time of waiting. Now
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  Speaker 1: and then she thought of her father and mother and sisters.
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  Speaker 1: She longed for them, but as for something she had
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  Speaker 1: lost forever. And sometimes in church and elsewhere too she
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  Speaker 1: would feel a great yearning to take part in all
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  Speaker 1: that this meant, the communion of mankind with God. It
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  Speaker 1: had ever been a part of her life. Now she
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  Speaker 1: stood outside with her unconfessed sin. She told herself that
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  Speaker 1: this cutting adrift from home and kin and church was
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  Speaker 1: but for a time. Alon must take her by the
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  Speaker 1: hand and lead her back into it all. When her
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  Speaker 1: father had given consent to their love, she could go
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  Speaker 1: to him as of yore. When she and Erelon were wed,
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  Speaker 1: they could confess and do penance for their transgression. She
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  Speaker 1: began to seek for tokens that other folk were not
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  Speaker 1: without sin any more than they. She hearkened more to
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  Speaker 1: tale bearing and marked all the little things about her
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  Speaker 1: which showed that not even the sisters in the convent
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  Speaker 1: here were altogether godly and unworldly. These were only little things.
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  Speaker 1: Under Lady Groa's rule, nonseet to the world was a
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  Speaker 1: pattern of what a godly sisterhood should be. Zealous in
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  Speaker 1: their devotions, diligent, full of care for the poor and
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  Speaker 1: sick were the nuns. Their aloofness from the world was
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  Speaker 1: not so strict, but that the sisters both had visits
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  Speaker 1: from their friends and kin in the parlor, and themselves
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  Speaker 1: were given leave to visit these in the town when
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  Speaker 1: aught was afoot. But no nun had brought shame upon
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  Speaker 1: the house by her life all the years of Lady
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  Speaker 1: Groa's rule. But Christin had now an ear alive to
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  Speaker 1: all the little jars within the convent walls, little wranglings
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  Speaker 1: and spites and vanities, Save in the nursing of the sick,
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  Speaker 1: none of the sisters would help with the rough housework.
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  Speaker 1: All reminded to be women of learning or skilled in
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  Speaker 1: some craft, the one strove to outdo the other, and
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  Speaker 1: the sisters who had no turn for learning or the
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  Speaker 1: nobler crafts, lost heart and mooned through the hours as
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  Speaker 1: though but half awake. Lady Groa herself was wise as
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  Speaker 1: well as learned. She kept a wakeful eye on her
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  Speaker 1: spiritual daughter's way of life and their diligence but she
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  Speaker 1: troubled herself little about their soul's health. She had been
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  Speaker 1: kind and friendly to Kristin at all times. She seemed
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  Speaker 1: to like her better than the other young girls, but
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  Speaker 1: that was because Kristin was apt at books and needalwork,
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  Speaker 1: diligent and sparing of words. Lady Groa never looked for
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  Speaker 1: an answer from any of the sisters. But on the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, she was ever glad to speak with men.
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  Speaker 1: They came and went in her parlor, tenant farmers and
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  Speaker 1: bailiffs of the convent, preaching friars from the bishop stewards
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  Speaker 1: of Estates on Hovedu, with whom she was at law.
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  Speaker 1: She had her hands full with the the oversight of
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  Speaker 1: the convent's great estates, with the keeping of accounts, sending
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  Speaker 1: out church vestments, and taking in books to be copied,
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  Speaker 1: and sending them away again. Not the most evil minded
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  Speaker 1: of men could find aught unseemly in Lady Grower's way
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  Speaker 1: of life. But she liked only to talk of such
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  Speaker 1: things as women seldom know about. The prior, who dwelt
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  Speaker 1: in a house by himself northward of the church, seemed
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  Speaker 1: to have no more will of his own than the
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  Speaker 1: abbess writing read or her scourge. Sister Potensia looked after
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  Speaker 1: most things within the house, and she thought most of
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  Speaker 1: keeping such order as she had seen in the far
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  Speaker 1: famed German convent where she had passed her novitiate. She
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  Speaker 1: had been called Siegried Roanswald's daughter before, but had taken
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  Speaker 1: a new name when she took the habit of the order,
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  Speaker 1: for this was much the use in other lands. It
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  Speaker 1: was she too who had thought of making the maidens
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  Speaker 1: who were at Nonosettter's pupils and for a time only
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  Speaker 1: wear novice's dress. Sister Cecilia Baird's daughter was not as
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  Speaker 1: the other nun's. She went about quietly with downcast eyes,
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  Speaker 1: answered always gently and humbly, was serving made to all,
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  Speaker 1: did for choice all the roughest work. Fasted much more
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  Speaker 1: than she need, as much as Lady GroE would let her,
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  Speaker 1: and knelt by the hour in the church after evensong,
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  Speaker 1: or went thither before Matten's. But one evening, after she
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  Speaker 1: had been all day at the beck with two lay
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  Speaker 1: sisters washing clothes, she suddenly burst into a loud sobbing
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  Speaker 1: at the supper table. She cast herself upon the stone floor,
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  Speaker 1: crept among the sisters on hands and knees, beat her breast,
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  Speaker 1: and with burning cheeks and streaming tears, begged them all
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  Speaker 1: to forgive her. She was the worst sinner of them all.
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  Speaker 1: She had been hard as stone with pride all her days.
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  Speaker 1: Pride and not meekness or thankfulness for Jesus redeeming death,
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  Speaker 1: had held her up when she had been tempted in
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  Speaker 1: the world. She had fled thither not because she loved
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  Speaker 1: a man's soul, but because she loved her own vain glory.
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  Speaker 1: She had served her sisters out of pride vanity had
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  Speaker 1: she drunken from her water cup self righteousness, had she
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  Speaker 1: spread thick upon her dry bread, while the other sisters
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  Speaker 1: were drinking their beer and eating their bread slices with butter.
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  Speaker 1: Of all this, Kristin understood no more than that not
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  Speaker 1: even Cecilia Bird's daughter was truly godly at heart. An unlit,
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  Speaker 1: tallow candle that has hung from the roof and grown
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  Speaker 1: foul with soot and cobweb. To this, she herself likened
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  Speaker 1: her unloving chastity. Lady Groa went herself and lifted up
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  Speaker 1: the sobbing woman. Sternly. She said that for this disorder
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  Speaker 1: Cecilia should, as a punishment, move from the sister's dormitory
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  Speaker 1: into the abbess's own bed and lie there till she
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  Speaker 1: was free of this fever. And thereafter, Sister Cecilia, shall
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  Speaker 1: you sit in my seat for the space of a week.
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  Speaker 1: We will seek counsel of you in spiritual things, and
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  Speaker 1: give you such honor for your godly life that you
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  Speaker 1: may have your fill of the homage of sinful mankind.
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  Speaker 1: Thus may you judge if it be worth so much striving,
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  Speaker 1: And thereafter choose whether you will live by the rules
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  Speaker 1: as do we others, or keep on in exercises that
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  Speaker 1: no one demands of you. Then can you ponder whether
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  Speaker 1: you will do for love of God, that He may
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  Speaker 1: look down upon you in his mercy, all those things
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  Speaker 1: which you say you have done, that we should look
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  Speaker 1: up to you. And so was it done. Sister Cecilia
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  Speaker 1: lay in the abbess's room for fourteen days. She had
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  Speaker 1: a high fever, and Lady Groa herself tended her. When
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  Speaker 1: she got up again, she had to sit for a
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  Speaker 1: week at the side of the abbess in the high seat,
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  Speaker 1: both in the church and in the convent, and all
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  Speaker 1: waited on her. She wept all the time, as though
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  Speaker 1: she were being beaten with whips. But afterward she was
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  Speaker 1: much calmer and happier. She lived much as before, but
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  Speaker 1: she blushed like a bride if anyone looked at her,
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  Speaker 1: whether she was sweeping the floor or going alone to
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  Speaker 1: the church. Nonetheless, did this matter of Sister Cecilia awake
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  Speaker 1: in Kristin a great longing for peace and atonement with
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  Speaker 1: all wherefrom she had come to feel herself cast out.
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  Speaker 1: She thought of Brother Edn, and one day she took
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  Speaker 1: courage and begged leave of Lady Groa to go out
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  Speaker 1: to the Barefoot Friars and visit a friend she knew there.
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  Speaker 1: She marked that Lady Groa misliked this. There was scant
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  Speaker 1: friendship between the Minerites and the other cloisters in the bishopric,
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  Speaker 1: and the Abbess was no better pleased when she heard
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  Speaker 1: who was Kristin's friend. She said, this b. Edvn was
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  Speaker 1: an unstable man of God. He was ever wandering about
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  Speaker 1: the country and seeking leave to pay, begging visits to
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  Speaker 1: strange bishoprics. The common folk in many places held him
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  Speaker 1: to be a holy man, but he did not seem
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  Speaker 1: to understand that of Franciscan's first duty was obedience to
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  Speaker 1: those set over him. He had shriven freebooters and outlaws,
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  Speaker 1: baptized their children, chanted them to their graves without asking leave.
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  Speaker 1: Yet doubtless he had sinned as much through ignorance as
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  Speaker 1: in despite, and he had borne meekly the penances laid
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  Speaker 1: upon him on account of these things. He was born
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  Speaker 1: with too much because he was skilled in his handicraft.
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  Speaker 1: But even in working at this he had fallen out
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  Speaker 1: with his craft fellows. The master Limners of the Bishop
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  Speaker 1: of Bergen would not suffer him to come and work
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  Speaker 1: in the bishopric There. Kristen made bold to ask where
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  Speaker 1: he had come from. This monk with the unnurse name
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  Speaker 1: Lady Groa, was in the mood for talking. She told
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  Speaker 1: how he had been born here in Oshloe, But his
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  Speaker 1: father was an Englishman recard plate master, who had wedded
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  Speaker 1: a farmer's daughter from the skolkhim hundred, and had taken
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  Speaker 1: up his abode in the town. Two of Edwin's brothers
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  Speaker 1: were armorers of good repute in Oschloe. But this eldest
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  Speaker 1: of the plate master's sons had been a restless spirit
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  Speaker 1: all his days. Twas true he had felt a call
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  Speaker 1: to the life of the cloister from childhood up. He
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  Speaker 1: had joined the Cistercians at Hoovedu. As soon as he
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  Speaker 1: was old enough, they sent him to a monastery in
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  Speaker 1: France to be trained, for his gifts were good. While
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  Speaker 1: still there he had managed to get leave to pass
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  Speaker 1: from the Cistercian into the Minerite order. And at the
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  Speaker 1: time the unruly Friars began building their church eastward in
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  Speaker 1: the fields into spite of the bishop's command. Brother Edwin
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  Speaker 1: had been one of the worst and most stiff necked
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  Speaker 1: of them all. Nay, he had half killed with his hammer,
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  Speaker 1: one of the men the bishop sent to stop the work.
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  Speaker 1: It was a long time now since anyone had spoken
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  Speaker 1: so much with Kristin at one time. So when Lady
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  Speaker 1: Groa said that now she might go, the young girl
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  Speaker 1: bent and kissed the abbess's hand fervently and reverently, And
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  Speaker 1: as she did so, tears came into her eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: Lady Groa, who saw she was weeping, thought it was
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  Speaker 1: from sorrow, and so she said maybe she might after
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  Speaker 1: all let her go out one day to see Brother Edwin.
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  Speaker 1: And a few days later she was told some of
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  Speaker 1: the convent folk had an errand to the King's palace,
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  Speaker 1: and they could take her out along with them to
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  Speaker 1: the brothers in the fields. Brother Edvon was at home.
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  Speaker 1: Kristin had not thought she could have been so glad
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  Speaker 1: to see any one, except it had been Erelen. The
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  Speaker 1: old man sat and stroked her hand while they talked
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  Speaker 1: together in thanks for her coming. No, he had not
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  Speaker 1: been in her part of the country since the night
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  Speaker 1: he lay at Urrengarde, but he had heard she was
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  Speaker 1: to wed, and he wished her all good fortune. Then
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  Speaker 1: Christen begged that he would go over to the church
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  Speaker 1: with her. They had to go out of the monastery
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  Speaker 1: and round to the main door. Brother edvon Durst not
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  Speaker 1: take her through the courtyard. He seemed altogether exceeding downcast
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  Speaker 1: and fearful of doing aught that might offend. He had
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  Speaker 1: grown very old, thought Christen. And when she had laid
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  Speaker 1: upon the altar her offering for the officiant monk who
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  Speaker 1: was in the church, and afterward asked Edvon if he
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  Speaker 1: would confess her, he grew very frightened. He dared not,
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  Speaker 1: he said, he had been strictly forbidden to hear confession. Aye,
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  Speaker 1: maybe you have heard of it, said he. So it
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  Speaker 1: was that I felt I could not deny to those
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  Speaker 1: poor unfortunates the gifts which God had given me of
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  Speaker 1: his free grace. But tis true I should have enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: kind on them to seek forgiveness in the right place.
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  Speaker 1: Ay aye, and you, Kristin, you are in duty bound
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  Speaker 1: to confess to your own prior. Nay, but this is
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  Speaker 1: the thing I cannot confess to the prior of the convent,
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  Speaker 1: said Christen. Think you it can profit You ought to
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  Speaker 1: confess to me what you would hide from your true
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  Speaker 1: father confessor, said the monk more severely. If so be,
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  Speaker 1: you cannot confess me, said Christin, at least you can
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  Speaker 1: let me speak with you and ask your counsel about
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  Speaker 1: what lies upon my soul. The monk looked about him.
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  Speaker 1: The church was empty at the moment. Then he sat
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  Speaker 1: himself down on a chest which stood in a corner.
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  Speaker 1: You must remember that I cannot absolve you, but I
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  Speaker 1: will counsel you and keep silence as though you had
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  Speaker 1: told me in confession. Christen stood up before him and said,
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  Speaker 1: it is this. I cannot be Simon Darry's wife. Therein,
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  Speaker 1: you know well that I can counsel no otherwise than
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  Speaker 1: would your own prior, said brother Edwin, two undutiful children.
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  Speaker 1: God gives no happiness, and your father had looked only
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  Speaker 1: to your welfare. That you know full well, I know
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: not what your counsel will be when you have heard
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: me to the end, answered Christen. Thus stands it now
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: with us. Simon is too good to gnaw the bare
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: branch from which another man has broken the blossom. She
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: looked the monks straight in the face. But when she
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: met his eyes and marked how the dry, wrinkled old
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: forehead changed, grew full of sorrow and dismay. Something seemed
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to snap within her. Tears started to her eyes, and
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: she would have cast herself upon her knees, but Edvon
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: stopped her hurriedly. Nay, nay, sit here upon the chest
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: by me, confess you I cannot. He drew aside and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: made room for her. She went on weeping. He stroked
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: her hand and said, gently, mind you. That morning christ
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and I first saw you there on the stairway in
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the Hammer church. I heard a tale once when I
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: was in foreign lands, of a monk who could not
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: believe that God loved all us wretched sinners. Then came
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: an angel and touched his eyes, and he beheld a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: stone in the bottom of the sea, and under the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: stone there lived a blind, white, naked creature. And he
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: gazed at it until he came to love it, for
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: it was so frail and weak. When I saw you
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: sitting there, so little and so frail within the great
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: stone house, methought it was but reason that God should
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: love such as you, fair and pure you were, And
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: yet did you need a helper and a protector? Methought
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: I saw the whole church with you in it, lying
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in the hollow of God's hand. Christin said, Lo, we
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: have bound ourselves one to the other with the dearest oaths.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And I have heard that in the eyes of God,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: such a packed hallows are coming together, as much as
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: if our fathers and mothers had given us one to
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the other. The monk answered, sadly, I see well, Christin,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: some one who knew it not to the full, has
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: spoken to you of the canonical law. You could not
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: bind yourself by oath to this man without sinning against
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: your father and mother them had God set over you
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: before you met him? And is it not sorrow and
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: a shame for his kin? Too? If they learn that
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: he has lured astray the daughter of a man who
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: has borne his shield with honor at all seasons, betrothed
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: too to another. I hear by your words, you deem
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: you have not sinned so greatly? Yet, dare you not
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: confess this thing to your appointed priest? And if so be,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you think you are as good as wed to this man?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Wherefore set you not on your head the linen cloth
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: of wedlock, but go still with flowing hair amidst the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: young maids, with whom you can have no great fellowship
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: any more. For now must the chief of your thoughts
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: be with other things than they have in mind? I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: know not what they have in their minds, said Christen wearily. True,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: it is that all my thoughts are with the man
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I long for. Were it not from my father and mother,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: I would full gladly bind up my hair this stay.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Little would I care if I were called wanton, if
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: only I might be called his? Know you if this
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: man means so to deal toward you, that you may
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: be called his with honor? Some day, asked brother Edwin.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Then Kristen told of all that had passed between Herelin
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Nicholson and herself, and While she spoke, she seemed not
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: even to call to mind that she had ever doubted
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the outcome of it all. See you not, brother Edwin,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: she began again, We could not help ourselves. God help
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: me if I were to meet him without here when
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I go from you, and should he pray me to
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: go with him, I would go. I WoT well too,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I have seen now there be other folk who have
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: sinned as well as we. When I was a girl
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: at home, twas past my understanding how aught could win
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: such power over the souls of men that they would
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: forget the fear of sin. But so much have I
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: learned now. If the wrongs men do through lust and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: anger cannot be atoned for, then must heaven be an
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: empty place? They tell of you, even that you too
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: once struck a man in wrath, Tis true, said the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: monk God's mercy alone? Have I to think that I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: am not called manslayer? Tis many years agone. I was
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: a young man then, and methought I could not endure
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the wrong the bishop would have put upon us poor friars.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: King Hockin, he was duke then, had given us the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: ground for our house. But we were so poor we
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: had to work upon our church ourselves, with some few
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: workmen who gave their help more for heavenly reward than
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: for what we could pay them. Maybe twas sinful pride
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: in us, beggar monks, to wish to build our church
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: so fair and goodly. But we were happy as children
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: in the fields, and sang songs of praise while we
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: hewed and built and toiled. Brother Ranulph, God rest his
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: soul was master builder. He was a right skillful stone cutter.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Nay I trow. The man had been granted skill in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: all knowledge and all arts by God himself. I was
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a carver of stone panels in those days. I had
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: but just finished one of Saint Clara, whom the angels
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: were bearing to the Church of Saint Francis in the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: dawn of Christmas Day. A most fair panel. It had proved,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and all of us joyed in it greatly. Then the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: hellish miscreants tore down the walls, and a stone fell
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: and crushed my panels. I struck at a man with
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: my hammer. I could not contain me. I now you smile,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: my Christan, But see you not that tis not well
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: with you now, since you would rather hear such tales
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of other folk's frailties than of the life and deeds
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: of good men who might serve you as a pattern.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Tis no easy matter to give you counsel, he said,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: when it was time for her to go, For were
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: you to do what were most right, you would bring
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: sorrow to your father and mother, and shame to all
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: your kin. But you must see to it that you
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: free yourself from the troth you plighted to Simon Andersen.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And then must you wait in patience for the lot
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: God may send. You make in your heart what amends
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you can, and let not this here Loon tempt you
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to sin again, But pray him lovingly to seek atonement
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: with your kin and with God from your sin. I
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: cannot free you, said brother Edmond, as they parted. But
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: pray for you I will with all my might. He
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: laid his thin old hands upon her head and prayed
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: in farewell that God might bless her and give her peace.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter five.