The Dove in the Eagle's Nest. Yonge Charlotte Mary
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there was a terrible figure of St. John, painted life-like, with a real hair-cloth round his loins, just opposite to her, on the step of the Altar; also poor Friedmund’s bones, dressed up in a new serge amice and hood; the stone from Nicæa was in a gilded box, ready in due time to be kissed; and a preaching friar (not one of the monks of St. Ruprecht’s) was in the midst of a sermon, telling how St. John presided at the Council of Nicæa till the Emperor Maximius cut off his head at the instance of Herodius—full justice being done to the dancing—and that the blood was sprinkled on this very stone, whereupon our Holy Father the Pope decreed that whoever would kiss the said stone, and repeat the Credo five times afterwards, should be capable of receiving an indulgence for 500 years: which indulgence must however be purchased at the rate of six groschen, to be bestowed in alms at Rome. And this inestimable benefit he, poor Friar Peter, had come from his brotherhood of St. Francis at Offingen solely to dispense to the poor mountaineers.
It was disappointing to find this profane mummery going on instead of the holy services to which Christina had looked forward for strength and comfort; she was far too well instructed not to be scandalized at the profane deception which was ripening fast for Luther, only thirty years later; and, when the stone was held up by the friar in one hand, the printed briefs of indulgence in the other, she shrunk back. Her father however said, “Wilt have one, child? Five hundred years is no bad bargain.”
“My uncle has small trust in indulgences,” she whispered.
“All lies, of course,” quoth Hugh; “yet they’ve the Pope’s seal, and I have more than half a mind to get one. Five hundred years is no joke, and I am sure of purgatory, since I bought this medal at the Holy House of Loretto.”
And he went forward, and invested six groschen in one of the papers, the most religious action poor Christina had ever seen him perform. Other purchasers came forward—several, of the castle knappen, and a few peasant women who offered yarn or cheeses as equivalents for money, but were told with some insolence to go and sell their goods, and bring the coin.
After a time, the friar, finding his traffic slack, thought fit to remove, with his two lay assistants, outside the chapel, and try the effects of an out-of-door sermon. Hugh Sorel, who had been hitherto rather diverted by the man’s gestures and persuasions, now decided on going out into the fair in quest of an escort for his daughter, but as she saw Father Norbert and another monk ascending from the stairs leading to the hermit’s cell, she begged to be allowed to remain in the church, where she was sure to be safe, instead of wandering about with him in the fair.
He was glad to be unencumbered, though he thought her taste unnatural; and, promising to return for her when he had found an escort, he left her.
Father Norbert had come for the very purpose of hearing confessions, and Christina’s next hour was the most comfortable she had spent since Ermentrude’s death.
After this however the priests were called away, and long, long did Christina first kneel and then sit in the little lonely church, hearing the various sounds without, and imagining that her father had forgotten her, and that he and all the rest were drinking, and then what would become of her? Why had she quitted old Ursel’s protection?
Hours of waiting and nameless alarm must have passed, for the sun was waxing low, when at length she heard steps coming up the hermit’s cell, and a head rose above the pavement which she recognized with a wild throb of joy, but, repressing her sense of gladness, she only exclaimed, “Oh, where is my father!”
“I have sent him to the toll at the Gemsbock’s Pass,” replied Sir Eberhard, who had by this time come up the stairs, followed by Brother Peter and the two lay assistants. Then, as Christina turned on him her startled, terrified eyes in dismay and reproach for such thoughtlessness, he came towards her, and, bending his head and opening his hand, he showed on his palm two gold rings. “There, little one,” he said; “now shalt thou never again shut me out.”
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