The Keys of the Kingdom Read Free Page B

Office, his father, every month, was obliged to check the record of the catches, a different attitude prevailed. A hundred years before the Ettal moors had blossomed with the blood of Covenanters; and now the pendulum of oppression had relentlessly swung back. Under the leadership of the new Provost a furious religious persecution had recently arisen. Conventicles were formed, mass gatherings held in the Square, popular feelings whipped to frenzy. When the violence of the mob broke loose, the few Catholics in the town were hounded from their homes, while all others in the district received solemn warning not to show themselves upon the Ettal streets. His father’s calm disregard of this threat had singled him for special execration. Last month there had been a fight in which the sturdy salmon-watcher had given good account of himself. Now, despite renewed menaces, and the careful plan to stay him, he was going again … Francis flinched at his own thoughts and his small fists clenched violently. Why could not people let each other be? His father and his mother had not the same belief; yet they lived together, respecting each other, in perfect peace. His father was a good man, the best in the world … why should they want to do him harm? Like a blade thrust into the warmth of his life came a dread, a shrinking from that word ‘religion’, a chill bewilderment that men could hate each other for worshipping the same God with different words.
    Returning from the station at four o’clock, sombrely leaping the puddles to which Nora, his half-cousin, gaily dared him, – his mother walking with Aunt Polly, who came, dressed up and sedate, behind, – he felt the day oppressive with disaster. Nora’s friskiness, the neatness of her new brown braided dress, her manifest delight in seeing him, proved but a wan diversion.
    Stoically, he approached his home, the low neat grey-stone cottage, fronting the Cannelgate, behind a trim little green where in summer his father grew asters and begonias. There was evidence of his mother’s passionate cleanliness in the shining brass knocker and the spotless doorstep. Behind the immaculately curtained window three potted geraniums made a scarlet splash.
    By this time, Nora was flushed, out of breath, her blue eyes sparkling with fun, in one of her moods of daring, impish gaiety. As they went round the side of the house to the back garden where, through his mother’s arrangements, they were to play with Anselm Mealey until teatime, she bent close to Francis’ ear so that her hair fell across her thin laughing face, and whispered in his ear. The puddles they had barely missed, the sappy moisture of the earth, prompted her ingenuity.
    At first Francis would not listen – strangely, for Nora’s presence stirred him usually to a shy swift eagerness. Standing small and reticent, he viewed her doubtfully.
    ‘I know he will,’ she urged. ‘He always wants to play at being holy. Come on Francis. Let’s do it. Let’s!’
    A slow smile barely touched his sombre lips. Half unwilling, he fetched a spade, a watering can, an old news-sheet from the little toolshed at the garden end. Led by Nora, he dug a two-foot hole between the laurel bushes, watered it, then spread the paper over it. Nora artistically sprinkled the sheet with a coating of dry soil. They had barely replaced the spade when Anselm Mealey arrived, wearing a beautiful white sailor suit. Nora threw Francis a look of terrible joy.
    ‘Hello, Anselm!’ she welcomed brilliantly. ‘ What a lovely new suit. We were waiting on you. What shall we play at?’
    Anselm Mealey considered the question with agreeable condescencion. He was a large boy for eleven, well-padded, with pink and white cheeks. His hair was fair and curly, his eyes were soulful. The only child of rich and devoted parents, – his father owned the profitable bone-meal works across the river, – he was already destined, by his own election and that of his pious mother, to