Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [491]
Samuel looked from one to the other in astonishment. How could Margaret address the preacher in this way? Did she not owe him respect?
Much as he loved her, she must be mistaken.
Remembering his own sin that morning when he had taken such pleasure in the house at Wilton, he solemnly went to Margaret and took the book quietly from her hands. Then he threw it in the fire.
“We should not look at the book any more, sister Margaret,” he said gravely, and left the room. He hoped he had expiated his sin.
Margaret gasped in astonishment.
But if Samuel had seen Obadiah’s smile, he would have been even more surprised. For the expression on the face of the brother whom no one had loved, was a twisted smile of revenge.
It was soon after this incident that he saw Obadiah again at an exciting event.
This was the trial of Ann Bodenham, for witchcraft.
The trial was a sensational affair and, because he pleaded with her, Margaret, who refused to go herself, finally agreed to let him do so in a party which included Obadiah and Sir Henry Forest and his two children.
The court was packed. The list of her crimes was truly terrible: not only had she been addicted to popery in her youth, but she had spoken of evil and unlucky days. It was fortunate for Sarum, he discovered, that the great Matthew Hopkins, the witchfinder general, should happen to have been passing through Sarum at that time or she might never have been discovered. But once he investigated her, the terrible truth soon came out. Years before, the court learned, she had been a servant to the notorious Doctor Lambe, who had been torn to pieces by a London mob in 1640 when they had discovered he was a sorcerer. Obadiah shook his head sadly at this revelation.
“Lambe was a friend of the king’s favourite Buckingham,” he told Samuel. “Beware of papists and other wicked men, Samuel; they transmit their evil like the plague.”
Hopkins himself was present during the trial, and Forest pointed him out to the boy: a sad-faced but otherwise unremarkable man.
“But a great servant of God,” Obadiah assured him, and Samuel looked at him curiously.
Even the revelations about Lambe were nothing to what followed. For next the court learnt that when the servant of a gentleman in the close had called at her door, five spirits had appeared at the old woman’s call, disguised as ragged boys, and then, before his eyes, that she had transformed herself into a cat!
“I spoke to the servant myself,” Obadiah murmured. “’Tis true.”
“Margaret says this trial is great nonsense,” Samuel said.
“She is wrong,” Obadiah replied. “Evil must be rooted out.”
And Sir Henry Forest, with a grim smile added:
“Nonsense or not, as a magistrate I’ll tell you, she’s about to be found guilty.”
She was. And Samuel was furious that Margaret would not allow him to go to see the execution at Fisherton the next day.
But more important to Samuel Shockley than the trial was the conversation he had with Obadiah afterwards. For the preacher took him to one side and said:
“I believe, Samuel, you are eager to do God’s work. Have you considered a profession?”
He had not.
“If you have the will, I perceive you could be a fair scholar. That opens many doors. Should you like that?”
He blushed with pleasure that Obadiah had such a good opinion of him.
“Then you must come to live with me in Salisbury for a time,” the preacher said. “For your schooling has been neglected.”
Now brother and sister faced each other once again. They had not met since the incident with the Prayer Book.
For a few minutes he had tried to smile, thinking it would make his task easier; but before long he had given it up.
“The boy has intelligence. He could be a fine scholar.”
“I have taught him all he needs to know.”
In a way, she was right. After a few more years of his desultory lessons with the young clergyman, Samuel would be as educated as most farmers. But was it enough?
“You have taught him nothing.” He did not even try to humour her.
She looked