The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn | Page 2

fall foul of it. If you
had heard it yourself from one of our priests, sure you would have
found it nothing amiss."
"Silence, boy!" thundered the old man, his fury suddenly changing to a
white heat of passion, which was more terrible than the bluster that had
gone before. "Silence, lest I strike thee to the ground where thou
standest, and plunge this dagger in thine heart sooner than hear thee
blaspheme the Holy Church in which thou wast reared! How darest
thou talk thus to me? as though yon accursed heretic of a Protestant
was a member of the Church of Christ. Thou knowest that there is but
one fold under one shepherd, and he the Pope of Rome. A plague upon
those accursed ones who have perverted the true faith and led a whole
nation astray! But they shall not lead my son after them; Nicholas
Trevlyn will look well to that!"
Father and son stood with the table between them, gazing fixedly at one
another like combatants who, having tested somewhat the strength each
of the other, feel a certain doubt as to the termination of the contest, but
are both ready and almost eager for the final struggle which shall leave
the victory unequivocally on one side or the other.
"I had thought that the Shepherd was Christ," said Cuthbert, in a low,
firm tone, "and that the fold was wide enough to embrace all those
baptized into His name."
"Then thou only thinkest what is one more of those damnable heresies
which are ruining this land and corrupting the whole world," cried
Nicholas between his shut teeth. "Thou hast learned none such vile
doctrine from me."

"I have learned no doctrine from you save that the Pope is lord of
all----of things temporal and things spiritual--and that all who deny this
are in peril of hell fire," answered the young man, with no small
bitterness and scorn. "And here, in this realm, those who hold this to be
so are in danger of prison and death. Truly this is a happy state of
things for one such as I. At home a father who rails upon me night and
day for a heretic--albeit I vow I hold not one single doctrine which I
cannot stand to and prove from the Word of God."
"Which thou hast no call to have in thine hands!" shouted his father; "a
book which, if given to the people, stirs up everywhere the vilest
heresies and most loathsome errors. The Bible is God's gift to the
Church. It is not of private interpretation. It is for the priests to give of
its treasures to the people as they are able to bear them."
"Ay, verily, and what are the people to do when the priests deny them
their rightful food?" cried Cuthbert, as hotly as his father. "Listen to me,
sir. Yes, this once I wilt speak! In years gone by, when, however
quietly, secretly, and privately, we were visited by a priest and heard
the mass, and received at his hands the Blessed Sacrament, did I revolt
against your wish in matters spiritual? Was I not ever willing to please
you? Did I not love the Church? Was not I approved of the Father, and
taught many things by him, including those arts of reading and
penmanship which many in my condition of life never attain unto? Did
I ever anger you by disobedience or revolt?"
"What of that, since you are doing so now?" questioned Nicholas in a
quieter tone, yet one full of suspicion and resentment. "What use to talk
of what is past and gone? Thou knowest well of late years how thou
hast been hankering after every vile and villainous heresy that has come
in thy way. It is thy mother's blood within thee belike. I did grievous
wrong ever to wed with one reared a Protestant, however she might
abjure the errors in which she was brought up. False son of a false
mother--"
"Hold, sir! You shall not miscall my mother! No son will stand by and
hear that!"

"I will say what I will in mine own house, thou evil, malapert boy!"
roared the old man. "I tell thee that thy mother was a false woman, that
she deceived me bitterly. After solemnly abjuring the errors in which
she had been reared, and being received into the true fold, she, as years
went by, lapsed more and more into her foul heretical ways of thought
and speech; and though she went to her last reckoning (unshriven and
unassoiled, for she would have no priest at her dying bed) before ye
twain were old enough to have been corrupted by her precept and
example, ye must have sucked in heresy with your mother's milk,