The priest was
silent. A murmur arose. Austin, who had trained himself to study those
among whom he laboured, saw that the feeling was rising strongly against
him. His antagonist saw it also, and pressed her victory.
"Yes!" she said scornfully, "it is a small matter for my Gods to save
her, but they will not be besought while this bald-pate obtrudes his
presence. Let him leave us!"
The priest was much perplexed. He knew the skill of these lonely women;
secretly he had faith in their power of witchcraft, though attributing
it to the direct agency of Satan. He thought it not impossible that
there was truth in the boast; and his heart was wrung with the mother's
grief. On the other hand, the public defeat was a sore trial; but it was
clear to him that for the present at least the analogy of Elijah's
struggle was imperfect: he must wait, and meanwhile bear his
discomfiture with meekness. He prepared to retire. The victor was not,
however, even now satisfied. "Take with you," she said, "yon idol that
defaces the sacred oak!"
The good fathers, following their usual practice of associating emblems
of heathen with those of Christian worship, in the hope of gradually
diverting the reverence to the latter without giving to the former a
ruder shock than could be endured, had suspended a small cross on the
oak, hoping eventually to carve the tree itself into a sacred emblem; it
was to this that the woman was pointing with a sneer.
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