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'At length he undertook the proposed pilgrimage to Whiteherne, where he confessed himself for the first time since his misfortune, and was shrived by an aged monk, who afterwards died in the odour of sanctity.
And indeed we have been the most penitent of all concerned; we have shrived ourselves by open confession and tears. We have quarrelled with our Shakespeare on account of the Maid, and do not know how we could have forgiven him, but for the notable and delightful discovery that it was not he after all, but another and a lesser hand that endeavoured to befoul her shining garments.
As the Carmelite finally withdrew from the altar, previously to the removal of the body, he felt the sleeve of his robe slightly drawn aside, and yielding to the impulse, he quickly found himself among the columns of that gloomy church, alone with a stranger. "Father, thou hast shrived many a parting soul!" observed, rather than asked, the other. "It is the duty of my holy office, son."
"I say it without boasting, that no man took Robin Hood yesterday and none shall take him to-morrow." Then he approached Little John, who was still tied to the gallows-tree; and he said to the Sheriff's men, "Now stand you back here till I see if the prisoner has been shrived."
Meantime the town of Blois was in great turmoil the cattle lowing in the streets, the churches full to the doors of men-at-arms, waiting their turn to be shrived, for the Maid had ordained that all who followed her must go clean of sin.
But if, O Ruler of Nations, in whose sight the ages are as moments, and generations but as sands in the sea, these lives are doomed, may the death expiate their sins, and, shrived on the battle-field, absolve and receive the souls!" By the altar of the Abbey Church of Waltham, that night, knelt Edith in prayer for Harold.
Before I shrived him, moreover, I dared to speak of Madame Jehane, how he had now lost her for ever, and why; how she was now at last a man's wife, and that by her own deliberate will; and how also he must do his duty by the Queen. To all of which he gave heed and promises of quiet endurance. Then I shrived him, and that very morning gave him the Lord's sacred body in the Church of the Sepulchre.
"Disturb not my penitent, who is newly shrived, and about to pass"; and so speaking, he withdrew the bolt. D'Aulon strode in, dagger in hand, followed by the physician. "What make you here with doors barred, false priest?" he said, laying his hand on the frock of Noiroufle. "And what make you here, fair squire, with arms in a sick man's chamber, and loud words to disturb the dying?
"Father, you be marvellous different from all other priests that ever spake to me. With all other, I have shrived me and been absolved, and there ended the matter. I had sins to confess, be sure; and they looked I should so have, and no more. But you would you have me perfect saint, without sin? None but great saints be thus, as I have been taught." "Not the greatest of saints, truly.
It is quite roofless, ivy covers it in part; the stone tracery of the great western window is yet intact, but the coloured glass is gone with the splendid vestments of the abbot, the fuming incense, the chanting choirs, and the patient, sad-eyed monks, who muttered Aves, shrived guilt, and illuminated missals. Time was when this place breathed actual benedictions, and was a home of active peace.
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