he would not allow that I and my two girls should
count for our three captive sons, but for only two of
them; so, for the lacking one were we daily fined.
All this time our own crop was perishing through neg-
lect; and so both the priest and his lordship fined us
because their shares of it were suffering through
damage. In the end the fines ate up our crop -- and
they took it all; they took it all and made us harvest
it for them, without pay or food, and we starving.
Then the worst came when I, being out of my mind
with hunger and loss of my boys, and grief to see my
husband and my little maids in rags and misery and
despair, uttered a deep blasphemy -- oh! a thousand
of them! -- against the Church and the Church's ways.
It was ten days ago. I had fallen sick with this dis-