– – – understand.” These words from the outlaw made my scalp crawl with fear and I had great difficulty in keeping my voice steady as I asked, “So for my whole life I have borne a sign which has not been revealed to me?” To which Bartlett Greene replied with great earnestness, “Yes, Master, you are marked with the sign of the Living Lord, the High One, the Invisible One, The Keeper of the Chain, which none ever enter because none ever leave it who are born to it; one from outside would never find the entrance before the end of the days of the blood. – Be of good cheer, Master Dee, even though you may be of the other stone and part of the contrary circle, yet I will never betray you to the vermin that is beneath us both. We are raised above the common herd, that sees but the outer show and will be lukewarm for ever and ever! – – –” (scorch marks)
– – – confess that I heard these words with an inner sigh of relief, even if secretly I began to feel ashamed of my fear of this simple giant, who bore his torture with such a light heart; a most fearful martyrdom awaited him as a reward for the silence he had promised me.
“– – – was a priest”, continued Bartlett Greene, “and my mother a lady of rank. Lady Tenderloin she was called. I still do not know where she came from, nor where she went. A fine figure of a woman she must have been; she was called Mary – until my father made a whore of her.” At this Greene let out his strange, unfeeling laugh, paused and then went on, “My father was the most fanatical, cruel, and at the same time most cowardly priest I ever met. He told me he had taken me in out of pity, so that I might do penance for the sins of my unknown father – he was unaware that I had secretly discovered that he was my father. – – –
“– – – ordered me to do penance and forced me to stand on the stone flags in the church in my nightshirt for hours on end, praying all the while that the sins of my “father” might be forgiven. And when I fainted with exhaustion and lack of sleep he took his whip and beat me till the blood ran. My heart was filled with black hatred of Him who hung there on the cross above the altar. And then, I know not how it came about, I found that the litany I was forced to repeat had turned itself round in my brain and came out of my mouth the wrong way round – I was saying the prayers backwards and it was balm to my soul. It was a long time before my father noticed, since I murmured the words to myself, but when he did he roared out in fury and terror, cursed my mother’s name, crossed himself and ran to fetch the axe to strike me down. But I was quicker and I split his skull from scalp to chin; one eye fell out and stared up at me from the stone slabs. And I knew that my widdershins prayers had gone down to the centre of Mother Earth, instead of rising to heaven, as the Jews claim the singsong whinings of their holy men do. – – –
“I have forgotten to tell you, Brother Dee, that one night my right eye was blinded by a great light that suddenly appeared to me – it could also be that it was struck from behind by a whip lash from my father, I cannot tell. Perhaps when I split his skull it was the fulfilment of the law that says “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. – Yes, my friend, I can truly say that this wall-eye, that fills the rabble with fear, is the fruit of long nights of prayer.
“– – – fourteenth year when I left my father lying on the altar with a double head and fled by devious routes to Scotland. There I was bound apprentice to a butcher, for I thought I would find it easy to strike the bulls and calves with the cleaver, I who had hit my father clean through his tonsure; but it was not to be, for, whenever I raised the cleaver, the scene in the darkened church rose before my inner eye and I was loath to desecrate the fair memory with the murder of an innocent animal. So I left and for many months wandered around the Highland where I played wailing pibrochs to the crofters and villagers on a set of bagpipes I had stolen. Whenever they heard my music, it made their blood run cold, though they could not say why. But I knew full well that the tunes followed the text of the litany which I had been compelled to repeat before the altar; they still sounded within me, still the wrong way round, still back to front. And I played the goatskin pipes at night when I strode over the darkened moors alone. Especially when the moon was full I felt a longing to hear the music of the backwards prayers, and
