In the hands of the skilful prior their doctrines were indeed made to look vile and blasphemous and foolish in the extreme.  Many persons shuddered at hearing what words had been used by them with regard to the holy sacraments; and most of the persons brought to their trial were weeping and terrified at their own conduct before the prior’s speech was half through.  Only the hunchback retained his bold front, and looked back with scorn into the face of the prelate as he made point after point in his scathing denunciation.

When the harangue ended, the prior made a sign to his servants, and immediately one of the most timorous and craven of the prisoners was brought up before him.  He was far too cunning a judge to try first to bend the spirit of the hunchback.  He knew that with that man he could do nothing, and he knew too what marvels were sometimes accomplished by the example of self devotion.  So commencing with a weak and trembling woman, who was ready to sink into the ground with fear and shame merely at being thus had up before the eyes of the whole place, he easily obtained a solemn recantation and abjuration of every form of heresy; and in a tone of wonderful mildness, though of solemn warning, too, told her that since she was a woman and young, and had doubtless been led away by others, she should be pardoned after she had paid a visit barefoot to a shrine forty miles off—­a shrine much derided by the heretic teachers—­and had returned in like fashion, having tasted nothing but bread and water the whole time of the journey.

Then came, one after another, the weakest and most timorous of the craven crowd.  The infection of fear had seized upon them.  Ignorant, superstitious, scarcely understanding the new teachings that had attracted them, and fearfully terrified of falling under the ban of the Church under whose shelter they had always lived, was it wonderful that one after another should abjure their heretical opinions, and swear to listen to the enticer no more?  Some strove to ask questions upon the points which troubled them; but scarce any sort of disputing was allowed.  The prior was subtle in fence, and by a few scathing words could generally quell the questioner and make him wish his objection unspoken.

And those who showed a tendency towards disputation were far more harshly dealt with than those who abjured at once.  The red-hot iron, the badge of shame, the servitude which might be lifelong were imposed upon them.  So a sense of despair fell upon the little band, and they yielded one by one; only three refusing to take the words of the oath—­the hunchback and two more, one being a lad of about sixteen summers; and after using every threat and argument to overcome their obstinacy, the prior called upon the Lord of Mortimer as the representative of the secular arm, and delivered the prisoners over to him to be dealt with after the manner of the law.