She was a poor ruin of a woman, belonging to Kirk Christ, but wandering
like a vagrant over the island. The fact of first consequence is, that
she was only half sane. In the language of the clergy of the time, she
"had a degree of unsettledness and defect of understanding." Thus she
was the sort of human wreck that the world finds it easy to fling away.
Katherine fell victim to the sin that was not her own. A child was born.
The Church censured her. She did penance in a white sheet at the church
doors. But her poor, dull brain had no power to restrain her. A second
child was born. Then the Bishop committed her for twenty-one days to
his prison at the Peel. Let me tell you what the place is like. It is
a crypt of the cathedral church. You enter it by a little door in the
choir, leading to a tortuous flight of steep steps going down. It is
a chamber cut out of the rock of the little island, dark, damp, and
noisome. A small aperture lets in the light, as well as the sound of
the sea beating on the rocks below. The roof, if you could see it in the
gloom, is groined and ribbed, and above it is the mould of many graves,
for in the old days bodies were buried in the choir. Can you imagine a
prison more terrible for any prisoner, the strongest man or the bravest
soldier? Think of it on a tempestuous night in winter. The lonely islet
rock, with the swift seas rushing around it; the castle half a ruin, its
guard-room empty, its banqueting hall roofless, its sally port silent;
then the cathedral church falling to decay; and under the floor of its
choir, where lie the graves of dead men, this black, grim, cold cell,
silent as the graves themselves, save for the roar of the sea as it
beats in the darkness on the rocks outside! But that is not enough.
We have to think of this gloomy pile as inhabited on such a night of
terrors by only one human soul--this poor, bedraggled, sin-laden woman
with "the defect of understanding." Can anything be more awful? Yet
there is worse to follow. The records tell us that Katherine Kinrade
submitted to her punishment "with as much discretion as could be
expected of the like of her." But such punishments do not cleanse the
soul that is "drenched with unhallowed fire." Perhaps Katherine did not
know that she was wronged; nevertheless God's image was being trodden
out of her. She went from bad to worse, became a notorious strumpet,
strolled about the island, and led "a scandalous life on other
accounts." A third child was born. Then the Bishop concluded that for
the honour of the Christian name, "to prevent her own utter destruction,
and for the example of others," a timely and thorough reformation must
be made by a further and severer punishment. It was the 15th day of
March, and he ordered that on the 17th day, being the fair of St.
Patrick, at the height of the market, the said Katherine Kinrade
should be taken to Peel Town in charge of the general sumner, and the
constables and soldiers of the garrison, and there dragged after a boat
in the sea! Think of it! On a bitter day in March this wretched woman
with the "defect of understanding" was to be dragged through the sea by
a rope tied to the tail of a boat! And if any owner, master, and crew of
any boat proved refractory by refusing to perform this service for the
restraining of vice, they were to be subject to fine and imprisonment!
When St. Patrick's Day came the weather was so stormy that no boat
could live in the bay, but on St. Germain's Day, about the height of the
market, the censure was performed. After undergoing the punishment the
miserable soul was apparently penitent, "according to her capacity,"
took the communion, and was "received into the peace of the Church."
Poor human ruin, defaced image of a woman, begrimed and buried soul,
unchaste, misshapen, incorrigible, no "juice of God's distilling" ever
"dropped into the core of her life," to such punishment she was doomed
by the tribunal of that saintly man, Bishop Thomas Wilson! She has met
him at another tribunal since then; not where she has crouched before
him, but where she has stood by his side. She has carried her great
account against him, to Him before whom the proudest are as chaff.
None spake when Wilson stood before
The Throne;
And He that sat thereon
Spake not; and all the presence-floor
Burnt deep with blushes, and the angels cast
Their faces downwards.--Then, at last,
Awe-stricken, he was ware
How on the emerald stair
A woman sat divinely clothed in white,
And at her knees four cherubs bright
That laid
Their heads within her lap. Then, trembling, he essayed
To speak--"Christ's mother, pity me!"
Then answered she,
"Sir, I am Katherine Kinrade." {*}
* Unpublished poem by the author of ''Fo'c's'le Yarns."