Star over Bethlehem by Agatha Christie Read Free Book Online Page A

laughter.
    â€œEternal Life! What a hope!”
    â€œYes,” said Peter cheerfully, as he shovelled out parcels of hot fish. “It is a hope. Got to remember that. There’s always Hope.”
    In the Church of St. Petrock-on-the-Hill, the Vicar was sitting sadly in a pew, watching a confident young architect examining the old painted screen.
    â€œSorry, Vicar,” said the young man, turning briskly. “Not a hope in Hell, I’m afraid. Oh! sorry again. I oughtn’t to have put it like that. But it’s long past restoring. Nothing to be done. The wood’s rotten, and there’s hardly any paint left—not enough to see what the original was like. What is it? Fifteenth century?”
    â€œLate fourteenth.”
    â€œWhat are they? Saints?”
    â€œYes. Seven each side.” He recited. “St. Lawrence, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, St. Anthony, St. Peter, St. Scoithín, and one we don’t know. The other side: St. Barbara, St. Catherine, St. Appolonia, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Cristina the Astonishing, St. Margaret, and St. Martha.”
    â€œYou’ve got it all very pat.”
    â€œThere were church records. Not in very good condition. Some we had to make out by their emblems—St. Barbara’s castle for instance, and St. Lawrence’s gridiron. The original work was done by Brother Bernard of the Benedictines of Froyle Abbey.”
    â€œWell, I’m sorry about my verdict. But everything has got to go sometime. I hear your rich parishioner has offered you a new screen with modern symbolical figures on it?”
    â€œYes,” said the Vicar without enthusiasm.
    â€œSeen the big new Cathedral Centre at New Huddersfield? Coventry was good in its time, but this is streets ahead of it! Takes a bit of getting used to, of course.”
    â€œI am sure it would.”
    â€œBut it’s taken on in a big way! Modern. Those old Saints,” he flicked a hand towards the screen. “I don’t suppose anyone knows who half of them are nowadays. I certainly don’t. Who was St. Cristina the Astonishing?”
    â€œQuite an interesting character. She had a very keen sense of smell. At her funeral service the smell of her putrefying body affected her so much that she levitated out of her coffin up to the roof of the Chapel.”
    â€œWhew! Some Saint! Oh well, it takes all sorts to make a world. Even your old Saints would be very different nowadays, I expect …”

    Â 

The Saints of God
    Saint Lawrence with his Gridiron
    Saint Catherine with her Wheel
    Saint Margaret with her Dragon
    Saint Wilfred with his Seal
    The Saints of God are marching
    Are marching down the hill
    The Saints of God are marching
    To ascertain God’s Will
    â€œOh, we have sat in Glory
    And worn the Martyr’s Crown
    But we now make petition
    That we from Heaven go down.
    â€œIn pity and compassion
    Let us go back to men
    And show them where the Pathway
    Leads back to Heaven again …”

The Island
    There were hardly any trees on the island. It was arid land, an island of rock, and the goats could find little to eat. The shapes of the rocks were beautiful as they swept up from the sea, and their colour changed with the changing of the light, going from rose to apricot, to pale misty grey, deepening to mauve and to stern purple, and in a last fierceness to orange, as the sun sank into that sea so rightly called wine-dark. In the early mornings the sky was a pale proud blue, and seemed so high up and so far away that it filled one with awe to look up at it.
    But the women of the island did not look up at it often, unless they were anxiously gazing for signs of a storm. They were women and they had to work. Since food was scarce, they worked hard and unceasingly, so that they and their children should live. The men went out daily in the fishing boats. The children herded the goats and played little games of their own with pebbles in the sun.
    Today