Page 23 - The Devil's Arsonist

my vision; nor the revelation that in an earlier life, I once lived as another. For four and a half
centuries ago, I was Sir John Sulyard, Sheriff of Suffolk and Norfolk, Lord of the Manor of
Wetherden and the erstwhile, Devil’s Arsonist; an evil man who did send the good Dr.
Taylor’s soul upward to heaven and mine down to hell. But one thought did trouble me; he
did speak of another who would come on the morrow, a man to fear, a man of power, greater
than mine own: ‘None may be burnt without some of the Council's presence and good
sermons at the same.’ I vowed that I would find his name and who he was, that did cause a
man of God to be afraid of none but him, this ghost from my past, for I surely did once know
him. Could he be guilty of all the evil I fear I had committed and that I may in truth be
innocent? But how could I vindicate my soul? Would the faith in my God be strong once
more and that the fate he alone can dictate be one that delivers such a forlorn hope? Yet may
I be saved from all that torments each and every moment and breath of my present existence;
as one I do not wish to be or to live as the man I am now.

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