"Oh! be warned, be warned, my brethren,"
he went on in a wailing voice. "You are all of you still young; you may
be led astray as I was by the desire for power, by the hope of wealth.
You may sell yourselves to the wicked as I did, I who once was good
and strove toward the right. If Satan tempts you thus, then remember
Nicholas the priest, and his dreadful death, and see how he pays his
servants. The plague has taken others, yet they have died at peace, but
I, I die in hell before I see its fires."
"Not so," said Hugh, "you have repented, and I, against whom you have
sinned perhaps more than all, forgive you, as I am sure my lady would,
could she know."
"Then it is more than I do," muttered Grey Dick to himself. "Why should
I forgive him because he rots alive, as many a better man has done, and
goes to reap what he has sown, who if he had won his way would have sent
us before him at the dagger's point? Yet who knows? Each of us sins in
his own fashion, and perchance sin is born of the blood and not of the
will. If ever I meet Murgh again I'll ask him. But perhaps he will not
answer."
Thus reflected Dick, half to David, who feared and did not understand
him, and half to himself. Ere ever he had finished with his thoughts,
which were not such as Sir Andrew would have approved, Father Nicholas
began to die.
It was not a pleasant sight this death of his, though of its physical
part nothing shall be written.
Pages:
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302