me. I did decoy your father to his death; but as Heaven sees us in this

sacred place, I knew not what I did."

It may be," returned Dick. "But see what a strange web ye have woven,

that I should be, at this hour, at once your prisoner and your judge;

that ye should both threaten my days and deprecate my anger. Methinks,

if ye had been all your life a true man and good priest, ye would neither

thus fear nor thus detest me. And now to your prayers. I do obey you,

since needs must; but I will not be burthened with your company."

The priest uttered a sigh so heavy that it had almost touched the lad

into some sentiment of pity, and he bowed his head upon his hands like a

man borne down below a weight of care. He joined no longer in the

psalms; but Dick could hear the beads rattle through his fingers and the

prayers a-pattering between his teeth.

Yet a little, and the grey of the morning began to struggle through the

painted casements of the church, and to put to shame the glimmer of the

tapers. The light slowly broadened and brightened, and presently through

the south-eastern clerestories a flush of rosy sunlight flickered on the

walls. The storm was over; the great clouds had disburdened their snow

and fled farther on, and the new day was breaking on a merry winter

landscape sheathed in white.

A bustle of church officers followed; the bier was carried forth to the

deadhouse, and the stains of blood were cleansed from off the tiles, that

no such ill-omened spectacle should disgrace the marriage of Lord

The Black Arrow