from limb--tear
him into a thousand pieces!"--"The Evil One had power given him to
prevail against me, and I fell under the temptation. It was so written
in the Book of Predestination, and the deed lies at the door of
God!"--"Tear the blasphemer into pieces! Let the scaffold drink his
blood!"--"So let it be, if it be so written, good people! Satan never
left me since the murder till this day--he sat by my side in the
kirk--when I was ploughing in the field--there--ever as I came back from
the other end of the furrow--he stood on the head-rig in the shape of a
black shadow. But now I see him not--he has returned to his den in the
pit. I cannot imagine what I have been doing, or what has been done to
me, all the time between the day of trial and this of execution. Was I
mad? No matter. But you shall not hang Ludovic--he, poor boy, is
innocent;--here, look at him--here--I tell you again--is the Violator
and the Murderer!"

But shall the men in authority dare to stay the execution at a maniac's
words? If they dare not--that multitude will, now all rising together
like the waves of the sea. "Cut the cords asunder that bind our
Ludovic's arms"--a thousand voices cried; and the murderer, unclasping a
knife, that, all unknown to his keepers, he had worn in his breast when
a maniac, sheared them asunder as the sickle shears the corn. But his
son stirred not--and on being lifted _up_ by his father, gave not so
much as a groan. His heart had burst--and he was dead. No one touched
the grey-headed murderer, who knelt down--not to pray, but to look into
his son's eyes--and to examine his lips--and to feel his left
breast--and to search out all the symptoms of a fainting-fit, or to
assure himself--and many a corpse had the plunderer handled on the field
after hush of the noise of battle--that this was death. He rose; and
standing forward on the edge of the scaffold, said, with a voice that
shook not, deep, strong, hollow, and hoarse--"Good people! I am
_likewise_ now the murderer of my daughter and of my son! and of
myself!" Next moment, the knife was in his heart--and he fell down a
corpse on the corpse of his Ludovic. All round the sultry horizon the
black clouds had for hours been gathering--and now came the thunder and
the lightning--and the storm. Again the whole multitude prostrated
themselves on the moor--and the Pastor, bending over the dead bodies,
said,

"THIS IS EXPIATION!"

MORNING MONOLOGUE.

"Knowledge