The marble monuments in the church will no longer
protect the leaden coffins; and if there be any ring of gold on the
finger of knight or dame, it will be torn away with as little ruth
and ceremony as the ring from a butchered sow's snout."
"Awful words! Master Silas," quoth the knight, musing; "but thou
mistakest my intentions. I let him not go; howbeit, at worst I
would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again after this
warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot athwart the
shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, and shake off the
burden of idleness."
Now I, having seen, I dare not say the innocence, but the innocent
and simple manner of Willy, and pitying his tender years, and having
an inkling that he was a lad, poor Willy! whom God had endowed with
some parts, and into whose breast he had instilled that milk of
loving-kindness by which alone we can be like unto those little
children of whom is the household and kingdom of our Lord,--I was
moved, yea, even unto tears. And now, to bring gentler thoughts
into the hearts of Master Silas and Sir Thomas, who, in his wisdom,
deemed it a light punishment to slit an ear or two, or inflict a
wiry scourging, I did remind his worship that another paper was yet
unread, at least to them, although I had been perusing it.
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