"O monster, beyond the reach of redemption! and the very day after the murder, while the corpse was lying in blood on the Moor, he was with us in the House of God! Tear him in pieces--rend him limb 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.