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When I came to the door of the room, being myself in shadow, I beheld two bad men trying vainly to break open the pewter box, and the third with a pistol-muzzle laid to the night-cap of his lordship. With foul face and yet fouler words, this man was demanding the key of the box, which the other men could by no means open, neither drag it from the chain.
Hour after hour they crouched in the peat-cutting, listening to the noisy songs of the revelers within, some French, some English, and all growing fouler and less articulate as the night wore on. Once a quarrel broke out and the clamor was like a cageful of wild beasts at feeding-time. Then a health was drunk and there was much stamping and cheering. Only once was the long vigil broken.
When they had made an end of eating, they turned to him and said, 'What countryman art thou? 'I come from Persia, answered he, 'the land of the Chosroes. When they heard this, they laughed and one of them said, 'O Chosroaen, I have heard the talk of men and their histories and looked upon their conditions; but never saw or heard I a greater liar than the Chosroaen that is with us in the prison. 'Nor, quoth another, 'did I ever see fouler than his favour or more repulsive than his aspect. 'What have ye seen of his lying? asked the prince, and they answered, 'He pretends that he is a sage.
"I behold things with mind unclouded, Roger." "Save by enchantments damned, master. Since that evil day we met yon accursed witch of Hangstone, hast never been thyself." "Now do ye mind me how this woman did speak me of marvels and wonders, Roger " "Artifice, lord devilish toys to lure thee to fouler bewitchments." "Howbeit, I will seek her out."
The weariness of her body, the foul talk, the fouler cruelty, the cold discussion of the sale of human beings to the first-comer as though they were sheep or swine, the fear of her fate that night, pressed upon and overcame her mind, so that she felt inclined, like Simon, the son of Gioras, to sink fainting to the pavement and lie there till the cruel rods beat her to her feet again.
"Take care, my son," returned the Prelate of Glasgow, "and observe, that even now thou art departing from those resolutions which, but a few minutes since, thou didst adopt upon serious and just consideration; wherefore do not be, O my son! like the sow that has wallowed in the mire, and, having been washed, repeats its act of pollution, and becomes again yet fouler than it was before."
But out of the water he dared not put his head; for the rain came down by bucketfuls, and the hail hammered like shot on the stream and churned it into foam; and soon the stream rose, and rushed down, higher and higher, and fouler and fouler, full of beetles, and sticks, and straws, and worms, and addle-eggs, and wood lice, and leeches, and odds and ends, and this, that, and the other, enough to fill nine museums.
Subletted at an average of two dollars a night, it gave an income of nearly seven hundred dollars a year. It was known as the "Hawk's Nest," and no bird of prey ever had a fouler nest than this. As the gate banged on the fence a coarse, evil-looking man, wearing a dirty Scotch cap and a red shirt, pushed his head up from the cellar of the house that fronted on the street.
It was easy to see that between such a ruler and such a nation once brought together strife must come: but that the strife came as it did and ended as it did was due above all to the character of the king. "Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John." The terrible verdict of his contemporaries has passed into the sober judgement of history.
When I came to the door of the room, being myself in shadow, I beheld two bad men trying vainly to break open the pewter box, and the third with a pistol-muzzle laid to the night-cap of his lordship. With foul face and yet fouler words, this man was demanding the key of the box, which the other men could by no means open, neither drag it from the chain.
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