Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/142

 and go home full of confident hope for the event of to-morrow’s early morning.”

The girl obeyed, and departed on her return home, hope and fear alternating in her agitated bosom.

During the three days of respite, Father Graurock had laboured hard to get Benedict into a fit state for his approaching end; but his penitent was an ignorant layman, who knew far better how to handle the needle and shears than the rosary. He was for ever mixing up the Ave Maria and the Paternoster in inexplicable confusion; and as for the Credo, he did not know one syllable of it. The zealous monk had all the difficulty in the world in driving the latter into his head, nor did he succeed in this until full two days out of the three had expired. For unhappily worldly feelings, and the image of Clara, would ever and anon interrupt the progress of his spiritual lessons; but at last the patient monk succeeded in setting before his appalled contemplation a picture of the infernal regions so dreadful, that it drove from the mind of the poor fellow all thought of his mistress, and he paid assiduous attention to the exhortations of his ghostly attendant.

“Great indeed is thy crime, my son,” said the monk, as he took leave of him on the evening of the third day, “but despair not. The fire of purgatory will suffice to cleanse thee. Well is it for thee that it was no true believer, but only a miscreant Jew,