Page:The Canterbury tales of Geoffrey Chaucer.djvu/124

 unto him and anon cast him in a prison, where he slew himself. And Claudius, his servant, was doomed to hang on a tree; but that Virginius, of his pity, so prayed for him that he was exiled; else certes, he had been destroyed. The remnant, high and low, were hanged, that were privy to this cursedness. Here many men see how sin hath its deserts! Beware, for no man knoweth whom God will smite, nor in what wise the worm of conscience may writhe within a man, though his wicked life be so privy that no man knoweth thereof but God and him. For be he a man simple or learned, he wot not how soon he shall be afeard. Therefore I rede you take this counsel: forsake sin ere sin forsake you.