Page:The Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest Vol. 2.djvu/182

 treatment: I never should have become a robber, had not the too great severity of the laws made me an enemy to the human race, and hurried me to the brink of black despair. I know my doom is fixed; however, if your heart is no stranger to pit, you will at least not refuse a tear of humanity to a poor unhappy man, who has been dragged by dire fatality into the path of vice, and forced to commit deeds his foul abhors."

Here he stopped. Awful silence swayed around, and my curiosity was harrowed up to the highest degree, when he began nearly in the following strain.

"I am the son of an Inn-keeper at A, whose name was Wolf, and who died when I had reached my twenty-fourth year. I succeeded him in his business, which being but indifferent, many of my hours were unemployed: Being an only son, I had been spoiled by my parents, who were