Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/128

124 to scorn me, scorn me then, and curse me; and let me be seen no more on this blessed earth. For the light of day is misery to me, and the cloud of night is full of sorrow and trouble. My reason departs, and I go and sojourn with the beasts of the field: it returns, and I fly from the face of man; but wherever I go, I hear the death-shriek of eight sweet youths in my ear, and the curses of mothers' lips on my name.' 'Young man,' she said, 'I shall not curse thee, though thy folly has made me childless: nor shall I scorn thee, for I may not scorn the image of Him above; but go from my presence, and herd with the brutes that perish, or stay among men, and seek to soothe thy smitten conscience by holy converse and by sincere repentance.' 'Repentance!' he said, with a wildness of eye that made me start: 'of what have I to repent? Did I make that deep lake, and cast thy son, and the sons of seven others, bound into its bosom. Repentance belongs to him who does a deed of evil; sorrow is his who witlessly brings misfortunes on others; and such mishap was mine. Hearken, and ye shall judge.'

"And he sat down by the side of the lake, and, taking up eight smooth stones in his hand, dropped them one by one into the water; then, turning round to us, he said: 'Even as the waters have closed over those eight pebbles, so did I see them close over eight sweet children. The ice crashed, and the children yelled; and as they sunk, one of them, even thy son, put forth his hand, and seizing me by the foot, said, "Oh, Benjie! save me, save me!" But the love of life was too strong in me, for I saw the deep, the fathomless water; and, far below, I beheld the walls of the old tower, and I thought on those doomed yearly to perish in this haunted lake, and I sought to free my foot from the hand of the innocent youth. But he held me fast, and, looking in my face, said, "Oh, Benjie! save me, save me!" And I thought how I had wiled him away from his mother's threshold, and carried him and his seven companions to the middle of the lake, with the promise of showing him the haunted towers and courts of the drowned castle; but the fears for my own life were too strong; so, putting down my hand, I freed my foot, and, escaping over the ice, left him to sink with his seven companions. Brief, brief was his struggle—a crash of the faithless ice, a plunge in the fathomless water, and a sharp shrill shriek of youthful agony, and all was over for him; but