to be busy in season and out of season;
and, conscious as I am of a pure motive, it were better for me to incur
your contempt for speaking, than the correction of my own conscience for
being silent."

"In the name of the devil!" said the young man impatiently, "say what you
have to say, then; though whom you take me for, or what earthly concern
you have with me, a stranger to you, or with my actions and motives, of
which you can know nothing, I cannot conjecture for an instant."

"You are about," said Butler, "to violate one of your country's wisest
laws--you are about, which is much more dreadful, to violate a law, which
God himself has implanted within our nature, and written as it were, in
the table of our hearts, to which every thrill of our nerves is
responsive."

"And what is the law you speak of?" said the stranger, in a hollow and
somewhat disturbed accent.

"Thou shalt do no murder," said Butler, with a deep and solemn voice.

The young man visibly started, and looked considerably appalled. Butler
perceived he had made a favourable impression, and resolved to follow it
up. "Think," he said, "young man," laying his hand kindly upon the
stranger's shoulder, "what an awful alternative you voluntarily choose
for yourself, to kill or be killed. Think what it is to rush uncalled
into the presence of an offended Deity, your heart fermenting with evil
passions, your hand hot from the steel you had been urging, with your
best skill and malice, against the breast of a fellow-creature. Or,
suppose yourself the scarce less wretched survivor, with the guilt of
Cain, the first murderer, in your heart, with the stamp upon your
brow--that stamp which struck all who gazed on him with unutterable
horror, and by which the murderer is made manifest to all who look upon
him. Think!"

The stranger gradually withdrew himself from under the hand of his
monitor; and, pulling his hat over his brows, thus interrupted him. "Your
meaning, sir, I dare say, is excellent, but you are throwing your advice
away. I am not in this place with violent intentions against any one. I
may be bad enough--you priests say all men are so--but I am here for the
purpose of saving life, not of taking it away. If you wish to spend your
time rather in doing a good action than in talking about you know not
what, I will give you an opportunity. Do you see yonder crag to the
right, over which appears the chimney of a lone house? Go thither,
inquire for one