and
now I would go if I knew that I must die within a week, for such oaths
cannot be lightly broken, and till mine is fulfilled the curse rests on
me.'

'So be it, son,' he answered with a sigh. 'Your mother's cruel death
maddened me and I said what I may live to be sorry for, though at the
best I shall not live long, for my heart is broken. Perhaps I should
have remembered that vengeance is in the hand of the Lord, who wreaks
it at His own time and without our help. Do not think unkindly of me, my
boy, if we should chance to meet no more, for I love you, and it was but
the deeper love that I bore to your mother which made me deal harshly
with you.'

'I know it, father, and bear no grudge. But if you think that you owe me
anything, pay it by holding back my brother from working wrong to me and
Lily Bozard while I am absent.'

'I will do my best, son, though were it not that you and she have grown
so dear to each other, the match would have pleased me well. But as I
have said, I shall not be long here to watch your welfare in this or any
other matter, and when I am gone things must follow their own fate. Do
not forget your God or your home wherever you chance to wander, Thomas:
keep yourself from brawling, beware of women that are the snare of
youth, and set a watch upon your tongue and your temper which is not of
the best. Moreover, wherever you may be do not speak ill of the religion
of the land, or make a mock of it by your way of life, lest you should
learn how cruel men can be when they think that it is pleasing to their
gods, as I have learnt already.'

I said that I would bear his counsel in mind, and indeed it saved me
from many a sorrow. Then he embraced me and called on the Almighty to
take me in His care, and we parted.

I never saw him more, for though he was but middle-aged, within a year
of my going my father died suddenly of a distemper of the heart in the
nave of Ditchingham church, as he stood there, near the rood screen,
musing by my mother's grave one Sunday after mass, and my brother took
his lands and place. God rest him also! He was a true-hearted man, but
more wrapped up in his love for my mother than it is well for any man
to be who would look at life largely and do right by all. For such love,
though natural to women, is apt to turn to something that partakes of
selfishness, and to cause him who bears it to think all else of small
account. His children were nothing to my father when compar