It was a boy of five who had seen his father murdered. I
nearly fainted with the horror of it, and yet I had to keep a
bold and smiling face; for well I knew that if I did not it would
be out of my house that they would come next with their bloody
hands and it would be my little Fred that would be screaming for
his father.
"But I was a criminal then, part sharer in a murder, lost forever
in this world, and lost also in the next. I am a good Catholic;
but the priest would have no word with me when he heard I was a
Scowrer, and I am excommunicated from my faith. That's how it
stands with me. And I see you going down the same road, and I
ask you what the end is to be. Are you ready to be a
cold-blooded murderer also, or can we do anything to stop it?"
"What would you do?" asked McMurdo abruptly. "You would not
inform?"
"God forbid!" cried Morris. "Sure, the very thought would cost
me my life."
"That's well," said McMurdo. "I'm thinking that you are a weak
man and that you make too much of the matter."
"Too much! Wait till you have lived here longer. Look down the
valley! See the cloud of a hundred chimneys that overshadows it!
I tell you that the cloud of murder hangs thicker and lower than
that over the heads of the people.
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