Читать книгу A Queen of Nine Days онлайн

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That did not touch them, so I seized a weightier argument.

'Have you not heard,' I said, 'of One Who laid His hands upon the sick and lame and made them whole? Jesus had compassion on the multitude. He took pity on the infirm. He laid His hands on them and blessed them. He——'

'He sent the devils into the swine, so that they ran into the sea,' interposed a man's voice grimly.

'The devils? Yes. But not the man out of whom they were driven. He sat at Jesus' feet, clothed and in his right mind.'

'True! true!' cried several voices.

It really seemed as if mercy were going to win the day. But at that moment, with a tremendous noise, a number of men and boys came round a bend in the road, dragging forward a wretched object whose head was hidden in a man's jacket.

'A witch! A witch!' yelled the newcomers, brandishing their sticks.

'And we have another! Ha! ha! ha!' laughed and shrieked the men and boys beside me.

Then I perceived that the newcomers were led on by as evil-looking a young man as you could see anywhere. His dress showed him to be a knight, but anything more unknightly than his manner and his conduct could not well be found; he seemed just like the knaves who formed his company, and an ill-looking lot they were, with scarcely a whole garment among them.