"Yet I did love him, and would have died sooner than be faithless to him."
"So do sorcerers, as I have been told, love Satan, yet it is happy when they violate that awful faith. Choose, my son, between thy God, thy country, thy slaughtered kindred, and Brian."
"I do choose—I renounce him: he shall never see me again."
"Fly the country then; seek another clime; go on pilgrimage; take the cross; and employ thy valour and skill against the Saracens—the Moslems, the enemies of God."
"I will, God being my helper."
"Thou dost believe then in the God of thy fathers?"
"I think I always did, save when Brian was near. I tried not to believe, happily in vain."
"He will forgive thee—He is all-merciful. The prodigal son has returned. Now I am weary: let me rest—let me rest."
Osric wandered forth into the woods. Who shall describe his emotions? It was as when S. Remigius said to the heathen Clovis, "Burn that thou hast adored, and adore that thou hast burnt." But the terrible story of the destruction of his kindred, familiar as he was with like scenes, overcame him; yet he could not help blaming his father for his long neglect. Why had he disowned his only surviving son? why had he not trained him up in the ways of the woods, and in hatred of the Normans? why had he left him to the mercies of Brian Fitz-Count?