“I fear doing wrong; I fear offending my God. Oh, father, I cannot pass that money.”
“Say that word again,” muttered Dowley between his teeth, raising a cudgel that he grasped in his hand.
“Ask anything else—anything that is not wrong! I consented for you to give up my place. I obeyed you, though in sorrow and disappointment; but this thing I may not, cannot do, even if refusing cost me my life!”
“Then take the consequences!” exclaimed the man in a fury of passion, seizing the unhappy boy with one hand, while with the other he showered on him a torrent of blows. Mark winced beneath them, struggled, called out for assistance; but neither fear nor torture made him lift a hand against his earthly oppressor, or yield to the assault of the tempter within, who urged him to procure mercy at the price of his conscience!
Wearied at length with his barbarous labour, Dowley flung his bruised, bleeding, gasping victim into a dry ditch, and muttering to himself that he had served him out at last, walked with long, hurried strides from the spot.
CHAPTER X.
SHADOW AND SUNSHINE.
“Now at the end of this valley was another, called the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”—Pilgrim’s Progress.
