Page:Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (Volume 2).djvu/128

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116
The Magic Dollar.

first instilled into his dawning mind those lessons of virtue, which he now appeared to have rejected for ever.

Sad was the change which vice had written even on his outward form: instead of the ingenuous candour and amiable meekness which once used to sit upon his brow,—instead of the cheerful serenity which formerly beamed over his countenance, his beautiful features were marked with insolent scorn and pride, with sullenness and malignancy. Each hideous passion had left a trace so deep as legibly to indicate the violence with which they had swayed. The unclean spirit lurking within had defiled and polluted the once fair and goodly shrine.

“Why,” exclaimed he to his visitors, as they entered the cell, “why come ye hither to torment me? Bring the torture, and I will endure it. I shrink not even from the rack: but I want no cowled monk to preach to me,—no frocked confessor to weary me with his hateful homilies. What! think ye because I am in your power that I will therefore betray my brave companions, and denounce them to your ven-