“What do I care how many guests you have, provided they pay? Money is as well earned by lodging a traveller as by strangling a thief.”
The speaker paused at the door, and the four strangers had ample opportunity to examine him. He was a man of colossal size, dressed, like their hostess, in red serge. His enormous head seemed to rest directly upon his broad shoulders, in strong contrast with his gracious lady’s long, bony neck. He had a low forehead, flat nose, and thick eyebrows; his eyes, rimmed with red, shone like burning coals in a pool of blood. The lower part of his face was shaved smooth, exposing his big mouth, whose black lips were parted in a hideous grin, like the gaping edges of a never-healing wound. Two wisps of frizzled beard, extending from his cheeks to his chin, made his face seem square when seen from the front. He wore a gray felt hat, which dripped with rain, and which he did not deign to remove in the presence of the four travellers.
As he looked at him, Benignus Spiagudry uttered a cry of fright, and the Lutheran minister turned away, struck with horror and surprise; while the master of the house, recognizing, addressed him thus: “What, are you here, minister! Indeed, I did not expect to have the pleasure of seeing your scared and woebegone face again to-day.”
The priest mastered his first feeling of repulsion. His face became serious and serene.
“And I, my son, rejoice at the chance which has brought together the shepherd and the lost sheep, to the end, no doubt, that the sheep may return to the fold.”
“Ah, by Haman’s gibbet,” rejoined the other with a loud laugh, “this is the first time that ever I was compared to a sheep! Believe me, Father, if you would flatter the vulture, you must not call him a dove.”
“He who can change the vulture to a dove, consoles, my son, and does not flatter. You think that I fear you, and I only pity you!”
“You must indeed have a goodly store of pity. I should have fancied that you had exhausted it all on that poor devil to whom you displayed your cross this morning in the hope of hiding my gallows from his eyes.”
“That unfortunate man,” replied the priest, “was less to be pitied than you; for he wept, and you laugh. Happy is he who learns in the moment of atonement how much less powerful is man’s arm than the word of God!”