JP Jacobsen

“Silence, child of man!” thundered Pastor Jens. “Is this language meet for one who has even now one foot in the grave? ’Twere better you employed the flickering spark of life that still remains to you in making your peace with the Lord, instead of picking quarrels with men. You are like those criminals and disturbers of peace who, when their judgment is fallen and they can no longer escape the red-hot pincers and the axe, then in their miserable impotence curse and revile the Lord our God with filthy and wild words. They seek thereby courage to drag themselves out of that almost brutish despair, that craven fear and slavish remorse without hope, into which such fellows generally sink toward the last, and which they fear more than death and the tortures of death.” Ulrik Christian listened quietly, until he had managed to get his sword out from under the coverlet. Then he cried: “Guard yourself, priest-belly!” and made a sudden lunge after Pastor Jens, who coolly turned the weapon aside with his broad prayer-book.