You have parents, I
think you say?'
'A widowed mother only, my Lord Duke.'
'I'll provide for her, and make a comfortable woman of her, until you
speak of--what?'
'Of my shepherd days, and what I saw here.'
'Good. If you do speak of it?'
'Smash down she comes to widowing forthwith!'
'That's well--very well. But it's not enough. Come here.' He took the
boy across to the trilithon, and made him kneel down.
'Now, this was once a holy place,' resumed the Duke. 'An altar stood
here, erected to a venerable family of gods, who were known and talked of
long before the God we know now. So that an oath sworn here is doubly an
oath. Say this after me: "May all the host above--angels and archangels,
and principalities and powers--punish me; may I be tormented wherever I
am--in the house or in the garden, in the fields or in the roads, in
church or in chapel, at home or abroad, on land or at sea; may I be
afflicted in eating and in drinking, in growing up and in growing old, in
living and dying, inwardly and outwardly, and for always, if I ever speak
of my life as a shepherd boy, or of what I have seen done on this
Marlbury Down. So be it, and so let it be. Amen and amen." Now kiss
the stone.
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