Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/78

and terrible than that of the Orsini against their mortal foes, the Borgias of sunny Italia. I resolved to kill, slay, totally extinguish the whole race of cobblers,—but that one in particular. His doom was, to be killed, slain, cut to pieces, remorselessly and cruelly murdered, after which his soul was to be eternally damned, roasted, stewed, broiled and grilled for evermore, upon the gridirons of the infernal pit—all for burning a six-penny ball! For ten long days and nights I pondered on the subject, and sought to contrive means whereby to carry out my philanthropic design. Having heard and read of battles, bloodshed and gory fields of human slaughter, wherein he who did the most murder was the greatest hero; having heard and read of human butchers and butchery, my heart had turned from the one, and I shuddered at the picture of the other. Now however, all these images of horror returned. I still bated them, but of all others, it seemed to me that that ball-burning shoe-mender was the most atrocious fiend that ever trod the earth. In my boyish frenzy I vowed he was an ogre, giant, demon, and all else that was horrible and bad, to rid the earth of whom would be doing an especial and particular favor to God, nature and human kind. Amidst all the scourges and pests who had ever, trod the earth from Ghengis Khan to Lord Jeffries, not one loomed up who was half so criminal, half so deserving of the intensest scorn and maledictions of the human race, as was that unfortunate and guilty cobbler. We resolved that he must die, and die by powder and fire; but in consequence of the fact, that the explosive grains were rather unpopular just then, while both guns and pistols, fire-crackers,