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The Lame Priest
The Lame Priest
Book Excerpt
y such pity came on me, except that it is not right to see into the soul of any man, and I knew the priest must be banned, and thought Andrew had meant to warn me against him. I took the things, twigs, stone, and charcoal, and threw them into the fire.
"I'd sooner they came in," I said.
But the strange priest gave me a look of terror, of agony. I thought he wrung his hands, but I could not tell. As if I had struck him he was over my threshold, and scurrying away with his swift lameness into the woods and the thin-falling snow. He went the way we had come in the morning, the way of the dead hare. I could not help wondering if he would take it with him if it were still there. I was sorry I had not asked him where he was going; sorrier I had not filled his pockets with food. I turned to put away my map of the district, and it was gone. He must have moved more silently than a wolf to have stolen it, but stolen it was. I could not grudge it, if I would rather have given it. I went to the bunk to pull
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A settler living by himself in a shack in the forest encounters a limping priest on his way back home during the first snowfall of the season. When he reaches home, Andrew, a local Indian, is waiting for him to tell him to move away, as the Indians are doing, because the wolves are coming down from the North. And they do. Children from the settlement are dragged off by wolves throughout the winter, and the priest pops up now and then.
The author draws good characters, and the plot slowly creeps the reader out.
The author draws good characters, and the plot slowly creeps the reader out.
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I love this story. It kept me glued until the end of the story. Good read.
01/04/2012
Well written horror story about a mysterious frontier priest. A settler learns the reason why he is shunned by the Native Americans. Good development of the characters.
11/12/2008