"I am an eater of sin. We still have a few such in Wales. They put a
piece of bread and cheese on the breast of a dead man and when the
sin-eater eats it, the sins of the dead are passed into the bread and
cheese and the soul of the dead is shrived of them. Ay, ay, but it's a
grave duty, my friend, to take upon your own soul the crime of another.
If you are free from sin yourself, you may walk through life a brave
creature; but ... I took his sins, sins, the sins of the wickedest
composer of our century, God rest his soul. And for the wicked things he
put into his symphonies I must march through life playing on this
terrible collection of instruments the Tune of Time--" His daughter
faced him.
"Father, we must go; you are only keeping the gentleman." Again she
signalled Ferval, but he disregarded her warning. He would not stir. The
story and the man who told it, a prophet shorn of his heaven-storming
powers, fascinated him.
"I took his sins to myself and they were awful. Once every night I play
the Tune of Time in which the wickedness of the dead man is spread out
like dry rot in a green field.
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