Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Roundabout Paperswine is drunk; through which people come and go; wivesand children pass; and in which murder sits unseen untilthe terrible moment when he rises up and kills? A farmer,say, has a gun over the mantel-piece in his room wherehe sits at his daily meals and rest: caressing his children,joking with his friends, smoking his pipe in hiscalm. One night the gun is taken down: the farmer goesout: and it is a murderer who comes back and puts thepiece up and drinks by that fireside. Was he a murdereryesterday when he was tossing the baby on his knee,and when his hands were playing with his little girl’syellow hair? Yesterday there was no blood on them atall: they were shaken by honest men: have done manya kind act in their time very likely. He leans his head onone of them, the wife comes in with her anxious looksof welcome, the children are prattling as they did yesterdayround the father’s knee at the fire, and Cain issitting by the embers, and Abel lies dead on the moor.Think of the gulf between now and yesterday. Oh, yesterday!Oh, the days when those two loved each otherand said their prayers side by side! He goes to sleep,perhaps, and dreams that his brother is alive. Be true, Odream! Let him live in dreams, and wake no more. Beundone, O crime, O crime! But the sun rises: and theofficers of conscience come: and yonder lies the bodyon the moor. I happened to pass, and looked at theNorthumberland Street house the other day. A few loitererswere gazing up at the dingy windows. A plainordinary face of a house enough—and in a chamber init one man suddenly rose up, pistol in hand, to slaughteranother. Have you ever killed any one in yourthoughts? Has your heart compassed any man’s death?In your mind, have you ever taken a brand from thealtar, and slain your brother? How many plain ordinaryfaces of men do we look at, unknowing of murder behindthose eyes? Lucky for you and me, brother, thatwe have good thoughts unspoken. But the bad ones? Itell you that the sight of those blank windows inNorthumberland Street—through which, as it were, mymind could picture the awful tragedy glimmering behind—setme thinking, “Mr. Street-Preacher, here is atext for one of your pavement sermons. But it is too146