"Has the parson come?" demanded the low faint voice of Sir Roger Millington, as he turned round from a brief and half-delirious doze, on the morning after Pharold's capture: "has the parson come?"

"Not yet, sir," answered a sick-nurse, who was now the only person left to attend him. "It is not ten minutes ago since you first told me to send for him."

"I thought it had been much longer," said the dying man. "But what is all that noise in the house? They seem as if they were making all the disturbance that they could, on purpose to kill me with the headache."

"I dare say, sir, it is some of the other magistrates come, sir," answered the nurse; "for last night it seems they caught the gipsy, Pharold; and, when I went down to send for Dr. Edwards, his lordship was sitting in the great parlour with Mr. Arden, waiting for two other magistrates to make examination, as I think they call it. I should scarcely have dared to send else--that is, if I had not known he had his hands full for many a good hour, because you see, sir, he forbade any one to let Dr. Edwards see you, whether you wished it or not."

"Ah! did he so?" said the dying man, bitterly; and then, after a long pause, he added, "but he would not care about it now, my good woman. That declaration that he teased me into making last night, was all that he wanted; and now I may die when I like--with or without benefit of clergy?" and he groaned faintly and sadly at his bitter jest upon himself. "But do you think I am dying, woman?" He went on, "I have lost all the pain; but I am fearfully weak; and my legs and feet have no feeling in them. Do you think I am dying? Ha, nurse, what does the doctor say?"

"He says you are very bad, sir; but he hopes--" replied the nurse.

"Pshaw!" interrupted the other; "you have been tutored too. I wish the parson would come; he would tell me the truth."

"I am sure I wish he would too," cried the woman; "for he knows better than I what ought to be said to you, sir."

"Ah, I see how it is, I see how it is," cried the unhappy man; "I am dying, and they have kept it from me till they had got all that they sought;" and, like the stricken king of Israel, he turned his face to the wall, while one or two hot and bitter drops scorched his eyelids, and trickled over his cheeks. After a long silence, however, he again turned towards the woman, saying, "He is very long; I wish to God he would come! I have a great deal that lies heavy at my heart; and I would fain hear some words of comfort before I die. You do not think he will be frightened away by what that rascally lord has said?"

"Ah! no, sir; no fear!" answered the nurse; "Dr. Edwards is not a man to be frightened away by any body or any thing, so long as he thinks he's doing his duty. He is not one of that sort, sir. Why, last year, when the terrible catching fever was raging down in the village, and every one that took it died, he was night and day at the bedsides of the poor people that had it, although the doctor told him a thousand times that he was risking his own precious life: but he saw that it gave them more comfort than any thing to see him; and so he went at all hours, and into all places."

"I wish he would come," groaned the dying man; "I wish he would come."

Almost as he spoke, there was a cautious step in the anteroom, and the lock of the door turned under the quiet noiseless hand of one evidently accustomed to the chambers of the sick. The next moment the clergyman entered, and advanced closely towards the bed, although his heated brow and quick breathing showed that he had lost no time in obeying the summons he had received. He was a man between sixty and seventy, with scanty white hair covering thinly a high broad forehead, across which the cares and sorrows of others, more than his own, had traced two or three deep furrows. His countenance was grave, but mild; and his eyes full of both the light of feeling and the light of sense.

The nurse rose up from the chair in which she had been sitting at the pillow of the dying man, and Dr. Edwards quietly took her place, without appearing to see that Sir Roger Millington was eying him from head to foot; and, notwithstanding his situation, was comparing the person before him with the prejudiced image of a parson, which habits of vice had alone enabled his imagination to draw.

"I am much obliged to you for admitting me, my dear sir," said the rector, in a kindly tone. "How do you feel yourself? Are you in less pain than when I last saw you?"

"Yes, I am in less pain, sir," answered the other; "but I rather believe that is no good sign. At least they told me, when I was in torture, that pain was a good omen for my recovery; and now I am in no pain at all, I suppose it is a bad one."

"I am not sure that it is a good one," answered the clergyman gravely; "but at all events it has this good with it, that it leaves your mind and faculties perfectly free to consider fully your situation, and to take whatever measures, temporal or spiritual, may be necessary for your comfort and consolation."

"Ay, that is what I want to come to, Dr. Edwards," answered Sir Roger, "and I am glad you have come to it at once. But first tell me--and I adjure you by Heaven to tell me true, for these people deceive me--am I dying, or am I not?"

"I would have answered you truly without any adjuration," answered the clergyman. "None can, sir, or ought to say to another that it is impossible he can recover; for God can and does show us every day the fallacy of our judgment in the things that we best comprehend: but I do believe that you are in such a situation that it were wise to prepare yourself for another world without loss of time."

"Then I am dying," said Sir Roger, solemnly.

"I am afraid you are," answered the clergyman. "To deceive you would be a crime: your surgeon has himself told me that human skill can do nothing for you."

Sir Roger Millington drew his hand over his eyes, and groaned heavily; but after a brief pause he withdrew the white colourless fingers again; and looking steadfastly at the clergyman, said, "It is a terrible thing to die, sir; more terrible than I thought. I have fought in more than one battle, sir, and have had my single affairs too; but I never found out how terrible a thing death is till I came to lie here, and see life flow away from me drop by drop."

"Because in no other case had you time for thought," answered Dr. Edwards; "but, believe me, oh! believe me, that the very time for thought which you seem to regard as an evil, is the greatest mercy of Heaven. Few, even of the very best of us, if any, can keep his heart and mind in such a condition of preparation, as to be ready to pass from this state of mortal sin into life eternal, and to the immediate presence of a pure and perfect Being, who, though he is merciful, is likewise just, and will by no means leave the impenitent transgressor unpunished. No man, my dear sir, when he has years and days before him, should trust to the efficacy of a deathbed repentance--a moment which perhaps may not be granted to him; but when a man has gone on in thoughtless neglect, through the vigour of careless existence, and unexpectedly finds himself at the end of life with only a few short hours between him and that judgment-seat, where nothing can be concealed and nothing palliated, he may then take unto himself the blessed hope that repentance never comes too late, that our Saviour himself showed upon the cross that the last hour, the very last minute, of human life may yet obtain forgiveness of all the offences of the past, by evincing true repentance, founded on true faith."

"But how can I show either true repentance or true faith?" exclaimed the dying man, with a peevish movement of the hand. "All I can do is, to say I am very sorry for everything I have done wrong; and that I believe the religion in which I was educated to be the true one--although I have thought very little about it, since I was a boy at school. But it is no use! it is no use talking!" he added, seeing the clergyman about to reply; "I have done many a thing, especially lately, that cannot be forgiven--for which I shall never forgive myself; and so, how can I expect God to forgive them, who is better than I am, and who never knew what it was to be tempted as I have been?"

"You can expect God to forgive them, because he is better than you are, and because we have an intercessor at his throne, who has known what it is to be tempted, even as we are; because we have a mediator in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was rendered subject to temptation a thousand-fold more terrible than any that we can endure, in order that he might obtain forgiveness for even the greatest of sinners, who truly repents him of the evil he has done. Indeed, indeed, you greatly err in your ideas of God's mercy. But we had better, I think be left alone;" and he made a sign to the nurse, who immediately retired into the anteroom.

"I am sure," said the wounded man, feeling, in some degree, the effect of such consolatory hopes--"I am sure I do most sincerely repent of some things that I have done within this last week, and indeed all that I have done throughout the course of my life that is evil; and I do think, now that it is too late to mend it, that if I had taken a different course, and acted in another manner on many occasions, I should not only have been more comfortable now, but a happier man altogether."

"Doubt it not! doubt it not!" said the clergyman. "Those that sow in sin shall reap in bitterness: but still have good hope: the very conviction of the magnitude of your sins which you seem to entertain, is the first great step to sincere repentance; and sincere repentance once obtained, the atonement is already prepared in heaven--the abundance of God's mercy is ready to blot out our iniquity from before his sight."

"Ah, but there are many things very heavy on my heart and my conscience!" said the other. "Tell me, Doctor Edwards, tell me," he added, in a gloomy and anxious tone, "tell me, can a man who has said that and done that, which can take away the life of another upon a false charge, hope to be saved?"

The clergyman half started from his seat; and the other, sinking down again on the bed from which he had partially raised himself, exclaimed bitterly--"I see how it is! I see how it is--no hope for me--and so I will die as I have lived, boldly, without thinking about it."

"You greatly mistake me," cried the clergyman; "I wished to imply nothing of the kind."

"No, no," said Sir Roger, "say no more--I saw it in your face. I can easily imagine that a man may be pardoned for running another through, when they were hand to hand--I remember many people in the Bible that did the same--and I doubt not that many another little sin might be forgiven; but for taking a man's life that never hurt one, by a cold-blooded cowardly lie--I dare say that there is no forgiveness for that!" and as he spoke he drew his breath hard, and set his teeth, as if working himself up to meet the worst.

"God makes no such distinctions, as far as he has revealed himself to us," answered Dr. Edwards. "Murder, whether committed with the steel, or the poison, or the falsehood, is equally murder in his eyes. I was indeed surprised to hear you charge yourself with such a crime; but I repeat what I said before, that for that, as for every other sin, there is abundant mercy in heaven for him that sincerely repents him of the evil--"

He paused; but the knight made no reply, and remained with a contracted brow, a muttering lip and a wandering eye, struggling between two opposite states of feeling,--the habitual daring which despair had again called to his aid, and the fear of death, and judgment after death. "Let me urge you," continued the clergyman, when he perceived that he did not make any reply--"let me urge you to consider for one moment what must be the state of him who, under the circumstances which you have named, neglects the only opportunity allowed him for repentance, and suffers the few short moments granted mercifully for that purpose to escape unemployed. Remember, sir, that death is not sleep! that the moment the eyes are closed on this world they open on another! Remember that the disembodied spirit, freed from the frailties and the motives of the flesh, must of necessity feel, in all their bitterness and blackness, the crimes which here we can palliate to ourselves, as well as conceal from others!--Remember that, with feelings thus heightened, with eyes thus unblinded, the man who has committed the crime which you mention, and has neglected to repent of it fully, must go into the presence of the omniscient Creator, to meet, in the face of thousands of worlds, the being whom his falsehood and his baseness had destroyed--that he must hear his crimes proclaimed in the ears of all, must listen to his eternal condemnation, and must bear unceasing punishment, the never-dying consciousness, not only of the crime that he has committed, but of having neglected the opportunity of repentance--of having castaway the mercy offered even to the last hour of life. Think, think of his horror and his shame, and his torture, and his remorse, and, oh! choose the better path, and, even at the eleventh hour, repent and be saved!"

The dying man writhed under the picture of the future presented to his mind, a picture which he had ever contrived to shut out from his own eyes; but now, as the reality was about to present itself,--as but few short hours, he felt too well, only intervened between him and the fulfilment of all,--the conviction of its truth and its awfulness forced itself upon his heart, even to agony; and with clasped hands, as the clergyman concluded, he cried out, almost in the words of the Jewish lawyer, "What shall I do to be saved?"

"Repent sincerely," answered Dr. Edwards; "and as the first great proof of your repentance, make whatever atonement you can yet make for the very horrible crime with which you charge yourself--"

"I can, I can make atonement!" cried the dying man, raising himself joyfully on his hand as the thought was suggested to his mind; "I can--I can make atonement, and I feel that then I shall die in peace. I can save the innocent,--I can punish the guilty,--and I will do both, if God gives me two hours more of life."

"Such indeed will be the earnest of a true repentance," cried the clergyman, "and it is thus that a deathbed repentance can alone be confided in as efficacious. I wish not to pry into the secrets of your heart, sir, any further than may be necessary for the purpose of affording you advice and consolation. We believe that the ear of God is ever open to our confessions as to our petitions, and therefore that to him they should be made; but if I can aid you in carrying into effect your purpose of full atonement, command me; and be sure that no earthly consideration of either fear or hope will induce me to pause or waver in the execution of my duty. I say what I have just done, because an evident desire has been shown by those who should know better, to hold you back from the only true way to peace of mind. God forgive me! if my suspicions wrong any man; but before I came to-day, I thought the conduct pursued towards me strange; and now that I have heard so much from your own lips, I think it more than strange."

"And you think right," said Sir Roger. "It is more than strange, but it is all part of a plan. I see it all now--I see it all. He--he--Lord Dewry concealed from me at the first that I was dangerously hurt. He would not let me see you or any one else who would have dared to tell me so, because he was afraid I should blab. He would not let me have my papers over from Dewry Hall, pretending they had been forgotten; because he was afraid that I should destroy those we had manufactured between us; and last night, when I was half delirious, and would have signed away my soul for an hour's quiet and rest, he tormented me till I made a declaration before witnesses, that I had received a note from a man who never gave it me, and that this gipsy Pharold, whom they have now got below, was one of those who fired when I was wounded; though in truth I believe he did not come up till after."

"This is horrible, indeed!" said the clergyman, not a little agitated by the very painful tidings that he heard. "But let me beg you, sir, as you hope for pardon and eternal life in that world to which you must soon depart--let me beg you instantly to take measures to remedy the evil that you have been seduced into committing."

"Yes, yes, I will do my best to remedy it," answered the dying man, whose passions were now excited against the seducer who had led him forward to crimes from which even his mind had shrunk, all accustomed as it was to evil of a less glaring kind. "Yes, I will do my best.--Ay, and he affected to feel so much pity and friendship for me too, till he got what he wanted, and now he has not been near me all day. Ay, ay! and he promised me every thing on earth that could make life happy to me, when he knew that I was dying:--but he shall not triumph in his villany. No, no!"

Although the clergyman was very willing that justice should be done, yet even that consideration was secondary in his mind to the wish of leading the unhappy man before him into a better train of feeling ere he passed to things eternal. "By all means," he said, "let us proceed as fast as possible to make the atonement that you speak of, and to secure justice to the oppressed and innocent man you mention; but in doing so, my dear sir, do not forget for one moment your present situation. Let not wrath, or disappointment, or irritation, influence you. Let your sole motive be, as far as human nature is capable of controlling and purifying its motives, the desire of showing, by full atonement, that repentance which, with faith in the merits of your Saviour, may be effectual to salvation."

"Well, well, I will do my best!" answered the dying man. "But let us make haste, for I am beginning to feel faint; and there is a dimness comes occasionally across my eyes, and a rush like water in my ears, that disturbs me. How shall we set about it, Dr. Edwards?"

"The best way will be to call in witnesses," answered the clergyman, "and to draw up before them a complete statement of everything that you think proper to reveal, therein setting forth that you are perfectly aware of your situation, and that you are in a competent state of mind for making such a declaration. I myself am a magistrate, although I seldom act; and will give the document every formality in my power."

"Ay, but the witnesses! the witnesses, sir!" said Sir Roger; "I am afraid that he may come in every minute and disturb the whole."

"There is no fear of that, I believe," answered the clergyman. "In the first place, I would not permit such an interruption, were he a monarch; and in the next place, I was told that he and several magistrates were assembled to examine some prisoners before committal."

"Ay, it is Pharold, the object of all his hate, that they have got hold of," replied Sir Roger; "and they will have him off to jail on the very things I stated against him."

"Then, indeed, no time is to be lost!" answered Dr. Edwards. "The surgeon was to follow me here very soon; for I left him in the village. His assistant and the nurse are in the next room; and I am not sure that I did not hear his step also come in a moment ago. Thus we shall have sufficient witnesses, and one who can testify to your mind being clear and unbiassed. Shall I call them in?"

Sir Roger gave a sign of assent; and gazed eagerly towards the door to which the clergyman proceeded, as if he feared that some one else might be without. No one was in the anteroom, however, but the surgeon, his assistant, and the nurse; and Dr. Edwards having called them in, and briefly stated his object, they approached the bed, and the assistant, having obtained writing materials, seated himself as near the sick man as possible, to take down his exact words. Sir Roger was about to begin, but the clergyman interposed:--"One moment, my friend," he said mildly; "we must not forget our care for your eternal salvation, under any other consideration. Let us pray to God that the spirit under which this declaration is made may be the spirit of truth, divested by his grace of human passions and frailties, that the repentance of which it is the fruit may be pure and sincere, and may be accepted;" and kneeling down, he offered a short but emphatic prayer, so full of simple and unaffected piety, that Sir Roger Millington found feelings springing up in his heart which he had not known for years, and which made the warm drops rise into his eyes.

The knight then proceeded in a voice, faint and agitated indeed, but nevertheless one which, in the profound silence that reigned around, could be distinctly heard. He took up his tale in years long back; he related how, in better times and circumstances, he had won a large sum from Sir William Ryder and the Honourable Mr. De Vaux. The first, he added, had always the character of a frank, open-hearted, but gay and thoughtless young man; the latter that of one whose keen shrewdness would have ensured him the highest fortunes, if the violence of his passions had not on many occasions marred his best-laid plans. The day, he said, had been fixed for the payment of the money, and it had been shrewdly suspected that there would be difficulty in procuring it; but the very day previous to that appointed for the discharge of the debt, Mr. De Vaux's brother was murdered; and, consequently, that gentleman succeeding to his title and estates, the payment was made without delay.

He then passed over at once the twenty succeeding years, and briefly but distinctly recapitulated all that had taken place since; he had come down from London, in the hope of mending his broken fortunes by an application to the wealthy peer.

All this, however, has been already detailed, and needs not repetition, though it caused more than one glance of surprise and grief to pass between the clergyman and the surgeon. Nevertheless, for the time, they made no comment, but suffered the dying man to proceed uninterrupted as long as he seemed inclined to go on. When he paused, however, and looked round feebly towards the clergyman, as if to ask,--"Have I done enough?"--Dr. Edwards rejoined, "If you will permit me, sir, I will ask you one or two questions, to which, of course, you will answer or not, as you think fit. This young gentleman will take them down, however. They shall be short," he added, seeing a look of impatience cross the sick man's face; "may I ask, did his lordship assign any reason for the enmity he showed towards the gipsy Pharold, and for taking such unjustifiable steps to destroy him?"

"He said that he was sure that he, Pharold, had been the real murderer of his brother," answered Sir Roger; "but I have my own thoughts upon the subject." He paused, as if hesitating whether to proceed or not; and the clergyman paused too, for the mind of every one present had been led towards a suspicion so dreadful, that each felt a degree of awe at the thought of hearing his own doubts confirmed by those of another. At length, however, Sir Roger Millington raised himself upon his elbow, as if he had made up his mind to a painful effort, and fixing his dim and hollow eyes upon the clergyman, he said, in slow but solemn tone, "That was what he told me; but, as I am going into the presence of the Almighty, and casting away all malice against the man, I declare, that I believe he himself was the murderer of his brother, that Pharold knows it, and that such is the cause why he persecutes him even to death. Write that down, young man, for although I cannot discover all the links in the chain, nor all the motives of his cunning heart, yet it is fit they should be inquired into, and that the innocent should be delivered."

The assistant wrote, and read what he had written, and the knight made an impatient sign for the paper and the pen. When they were given to him, he scrawled his name faintly at the bottom. "And now, doctor," he said, looking towards the surgeon, "you certify there, that this declaration was made by me, when I had all my senses about me as fully as if I were in perfect health; and you, Dr. Edwards, certify that, at the time I made it, I knew that I was dying, and did it as the only proof I could give of my sincere repentance for many sins, of which the paper he wrung from me last night was not among the least. You may well say that I know I am near my end," he continued, "for I believe that I am nearer it than any one thinks."

"Take a little wine and water, Sir Roger," said the surgeon, looking at him, and remarking that strange and awful grayness, which generally precedes dissolution, coming like the shadow of some unseen cloud over the sick man's face; "take a little wine and water. It can do you no harm."

"I know that too well!" answered the other, in a hollow voice, drinking the draught which the nurse handed him. "It can neither do me harm nor good--for it is all passing away." The wine seemed, however, to revive him for a moment, and he eagerly besought the clergyman to take the paper which had just been signed to the magistrates assembled below. "Let them not pursue their injustice even so far," he said, "as to send an innocent man to jail. I have been in a jail myself, and know what it is."

"I think," answered Dr. Edwards, "that perhaps I maybe of more service with you here; for now that you have proved your repentance really, let me strive to assure you all the comforts thereof. I have much to say to you--much consolation and hope yet to hold out to you, if you will permit me."

"Oh! yes; stay, stay, by all means," said the wounded man; "do not you leave me. He can take it to them: for he can do this wretched carcass no good now: let him take it;" and he pointed with his finger towards the nurse, though, beyond doubt, it was the surgeon he intended to designate, distinctly showing that his sight had failed, though his power of hearing still remained.

"Perhaps you will have the kindness to do so," said Dr. Edwards, speaking to the surgeon; "but take care that it does not get into the hands of any one who may suppress it; for though we can all bear witness to the contents, yet the document itself is most valuable. I think I heard that Mr. Simpson was among the magistrates below. If so, give it into his own hand; for, though a calm and quiet man, he has much good sense and much firmness. But let us fold it up and seal it first."

The surgeon undertook the task, though, it must be confessed, not very willingly, for he loved not to do any thing to any one that might afford matter of offence. He spent some time in inquiring where the magistrates were, and some time in consulting with a constable at the door of the great hall whether it would be proper for him to go in. In short, at length, as he had just made up his mind, and had his hand upon the lock, the nurse whom he had left with the sick man, and who thought it absolutely necessary that he should be present at a patient's death, came eagerly to tell him that the unhappy Sir Roger Millington was in the last agonies. It was too good an excuse for shifting upon another an unpleasant duty to be lost; and, putting the paper into the constable's hand, he bade him go in and deliver it directly into the hands of Mr. Simpson the magistrate. The man received the commission as a matter of course, and proceeded to execute it, while the surgeon returned to the sick room. He opened the door--all was still--the assistants stood holding back the curtain, and gazing fixedly in--the clergyman was kneeling by the bedside, with his eyes raised towards heaven.