And the next moment he had slipp’d from my grasp, and was wallowing in a fit on the floor. I ran to the cupboard at which he had pointed, and finding there a bottle of strong waters, forced some drops between his teeth; and hard work it was, he gnashing at me all the time and foaming at the mouth.
Presently he ceased to writhe and bite: and lifting, I set him in his chair, where he lay, a mere limp bundle, staring and blinking. So I sat down facing him, and waited his recovery.
“Dear young sir,” he began at length feebly, his fingers searching the Bible before him, from force of habit. “Kind young sir—I am an old, dying man, and my sins have found me out. Only yesterday, the physician at Bodmin told me that my days are numbered. This is the second attack, and the third will kill me.”
“Well?” said I. “If—if Mistress Delia be alive (as indeed I did not think), I will make restitution—I will confess—only tell me what to do, that I may die in peace.”
Indeed, he look’d pitiable, sitting there and stammering: but I harden’d my heart to say—
“I must have a confession, then, written before I leave the room.”
“But, dear young friend, you will not use it if I give up all? You will not seek my life? that already is worthless, as you see.”
“Why, ’tis what you deserve. But Delia shall say when I find her—as I shall go straight to seek her. If she be lost, I shall use it—never fear: if she be found, it shall be hers to say what mercy she can discover in her heart; but I promise you I shall advise none.”
The tears by this were coursing down his shrunken cheeks, but I observ’d him watch me narrowly, as though to find out how much I knew. So I pull’d out my pistol, and setting pen and paper before him, obtained at the end of an hour a very pretty confession of his sins, which lies among my papers to this day. When ’twas written and sign’d, in a weak, rambling hand, I read it through, folded it, placed it inside my coat, and prepared to take my leave.
But he called out an order to the old servant to saddle my mare, and stood softly praying and beseeching me in the courtyard till the last moment. Nor when I was mounted would anything serve but he must follow at my stirrup to the gate. But when I had briefly taken leave, and the heavy doors had creaked behind me, I heard a voice calling after me down the road—