‘You will soon be home, my man,’ said the vicar. ‘Remember that you have a Saviour in heaven. Cast yourself on His mercy.’
Harry shook his head.
‘Very good words, very kind,—very heavy gamebag, though. Never get home, never any more at all. Where’s my boy Tom to carry it? Send for my boy Tom. He was always a good boy till he got along with them poachers.’
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘listen! There’s bells a-ringing—ringing in my head. Come you here, Paul Tregarva.’
He pulled Tregarva’s face down to his own, and whispered,—
‘Them’s the bells a-ringing for Miss Honor’s wedding.’
Paul started and drew back. Harry chuckled and grinned for a moment in his old foxy, peering way, and then wandered off again.
‘What’s that thumping and roaring?’ Alas! it was the failing pulsation of his own heart. ‘It’s the weir, the weir—a-washing me away—thundering over me.—Squire, I’m drowning,—drowning and choking! Oh, Lord, how deep! Now it’s running quieter—now I can breathe again—swift and oily—running on, running on, down to the sea. See how the grayling sparkle! There’s a pike! ’Tain’t my fault, squire, so help me—Don’t swear, now, squire; old men and dying maun’t swear, squire. How steady the river runs down? Lower and slower—lower and slower: now it’s quite still—still—still—’
His voice sank away—he was dead!
No! once more the light flashed up in the socket. He sprang upright in the bed, and held out his withered paw with a kind of wild majesty, as he shouted,—