“Why, that the Lord should take me to Himself, when He might have left me to a life of misery and degradation in a far-off land with criminals and evil-doers, or sent me to the scaffold, as I was nearly sent before. After such a life as I’ve led, to take me away to His beautiful land of rest. It’s too much—it’s too much! I don’t know how to thank Him aright. Grandfather, get down upon your knees again and tell Him—though He knows it, to be sure—that for love of Him I’m willing to live that life of misery, or die the shameful death I’ve deserved, and led others to, I fear. Let it be only as He wills, but to be taken away from it all to be with Him seems more blessedness and goodness than I can rightly understand.”
Tears were running down Abner’s face. His voice was broken by sobs.
“Oh, my boy! my boy! if that’s how you feel, I’ve no fears for you. That’s the feeling we should all strive after. Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: so that, living or dying, we are the Lord’s. If it’s so with thee, my boy, there’s nought else to wish for thee. The peace that passes all understanding will be with thee to the end. Oh, bless the Lord! thank the Lord! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”
For many minutes there was in that chamber of death such a sense of joy and peace as was indeed a foretaste of the everlasting peace of God. Saul lay and looked out before him through the casement, through which a very young moon was just glinting. It was a strange thought that before that moon waned his body would be lying stiff and cold beneath the churchyard sod. But there was no fear in Saul’s mind. Fear had never been a friend to him, and now the perfect love of his crucified and ascended Lord had driven out all fear. Yet even with the prospect of that wondrous change to pass upon him, Saul’s thoughts were not all of himself. He listened to all there was to know of the men he had lured and tempted to this great crime, and heaved a sigh of relief to hear that the magistrates had themselves dealt with the cases of the younger men—men some of them little more than lads, who had plainly been led away by their associates, and had had a lesson they would not be likely to forget. Only six had been committed for trial, and these were all men of bad character and reckless lives. Their fate might likely be a hard one, but they were to have counsel to defend them, and stress was to be laid upon the action of Saul in the matter, and the part he had taken in urging the crime upon them. Saul made a full confession of all his share to Abner that night, and made him promise to attend the trial and repeat this before the judges if possible. It might militate in their favour perhaps, and Saul directed that his boat and all that he had should be sold and given to the wives of the two men out of the six who were married; and having settled all this with his grandfather, he felt his mind relieved of a part of its burden, and lay quiet and exhausted for some time.
He had fallen into a doze when Abner aroused him to take food, and looking up quickly he asked—
“Where are we now? I don’t know this place.”
“It’s a room in the castle—in the servants’ block,” answered Abner. “I told yu they could not get your clasp loosened from Mr. Marchmont’s neck. They had tu bring yu both here, and then the doctor would not let yu be taken away—not even so far as my cottage. Yu were brought here, and yu’ve had the same care and attention as Mr. Marchmont himself. The doctor went to and fro betwixt yu all that night, and has been three and four times a day tu see yu ever since.”
A little flicker passed over Saul’s face. He remembered, as a thing long since past, his old hatred of the class above him. Now he could only feel love for all men—a natural outcome of the intense and burning love for his Lord which was filling all his heart.
“If I could only see him once more!” he said softly.
“See what?”