"Ye've made it up to me, Jack," said the preacher. "Ye told me just now ye wouldn't kill yourself for my sake. I ain't much, God knows; but my preaching would ha' meant just nothing at all, if I didn't hold that worth some bruises."
He was feeling his feet again; after all, that was worth something.
"It's a precious odd making up," said Jack. "And I can't see why the devil it's any odds to you whether I did or not; but I know it is! I say, when you get to heaven, you might say that, eh?"
"Say what?" said Barnabas.
His brain was confused between the strong love of life, or rather of Margaret, that he was trying to fight down in his own soul (it was like fighting an inflowing tide), and the other strong impulse to help, that had been a ruling habit of years.
"Why, that I had a try to make up. No one else will speak for me, you may bet on that! And even you won't be able to make it amount to much, but—come—say you'll remember me, if there is anything the other side. Swear you'll not forget. I shouldn't believe any one else, if they swore till they burst; but you'd stick to anything you'd said. I won't funk. I won't have that fat parson pray for me. If God's alive, He ain't such a soft one as to be squared by a few snivellin' prayers at the end; but I'd like you to remember me. Whatever comes, it seems as if you'd be something to hold to."
And the preacher bowed his grey head on his hands. He had been preached to, to some purpose.
In the midst of the darkness he saw again the figure of his Master crucified, with a thief on the right hand and on the left.
"It's not to me you must say that!" he cried. "Not to me, who am a most cowardly and unprofitable servant. But, oh, my Lord, remember us—when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!" And, with that, the darkness in his soul cleared.
Jack's mind wandered after that; he kept spouting bits out of some play that Barnabas had never heard of, and aping feebly all sorts of characters, chiefly kings and princes (the fellow had evidently been a reader at one time). Then the feeble voice grew fainter, and presently he slept. During his sleep he effectually escaped, neither grating nor gaolers having power to stay him this time.