On his return to Broadhirst, General Grant expressed his most unqualified admiration at the gallant defence of his house, property, and daughter (we quote his own “table of precedence”) by Lewis and the man-servant. On the former he bestowed a sword (presented to him in bygone days by some Indian potentate) to replace the weapon broken in the struggle, together with a handsomely-bound copy of the “Wellington Despatches”; the latter he rewarded by promotion to the post of butler, vice Simmonds (in a fair way to be) transported, together with a douceur of twenty pounds; which piece of good fortune so elated the youthful Robert that he publicly declared he should like to have his head broken every night, and wished the house might be robbed regularly twice a week till further orders. The wounded men recovered rapidly, with the exception of Hardy, whose case assumed a very alarming character: owing to the state of his constitution, impaired by a course of intemperance, to which, since his escape from prison, he had given himself over, erysipelas supervened, and in a few days his life was despaired of. On receiving this intelligence Lewis rode over to H—————, and calling at the hospital, requested to be allowed to see the man whose life he had been the involuntary instrument of shortening. The permission was readily accorded, and he was conducted along several passages to the room, or rather cell, for it was little else, in which, for the purpose of security as well as to separate him from the other inmates of the establishment, the burglar had been placed. As soon as Lewis had entered the door was closed and fastened on the outside. Noiselessly approaching the truckle bed on which Hardy lay, the young tutor paused as his glance fell upon the prostrate figure of his former antagonist. Stretched at full length upon the couch, his arm and shoulder swathed in bandages, and his muscular throat and broad, hairy chest partially uncovered, he looked even more gigantic than when in an erect posture: his face was pale as death, and an unnatural darkness beneath the skin betokened to any one accustomed to such appearances the speedy approach of the destroyer; while a small hectic spot of colour on the centre of each cheek gave evidence of the inward fever which was consuming him. When Lewis approached the bed his eyes were closed, and his deep breathing at first led to the belief that he was asleep; that this was not the case, however, soon became apparent. Opening his eyes, he accidentally encountered those of Lewis fixed upon him with an expression of mingled pity and remorse: as their glances met Hardy gave a start of surprise, and gazed at him with a scowl which proved that his feelings of animosity against Lewis were still unabated; while a puzzled look evinced that his mental powers were so much weakened that he doubted whether the figure he beheld were real or a creation of his morbid fancy. Advancing to the bedside, Lewis broke the silence by inquiring whether he suffered much pain. As he began to speak, the confused look disappeared from the sick man’s countenance, and glaring at him with an expression of impotent rage, he exclaimed in a low, hoarse voice—
“So you’re come to look upon your handiwork, are you? I hope you like it!”
“I am come to tell you that I am sorry the blows I struck you in self-defence should have produced such disastrous consequences, and to ask your forgiveness, in case the means employed for your restoration to health should prove ineffectual,” replied Lewis.
“Restore my health!” repeated Hardy bitterly. “Do you mean that you expect these doctors can cure me? Do you think these wounds, that burn like hell-fire, can be healed by their plasters and bandages? I tell you no! You have done your work effectually this time, and I am a dying man. You want me to forgive you, do you? If my curse could wither you where you stand, I would and do curse you! If priests’ tales be true, and there be a heaven and a hell, and by forgiving you I could reach heaven, I still would curse you, in the hope that by so doing I might drag you down to hell with me.”
The vehemence with which he uttered this malediction completely exhausted him, and falling back on the pillow he lay with closed eyes, his laboured breathing affording the only proof that he was still alive. Throwing himself upon a chair by the bedside, Lewis sat wrapped in painful thought. The reflection that hatred to him for acts which circumstances had forced him to commit might cause the unhappy being before him to die impenitent, and that he might thus be instrumental to the destruction both ot his body and soul, was distressing to him in the extreme; and yet how to bring him to a better frame of mind was not easy to decide. At length, following out his own train of thought, he asked abruptly—
“Hardy, why do you hate me so bitterly?”
Thus accosted, the poacher unclosed his eyes, and fixed them with a piercing glance upon the face of his questioner, as though he would read his very soul. Apparently disappointed in his object, for Lewis met his gaze with the calm self-possession of conscious rectitude, he answered surlily—
“Why do you come here to torment me with foolish questions? It is enough that I hate you with just cause—and you know that it is so. I hate you now, I shall hate you dying, and I shall hate you after death, if there is a hereafter. Now go. If by staying here you think to persuade or entrap me into saying I forgive you, you only waste your time.”
“Listen to me, Hardy,” returned Lewis, speaking calmly and impressively. “You are, as you truly say, a dying man. In this life we shall probably never meet again. The reality of a future life you appear to doubt: I believe in it; and I believe that your condition there may be affected by your dying with such feelings in your heart as you have now expressed. It is therefore worth while to discuss this matter, and see whether you have such just cause to hate me as you imagine.”
As Hardy made no reply, Lewis continued: “It is true that on a former occasion I secured your capture when perhaps I was stepping beyond my regular path of duty to do so; but in this last affair I merely acted in self-defence, as I overheard from my open window your scheme for my destruction. You discharged a pistol at me ere I attacked you: had the ball gone half an inch more to the right I should have been a dead man. Whatever may be your faults, you are brave; and that quality alone should prevent your bearing malice against one who met you in fair, open fight. It was a game for life and death, and it is unjust to hate me for winning it.”