“Yes, yes, Jack—do, that’s a good boy. I am quite calm now,” said Nanny, wiping her eyes with her apron.
I then acquainted her with what Spicer had told me relative to his inducing the man to take his name, and continued the history of Spicer’s life until I left him on board of a man-of-war.
“But where is he now? And who told you all this?”
“He told me so himself,” replied I. “He has been in the hospital some time, and living here close to you, without either of you being aware of it. But, mother, he is now ill—very ill in the hospital; he would not have confessed all this if he had not felt how ill he was.”
“Deary, deary me!” replied old Nanny, wringing her hands; “I must go see him.”
“Nay, mother, I fear you cannot. The fact is that he is dying, and he has sent me to ask your forgiveness for his conduct to you.”
“Deary, deary me!” continued old Nanny, seemingly half out of her wits; “in the hospital, so near to his poor mother,—and dying. Dear Jemmy!”
Then the old woman covered up her face with her apron and was silent. I waited a minute or two, and then I again spoke to her.
“Will you not answer my question, mother? Your son has but an hour perhaps to live, and he dies penitent not only for his conduct to you, but for his lawless and wicked life; but he feels his treatment of you to be worse than all his other crimes, and he has sent me to beg that you will forgive him before he dies. Answer me, mother.”
“Jack,” said Nanny, removing the apron from her face, “I feel as if it was I who ought to ask his pardon, and not he who should ask mine. Who made him bad?—his foolish mother. Who made him unable to control his passions?—his foolish mother. Who was the cause of his plunging into vice—of his intemperance, of his gaming, of his wild and desperate career—which might have ended, as I supposed it had done, on the gallows—but a foolish, weak, selfish mother, who did not do her duty to him in his childhood? It is I who was his great enemy—I who assisted the devil to lead him to destruction—I who, had he been hanged, had been, and have felt for years that I was, his executioner. Can I forgive him! Can he forgive me?”