"Oh, Master Thornton," said Uncle Jack, "forgive, if you would be forgiven! Don't you know, don't you feel, that you are dying? That you are going before that God to whom you were just now trying to say, 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' Does not poor Bessy Davenport forgive you? And should you keep up rancour towards her? Oh, take her offer, sir, and follow her example before you die."
"Dying," said the old man feebly. "Am I dying? I do believe I am. Give me the whisky, Jack. I can't die yet--I am not yet ready. Oh God, give me a little time to think!" The old negro looked across to somebody who had just come in and stood behind me. It was Doctor Christy, who said:--
"Give it to him; it can neither do good nor harm; but it may keep him up for half-an-hour or so, if there's business to be done. You see," he continued, speaking to me in a lower tone, as I turned towards him, "there is the Hippocratical visage. No escaping from that!"
"Am I dying?" asked Mr. Thornton, as soon as he had drunk the whisky; "am I dying, doctor?"
"Yes, sir, you are," replied the surgeon, almost sternly.
"How long?" asked the other, in a sad and a subdued tone.
"Long enough to show repentance if you will," answered Doctor Christy. "Long enough to make your will, if it is not a very long one."
"The will be d----d," said the old man, in his usual phraseology, which he could not abandon even at that awful moment. "Everything is in confusion. I have no time for that."
"Oh, sir," said Uncle Jack, "let me pray----"
"Hush!" said the dying man. "You told me I was to forgive--but forgiveness is nothing, unless I redress--did Bessy Davenport really make that offer?" he continued, looking at Mr. Wheatley.