CHAPTER XLVII
YEAR 1806
Mr. Cayenne of Wheatrig having for several years been in a declining way, partly brought on by the consuming fire of his furious passion, and partly by the decay of old age, sent for me on the evening of the first Sabbath of March in this year. I was surprised at the message, and went to the Wheatrig House directly, where, by the lights in the windows as I gaed up through the policy to the door, I saw something extraordinary was going on. Sambo, the blackamoor servant, opened the door, and, without speaking, shook his head; for it was an affectionate creature, and as fond of his master as if he had been his own father. By this sign I guessed that the old gentleman was thought to be drawing near his latter end; so I walked softly after Sambo up the stair, and was shown into the chamber where Mr. Cayenne, since he had been confined to the house, usually sat. His wife had been dead some years before.
Mr. Cayenne was sitting in his easy chair, with a white cotton nightcap on his head, and a pillow at his shoulders to keep him straight. But his head had fallen down on his breast, and he breathed like a panting baby. His legs were swelled, and his feet rested on a footstool. His face, which was wont to be the colour of a peony rose, was of a yellow hue, with a patch of red on each cheek like a wafer; and his nose was shirpit and sharp, and of an unnatural purple. Death was evidently fighting with nature for the possession of the body. “Heaven have mercy on his soul!” said I to myself, as I sat down beside him.
When I had been seated some time, the power was given him to raise his head as it were a-jee; and he looked at me with the tail of his eye, which I saw was glittering and glassy. “Doctor,” for he always called me doctor, though I am not of that degree, “I am glad to see you,” were his words, uttered with some difficulty.
“How do you find yourself, sir?” I replied, in a sympathising manner.
“Damned bad,” said he, as if I had been the cause of his suffering. I was daunted to the very heart to hear him in such an unregenerate state; but after a short pause I addressed myself to him again, saying, that “I hoped he would soon be more at ease; and he should bear in mind that the Lord chasteneth whom he loveth.”
“The devil take such love!” was his awful answer, which was to me as a blow on the forehead with a mell. However, I was resolved to do my duty to the miserable sinner, let him say what he would. Accordingly, I stooped towards him with my hands on my knees, and said in a compassionate voice, “It’s very true, sir, that you are in great agony; but the goodness of God is without bound.”
“Curse me if I think so, doctor!” replied the dying uncircumcised Philistine. But he added at whiles, his breathlessness being grievous, and often broken by a sore hiccup, “I am, however, no saint, as you know, doctor; so I wish you to put in a word for me, doctor; for you know that in these times, doctor, it is the duty of every good subject to die a Christian.”
This was a poor account of the state of his soul; but it was plain I could make no better o’t, by entering into any religious discourse or controversy with him, he being then in the last gasp; so I knelt down and prayed for him with great sincerity, imploring the Lord, as an awakening sense of grace to the dying man, that it would please him to lift up, though it were but for the season of a minute, the chastening hand which was laid so heavily upon his aged servant; at which Mr. Cayenne, as if, indeed, the hand had been then lifted, cried out, “None of that stuff, doctor; you know that I cannot call myself his servant.”
