She had done her best, poor Ruth, and like any Lady Bountiful of treble her years, had got out her little stock of salves and simples and old linen rag, and gently and tenderly dressed the gaping wound; but it was all of just as much and no more use than the endeavours of the skilfullest doctors would have been.
"I am past thy surgery, child," he said in feeble but distinct tones, when towards two o'clock he stirred a little and opened his eyes. "The knife did its work. But give me a drink—ay, a cordial if you have it in your store. So," and he eagerly drank the contents of the little cup which Ruth filled from a flask upon the table, and shouldering himself feebly on his right side, his eyes wandered wistfully round the shadowy chamber as if in search of something, and rested at last on a little table of carved oak, bearing materials for writing. "Bring it here," he said. "Yes, that is well," he went on, as Ruth, marking his wish, even before he had given it utterance, brought the table beside the panel and set it close within his reach. "For I have a message to leave behind me, and my hours are numbered. My minutes belike," and his eyes closed; but in a few seconds he opened them again, and stretched out a trembling hand. "Quick!" he went on. "Pen and paper, dear child, as thou'rt a God-fearing maiden, and hop'st for heaven at last."
The dying man.
"As you do," gently murmured Ruth, spreading the paper as well as she could out upon the narrow bed, and placing the pen in his hand. "As you do, dear Master Goodenough."
"Nay," moaned the dying man. "Sin lies heavy on my soul."
"But God is love, dear Master Goodenough," said Ruth, dashing aside the tears that blurred her sight.
"Who taught thee thy creed?" said the sheriff, wonderingly fixing his hollow eyes on her pitying face. "'Tis none of the master's of this house, for his is a gospel of wrath, and of vengeance for our ill deeds."
"'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' Does not the Bible say that, Master Goodenough? and the Lord Christ, did not He say 'There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.'"
A last message.
"I doubt," murmured the wounded man, "had I been thy pupil, I had not been in this plight now." Then he gazed down at the blank paper, and thoughtfully setting the pen to it, while Ruth knelt upon the floor beside him and held the lamp close, began to write. "'I Thomas Goodenough, being now at the point of death'—Thy lamp burns very dim, there is a mist about it," he went on, labouring at his self-imposed task, while Ruth trimmed the flame, and made it shine brightly enough, but it remained only a poor dim thing enough for the eyes that never on this world's sea or shore, would see the light again—"'by the hand of the man, Richard Rumsey, who has thus now destroyed my body, as first he did my soul—'