"No. It is useless."
"But you might do something—you're cruel. I am innocent. God let me be born of a drunken father—I had to drink too—I had to. The Squire wouldn't give me work—no one helped me. I enlisted in a New York regiment. I got drunk and ran away and enlisted in the 71st Pennsylvania. I stole chickens, and near to the North Anna I was cruelly punished. Then the Rebs caught me. I had to enlist. Oh, Lord! I am unfortunate. If I only could have a little whisky."
Mark Rivers for a moment barren of answer was sure that as usual Peter was lying and without any of his old cunning.
"Peter, this story does not help you. You are about to die, and no one—can help you—I have tried in vain—nothing can save you. Why at a time so solemn as this do you lie to me? Why did you desert? and for stealing chickens? nonsense!"
"Well, then, it was about a woman. Josiah knows—he saw it all. I didn't desert—I was tied to a tree—he could clear me. They left me tied. I had to enlist; I had to!"
"A woman!" Rivers understood. "If he were to tell, it would only make your case worse. Oh, Peter, let me pray for you."
"Oh, pray if you want to. What's the good? If you won't telegraph the Squire, get me whisky; and if you won't do that, go away. Talk about God and praying when I'm to be murdered just because my father drank! I don't want any praying—I don't believe in it—you just go away and get me some whisky. The Squire might have saved me—I wanted to quit from drink and he just told me to get out—and I did. I hate him and—you."
Rivers stood up. "May God help and pity you," he said, and so left him.
He slept none, and rising early, prayed fervently for this wrecked soul. As he walked at six in the morning to the prison hut, he thought over the man who long ago had so defeated him. He had seemed to him more feeble in mind and less cunning in his statements than had been the case in former days. He concluded that he was in the state of a man used to drinking whisky and for a time deprived of it. When he met him moving under guard from the prison, he felt sure that his conclusion had been correct.
As Rivers came up, the officer in charge said, "If, sir, as a clergyman you desire to walk beside this man, there is no objection."