CHAPTER XIII.
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The world has done its worst, you need not heed Its praise or censure now.—Your name is held In deep abhorrence by the good: the bad Make it a sad example for fresh guilt.—S.M. |
We will leave Anthony Hurdlestone to weep and watch beside the newly dead, and conduct our readers into the cottage occupied by Farmer Mathews and his family.
Returning the night before from market, very much the worse from liquor, the farmer had fallen from his horse, and received a very severe concussion of the brain. William, surprised at his long absence, left the house at daybreak in search of his father, and found him lying, apparently dead, within sight of his own door.
With Mary's assistance, he carried him into the house. Medical aid was called in, and all had been done that man could do to alleviate the sufferings of the injured farmer, but with little effect. The man had received a mortal blow, and the doctor, when he left that evening, had pronounced the fatal sentence that his case was hopeless; that, in all probability, he would expire before the morning.
As the night drew on, the elder Mathews became quite unconscious of surrounding objects, and but for the quick hard breathing, you would have imagined him already dead.
The door of the cottage was open, to admit the fresh air; and in the door way, revealed by the solitary candle which burnt upon the little table by the bed-side, stood the tall athletic figure of William Mathews. His sister was sitting in a low chair by the bed's head, her eyes fixed with a vacant stare upon the heavy features of the dying man.
"William," she said, in a quick deep voice, "where are you? Do come and watch with me. I do not like to be alone."