CHAPTER LI.
THE CONFESSION.
Now am I come to the last event of this history, and I have to write down the confession of my own share in that event. For the others—for Alice and for Robin—the thing must be considered as the crown and completion of all the mercies. For me—what is it? But you shall hear. When the secrets of all hearts are laid open, then will Alice hear it also: what she will then say, or what think, I know not. It was done for her sake—for her happiness have I laid this guilt upon my soul. Nay, when the voice of conscience doth exhort me to repent, and to confess my sin, then there still ariseth within my soul, as it were, the strain of a joyful hymn, a song of gratitude that I was enabled to return her to freedom and the arms of the man she loved. If any learned Doctor of Divinity, or any versed in that science which the Romanists love (they call it casuistry), should happen to read this chapter of confession, I pray that they consider my case, even though it will then be useless as far as I myself am concerned, seeing that I shall be gone before a Judge who will, I hope (even though my earthly affections do not suffer me to separate my sin from the consequences which followed), be more merciful than I have deserved.
While, then, I stood watching this signal example of God's wrath, I was plucked gently by the sleeve, and, turning, saw one whose countenance I knew not. He was dressed as a lawyer, but his gown was ragged, and his bands yellow; he looked sunk in poverty; and his face was inflamed with those signs which proclaim aloud the habit of immoderate drinking.
'Sir,' he said, 'if I mistake not, you are Dr. Humphrey Challis?'
'The same, Sir; at your service,' I replied with some misgivings. And yet, being one of the Prince's following, there needed none.
'I have seen you, Sir, in the chambers of your cousin, Mr. Benjamin Boscorel, my brother learned in the law. We drank together, though (I remember) you still passed the bottle. It is now four or five years ago. I wonder not that you have forgotten me. We change quickly, we who are the jolly companions of the bottle; we drink our noses red, and we paint our cheeks purple; nay, we drink ourselves out of our last guinea, and out of our very apparel. What then, Sir? a short life and a merry. Sir, yonder is a sorry sight. The first Law Officer of the Crown thus to be haled along the streets by a howling mob. Ought such a thing to be suffered? 'Tis a sad and sorry sight, I say!'
'Sir,' I replied hotly, 'ought such villains as Judge Jeffreys to be suffered to live?'
He considered a little, as one who is astonished and desires to collect his thoughts. Perhaps he had already taken more than a morning draught.