Since then he had never a moment been free from remorse. He wished for death, but feared to die. If he drank himself mad, that only increased the horror of his thoughts.
He had scarcely finished his sad tale when William Penrose discovered himself to be the well-remembered playmate of the wretched man's innocent youth; and he had only time to beg Penrose to bestow in alms his ill-got store, for the scarcely hoped for mitigation of future punishment, when he breathed his last.
When William Penrose returned to Penrose and made himself known, to the great joy of old servants and others, he found that what was thought to be merely the gloomy and morose temper of its master frequently made him shun all society, and wander about the hills or cliffs and other solitary places, for days and nights together.
No one either loved, feared, or cared enough about the surly man to pay him any regard. He was absent then in one of his melancholy moods, and William with the steward, aided by other old trusty servants, removed the child's remains from beneath the blasted tree to Sennen churchyard; and out of respect to the honourable old family, little was said or known about the sad occurrence.
Jan of Penrose was no more seen alive in the old mansion, for the same night that his nephew's remains were buried in consecrated ground, he hanged himself in the malt-house; and he haunted it long after.
Following the spirit's injunction William Penrose had still to find and remove the bodies of the old Squire and his crew. Now it was supposed that they were 'sanded'—that is sunk in the moist sand and covered by it during a flowing tide—near Gwenvor Cove, because corpse-lights had frequently been seen, and the drowned sailors had been heard there "hailing there own names," as they are still accustomed to do when requiring aid of the living.
Next day Penrose and others found the bodies of the old sailor-squire and his crew near the place where fishermen had heard the "calling of the dead," and their remains were laid to repose, with all holy rites, in an ancient burying-ground near Chapel Idné, where the wind and waves sing their everlasting requiem in music they loved well when alive:—
"Pie Jesu, Domine,
Dona eis requiem.
Amen."
William Penrose, now heir-at-law of the bartons of Penrose, Brew, and other farms in the West Country,—disliking to live in the place connected with such melancholy events—gave up his rights of heirship to another branch of the family; resumed his pilgrim's staff; and was supposed to have died in the Holy Land.