t down on a stool by the
side of the orphan, and remained for some time in deep and melancholy
thought. "How strange," thought he at last, "it is, that I should feel
so little as I do now, surrounded by death, compared to what I did when
good old Jacob Armitage died! Then I felt it deeply, and there was an
awe in death. Now I no longer dread it. Is it because I loved the good
old man, and felt that I had lost a friend? No, that cannot be the
cause; I may have felt more grief but not awe or dread. Or is it
because that was the first time that I had seen death, and it is the
first sight of death which occasions awe? Or is it because that every
day I have fancied myself on the battle-field, with hundreds lying dead
and wounded around me, in my dreamings? I know not. Poor old Jacob
died peaceably in his bed, like a good Christian, and trusting, after a
blameless life, to find mercy through his Saviour. Two of these who are
now dead, out of the three, have been summoned away in the height of
their wickedness, and in the very commission of crime; the third has
been foully murdered; and out of three lying dead, one has fallen by my
own hand, and yet I feel not so much as when I attended the couch, and
listened to the parting words of a dying Christian! I cannot account
for it, or reason why; I only know that it is so, and I now look upon
death unconcerned. Well, this is a kind of preparation for the
wholesale murder and horrors of the battle-field, which I have so long
sighed for--God forgive me if I am wrong! And this poor boy! I have
promised to protect him, and I will. Could I fail my promise, I should
imagine the spirit of his father (as I presume he was) looking down and
upbraiding me. No, no, I will protect him. I and my brother and
sisters have been preserved and protected, and I were indeed vile if I
did not do to others as I have been done by. And now let me reflect
what is to be done. I must not take the boy away, and bury the bodies;
this person has friends at Lymington, and they will come here. The
murder has taken place in the forest: then I must let the Intendant know
what has occurred. I will send over to Oswald; Humphrey shall go. Poor
fellow! What a state of anxiety must he and my little sisters be in at
my not returning home! I had quite forgotten that; but it cannot be
helped. I will wait till sunrise, and then see if the boy will be more
himself, and probably from him I shall be able