no man
could foresee.

And a fearful fever indeed it was. Day after day passed in wild
delirium. The burden of all the poor sufferer's cries and thoughts was,
that he was a murderer. He used to call himself Cain, and to try to tear
the murderer's mark out of his forehead. Sometimes he rolled himself in
the sheet, and thought that he was dressed in a funeral cloak attending
Jacob Dobbin's funeral, and all the while knowing that he had caused his
death. At times the poor patient would attempt to spring from his bed;
and now he fancied that he was being whipped with the thorny branches
of rose trees; and now that he was being put in prison for stealing from
a poor man's garden. At one time he thought all the tenants on the
estate were hunting him off it with hounds, while he was fleeing from
them on his gray pony as fast as her legs could carry her; and the next
moment his pony was entangled hopelessly in the branches of little
Dobbin's rose tree, and the dogs were on him, and the huntsmen were
halloing, and he was about to be devoured. All these were the terrible
ravings of fever; and very awful it was to see the young squire with his
hair all shaved off, and vinegar rags over his head, tossing his arms
about, and endeavouring at times to burst from his nurses, and leap out
upon the floor. The one prevailing thought in all the sick boy's ravings
was Jacob Dobbin's rose bush. Jacob, or his rose bush in some form or
other, occupied a prominent part in every vision.

Ah, how terrible are the lashings of conscience! how terrible the
effects of sin! For what a small gratification did this unhappy youth
bring so much misery upon himself! And is it not often thus? The apostle
says, "What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now
ashamed?" And what fruit of pleasure had James Courtenay from his
plunder of Jacob Dobbin's rose? Where was that rose? It had long since
faded; its leaves were mingled with the dust upon which it had been
thrown; yet for the sake of the transient enjoyment of possessing that
flower a few days before abundance would have made their appearance in
his own garden, he had brought upon himself all this woe. Poor, very
poor indeed, are the pleasures of sin; and when they have been enjoyed,
they are like the ashes of a fire that has burned out. Compare James
Courtenay's present troubles,--his torture of mind, his pain of body,
his risk of losing his life, and the almost momentary enjoyment which he