CHAPTER LV.

THE LAST EVENT.

The last event generally finishes a long series of virtues, blessings, providences, crosses, afflictions, or crimes; and if the last event which can happen to poor mortality be the best, the life must have been one of such tribulation that the event which is to terminate it can only be a submissive and a happy one.

The last chapter of many a hook may afford us pleasure or pain according to the spirit of the foregone narrative. Some think an entertaining book terminates well with a marriage; and most novels, which feed the passions or entertain the fancy, do so terminate. In such case, they begin with the anticipation of the event, and the only novelty is, the varied way in which the thing is wrought up, so as to bring about the sure termination.

There is a taste for style of composition--for variety of incidents--for the parts of speech, and for the sentimentality of a work, which may be very gratifying, but the impressions upon the whole are evanescent. The acme of writing is to improve the heart with such solid good sense as shall make the things written of not easily forgotten. Hence, things true to nature are awakening and striking: whilst things, however marvellous, which are unnatural, being worked up too highly, clog the appetite, and vitiate, if they do not totally destroy, the palate.

Plain matter-of-fact things are, therefore, more startling a great deal than the representations of the most vivid fancy or imagination.

There stand the venerable old Tower by the Orwell's side in the midst of the trees, grown old, and grey, and useless. There it stands as it stood centuries ago; but it may not stand many more. It may stand a long time after the hand which writes the record of these events may be unable to pen a line--but it will not stand a hundred thousandth nor a million of a million parts of the time, compared with the endurance of the spirit which dictates these pages, be they for good or for evil.

When the old Tower shall have fallen, these pages will serve to show that it once existed: but it does exist at this time, and any man may see it who will, and trace its aptitude to the scenes, and the events herein described.

The happy couple who had left their horses in the care of one of the old tenants of the Hall farm, now walked towards the village church, which at that time stood on the verge of the western side of the park palings. Indeed, the knoll upon which the building had been raised, was given by the Lord De Freston, as his offering to the memory of St. Peter, and was subject to the Priory of that name in Ipswich, which had to furnish a priest to discharge the duties thereof.

Their faithful domestic, who lived with them at the time they married, and who was with Ellen in the Tower on the memorable night of St. Ivan's funeral, had married and settled with her sailor husband at the Bourne Ford, at that time the Pilot's Home, close by Bourne Bridge. She had lost her husband in the second year of her marriage, and through the kindness of the Lady Latimer, had been received into her house in Gloucestershire. She had also journeyed with them into Suffolk, and was upon a visit to her parents, Joseph and Ann Sage, who had at that time a cottage near the church.

It was Joseph's occupation to fell timber for repairs, and to see that the boundaries of the estate were well fenced in, and, especially the park and church palings, in good repair. The old man was full of grief at the news brought him by his daughter, that the Lady Ellen was about to convey the estates of her father into the hands of the Goodynge family, not from any distaste to the purchasers, but because the names of De Freston and Latimer were so pleasant to the daily associations of the good old man, that he had flattered himself he should live to serve one of their name and descent.

He was agreeably surprised when informed, by Ellen, of the reservation of the Tower for his residence, and of the monthly sum to be paid, whensoever he should choose to give up the labors of his life to his son, and retire with his two daughters to the Tower.

It was whilst Latimer and Ellen were seated in the old man's neat kitchen, parlor, hall, or keeping-room, and had just made his heart beat for joy at these tidings, that a miserable object of human beggary tapped at the door, and asked if old Joseph Sage lived there.

Joseph himself went out to see him, and not wishing his noble visitors to be disturbed by such a person, he closed the door after him, and stood erect before the beggar.

A pale, thin, haggard, miserable-looking creature, without shoes, or woollen hose, with tattered rags, and torn skin, with a countenance, the lines of agony, more than of age, seemed to have shrivelled into deformity, stood before him.

'What want you with me?' asked the old woodman.

'Pity!' replied the beggar.

'In what shape: in money, food, or raiment?'

'In neither.'

'In what, then?'

'In a coffin.'

Old Sage started, for in verity there appeared more truth in the man's application for this thing, than in the hundreds of petitions which beggars usually made. It made the old man feel conscious, likewise, that there was something more earnest in this beggar's petition, than if he had sought alms at his hand.

It is not often that a man asks for his own coffin, even if he be too poor to purchase one. The very novelty of the thing made the hearer say, and that without any unfeeling intention, 'You must come into the shop, to my son,' and he walked with him.

Scarcely could the beggar totter to the little out-house where the son, who was soon to be the successor of Joseph Sage, was at work.

'I have a singular customer here, my son; a beggar applying to me for his coffin.'

'Send him away, father, he is only an impostor,' replied the son.

'I am no impostor, young man,' replied the beggar. 'Only just let me rest on your bench, and I will soon convince you thereof.'

The beggar entered, but, unable to lift himself to sit upon the bench, he staggered, and fell upon a heap of shavings and chips which lay under the casement of the shop.

It seemed, indeed, that he would want a coffin, for exhausted nature had well nigh extinguished the lamp of life, as the wretched man uttered a groan of distress which no impostor could have imitated.

It was not a loud one; it was not a plaintive, whining, acquired, dissembling one. It was a real faint utterance of the spirit of the wretched actually in the distress of death.

'Run, my son, and ask thy mother for a little of her help; and bring hither my cloak and a good woollen blanket; then to thy neighbor Benns, whose skill as a leech may be of service. The man shakes with cold; but hush, my son, disturb not the Lady Latimer. Be quick.'

His son was off in an instant, and the good old mother, with her bottle of cordial and blanket, soon obeyed the dictates of charity.

The beggar was grateful. He revived. He looked at old Sage, and said--

'Do you not know me?'

'No!'

'I know you both. Ah! father!--ah! mother!--ah! my friends!--ah! my village! 'Tis here! here--here--I was born, and here I die.'

'And who are you?'

'Who? Do you not really know me? I am glad you do not. I am glad you do not. If you did, you would set these shavings on fire, and burn me to death; but I should not be dead. No, I should not be dead; but burn, burn, burn, for ever!'

'Poor man, he is mad.'

'No, mother, I am not mad--I wish I was mad! I wish I could be mad! I wish that my madness could quench my grief, mother. If I were mad, I should not have come here. No, I am not mad!'

'Who art thou, my son? And what is the matter with thee?'

'Hush! mother. I will tell thee who I am, but do not whisper it in the village. Let me die first. Oh! when shall I die? when? when? when?'

'But who are you? Shall I send for our priest to shrive you?'

'Mother, I have been shriven many times. I have been absolved over and over--over and over--for my sins. I have had hours of penance, fasting, and prayer, from morning to night. I have been shut up in the shrine of St. Peter for a month. Priests have prayed with me, talked to me, even extolled me, mother, and told me all my sins were pardoned but if they were, they would not surely burn me as they now do. Oh! how they scorch--how they glare upon me now, more fiercely than ever! Oh! mother, give me a little water. Throw some on my face, my hands, my feet.'

'There, there, my poor soul! do not despair! do not despair! Come, come, be pacified. But who art thou?'

The poor man looked wildly round, and, just at that; moment, Latimer and Ellen, who had heard something of the event, came to see if they could not, like ministering angels, give comfort to the sick.

The instant the beggar saw them, he rose half up from his bed of shavings, lifted up his hands, and gave such a wild, piercing, agonising shriek, as made every heart quail before him. After the shriek succeeded a long stare--a wild, yet fixed eye was rivetted upon the face of Ellen, and then, as they all stood motionless with astonishment, then succeeded that which never, till that very moment, gave the wretched soul of the man relief. It was a tear. It was soon followed by another, another, and another; a stream succeeded, and, as it flowed on, the head fell back, and the dying man was exhausted.

The scene did not destroy the courage or disturb the spirit of Latimer. He knelt down; he beckoned them all to do the same. His Ellen knelt with him, and his quiet prayer was uttered with such truly humble, placid, and composed voice, that the pacified spirit of the dying man seemed lightened up with comfort.

He turned his eyes up toward them, and, with an imploring look, such as showed the depth of the earnestness of his repentance, he said--

'Forgive poor Abdil Foley!'

In one moment all the mystery was solved. Here lay the wretched, dying man, who, worked upon by superstition, bigotry, and malevolence, had destroyed the noble mansion of De Freston, fled to the remorseless Alice De Clinton, and her dark and treacherous flatterers, who had sent him from monastery to monastery throughout the kingdom, with every species of invention and applause, bribe and threat, intimidation and imposition; but who could never obliterate the memory of his guilt, nor satisfy his soul for the injury he had done to his best friends and supporters.

How true is it, that no severities of outward discipline can wash out the stains of guilt within. He who wickedly designs the injury of his benefactor, be he prompted by whom he will, or under whatever promises, or workings of flattery, or delusion, he may either imagine to be lawful, or be taught that it is so, will find that his wicked spirit can have no rest. Repentance must bring him to the confession which no sophistry whatsoever can lull.

It was Latimer's and Ellen's duty now to teach him that forgiveness belonged not to them; though they, as far as they could, forgave him freely for the cruelty he had shown towards them. Nor did they lose the opportunity of pointing out to him the depth of that sin of which he had been guilty, nor the folly of seeking to make his own atonement. They acted the part of the good Samaritan towards him, and though the time of his existence was short, they had the satisfaction of finding that the miserable man received consolation.

He died shortly after their interview, and was buried in Freston churchyard, where the record of the incendiary, his flight, remorse, repentance, and death, formed the subject of many a conversation with old Joseph Sage and his friends in Freston Tower.

Latimer and Ellen returned into Gloucestershire, where they lived beloved, courted, and caressed by many friends, who valued their literary attainments. With the modesty of true greatness, they sought retirement, and were happy in the even tenor of their latter days.

They had endured afflictions, they had seen greatness, and popularity, and ambition, and vain-glory, brought down to sorrow and death. They lived to see pride overthrown in high places, and many in the midst of the fatness of plenty rendered unhappy. They had suffered their portion of persecution, and had borne themselves with uncommon wisdom through the trial. They were not called upon to suffer more.

Freston Tower passed from the hands of the Goodynges to the Wrights, then to the Thurstons, Tarvers, Formereaws, and others. It is now in the possession of Archdeacon Berners, of Wolverstone Park, on the banks of the Orwell.

[Illustration: Chapter LV tailpiece]

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.