Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the peopleEverett-Green, Evelyn
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Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people
Everett-Green, Evelyn
West Country (England) -- Fiction
For many minutes there was in that chamber of death such a sense of joy
and peace as was indeed a foretaste of the everlasting peace of God.
Saul lay and looked out before him through the casement, through which
a very young moon was just glinting. It was a strange thought that
before that moon waned his body would be lying stiff and cold beneath
the churchyard sod. But there was no fear in Saul’s mind. Fear had
never been a friend to him, and now the perfect love of his crucified
and ascended Lord had driven out all fear. Yet even with the prospect
of that wondrous change to pass upon him, Saul’s thoughts were not all
of himself. He listened to all there was to know of the men he had
lured and tempted to this great crime, and heaved a sigh of relief to
hear that the magistrates had themselves dealt with the cases of the
younger men--men some of them little more than lads, who had plainly
been led away by their associates, and had had a lesson they would not
be likely to forget. Only six had been committed for trial, and these
were all men of bad character and reckless lives. Their fate might
likely be a hard one, but they were to have counsel to defend them,
and stress was to be laid upon the action of Saul in the matter, and
the part he had taken in urging the crime upon them. Saul made a full
confession of all his share to Abner that night, and made him promise
to attend the trial and repeat this before the judges if possible. It
might militate in their favour perhaps, and Saul directed that his boat
and all that he had should be sold and given to the wives of the two
men out of the six who were married; and having settled all this with
his grandfather, he felt his mind relieved of a part of its burden, and
lay quiet and exhausted for some time.
He had fallen into a doze when Abner aroused him to take food, and
looking up quickly he asked--
“Where are we now? I don’t know this place.”
“It’s a room in the castle--in the servants’ block,” answered Abner.
“I told yu they could not get your clasp loosened from Mr. Marchmont’s
neck. They had tu bring yu both here, and then the doctor would not let
yu be taken away--not even so far as my cottage. Yu were brought here,
and yu’ve had the same care and attention as Mr. Marchmont himself. The
doctor went to and fro betwixt yu all that night, and has been three
and four times a day tu see yu ever since.”
A little flicker passed over Saul’s face. He remembered, as a thing
long since past, his old hatred of the class above him. Now he could
only feel love for all men--a natural outcome of the intense and
burning love for his Lord which was filling all his heart.
“If I could only see him once more!” he said softly.
“See what?”
“Mr. Marchmont.”
But Abner shook his head, and such an expression of gravity came over
his face that Saul cried out quickly--
“What is it? Yu said he was doin’ well!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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