The Disowned — Volume 08Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
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The Disowned — Volume 08
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
He now crept close to his former partner, and frequently clasped his
hand, and besought him to take courage and to pray. But Crauford's
eye was glassy and dim, and his veins seemed filled with water: so
numbed and cold and white was his cheek. Fear, in him, had passed its
paroxysms, and was now insensibility; it was only when they urged him
to pray that a sort of benighted consciousness strayed over his
countenance and his ashen lips muttered something which none heard.
After him came the Creole, who had been Wolfe's accomplice. On the
night of the murder, he had taken advantage of the general loneliness
and the confusion of the few present, and fled. He was found,
however, fast asleep in a garret, before morning, by the officers of
justice; and, on trial, he had confessed all. This man was in a rapid
consumption. The delay of another week would have given to Nature the
termination of his life. He, like Bradley, seemed earnest and
absorbed in prayer.
Last came Wolfe, his tall, gaunt frame worn by confinement and
internal conflict into a gigantic skeleton; his countenance, too, had
undergone a withering change; his grizzled hair seemed now to have
acquired only the one hoary hue of age; and, though you might trace in
his air and eye the sternness, you could no longer detect the fire, of
former days. Calm, as on the preceding night, no emotion broke over
his dark but not defying features. He rejected, though not
irreverently, all aid from the benevolent priest, and seemed to seek
in the pride of his own heart a substitute for the resignation of
Religion.
"Miserable man!" at last said the good clergyman, in whom zeal
overcame kindness, "have you at this awful hour no prayer upon your
lips?"
A living light shot then for a moment over Wolfe's eye and brow. "I
have!" said he; and raising his clasped hands to Heaven, he continued
in the memorable words of Sidney, "Lord, defend Thy own cause, and
defend those who defend it! Stir up such as are faint; direct those
that are willing; confirm those that waver; give wisdom and integrity
to all: order all things so as may most redound to Thine own glory!
"I had once hoped," added Wolfe, sinking in his tone, "I had once
hoped that I might with justice have continued that holy prayer;
["Grant that I may die glorifying Thee for all Thy mercies, and that
at the last Thou hast permitted me to be singled out as a witness of
Thy truth, and even by the confession of my opposers for that OLD
CAUSE in which I was from my youth engaged, and for which Thou hast
often and wonderfully declared Thyself."--ALGERNON SIDNEY.] but--" he
ceased abruptly; the glow passed from his countenance, his lip
quivered, and the tears stood in his eyes; and that was the only
weakness he betrayed, and those were his last words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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