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382 THE HAUNTED MAN
"It cuts you to the heart, father." For the old man's tears were falling on him.
"Yes, yes," said Philip, "so it docs; but it does me good. It's a heavy sorrow to think of that time, but it does me good, George. Oh, think of it too, think of it too, and your heart will be softened more and more ! Where's my son William ? William, my boy, your mother loved him dearly to the last, and with her latest breath said, ' Tell him I forgave him, blessed him, and prayed for him.' Those were her words to me. I have never forgotten them, and I'm eighty-seven ! "
" Father !" said the man upon the bed, " I am dying, I know. I am so far gone, that I can hardly speak, even of what my mind most runs on. Is there any hope for me beyond this bed ?"
"There is hope," returned the old man, "for all who are softened aud penitent. There is hope for all such. Oh !" he exclaimed, clasping his hands and looking up, "I was thankful, only yesterday, that I could remember this unhappy son when he was an innocent child. But what a comfort it is, now, to think that even God himself has that remembrance of him !"
Redlaw spread his hands upon his face, and shrank, like a murderer.
"Ah!" feebly moaned the man upon the bed. "The waste since then, the waste of life since then !"
" But he was a child once," said the old man. " He played with children. Before he lay down on his bed at night, and fell into his guiltless rest, he said his prayers at his poor mother's knee. I have seen him do it, many a time; and seen her lay his head upon her breast, and kiss him. Sorrowful as it was to her and me, to think of this, when he went so wrong, and when our hopes and plans for him were all broken, this gave him still a hold upon us, that nothing else could have given. Oh, Father, so much better than the fathers upon earth ! Oh, Father, so much more afflicted by the errors of Thy children ! take this wanderer back ! Not as he is, but as he was then, let him cry to Thee, as he has so often seemed to cry to us ! "
As the old man lifted up his trembling hands, the son, for whom he made the supplication, laid his sinking head against him for support and comfort, as if he were indeed the child of whom he spoke.
When did man ever tremble, as Redlaw trembled, in the silence that ensued ! He knew it must come upon them, knew that it was coming fast.
" My time is very short, my breath is shorter," said the sick man, supporting himself on one arm, and with the other groping |
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