Page:Duty and Inclination 1.pdf/301

Rh indifference to the supposed dying state of their debtor, it is not surprising that they felt no hesitation in abandoning him to his destiny, considering into what better hands than those to which, dreading the worst for themselves, they had so readily resigned him, they now believed him fallen;—but it does seem a paradox disgraceful to fallen human nature, that these same fellows, who had been so reluctant to impart good tidings to the distressed, should have been most impatient to make known, in a quarter where they had reason to presume the news would be most unwelcome, the distressing scene they had just witnessed. Nor did they affect to mince matters, but in writing to Sir Aubrey a memorial of their visit and its disastrous results, they bluntly stated that they had left Colonel De Brooke, whom they supposed expiring, to the hopeless efforts of his servant to reanimate.

Such a picture, though given in its coarse outline by those unaccustomed to pity, was, nevertheless, adapted to disarm even fate itself. And Sir Aubrey, with whom the parental feeling was so completely subordinate, yet doubting not the truth of what was told him, the consciousness of vindictive severity exercised against his dying son struck awfully at his heart. But little used to the