Page:The Children of the New Forest - 1847 - Marryat.djvu/185

 I should feel so little as I do now, surrounded by death, compared to what I did when good old Jacob Armitage died! Then I felt it deeply, and there was an awe in death. Now, I no longer dread it. Is it because I loved the good old man, and felt that I had lost a friend? No, that cannot be the cause; I may have felt more grief, but not awe or dread. Or is it because that was the first time that I had seen death, and it is the first sight of death which occasions awe? or is it because that every day I have fancied myself on the battle field, with hundreds lying dead and wounded around me, in my dreamings? I know not. Poor old Jacob died peaceably in his bed, like a good Christian, and trusting, after a blameless life, to find mercy through his Saviour. Two of these who are now dead, out of the three, have been summoned away in the height of their wickedness, and in the very commission of crime; the third has been foully murdered; and out of three lying dead, one has fallen by my own hand, and yet I feel not so much as when I attended the couch, and listened to the parting words of a dying Christian! I cannot account for it, or reason why: I only know that it is so, and I now look upon death unconcerned. Well, this is a kind of preparation for the wholesale murder and horrors of the battle field, which I have so long sighed for: God forgive me if I am wrong! And this poor boy! I have promised to protect him, and I will. Could I fail my promise, I should imagine the spirit of his father (as I presume he was) looking down and upbraiding me. No, no, I will protect him. I and my brother and sisters have been preserved and protected, and I were indeed vile if I did not do to others as I have been done by. And now let me reflect what is to be done. I must not take the boy away, and bury the bodies; this person has friends at Lymington, and they will come here. The murder has taken place in the forest: then I must let the Intendant know what has occurred. I will send over to Oswald; Humphrey shall go. Poor fellow! what a state of anxiety must he and my little