Part 6 (2/2)
”Who are you?” came a dull voice--a voice that was eloquent ofhis co your horse at the Saint Martin's Gate! May Heaven reward you Gadswounds,” he added, ”I had little thought to rave”
”Would to Heaven you had not!” was the doleful answer ”What ood leave and with your help I'll make as merry as a man may whose sands are all but run The Lord General--whom the devil roast in his tiives ht in which to prepare”
The lad caht, and eyed Sir Crispin sorrowfully
”We are companions in ht else? Come, sir, be of better cheer
Since it is to be our last night in this poor world, let us spend it as pleasantly as may be”
”Pleasantly?”
”Twill clearly be difficult,” answered Crispin, with a laugh ”Were we in Christian hands they'd not deny us a black jack over which to relish our last jest, and to wararret But these crop-ears” He paused to peer into the pitcher on the table ”Water! Pah! A scurvy lot, these psalht for your end?”
”Every thought, good youth, every thought, and I would fain prepare 's dance in a more jovial and hearty fashi+on than Old Noll will afford me--damn him!”
Kenneth drew back in horror His old dislike for Crispin was all aroused by this indecent flippancy at such a tiht in his coallohereof he had been a prey
Noting the hed disdainfully, and walked towards theIt was a s, by which two iron bars, set crosswise, defied escape Moreover, as Crispin looked out, he realized that a ht of theitself
The house overlooked the river on that side; it was built upon an eh; around this, at the base of the edifice, and some forty feet below the , ran a narrow pathway protected by an iron railing But so narroas it, that had afrom the casement of Crispin's prison, it was odds he would have fallen into the river soh He had approached thealmost in hope; he quitted it in absolute despair
”Ah, well,” said he, ”ill hang, and there's the end of it”
Kenneth had resumed his seat in the corner, and, wrapped in his cloak, he sat steeped inface seared with lines of pain As Crispin looked upon him then, his heart softened and went out to the lad--went out as it had done on the night when first he had beheld him in the courtyard of Perth Castle
He recalled the details of that ; he remembered the sympathy that had drawn him to the boy, and how Kenneth had at first appeared to reciprocate that feeling, until he came to know him for the rakehelly, Godless ruffler that he was He thought of the gulf that gradually had opened up between the, truthful and sober, filled with stern ideals by which he sought to shape his life He had taxed Crispin with his dissoluteness, and Crispin, despising hiust withthat disgust at every turn
To-night, as Crispin eyed the youth, and remembered that at dawn he was to die in his company, he realized that he had used him ill, that his behaviour towards him had been that of the dissolute ruffler he was becoentleman he had once accounted hith, and his voice bore so unusuallythat the lad looked up in surprise ”I have heard tell that it is no unco for men upon the threshold of eternity to seek to repair some of the evil they may have done in life”
Kenneth shuddered Crispin's words re end The ruffler paused a ement Then, as none came, he continued:
”I am not one of your repentant sinners, Kenneth I have lived my life--God, what a life!--and as I have lived I shall die, unflinching and unchanged Dare one to presu prayers shall atone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis a doctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live as conscience bade thee to stand by that life's deeds I am no such traitor to myself If my life has been vile my temptations have been sore, and the rest is in God's hands But in ainst many men; many a tall fellow's life have I wantonly wrecked; soer They are not by, nor, were they, could I now make amends But you at least are here, and what little reparationpardon I can make When I first saw you at Perth it wasI have not had these twenty years towards any man
I failed How else could it have been? The dove may not nest with the carrion bird”
”Say no enuinely moved, and still more amazed by this curious huant and s you iven Is it not written that it shall be so?” And he held out his hand
”A littlethe outstretched hand unheeded ”The feeling that was born in ain I seek not to account for it Perchance it springs fronition of the difference betwixt us; perchance I see in you a reflection of what once I was myself--honourable and true
But let that be The sun is setting over yonder, and you and I will behold it noI anify that the body die also?
Yet in these last hours that we shall spend together I would at least have your estees that I may have done you down to that miserable affair of your sweetheart's letter, yesterday I would have you realize that if I am vile, I am but such as a vile world hath ether, I would have you see in me at least a man in whose company you are not ashamed to die”