A spasm of pain passed over Mr Bayfield's face.

'Yes,' he said, 'and there rests my sin against you. This paper, dated only a few months before my father's death, was in this pocket-book, the other paper in the deed box, of which his executors took possession. No one knew of this paper but me. I kept it back, granting the reprieve for your sweet sake. If I had obtained possession of you I might have told you of it--I do not know. I cannot answer for myself--my old self,' he repeated. 'God forgive me, I am punished. Can _you_ forgive me?'

Then he paused again, silent, and Bryda to her latest day remembered how in that profound stillness a thrush outside, in the glory of the summer noontide, broke out into song, and ceasing, the deep sob of an oppressed heart seemed to touch the two extremes of joy and grief, these constantly recurring contrasts in this beautiful world, given to us by a loving Father, richly to enjoy, and where sin is ever sounding its strain of sorrow, and often of despair.

All the true woman awoke now in Bryda's heart. She knelt down by the couch, and taking the Squire's hand in both hers, bent her face upon it, and whispered,--

'Yes, I forgive you. I am so sorry,' and in a lower whisper still, 'Please forgive poor Jack; he is gone far away. I shall never, never see him again, and it was all because he loved me. Please forgive him.'

'For _your_ sake, yes,' was the reply, 'for your sake, and pray for me as I lie here alone. Your sister has tried to make me a better man. She was as an angel of God sent to drive out the evil spirits in me. My mother!--ah! my mother used to pray for me--and in this very room _I_ have prayed at her knee. Once, in my fits of passion and rage, she told me of a king who like me had an evil spirit--Saul, yes, it must have been Saul--and she prayed God that one of His angels might be sent to me to drive it out. Two angels have come at last--_you_ and your sister--and I shall never forget you. Kiss me on the forehead before you go--a seal of forgiveness, of pardon.'

Bryda rose and did as he asked her, and then without another word left the room.

Mr Barrett dropped her at the farm, where Betty received her, and, flinging her arms round this gentle sister, she said,--

'Oh, Betty! dear Bet! take me upstairs. I can bear no more.'

No, she could bear no more--overwrought, and ill in mind and body, Bryda lay down in her tent-bed in the upper chamber of Bishop's Farm; and Mrs Lambert, to her intense surprise and vexation, was obliged to look for someone else to supply Bryda's place, mend and clear starch her lace, and prepare dainty dishes for Mr Lambert's friends, attend her to the cathedral, and indulge all her whims.

It is never too late to mend, though, of all ugly weeds which grow unchecked in the human heart, selfishness is the hardest to pluck up, especially if for seventy years it has flourished unchecked.

Bryda lay in a state of feverish exhaustion on her bed for many weeks, tended with loving care by Betty, who did her best to divert her mind from sad thoughts.

Betty said very little about the time when the Squire lay in the parlour below, and Bryda was too languid to ask many questions.

In the farm things seemed to have taken a turn for the better. Peter Palmer, having been assured that he was delivered from debt, seemed to take a new lease of life. The wheat harvest promised to be plentiful, the berry crop had been good, and old Silas reported well of the sheep, the last flock driven to Bristol market having fetched a fair price from the dealers; and as to the poultry, Dorothy Burrow declared that, now Goody Renton was dead, the later broods were all healthy, and that it was her evil eye which had done to death so many in previous summers.

Mr Barrett was still in occasional attendance on the Squire, and never failed to stop at Bishop's Farm when he passed, either going or coming.

He was always cheery and hopeful, and in advance of the general practitioner of those days in many ways. He brought Bryda books and newspapers; but when she asked news of Thomas Chatterton he would put off a direct answer.

Another question, often on her lips, about the Squire he parried; and when she asked, 'Is there any way of getting Jack Henderson back--of letting him know?' Mr Barrett would shake his head.

'I am afraid not; but don't vex yourself, my dear. He may be making his fortune, and come back one day a rich man.'

'Ah! but he will always have that face before him, lying dead, as he thought. Even now I can't forget it.'

'Oh! come, come! the Squire is better. He was able to set his hand to a document to-day, and Nurse says he is not so wandering in his sleep.

He'll do in time.'

And while these glowing August days of 1770 went on, and the golden corn ripened, and the trees in the orchard were laden with rosy fruit, while the hills wore their imperial robes of purple and gold, and partridges, all unconscious of their coming fate, rose in covies from the stubble, London streets were hot and dusty, and there, up and down, paced the boy poet, nearing the tragic end of all his bright dreams and all his proud aspirations.

The pathetic story need not be told in detail here. From the moment when he left Mr Lambert's house, and went to try his fortune in the great city of London, he drifted away from his Bristol friends and Bristol ties.

Mr Barrett and his staunch friend Mr George Catcott had letters from him, and it is plain that he applied to Mr Barrett for a certificate to go out as a ship's surgeon.

But this request he could not honestly grant. Letters to his mother and sister are also preserved, which are pathetic, indeed, as they are evidently written with the one desire of keeping them in ignorance of his real condition.

He sends them presents, and denies himself food that he may do so. He writes of orders for copy for the reviews and magazines, and keeps up the hope of the mother he loves so well, when his own hope was dying day by day.

One hot morning Bryda was lying in her upper chamber in the old farmhouse, paper and pens at her side, on a little table, where Betty, her faithful sister, had placed a little jar of monthly roses and mignonette. Life was returning to her, and she rose from her couch, and throwing a shawl over her head, without telling Betty, she crept feebly downstairs and went out into the orchard, the boughs of the old apple trees, heavy with their rosy and russet load, touching her as she passed. Bryda went through the wicket-gate and sank down on the boulder where long ago she sat meditating on the dead lamb, and, hearing the chime of the Bristol bells, was filled with desire to take flight to the busy city, and had consented to write to Madam Lambert and let Jack Henderson convey the letter to Bristol the next day.

Jack--where was Jack? An exile and a wanderer for her sake, and her heart failed her when she thought she should never see him again, never be able to atone to him for what he had suffered. The knights of old, of whom Thomas Chatterton wrote, rescued their lady loves from the grasp of lawless men, and, at the risk of life and limb, were ready to die in the attempt. And poor Jack had done the deed worthy of the knights of old, and how severely he had been punished.

As Bryda went over the past she heard quick footsteps behind her. The wicket-gate opened and shut with a click, and Mr Barrett stood by her side.

'Well done, my fair lady,' he said. 'I wanted to get you into the open air. You have stolen a march on Betty, who is hastening after me with another shawl and a cloak.'

Then, as Betty came up full of fear that Bryda should suffer, and covering the ground with an old cloak that Bryda's feet might rest upon it, Mr Barrett's cheery manner suddenly changed. With a deep sigh he said,--

'I have had sad news to-day. The poor boy, poor Chatterton, is dead--aye, and worse, died by his own hand.'

'Dead!' both girls exclaimed in an awe-struck tone.

'Yes, and we in Bristol have all been guilty in the matter. Poor George Catcott is racked by self-reproach, and well he may be, well may I be.

He was starving and half-mad, that last letter to Catcott shows. We should have sent someone to him, poor, poor boy. I shall find it hard to forgive myself, I know that. And in that letter he said "I am no Christian--"'

Mr Barrett's voice was choked with emotion, and, unable to say another word, he went hastily down the lane, and very soon his horse's feet and the wheels of his high gig were heard rattling on the highroad beyond.

'Oh, Bryda, don't fret,' Betty said, as poor Bryda covered her face with her hands.

'I would like to be alone,' Bryda replied. 'Leave me, dear, just a little while. Come back for me, but leave me now.'

Betty obeyed, and Bryda was left alone once more to face the great mystery of death.

'Yes,' she thought, 'he was mad. He could not be taken to account for his actions. How his eyes flamed, as if a fire burned in their depths.

How he would fall into silence all of a sudden. How he would burst out into wild rage, and then how gentle and kind he could be. How gentle to me that last night when he came to tell me about Jack.' Then Bryda looked up into the clear sky above her head, as if to seek an answer to her question there, as if there she could solve this mystery.

And although not in words, there came to her soul a great overpowering sense of the Love of God; and in that Love alone we can find the key which opens out the boundlessness of His mercy.

Like as a father pities! When man is pitiless and forgetful, when man judges with a hard judgment, the All-loving One _remembers_ our frame, and in His love and in His pity redeems and pardons.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST.

Ten years had passed away, and Peter Palmer had long been laid to rest under the yew tree shade in the village churchyard.

Dorothy Burrow had found a soft place in the heart of a neighbouring farmer, and had taken to herself a second husband, and gone to live near Bath.