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fess all to your honour, (turning to Sir Thomas Sindall,) that I might have peace in my mind before I died.

"You will remember, sir, that this young lady's mother was delivered of her at the house of one of your tenants, where Mr Camplin (I think that was his name) brought her for that purpose. I was intrusted with the charge of her as her nurse, along with some trinkets, such as young children are in use to have, and a considerable sum of money, to provide any other necessaries she should want. At that very time I had been drawn in to associate with a gang of pilfering vagrants, whose stolen goods I had of ten received into my house, and helped to dispose of. Fearing therefore that I might one day be brought to an account for my past offences, if I remained where I was, and having at the same time the temptation of such a booty before me, I formed a scheme for making off with the money and trinkets I had got from Mr Camplin: it was, to make things appear as if my charge and I had been lost in crossing the river, which then happened to be in flood. For this purpose, I daubed my own cloak, and the infant's wrapper, with mud and sleech, and left them close to the overflow of the stream, a little below the common ford. With shame I confess it, as I have often since thought on it with horror, I was more than once tempted to drown the child, that she might not be a burden to me in my flight; but she looked so innocent and sweet, while she clasped my fingers in her little hand, that I had not the heart to execute my purpose.

"Having endeavoured in this manner to account for my disappearing, so as to prevent all further inquiry, I joined a party of those wretches, whose associate I had some time been, and left that part of the country altogether. By their assistance, too, I was put on a method of disguising my face so much, that had any of my acquaintance met me, of which there was very little chance, it would have been scarce possible for them to recollect it. My booty was put into the common stock, and the child was found useful to raise compassion when we went a-begging, which was one part of the occupation we followed.

"After I had continued in this society the best part of a year, during which time we met with various turns of fortune, a scheme was formed by the remaining part of us (for several of my companions had been banished, or confined to hard labour in the interval) to break into the house of a wealthy farmer, who, we understood, had a few days before received a large sum of money on a bargain for the lease of an estate, which the proprietor had redeemed. Our project was executed with success; but a quarrel arising about the distribution of the spoil, one of the gang deserted, and informed a neighbouring justice of the whole transaction, and the places of our retreat. I happened

to be a fortune-telling in this gentleman's house when this informer came to make the discovery; and, being closetted with one of the maid servants, overheard him inquiring for the justice, and desiring to have some conversation with him in private. I immediately suspected his design, and having got out of the house, eluded pursuit by my knowledge in the bye-paths and private roads of the country. It immediately occurred to me to disburden myself of the child, as she not only retarded my flight, but was a mark by which I might be discovered: but, abandoned as I had then become, I found myself attached to her by that sort of affection which women conceive for the infants they suckle. I would not, therefore, expose her in any of these unfrequented places through which I passed in my flight, where her death must have been the certain consequence; and, two or three times, when I would have dropped her at some farmer's door, I was prevented by the fear of discovery. At last I happened to meet with your honour. You may recollect, sir, that the same night on which this lady, then an infant, was found, a beggar asked alms of you at a farrier's door, where you stopped to have one of your horse's shoes fastened. I was that beggar; and hearing from a boy who held your horse, that your name was Sir Thomas Sindall, and that you were returning to a hunting-seat you had in the neighbourhood, I left the infant on a narrow part of the road a little way before you, where it was impossible you should miss of finding her, and stood at the back of a hedge to observe your behaviour when you came up. I saw you make your servant pick up the child, and place her on the saddle before him. Then having, as I thought, sufficiently provided for her, by thus throwing her under the protection of her father, I made off as fast as I could, and continued my flight, till I imagined I was out of the reach of detection. But, being some time after apprehended on suspicion, and not able to give a good account of myself, I was advertised in the papers, and discovered to have been an accomplice in committing that robbery I mentioned, for which some of the gang had been already condemned and executed. I was tried for the crime, and was cast for transportation. Before I was put on board the ship that was to carry me and several others abroad, I wrote a few lines to your honour, acquainting you with the circumstances of my behaviour towards your daughter; but this, I suppose, as it was entrusted to a boy who used to go on errands for the prisoners, has never come to your hands. Not long ago I returned from transportation, and betook myself to my old course of life again. But I happened to be seized with the small-pox, that raged in a village I passed through; and partly from the violence of the distemper, partly from the want of proper care in the first stages of it, was brought

so low, that a physician, whose humanity induced him to visit me, gave me over for lost. I found that the terrors of death on a sick-bed, had more effect on my conscience than all the hardships I had formerly undergone, and I began to look back with the keenest remorse on a life so spent as mine had been. It pleased God, however, that I should recover; and I have since endeavoured to make some reparation for my past offences by my penitence.

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Among other things, I often reflected on what I had done with regard to your child; and being some days ago accidentally near Sindallpark, I went thither, and tried to learn something of what had befallen her. I understood, from some of the neighbours, that a young lady had been brought up from her infancy with your aunt, and was said to be the daughter of a friend of yours, who had committed her to your care at his death. But, upon inquiring into the time of her being brought to your house, I was persuaded that she must be the same I had conjectured; imputing the story of her being another's, to your desire of concealing that she was yours, which I imagined you had learned from the letter I wrote before my transportation; till meeting, at a house of entertainment, with a servant of your honour's, he informed me, in the course of our conversation, that it was reported you were going to be married to the young lady who had lived so long in your family. On hearing this I was confounded, and did not know what to think; but when I began to fear that my letter had never reached you, I trembled at the thought of what my wickedness might occasion, and could have no ease in my mind, till I should set out for Bilswood to confess the whole affair to your honour. I was to-night overtaken by the storm near this house, and prevailed on the landlady, though it seemed much against her inclination, to permit me to take up my quarters here. About half an hour ago, I was waked with the shrieks of some person in distress; and upon asking the landlady, who lay in the same room with me, what was the matter? she bid me be quiet, and say nothing; for it was only a worthy gentleman of her acquaintance, who had overtaken a young girl, a foundling he had bred up, that had stolen a sum of money from his house, and run away with one of his footmen. At the word foundling, I felt a kind of something I cannot "describe; and I was terrified when I overheard some part of your discourse, and guessed what your intentions were: I rose, therefore, in spite of the landlady, and had got thus far dressed, when we heard the door burst open, and presently a noise of fighting above stairs. Upon this we ran up together; and to what has happened since, this company has been witness.'

CHAP. XXIII.

Miss Sindall discovers another Relation.

IT is not easy to describe the sensations of Sindall or Lucy, when the secret of her birth was unfolded. In the countenance of the last were mingled the indications of fear and pity, joy and wonder, while her father turned upon her an eye of tenderness, chastened with shaine. "O, thou injured innocence !" said he, "for I know not how to call thee child, canst thou forgive those-Good God! Bolton, from what hast thou saved me!" Lucy was now kneeling at his feet.-"Talk not, sir," said she, "of the errors of the past; methinks I look on it as some horrid dream, which it dizzies my head to recollect. My father?-Gracious God! have I a father?-I cannot speak; but there are a thousand things that beat here. Is there another parent to whom I should also kneel?" Sir Thomas cast up a look to heaven, and his groans stopped, for a while, his utterance ;-"O, Harriet! if thou art now an angel of mercy, look down and forgive the wretch that murdered thee!"— "Harriet!" exclaimed the soldier, starting at the sound, "what Harriet ?-what Harriet ?"— Sindall looked earnestly in his face-" O, heavens!" he cried, "art thou-sure thou art!Annesly?-look not, look not on me thy sister-but I shall not live for thy upbraidingsthy sister was the mother of my child !—Thy father-to what does this moment of reflection reduce me!--Thy father fell with his daughter, the victims of that villainy which overcame her innocence!" Annesly looked sternly upon him, and anger for a moment inflamed his cheeks; but it gave way to softer feelings.“ What, both! both!"-and he burst into tears.

Bolton now stepped up to this new-acquired friend. "I am," said he, "comparatively but a spectator of this fateful scene; let me endeavour to comfort the distress of the innocent, and alleviate the pangs of the guilty. In Sir Thomas Sindall's present condition, resentment would be injustice. See here, my friend," pointing to Lucy, "a mediatrix, who forgets the man in the father." Annesly gazed upon her." She is, she is," he cried, "the daughter of my Harriet !-that eye, that lip, that look of sorrow!" -He flung himself on her neck; Bolton looked on them enraptured; and even the languor of Sindall's face was crossed with a gleam of momentary pleasure.

Sir Thomas's servant now arrived, accompa nied by a surgeon, who, upon examining and dressing his wound, was of opinion, that in itself it had not the appearance of imminent danger, but that, from the state of his pulse, he was apprehensive of a supervening fever. He ordered him to be put to bed, and his room to be kept

as quiet as possible. As this gentleman was an acquaintance of Bolton's, the latter informed him of the state in which Sir Thomas's mind must be, from the discoveries that the preceding hour had made to him. Upon which the surgeon begged that he might, for the present, avoid seeing Miss Sindall or Miss Annesly, or talking with any one on the subject of those discoveries: but he could not prevent the intrusion of thought, and not many hours after, his patient fell into a roving sort of slumber, in which he would often start, and mutter the words, Harriet, Lucy, Murder, and Incest!

Bolton and Lucy now enjoyed one of those luxurious interviews, which absence, and hardships during that absence, procure to souls formed for each other. She related to him all her past distresses, of which my readers have been already informed, and added the account of that night's event, part of which only they have heard. Herself, indeed, was not then mistress of it all; the story at large was this::

The servant, whose attachment to her I have formerly mentioned, had been discovered in that conference which produced her resolution of leaving Bilswood, by Mrs Boothby's maid, who immediately communicated to her mistress her suspicions of the plot going forward between Miss Sindall and Robert. Upon this the latter was severely interrogated by his master, and being confronted with Sukey, who repeated the words she had overheard of the young lady and him, he confessed her intention of escaping by his assistance. Sir Thomas, drawing his sword, threatened to put him instantly to death, if he did not expiate his treachery by obeying implicitly the instructions he should then receive; these were, to have the horse saddled at the hour agreed on, and to proceed, without revealing to Miss Sindall the confession he had made, on the road which Sir Thomas now marked out for him. With this, after the most horrid denunciations of vengeance in case of a refusal, the poor fellow was fain to comply; and hence his terror, when they were leaving the house. They had proceeded but just so far on their way, as Sir Thomas thought proper for the accomplishment of his design, when he, with his valet-dechambre, and another servant, who were confidants of their master's pleasures, made up to them, and, after pretending to upbraid Lucy for the imprudence and treachery of her flight, he carried her to this house of one of those profligate dependants, whom his vices had made necessary on his estate.

When she came to the close of this recital, the idea of that relation in which she stood to him from whom these outrages were suffered, stopped her tongue; she blushed and faultered. "This story," said she, "I will now forget for ever-except to remember that gratitude which I owe to you." During the vicissitudes of her

VOL. V.

narration, he had clasped her hand with a fearful earnestness, as if he had shared the dangers she related; he pressed it to his lips." Amidst my Lucy's present momentous concerns, I would not intrude my own; but I am selfish in the little services she acknowledges; I look for a return." She blushed again-" I have but little art," said she," and cannot disguise my sentiments; my Henry will trust them on a subject, which at present I know his delicacy will forbear."

Annesly now entered the room, and Bolton communicated the trust he was possessed of in his behalf, offering to put him in immediate possession of the sum which Mr Rawlinson had bequeathed to his management, and which that gentleman had more than doubled since the time it had been left by Annesly's unfortunate father. "I know not," said Annesly, "how to talk of those matters, unacquainted as I have been with the manners of polished and commercial nations; when I have any particular destination for money, I will demand your assistance. In the mean time, consider me as a minor, and use the trust already reposed in you, for my advantage, and the advantage of those whom misfortune has allied to me.'

CHAP. XXIV.

Sir Thomas's situation-The expression of his penitence.

NEXT morning Sindall, by the advice of his surgeon, was removed in a litter to his own house, where he was soon after attended by an eminent physician in aid of that gentleman's abilities. Pursuant to his earnest entreaties, he was accompanied thither by Annesly and Bolton. Lucy, having obtained leave of his medical attendants, watched her father in the character of

nurse.

They found on their arrival, that Mrs Boothby, having learned the revolutions of the preceding night, had left the place, and taken the road towards London. "I think not of her," said Sir Thomas; "but there is another person whom my former conduct banished from my house, whom I now wish to see in this assemblage of her friends, the worthy Mrs Wistanly." Lucy undertook to write her an account of her situation, and to solicit her compliance with the request of her father. The old lady, who had still strength and activity enough for doing good, accepted the invitation, and the day following she was with them at Bilswood.

Sir Thomas seemed to feel a sort of melancholy satisfaction in having the company of those he had injured assembled under his roof. When he was told of Mrs Wistanly's arrival, he desired to see her; and taking her hand, "I have 21

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sent for you, madam," said he, " that you may help me to unload my soul of the remembrance of the past." He then confessed to her that plan of seduction by which he had overcome the virtue of Annesly, and the honour of his sister. "You were a witness," he concluded, "of the fall of that worth and innocence which it was in the power of my former crimes to destroy; you are now come to behold the retribution of Heaven on the guilty. By that hand whom it commissioned to avenge a parent and a sister, I am cut off in the midst of my days."- "I hope not, sir," answered she; your life, I trust, will make a better expiation. In the punishments of the Divinity there is no idea of vengeance; and the infliction of what we term evil, serves equally the purpose of universal benignity, with the dispensation of good."-" I feel," replied Sir Thomas, "the force of that observation: the pain of this wound; the presentiment of death which it instils; the horror with which the recollection of my incestuous passion strikes me; all these are in the catalogue of my blessings. They indeed take from me the world; but they give me myself."

A visit from his physician interrupted their discourse; that gentleman did not prognosticate so fatally for his patient; he found the frequency of his pulse considerably abated, and expressed his hopes, that the succeeding night his rest would be better than it had been. In this he was not mistaken; and next morning the doctor continued to think Sir Thomas mending; but himself persisted in the belief that he should not recover.

For several days, however, he appeared rather to gain ground than to lose it; but afterwards he was seized with hectic fits at stated intervals, and when they left him, he complained of a universal weakness and depression. During all this time Lucy was seldom away from his bed-side: from her presence he derived peculiar pleasure; and sometimes, when he was so low as to be scarce able to speak, would mutter out blessings on her head, calling her his saint, his guardian angel!

After he had exhausted all the powers of medicine, under the direction of some of the ablest of the faculty, they acknowledged all farther assistance to be vain, and one of them warned him, in a friendly manner, of his approaching end. He received this intelligence with the utmost composure, as an event which he had expected from the beginning, thanked the physician for his candour, and desired that his friends might be summoned around him, while he had yet strength enough left to bid them adieu.

When he saw them assembled, he delivered into Bolton's hands a paper, which he told him was his will. "To this," said he, "I would not have any of those privy, who are interested in its bequests; and therefore I had it executed at the beginning of my illness, without their

participation. You will find yourself, my dear Harry, master of my fortune, under a condition, which, I believe, you will not esteem a hardship. Give me your hand; let me join it to my Lucy's ;-there!-if Heaven receives the prayer of a penitent, it will pour its richest blessings upon you.

"There are a few provisions in that paper, which Mr Bolton, I know, will find a pleasure in fulfilling. Of what I have bequeathed to you, Mrs Wistanly, the contentment you enjoy in your present situation makes you independent; but I intend it as an evidence of my consciousness of your deserving. My much injured friend, for he was once my friend, (addressing himself to Annesly,) will accept of the memorial I have left him.-Give me your hand, sir; receive my forgiveness for that wound which the arm of Providence made me provoke from yours; and when you look on a parent's and a sister's tomb, spare the memory of him whose death shall then have expiated the wrongs he did you !"-Tears were the only answer he received. He paused a moment; then looking round with something in his eye more elevated and solemn, "I have now," said he, "discharged the world: mine has been called a life of pleasure; had I breath, I could tell you how false the title is; alas! I knew not how to live. Merciful God! I thank thee-thou hast taught me how to die."

At the close of this discourse, his strength, which he had exerted to the utmost, seemed altogether spent; and he sunk down in the bed, in a state so like death, that for some time his attendants imagined him to have actually expired. When he did revive, his speech appeared to be lost; he could just make a feeble sign for a cordial that stood on the table near his bed: he put it to his lips, then laid his head on the pillow, as if resigning himself to his fate.

Lucy was too tender to bear the scene; her friend, Mrs Wistanly, led her almost fainting out of the room; "That grief, my dear Miss Sindall," said she, "is too amiable to be blamed; but your father suggested a consolation which your piety will allow: of those who have led his life, how few have closed it like him!"

THE CONCLUSION.

EARLY next morning Sir Thomas Sindall expired. The commendable zeal of the coroner prompted him to hold an inquest on his body; the jury brought in their verdict, self-defence. But there was a judge in the bosom of Annesly, whom it was more difficult to satisfy; nor could he for a long time be brought to pardon himself that blow, for which the justice of his country had acquitted him.

After paying their last duty to Sir Thomas's remains, the family removed to Sindall-park. Mrs Wistanly was prevailed on to leave her

own house for a while, and preside in that of which Bolton was now master. His delicacy needed not the ceremonial of fashion to restrain him from pressing Miss Sindall's consent to their marriage, till a decent time had been yielded to the memory of her father. When that was elapsed, he received from her uncle that hand, which Sir Thomas had bequeathed him, and which mutual attachment entitled him to receive.

Their happiness is equal to their merit: I am often a witness of it; for they honour me with a friendship which I know not how I have deserved, unless by having few other friends. Mrs

Wistanly and I are considered as members of the family.

But their benevolence is universal; the country smiles around them with the effects of their goodness. This is indeed the only real superiority which wealth has to bestow; I never envied riches so much, as since I have known Mr Bolton.

I have lived too long to be caught with the pomp of declamation, or the glare of an apothegm; but I sincerely believe, that you could not take from them a virtue without depriving them of a pleasure.

END OF THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

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