Chapter XLII

A few momentary cessations from the pangs of a guilty conscience were given to William, as soon as he had despatched a messenger to the jail in which Agnes had been communed, to inquire after the son she had left behind, and to give orders that immediate care should be taken of him. He likewise charged the messenger to bring back the petition she had addressed to him during her supposed insanity; for he now experienced no trivial consolation in the thought that he might possibly have it in his power to grant her a request.

The messenger returned with the written paper, which had been considered by the persons to whom she had intrusted it, as the distracted dictates of an insane mind; but proved to William, beyond a doubt, that she was perfectly in her senses.

"TO LORD CHIEF JUSTICE NORWYNNE.

"MY LORD,--I am Agnes Primrose, the daughter of John and Hannah
Primrose, of Anfield. My father and mother lived by the hill at the
side of the little brook where you used to fish, and so first saw me.

"Pray, my lord, have mercy on my sorrows; pity me for the first time,
and spare my life. I know I have done wrong. I know it is
presumption in me to dare to apply to you, such a wicked and mean
wretch as I am; but, my lord, you once condescended to take notice of
me; and though I have been very wicked since that time, yet if you
would be so merciful as to spare my life, I promise to amend it for
the future. But if you think it proper I should die, I will be
resigned; but then I hope, I beg, I supplicate, that you will grant my
other petition. Pray, pray, my lord, if you cannot pardon me, be
merciful to the child I leave behind. What he will do when I am gone,
I don't know, for I have been the only friend he has had ever since he
was born. He was born, my lord, about sixteen years ago, at Anfield,
one summer a morning, and carried by your cousin, Mr. Henry Norwynne,
to Mr. Rymer's, the curate there; and I swore whose child he was
before the dean, and I did not take a false oath. Indeed, indeed, my
lord, I did not.

"I will say no more for fear this should not come safe to your hand,
for the people treat me as if I were mad; so I will say no more, only
this, that, whether I live or die, I forgive everybody, and I hope
everybody will forgive me. And I pray that God will take pity on my
son, if you refuse; but I hope you will not refuse.

"AGNES PRIMROSE."

William rejoiced, as he laid down the petition, that she had asked a favour he could bestow; and hoped by his protection of the son to redress, in some degree, the wrongs he had done the mother. He instantly sent for the messenger into his apartment, and impatiently asked, "If he had seen the boy, and given proper directions for his care."

"I have given directions, sir, for his funeral."

"How!" cried William.

"He pined away ever since his mother was confined, and died two days after her execution."

Robbed, by this news, of his only gleam of consolation--in the consciousness of having done a mortal injury for which he never now by any means could atone, he saw all his honours, all his riches, all his proud selfish triumphs fade before him! They seemed like airy nothings, which in rapture he would exchange for the peace of a tranquil conscience!

He envied Agnes the death to which he first exposed, then condemned, her. He envied her even the life she struggled through from his neglect, and felt that his future days would be far less happy than her former existence. He calculated with precision.