Deborah kept
her apron over her face, and Walter, leaning his shoulder against the
wall, stood gazing at them all; and while he was intently watching
for every sound that could enable him to judge whether the search was
successful or not, at the same time his heart was beating and his
head swimming at the threat of the rebel. Was he to die? To be
taken away from that bright world, from sunshine, youth, and health,
from his mother, and all of them, and be laid, a stiff mangled
corpse, in some cold, dark, unregarded grave; his pulses, that beat
so fast, all still and silent--senseless, motionless, like the birds
he had killed? And that was not all: that other world! To enter on
what would last for ever and ever and ever, on a state which he had
never dwelt on or realised to himself, filled him with a blank,
shuddering awe; and next came a worse, a sickening thought: if his
feeling for the bliss of heaven was almost distaste, could he be fit
for it? could he dare to hope for it? It was his Judge Whom he was
about to meet, and he had been impatient and weary of Bible and
Catechism, and Dr. Bathurst's teaching; he had been inattentive and
careless at his prayers; he had been disobedient and unruly, violent,
and unkind! Such a horror and agony came over the poor boy, so
exceeding a dread of death, that he was ready at that moment to
struggle to do anything to save himself; but there came the
recollection that the price of his rescue must be the betrayal of
Edmund.
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