Chapter 23

'Tis when the wound is stiffening with the cold.
The warrior first feels pain--'tis when the heat
And fiery fever of his soul is pass'd,
The sinner feels remorse.
OLD PLAY.

The feelings of compunction with which Halbert Glendinning was visited
upon this painful occasion, were deeper than belonged to an age and
country in which human life was held so cheap. They fell far short
certainly of those which might have afflicted a mind regulated by
better religious precepts, and more strictly trained under social
laws; but still they were deep and severely felt, and divided in
Halbert's heart even the regret with which he parted from Mary Avenel
and the tower of his fathers.

The old traveller walked silently by his side for some time, and then
addressed him.--"My son, it has been said that sorrow must speak or
die--Why art thou so much cast down?--Tell me thy unhappy tale, and it
may be that my gray head may devise counsel and aid for your young
life."

"Alas !" said Halbert Glendinning, "can you wonder why I am cast
down?--I am at this instant a fugitive from my father's house, from my
mother, and from my friends, and I bear on my head the blood of a man
who injured me but in idle words, which I have thus bloodily requited.
My heart now tells me I have done evil--it were harder than these
rocks if it could bear unmoved the thought, that I have sent this man
to a long account, unhousled and unshrieved."

"Pause there, my son," said the traveller. "That thou hast defaced
God's image in thy neighbour's person--that thou hast sent dust to
dust in idle wrath or idler pride, is indeed a sin of the deepest
dye--that thou hast cut short the space which Heaven might have
allowed him for repentance, makes it yet more deadly--but for all this
there is balm in Gilead."

"I understand you not, father," said Halbert, struck by the solemn tone
which was assumed by his companion.

The old man proceeded. "Thou hast slain thine enemy--it was a cruel
deed: thou hast cut him off perchance in his sins--it is a fearful
aggravation. Do yet by my counsel, and in lieu of him whom thou hast
perchance consigned to the kingdom of Satan, let thine efforts wrest
another subject from the reign of the Evil One."

"I understand you, father," said Halbert; "thou wouldst have me atone
for my rashness by doing service to the soul of my adversary--But how
may this be? I have no money to purchase masses, and gladly would I
go barefoot to the Holy Land to free his spirit from purgatory, only
that--"

"My son," said the old man, interrupting him, "the sinner for whose
redemption I