he road. No doubt every one believed him still insensible, or,
much as he was disliked, they would not have been so cruel as to reproach
him in his hour of agony. He had not strength to speak, but he could not
avoid hearing.

"He can't get over it; he'll never see another sunset," said one.

"Well, any way we can't have a harder master, that's some comfort!"
exclaimed another.

"Oh! Master William _is_ a real right down lord," cried a third eagerly,
"he won't rack-rent the tenants, and grind down the poor. Why, he saved
us and our little ones from the workhouse last winter, though he is
poor--that is quite poor for a gentleman--I well know."

"Then hurrah! for the new lord!" said the second speaker, throwing his
hat in the air; "and I think they should pension the horse, that has
given him to us, with the free run of the park all his life, instead of
shooting him, as some one talked of doing."

"For shame, it is wicked to rejoice over the fallen," said a woman in the
crowd, and in the next moment the sound of a pistol was heard proclaiming
that the horse had paid his penalty for the accident, and would never
throw another rider!

And now for a moment, before these pages close, let us contemplate the
death-bed of the selfish and avaricious young lord, who in the three
stages of ease, affluence, and luxury--and as boy, youth, and man,--had
only laid up his "treasures on earth."

But they could not assuage one torturing pain, or prolong his life for a
second!

Far more than bodily pangs, oh! harder to endure a thousand times, were
the stings of conscience which now assailed him. In dark array rose all
the scenes of suffering he might have relieved, and had not; he saw
himself again the selfish child, the covetous youth, the grasping
landlord, and the unrelenting man. The events of that same day were even
yet more fresh in his memory. Had he but listened to his cousin's wants,
instead of his own selfish plans, might he not have lived?--was it not
one last opportunity of amendment offered by a merciful God, ere He swept
him from the earth, and called him to give a strict account of his
stewardship?

And it was that cousin, who would now have all his wealth, to whom he had
denied in the morning so small a portion.

The anguish of the sufferer's mind was to be read upon his despairing
countenance, and as his weeping mother, now, indeed, with pardon on her
lips, bent over him, he murmured: "Lost, lost, there