and quitted the room, retiring to my own modest chamber, where the
packet, a large bundle of papers sealed and directed to myself in the
handwriting of the dying man, was carefully secured under a good lock. I
did not meet my father again but once under circumstances which admitted
of intelligible communion. From the time of our first interview he
gradually grew worse, his reason tottered, and, like the sinful cardinal
of Shakespeare, "he died and gave no sign."

Three days after my arrival, however, I was left alone with him, and
he suddenly revived from a state approaching to stupor. It was the only
time since the first interview in which he had seemed even to know me.

"Thou art come at last!" he said, in a tone that was already sepulchral.
"Canst tell me, boy, why they had golden rods to measure the city?" His
nurse had been reading to him a chapter of the Revelations which had
been selected by himself. "Thou seest, lad, the wall itself was of
jasper and the city was of pure gold--I shall not need money in my
new habitation--ha! it will not be wanted there!--I am not crazed,
Jack--would I had loved gold less and my kind more. The city itself is
of pure gold and the walls of jasper--precious abode!--ha! Jack, thou
hearest, boy--I am happy--too happy, Jack!--gold--gold!"

The final words were uttered with a shout. They were the last that
ever came from the lips of Thomas Goldencalf. The noise brought in the
attendants, who found him dead. I ordered the room to be cleared as soon
as the melancholy truth was fairly established, and remained several
minutes alone with the body. The countenance was set in death. The eyes,
still open, had that revolting glare of frenzied delight with which the
spirit had departed, and the whole face presented the dread picture of a
hopeless end. I knelt and, though a Protestant, prayed fervently for the
soul of the deceased. I then took my leave of the first and the last of
all my ancestors.

To this scene succeeded the usual period of outward sorrow, the
interment, and the betrayal of the expectations of the survivors. I
observed that the house was much frequented by many who rarely or never
had crossed its threshold during the life of its late owner. There was
much cornering, much talking in an undertone, and looking at me that
I did not understand, and gradually the number of regular visitors
increased until it amounted to about twenty. Among them were the parson
of the parish, the