! My George! and do I find thee thus. Wounded! Fettered! Is this
thy happiness! Is this the manner you return to me! O that this sight
could break my heart at once and let me die!'

'Where, Sir, is your fortitude,' returned my son with an intrepid voice.
'I must suffer, my life is forfeited, and let them take it.'

I tried to restrain my passions for a few minutes in silence, but I
thought I should have died with the effort--'O my boy, my heart weeps
to behold thee thus, and I cannot, cannot help it. In the moment that
I thought thee blest, and prayed for thy safety, to behold thee thus
again! Chained, wounded. And yet the death of the youthful is happy.
But I am old, a very old man, and have lived to see this day. To see
my children all untimely falling about me, while I continue a wretched
survivor in the midst of ruin! May all the curses that ever sunk a soul
fall heavy upon the murderer of my children. May he live, like me, to
see--'

'Hold, Sir,' replied my son, 'or I shall blush for thee. How, Sir,
forgetful of your age, your holy calling, thus to arrogate the justice
of heaven, and fling those curses upward that must soon descend to crush
thy own grey head with destruction! No, Sir, let it be your care now to
fit me for that vile death I must shortly suffer, to arm me with hope
and resolution, to give me courage to drink of that bitterness which
must shortly be my portion.'

'My child, you must not die: I am sure no offence of thine can deserve
so vile a punishment. My George could never be guilty of any crime to
make his ancestors ashamed of him.'

'Mine, Sir,' returned my son, 'is, I fear, an unpardonable one. When
I received my mother's letter from home, I immediately came down,
determined to punish the betrayer of our honour, and sent him an order
to meet me, which he answered, not in person, but by his dispatching
four of his domestics to seize me. I wounded one who first assaulted me,
and I fear desperately, but the rest made me their prisoner. The coward
is determined to put the law in execution against me, the proofs are
undeniable, I have sent a challenge, and as I am the first transgressor
upon the statute, I see no hopes of pardon. But you have often charmed
me with your lessons of fortitude, let me now, Sir, find them in your
example.'

'And, my son, you shall find them. I am now raised above this world, and
all the pleasures it can produce. From this moment I break from my heart
all the ties t