The Child of Waterloo, or, The Horrors of the Battle-Field — page 290: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE CHILD OF WATERLOO. 287 against any such attempts being made successful, and a strait- waistcoay was the result. : He @uld not submit to anything, save upon compulsion. The priest had been denied access to him; the chaplain of the prison endexvored to reason him into a better frame of mind than that in which he was then in, but it was useless; he re- fused all intercourse upon religious topics, save to scoff and Jaugh at them. ‘‘ Bring me none of your coffer. loving priests, or table-fed parsons, or your pensioned dignitaries, who league together to ae the world, and to gather together the loaves and the shes. This language, of course, did little to appease the incensed prison authorities, and the chaplain was especially scandalized, and his calling entirely disgraced by such conduct. -However, he did all he could to reason with him; but it was unavailing, each new attempt being met by a corresponding in- crease of scorn and derision. Thus would he turn away the endeavors of the good man with the utmost contempt; and yet there was a something of noise and boast in all this; he required to hear the sound of his own voice to assure him, and to cover his own weakness, and to aid in giving him that appearance of courage of which he boasted. At length the day before the execution arrived, and the governor and the chaplain visited him. ‘‘ Sternholde,” said the former, '‘‘there is no hope for you— you must die to-morrow.” “* To-morrow!” echoed Sternholde. ‘Yes; your time is now short. Consider well how you had best employ it, for opportunities now lost are irrecoverable. Time soon, with you, will cease to be.” ‘‘ Away, away; you cannot take away my life—’tis charmed.” “Tf you can think so you are in a Jamentable state of error,” said the clergyman; ‘‘you cannot bear a life charmed against the penalty of the law; never was such athing heard of, or dreamed of, depend upon it. You have your faith founded upon a rotten basis; be warned in time; the hours are few. Oh, repent; seek for that mercy which you seem never to have shown to man, and may you find Him more merciful than his creatures.” “When must I die?” _ ‘‘To-morrow, at eight.” ‘So short a time ?” ‘Tt has been long; that is, quite as long as usual; and you must have known that there was nochance of mercy being show1i you—you could have none to expect.” Sternholde said nothing, but leaned back against the cell, and seemed lost in thought. The clergyman thought he might be yet induced to change his mind, that the certainty of death, so near at hand, would work a change in that man’s mind, and stood hopefully in expectation that some such occurrence would take place, and be indicated by some expression on his part. comicbooks. com