SALLY RUMBLE knocked at the usual hour at the old man’s door next morning.

“Come in, ma’am,” he answered, in a weary, peevish voice. “Open the window-shutter, and give me some light, and hand me my watch, please.”

All which she did.

“I have not closed my eyes from the time I lay down.”

“Not ailing, sir, I hope?”

“Just allow me to count, and I’ll tell you, my dear.”

He was trying his pulse.

“Just as I thought, egad. The pale horse in the Revelation, ma’am, he’s running a gallop in my pulse; it has been threatening the last three days, and now I’m in for it, and I should not be surprised, Miss Sally, if it ended in a funeral in our alley.”

“God forbid, sir.”

“Amen, with all my heart. Ay, the pale horse; my head’s splitting; oblige me with the looking-glass, and a little less light will answer. Thank you — very good. Just draw the curtain open at the foot of the bed; please, hold it nearer — thank you. Yes, a ghost, ma’am-ha, ha — at last, I do suppose. My eyes, too — I’ve seen pits, with the water drying up, hollow — ay, ay; sunk — and — now — did you see? Well, look at my tongue — here”— and he made the demonstration; “you never saw a worse tongue than that, I fancy; that tongue, ma’am, is eloquent, I think.”

“Please God, sir, you’ll soon be better.”

“Draw the curtain a bit more; the light falls oddly, or — does it? — my face. Did you ever see, ma’am, a face so nearly the colour of a coffin-plate?”

“Don’t be talking, sir, please, of no such thing,” said Sally Rumble, taking heart of grace, for women generally pluck up a spirit when they see a man floored by sickness. “I’ll make you some whey or barley-water, or would you like some weak tea better?”

“Ay; will you draw the curtain close again, and take away the looking-glass? Thanks. I believe I’ve drunk all the water in the carafe. Whey — well, I suppose it’s the right thing; caudle when we’re coming in, and whey, ma’am, when we’re going out. Baptism of Infants, Burial of the Dead! My poor mother, how she did put us through the prayer-book, and Bible — Bible. Dear me.”

“There’s a very good man, sir, please — the Rev. Doctor Bartlett, though he’s gone rather old. He came in, and read a deal, and prayed, every day with my sister when she was sick, poor thing.”

“Bartlett? What’s his Christian name? You need not speak loud — it plays the devil with my head.”

“The Reverend Thomas Bartlett, please, sir.”

“Of Jesus?”

“What, sir, please?”

“Jesus College.”

“Don’t know, I’m sure, sir.”

“Is he old?”

“Yes, sir, past seventy.”

“Ha — well I don’t care a farthing about him,” said Mr. Dingwell.

“Will you, please, have in the apothecary, sir? I’ll fetch him directly, if you wish.”

“No —no apothecary, no clergyman; I don’t believe in the Apostles’ Creed, ma’am, and I do believe in the jokes about apothecaries. If I’m to go, I’ll go quietly, if you please.”

Honest Sally Rumble was heavy at heart to see this old man, who certainly did look ghastly enough to suggest ideas of the undertaker and the sexton, in so unsatisfactory a plight as to his immortal part. Was he a Jew? — there wasn’t a hair on his chin — or a Roman Catholic? — or a member of any one of those multitudinous forms of faith which she remembered in a stout volume, adorned with woodcuts, and entitled “A Dictionary of all Religions,” in a back parlour of her grand-uncle, the tallow-chandler?

“Give me a glass of cold water, ma’am,” said the subject of her solicitude.

“Thank you — that’s the best drink —slop, I think you call it — a sick man can swallow.”

Sally Rumble coughed a little, and fidgeted, and at last she said: “Please, sir, would you wish I should fetch any other sort of a minister?”

“Don’t plague me, pray; I believe in the prophet Rabelais and je m’en vais chercher un grand peutêtre— the two great chemists, Death, who is going to analyse, and Life, to recombine me. I tell you, ma’am, my head is bursting; I’m very ill; I’ll talk no more.”

She hesitated. She lingered in the room, in her great perplexity; and Mr. Dingwell lay back, with a groan.

“I’ll tell you what you may do: go down to your landlord’s office, and be so good as to say to either of those d —— d Jew fellows — I don’t care which — that I am as you see me; it mayn’t signify, it may blow over; but I’ve an idea it is serious; and tell them I said they had better know that I am very ill, and that I’ve taken no step about it.”

With another weary groan Mr. Dingwell let himself down on his pillow, and felt worse for his exertion, and very tired and stupid, and odd about the head, and would have been very glad to fall asleep; and with one odd pang of fear, sudden and cold, at his heart, he thought, “I’m going to die — I’m going to die — at last — I’m going to die.”

The physical nature in sickness acquiesces in death; it is the instructed mind that recoils; and the more versed about the unseen things of futurity, unless when God, as it were, prematurely glorifies it, the more awfully it recoils.

Mr. Dingwell was not more afraid than other sinners who have lived for the earthy part of their nature, and have taken futurity pretty much for granted, and are now going to test by the stake of themselves the value of their loose guesses.

No; he had chanced a great many things, and they had turned out for the most part better than he expected. Oh! no; the whole court, and the adjoining lanes, and, in short, the whole city of London, must go as he would — lots of company, it was not to be supposed it was anything very bad — and he was so devilish tired, over-fatigued — queer — worse than sea-sickness — that headache — fate — the change — an end — what was it? At all events, a rest, a sleep — sleep — could not be very bad; lots of sleep, sir, and the chance — the chance — oh, yes, things go pretty well, and I have not had my good luck yet. I wish I could sleep a bit — yes, let kingdom-come be all sleep — and so a groan, and the brain duller, and more pain, and the immense fatigue that demands the enormous sleep.

When Sarah Rumble returned, Mr. Dingwell seemed, she thought, a great deal heavier. He made no remark, as he used to do, when she entered the room. She came and stood by the bed-side, but he lay with his eyes closed, not asleep; she could see by the occasional motion of his lips, and the fidgety change of his posture, and his weary groanings. She waited for a time in silence.

“Better, sir?” she half-whispered, after a minute or two.

“No,” he said, wearily.

Another silence followed, and then she asked, “Would you like a drink, Mr. Dingwell, sir?”

“Yes — water.”

So he drank a very little, and lay down again.

Miss Sarah Rumble stayed in the room, and nearly ten minutes passed without a word.

“What did he say?” demanded Mr. Dingwell so abruptly that Sarah Rumble fancied he had been dreaming.

“Who, sir, please?”

“The Jew &............