But,
notwithstanding the most minute scrutiny into the conduct of the old
man, no fact could be substantiated against him to his injury, and his
property was too small to keep alive the zeal of patriots by profession.
Its confiscation and purchase would not have rewarded their trouble. Age
and sorrow were now about to spare him further molestation, for the lamp
of life had been drained of its oil. The recent separation of the father
and son had been painful, but they had submitted in obedience to what
both thought a duty. The old man had kept his dying situation a secret
from the neighborhood, in the hope that he might still have the company
of his child in his last moments. The confusion of the day, and his
increasing dread that Harvey might be too late, helped to hasten the
event he would fain arrest for a little while. As night set in, his
illness increased to such a degree, that the dismayed housekeeper sent a
truant boy, who had shut up himself with them during the combat, to the
Locusts, in quest of a companion to cheer her solitude. Caesar, alone,
could be spared, and, loaded with eatables and cordials by the
kind-hearted Miss Peyton, the black had been dispatched on his duty. The
dying man was past the use of medicines, and his chief anxiety seemed to
center in a meeting with his child.
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