But the town was all asleep. There was no
peril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so
pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without
other risk than that the dank and chill night air would creep
into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog
his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the
expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and sermon. No eye
could see him, save that ever-wakeful one which had seen him in
his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come
hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed,
but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which
angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering
laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that
Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and
closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably
drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other
impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor,
miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden
itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their
choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert
their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling
it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could
do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which
intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of
heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.
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