Perhaps, had my angel of to-day
been my angel when first a man, I had never wooed the scorpion which is
stinging me to death; but all I can do I will. This is all I can
promise. Keep this stick to remember me: it will support you when
tottering with the weight of years, and with strength will endure. When
age has done her work, and you are in the grave, give it to your son to
remember us both. Farewell."
With a clasp of the hand we parted, never to meet again. Not long
after, he died at Natchez, and, in the family cemetery of the Sargents,
sleeps near the city.
But few of the speeches of Prentiss were ever reported, and though they
are like and have the ring of the true metal, yet not one of them is
correctly reported. The fragment given in a former chapter is the
report of one who heard it, and who wrote it the very hour of its
delivery, to myself, that the information of the acquittal might be
communicated to the friends of the lady Judge Wilkinson was about to be
married to, who resided in my immediate neighborhood. There is not a
word of it in the reporter's speech, which was some time after written
out from notes.
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