I have said that my opinions widely differed from those supposed to be entertained by a Protestant clergyman, and particularly so on the efficacy of a death-bed repentance. Could it then be expected that I was thus to smear myself over with hypocrisy, and to a poor broken-spirited fellow-creature, looking imploringly for religious aid and comfort, utter to his confiding ears such doctrines as, at that time, I unhappily and foolishly thought to be no more "than sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal?"
This, then, was not to be thought of or endured; and, therefore, sooner than remain inactive among my people, I was ever, as much as possible, studiously at a distance. Still it could not but annoy me, should my presence have been required on any emergency, while absent; and this, thanks to my fortune, never occurred, though I had many narrow escapes of it.
At one time, having postponed the preparation of my sermon during the earlier part of the week, I arrived, in consequence, at my lodgings on Saturday evening, in order to get it ready for the morrow. I had scarcely begun, when Maria, dispensing with her lowly knock for admission at the door, rushed in, and announced an event which had just occurred within a mile of the house.
A girl of eighteen, and her sister of eight years old, had been spending her birth-day at their grandfather's, and, after dark, had set out on their return to their father's house, mounted on an old horse, with the younger girl behind. In the bottom of a valley which divided the two houses, ran a little stream, but which now, from heavy rain, had increased to a rapid and deep, though still a narrow rivulet. In passing through the ford, the younger girl, while raising her feet to avoid the water, fell from the saddle, pulling her elder sister with her. The youngest, much frightened, rushed through the water and gained the bank. The foot of the elder one became entangled in the stirrup, which unfortunately caused her head and shoulders to remain beneath the water. The horse was so quiet as to stand still in the stream, grazing on the bank, and was thus stationary long enough for the girl to become insensible, when he walked out, and her foot, on his moving, becoming once more free, her helpless little sister, by the light of the moon which was then shining, could just see the stream roll away the body of her sister towards a deep hole a little lower down, when she lost sight of her. This, then, was the cause of the present interruption.
