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Page:The Vicar of Wakefield (Volume 2) - Goldsmith (1766, 1st edition).djvu/147

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The Vicar of Wakefield.
145

Fettered! Is this thy happiness! Is this the manner you return to me! O that this sight could break my heart at once and let me die!"

"Where, Sir, is your fortitude," return­ed my son with an intrepid voice. "I must suffer, my life is forfeited, and let them take it; it is my last happiness that I have committed no murder, tho' I have lost all hopes of pardon."

I tried to restrain my passions for a few mi­nutes in silence, but I thought I should have died with the effort—"O my boy, my heart weeps to behold thee thus, and I cannot, cannot help it. In the mo­ment that I thought thee blest, and pray­ed for thy safety, to behold thee thus again! Chained, wounded. And yet the death of the youthful is happy. But I am old, a very old man, and have"lived