To the past--whatever it might have been--he said
farewell, and went carolling some cheerful ditty, to look upon the
face of his future.
That night a country wagon slowly drove up to Henry Donnelly's
door. The three men who accompanied it hesitated before they
knocked, and, when the door was opened, looked at each other with
pale, sad faces, before either spoke. No cries followed the few
words that were said, but silently, swiftly, a room was made ready,
while the men lifted from the straw and carried up stairs an
unconscious figure, the arms of which hung down with a horrible
significance as they moved. He was not dead, for the heart beat
feebly and slowly; but all efforts to restore his consciousness
were in vain. There was concussion of the brain the physician
said. He had been thrown from his horse, probably alighting upon
his head, as there were neither fractures nor external wounds. All
that night and next day the tenderest, the most unwearied care was
exerted to call back the flickering gleam of life. The shock had
been too great; his deadly torpor deepened into death.
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