“I’m afraid that I’ve loved money most too well,” he said to Roswell, not an hour before he drew his last breath; “but I hope it was not so much for myself, as for others.  A wife and children, Gar’ner, tie a man to ’arth in a most unaccountable manner.  Sealers’ companions are used to hearing of misfortunes, and the Vineyard women know that few on ’em live to see a husband at their side in old age.  Still, it is hard on a mother and wife, to l’arn that her chosen friend has been cut off in the pride of his days and in a distant land.  Poor Betsey!  It would have been better for us both, had we been satisfied with the little we had; for now the good woman will have to look to all matters for herself.”

Daggett now remained silent for some time, though his lips moved, most probably in prayer.  It was a melancholy sight to see a man in the vigour of his manhood, whose voice was strong, and whose heart was still beating with vigour and vitality, standing, as it were, on the brink of a precipice, down which all knew he was to be so speedily hurled.  But the decree had gone forth, and no human skill could arrest it.  Shortly after the confession and lamentation we have recorded, the decay reached the vitals, and the machine of clay stopped.  To avoid the unpleasant consequences of keeping the body in so warm a place, it was buried in the snow at a short distance from the house, within an hour after it had ceased to breathe.

When Roswell Gardiner saw this man, who had so long adhered to him, like a leech, in the pursuit of gold, laid a senseless corpse among the frozen flakes of the antarctic seas, he felt that a lively admonition of the vanity of the world was administered to himself.  How little had he been able to foresee all that had happened, and how mistaken had been his own calculations and hopes!  What, then, was that intellect of which he had been so proud, and what reason had he to rely on himself in those matters that lay equally beyond the cradle and the grave—­that incomprehensible past, and the unforeseen future, towards which all those in existence were hastening!  Roswell had received many lessons in humility, the most useful of all the lessons that man can receive in connection with the relation that really exists between the Deity and himself.  Often had he wondered, while reading the Bible Mary Pratt had put into his hand, at the stubborn manner in which the chosen people of God had returned to their “idols,” and their “groves,” and their “high places;” but he was now made to understand that others still erred in this great particular, and that of all the idols men worship, that of self was perhaps the most objectionable.

Chapter XXVIII.

  “Long swoln in drenching rains, seeds, germs, and buds
  Start at the touch of vivifying beams. 
  Moved by their secret force, the vital lymph
  Diffusive runs, and spreads o’er wood and field
  A flood of verdure.”