It was composed of three papers. The first I laid aside after carelessly glancing at it. 'Twas the common recovery by which Sir Hugh Winchester barred the estate tail, and attached to it the instrument by which he took it back again to hold in fee simple.
The next was a bulky document in which my father solemnly transferred all his estates to Sir Robert Vane in trust. "Nevertheless to hold the same for the benefit and advantage of my second son, now beyond the seas--Thomas Winchester." And below he had scrawled his name.
I folded the document together again--so that homely old saying had come to pass, that "curses like chickens come home to roost." I had never loved my father, he had meant naught to me but a name, but at that moment I pitied him. He had hated me without a cause and his sin had brought its own punishment. And so thinking I opened the third and last paper--it ran thus:
"THOMAS:--As I lie here to-night, I realize that in a few hours I must pass out to meet that God, whom I have never served or obeyed. I have done little of good in this world; have lived only for self, my own desire and enjoyment my only thought. I know of not one soul whom I have ever helped or assisted during the whole of my miserable life, but on the contrary there are many whom I have wronged and injured, who will rejoice as they hear the news of my death.
"I have wronged thee most of all, for I allowed that villain, Richard, to play upon my dislike of thee, until I did thee that last injury and drove thee from England. I have paid for my sin in agony and torture; my life since thou left has been a living death. There has been no night for months that I have not writhed in anguish, and to add to my sufferings, Richard has done all in his power to be-devil me, thinking that he had the estates safe.
"I have made what little reparation I could, and have disinherited him, and transferred all the property to thy friend Sir Robert Vane, to hold in trust for thee; for something tells me thou art alive, and will yet come to claim thy own. Death, my son, will be a boon to me--it will at last end my agony in this world. I trust that my God will take into consideration my suffering here, in measuring my punishment in the life to come.