render those services to a brother of the profession that were called for by humanity, and rendered gratuitous from custom. Indeed, I apparently had little reason to regret the discovery; for, from the old man's dress, it would have been reasonable to infer that his resources admitted but of a very wretched fee.

By the time I had cleaned the wound and bandaged on the splints, -a painful operation, which my patient bore with unshrinking firmness,--he complained of considerable faintness, which I relieved by administering a small glass of brandy.

"I fear this will go hard with my life," said the old gentleman, regarding my countenance with a steady glance.

"If I were to tell you that you were not in considerable danger, I should deceive you, sir," I replied, at the same time inwardly dreading the worst from the evidently debilitated state of my patient's

frame.

"Well, God's will be done, and not that of a wretched sinner like me!" murmured the stranger, laying a kind of bitter emphasis upon the latter word.

The men who had carried my patient, and who seemed to belong to that very doubtful class, who, without any direct employment, may generally be seen congregated round the coach-stands in London, now took the opportunity of asking very significantly, if they were wanted any longer. I immediately perceived their drift, and asked my patient if it would not be better to send a note to his family or friends to apprise them of the accident, before making his appearance among them.

"No, it is needless; that pain is mercifully spared me and them. I have no family,-no friends," replied the old gentleman, in a voice so forlorn that it went to my heart at once, and even for a moment seemed to affect the men standing by.

"Shall I call the gemman a coach ?" inquired one.

"No," replied my patient; "that is the worst conveyance for a broken limb. Take a cab, and obtain for me, if possible, a stretcher, and-"

The old man, evidently with a strong mental effort, suppressed the anguish he felt from his fractured limb; but the agony he endured was but too perceptible in the writhing of his countenance, down which the large drops of perspiration trickled one after the other. I was moved at the sight, and a feeling of commiseration got the better of my selfishness: indeed, I even forgot my own situation at the moment, as I made him the offer of a vacant bed in the house.

"You are kind, sir," he replied, a flush succeeding the death-like paleness of his care-stricken features. "I am not quite prepared to die—that is, I could wish to live some months longer, and I fear a removal at present might greatly increase the inflammation; therefore, if I do not encumber you, I will accept your offer. But there is one, my kind landlady, you must apprise her of my misfortune." And he gave me his address, when I immediately penned a note, which I despatched by one of the men to the street in Tottenham-court-road where Mr. Benfield (the name of my patient) resided.

After giving him an anodyne draught, by assisting the men a little, I managed to get him carried up stairs, without inducing much additional pain from the fractured limb.

"Perhaps the gen'elman will have the goodness to think of us now," said one of the men, as we got my patient into bed, endeavouring to assume an air of modesty, which sat upon his coarse features with intolerable grace.

"True, I must remember I have to reward your humanity, as it is not the worldly fashion to confer services for nothing." And the old gentleman, putting his hand into a small side pocket of his greatcoat, as it hung by his bed-side, took out a sovereign, which, to my surprise, he gave to be divided among the men.

The sight of this sum, so much larger a donation than these worthies had expected to receive, wrought an almost magical effect upon them, and brought forth numerous professions of gratitude.

"I see, sir, you're a real gemman," uttered the fellow who had been spokesman previously. "Although I didn't think of it afore, I can tell you the number of the coach as knocked you down."

"It is of little consequence," said the stranger, with a deep sigh. "But the willain, Jem Burns, as drove over your honour,' tinued the man.

con

"I forgive him with all my heart," uttered the benevolent old gentleman.

Perceiving that the sleeping potion was already beginning to take a slight effect upon my patient, I placed the bell-rope close to his head, and forbidding the expression of some thanks he was about to utter, I led my rough assistants down stairs, when they took their departure with many offers of service to "the queer old gen'elman, as didn't mind people running over him."

In the parlour I found my kind partner all anxiety to learn the state of our guest, and while discoursing on the suddenness of the occurrence, Mrs. Smith, his landlady, arrived. She was a woman past the meridian of life, and, with all the vulgar garrulity so common to her station in society, displayed a strong feeling of sorrow for Mr. Benfield's accident. The cause, indeed, of this emotion was sufficiently accounted for, when she informed us that her lodger had, by his great attention and medical skill, saved the life of her eldest

son.

"Oh, sir," continued the widow, for such she was, "poor dear old Mr. Benfield is the best of men. He's never happy but when he's doing good to somebody or other; though, poor gentleman, his sadness at times, and his lone ways, sitting up as he will half through the night praying and calling himself names, as I've known him to do, makes me quite miserable. And then the old gentleman, if he only hears of a case of distress, will run out in all weathers to give relief. He's the best of human beings, sir; though he often talks as if he'd done something wicked in his youth."

"Is he not in practice as a surgeon?" I inquired.

"Oh, no, sir," replied Mrs Smith; "though I heard him say he was once a doctor when a young man; and then, as though the recollection made him miserable, he told me in his mild way never to ask him questions, or remind him of it; so that I and my eldest boy, whose life he saved, fancy he might have been unfortunate in business."

"But has he no relations or acquaintance ?"

The kind landlady's face assumed a look of grave thought as she

replied, "Oh, no; there it is where the old gentleman's sadness sometimes lays. He will talk in the most moving way for hours together in the middle of the night of his wife and children, that are dead. And then to see how hardly he treats himself in his living, when he thinks nothing can be too good for others, it makes me quite fretful to see it; but he will have his own way, and says anything is good enough for him."

It is almost unnecessary for me to say that my wife and myself were but too interested in the welfare of the excellent and eccentric old man, who had so strangely been made an inmate under our roof, not to listen with much interest to the brief particulars we collected of him from Mrs. Smith.

As the kind-hearted landlady seemed desirous of seeing her lodger, I immediately led the way up into his room. From his heavy and laboured breathing as I opened the door, I knew that he was asleep, and motioned Mrs. Smith to tread softly, while I shaded the light which I carried in my hand, so that its rays might not tend to disturb his slumbers. My patient's sunken cheek I perceived, as I bent over the bed for a moment, wore an alabaster paleness, which, with the few floating grey hairs streaming over his deeply furrowed countenance, gave him an appearance peculiarly venerable. Still, from a slight spasmodic display of feature, and an occasional half murmur in the hard breathing, it was but too easy to perceive that the old gentleman was in a high state of fever, and that his sleep, so far from being repose, seemed

"But a continuance of enduring thought."

All my fears were respecting the strong tendency to fever, so evident in the frame of my patient, and this reflection I had just whispered to Mrs. Smith, when he uttered a groan; then followed a half muttering sound, as though he were talking in his sleep. Fearful of awaking him, I had just motioned to my kind-hearted companion to follow me out of the chamber, when the slumberer, in a voice whose cavernous and half-stifled tone seemed to emanate from the very depths of his chest, exclaimed

"Blessed Lord! when shall I be forgiven!"

There was something so solemn in this appeal, that I was deeply impressed by it as I softly closed the door.

"That's just like him, sir," said Mrs. Smith, as I conducted her down stairs. "To hear Mr. Benfield at times, you'd think he'd been a very wicked man; when it's quite impossible such a good man could ever have done anything wicked.”

Three months passed before anything like perfect adhesion took place in the fractured bones. During this period I had many oppor tunities of becoming intimately acquainted with the character of a man, whose extensive knowledge and erudition were only equalled by his Christian philanthropy and humanity. From many conversa. tions I had with him, my previous belief was confirmed, that my patient was labouring under some painful recollection of early indiscretion or guilt, which his over sensitive mind, it appeared to me, seemed to imagine could never be atoned for in that world "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

I now became the confidential agent of the kind old gentleman in a hundred actions of the purest benevolence. Like a second Howard, I discovered that he had made it his study to find out and relieve the wretched and distressed

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."

My own embarrassments, notwithstanding several patients I had obtained through the representations of Mrs. Smith, had now grown too serious to be concealed any longer. Indeed, a few days after the removal of my patient, I found myself in circumstances of poverty peculiarly mortifying.

I had scarcely two pounds in the house, and my poor wife now indeed was inconsolable. After revolving a variety of expedients, I saw but one way of obtaining money sufficient to defray the landlord's demand, and therefore in a letter to Mr. Benfield stated my present difficulties, and requested the loan of twenty pounds. This gave me some pain; and while anxiously expecting an answer, Mr. Benfield drove up to the door in a coach. I could not help remarking that he looked more than usually pale and troubled. Seizing my arm in an agitated and nervous grasp, he drew me into my study, and shut the door.

"And how was it I had no suspicion ?" said he. you want money; in practice, and want money. not told me of this before ?”

"You are poor;

Why have you

I hesitated for a moment in offering him my reasons. "Ah! I know the pride of a professional man. Oh! I was once a medical man-poor. Would I had ever remained so! but temptation came like a fiend, accompanied by opportunity, and a long life of anguish has been the result." And the excited old man now buried his face in his hands. I was moved.

"This is weakness, I know you will say," he continued; "but, oh! if you knew all, you would cease to wonder at these ebullitions of a repentant spirit. The similarity of your present situation with my own on my first entrance into life, has called up these feelings. My prayer to heaven is, that you may shun the fatal rock upon which my every hope of eternal happiness has been wrecked. But, come; give me pen and ink, at least I may reap some happiness from your wants." And, hastily taking a banker's book from his pocket, he wrote a check for two hundred pounds.

So unexpected and handsome a gift at first entirely deprived me of the power of returning thanks, and I attempted to object receiving a sum, to the fourth part of which I had no claim. But I was met in the old gentleman's usual determined manner when contributing to the wants of others.

"And why should you not keep it?" he uttered calmly. " It has been honourably earned in the exercise of your profession. I feel happier at this moment than I have for many years. Oh!" he added, raising his eyes upwards, while the tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks," Oh! that some one in my hour of need had thus stepped before me," and his head again sunk between his hands. and for a moment he seemed buried in the one terrible thought that appeared to canker his existence.

As he left my house he exclaimed, "God bless you! you have made me happy if I have in any way contributed to serve you. In difficulties, in distress, and misery, may you ever be enabled to resist temptation to evil. That I have not done so, has made me the wretch you behold. When I have grown calmer I will again call and see you."

Two days passed, and I heard nothing of Mr. Benfield. On the third, my wife, at breakfast, was reminding me that it would look neglectful if I did not call, when Mrs. Smith was announced. Her benevolent lodger had been thrown upon a sick bed the day previous, and having grown considerably worse, she had, with his consent, come for me.

It is needless to say that I immediately waited on him.

His greeting was as kind as usual, but, if any thing, more sad and solemn. He had been attacked by fever.

"I know I am going fast. The Almighty has already prolonged my days more than "-his voice here fell into a mysterious whisper "more than I had a right to expect. I have wandered about the world the last twenty years of my life, a wretched, and but for the all-redeeming mercies of our blessed Saviour, I might say, hopeless man. But now I feel-indeed I have had presentiments I rely upon -that my time on earth is nearly up."

Feeling his pulse, I found it beating 130. He was indeed, in a high state of fever, no doubt induced in a great measure by the active working of his mind. His leg, that had been so lately fractured, I was sorry to perceive in a very inflamed state; and although I insisted upon the application of leeches immediately, he shook his head with a mournful presentiment of his approaching fate.

"It is of no use; but you shall have your own way, my young friend. I feel that within which passeth show,' which tells me I have not long to live."

I left him, indeed, that day with the conviction that his constitution, unable to rally from the severe shock it had so lately received, was sinking fast, and that the excellent old man had but a short interval before he was destined to be ushered into a better world.

In the evening I found him considerably worse. In spite of topical depletion, and other remedies I used, there still was a strong tendency to inflammation. His throat had become slightly affected, while a general languor and debility reduced him to a state of great weakness. Although evidently on his death-bed, he was resigned, and even cheerful.

That night there was a slight inclination to delirium; which, however, subsided a little by the morning, when I left him enjoying a gentle doze, to seek for myself a brief respite from the fatigue of watching by his bedside. On returning in the evening, Mrs. Smith, whom I met at the door, informed me that, to her surprise, he had sat up in bed, supported by pillows, and had employed himself during great part of the day in writing some letters, notwithstanding all she could do to dissuade him from it, on account of the fatigue and excitement it must necessarily occasion.

On entering his bed-room I found him reclining in a disturbed slumber. Ever since the few hours I had last seen him a rapid and death-like change had taken place in his countenance; the features