His only covering being a
scanty cloth round his loins, I told him to get up and go on or
he would be starved with cold. He said something in reply, which
I could not understand, and repeating my first warning, I rode
on. It was only two miles to my house, but upon arrival I could
not help thinking that the boy must be ill, and having watched
the gate for some time to see if he passed by, I determined to
send for him.
Accordingly, I started off a couple of men with orders to carry
him up if he were sick.
They returned in little more than an hour, but the poor boy was
dead! - sitting crouched in the same position in which I had seen
him. He must have died of cold and starvation; he was a mere
skeleton.
I sent men to the spot, and had him buried by the roadside, and a
few days after I rode down to see where they had laid him.
A quantity of fresh-turned earth lay scattered about, mingled
with fragments of rags. Bones much gnawed lay here and there on
the road, and a putrid skull rolled from a shapeless hole among a
confused and horrible heap.
