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She called to her bedside one of the inmates who had been kind to her a young girl, whose heart was not hard and stony. She said to her, with her hands clasped, "Promise me, before I die, that you will get Rosa away from this wretched place quick promise!" "I will, I will!" said the young girl, wiping the death-damp from her forehead. The grave closed over poor Mrs.
From the time that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have right to ask it of their fellow-mortals; no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt."
Mantel's footfall, quiet as it was, disturbed the sleeper, who moved, turned his head toward the sound and asked in a husky and but half-audible voice, "Who is there?" "It is I. How are you now? A little better?" said Mantel, laying his soft, cool hand upon the broad forehead, wet already with the death-damp. "I am getting weaker. It won't last long," he answered painfully. "Do you think so?"
"I saw where stark and cold he lay, Beneath the gallows-tree, And every one did point and say, ''Twas there he died for thee! "Oh! weeping heart! Oh! bleeding heart! What boots thy pity now? Bid from his eyes that shade depart, That death-damp from his brow!" So there was no more peace in the house of sickness except to Alice, the dying Alice.
He strove to swallow them, each time with the mechanical 'Thank you, so affecting when thus spoken; but at last he came to, 'It is of no use; I cannot. Then she knew all hope was gone, and sat still, watching him. The darkness lessened, and twilight came. He slept, but his breath grew short, and unequal; and as she wiped the moisture on his brow, she knew it was the death-damp.
With a few touches of the girl's quick hands, the covers of the bed were smooth, and the woman's eyes rested on the girl's own cloak. With her own handkerchief she brushed the death-damp from the forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her first touch, the woman's eyelids opened and dropped together again. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.
It was her hand that fanned him; that wiped the death-damp from his forehead; dropped the refreshing cordial on his tongue; held the mirror to his nostrils to ascertain if still, perchance, he breathed. The tides of the ocean had reached their farthest ebb and were setting towards the flood once more, bringing sweet and refreshing odors from the ever-heaving sea.
"Well, Vulture," said he on seeing Val, "do you smell the death-damp yet, that you're here? Is the putrefaction of my filthy old carcase on the wind yet? Here Lanty, you imp," he said turning his eyes on the ripe youth as he brought in a large jug of the "Boyne" in other words of St. Patrick's Well water "I say you you clip, do you smell the putrefaction of my filthy old carcase yet? eh?"
We stand upon our own grave, with our death fire, the sun, on our right hand, and our death-damp, the moon, on our left. The earth's center is no accident. It is the great individual pole of us who die. It is the center of the first dead body. It is the first germ-cell of death, which germ-cell threw out the great nuclei of the sun and the moon.
He slipped off his outer garments and wrapped them around her, and wiping off the rain-drops from her face drew her to his heart. But storm or shelter was all the same to her now, and the death-damp on her brow was colder than the pelting shower. He accused himself of her cruel murder and wildly prayed her forgiveness.
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