[The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens]@TWC D-Link bookThe Pickwick Papers CHAPTER VI 12/24
Oh! how the long-forgotten thoughts of former days rushed upon his mind, as he almost ran up and down the narrow yard--as if intelligence would arrive the sooner for his hurrying--and how bitterly a sense of his helplessness and desolation rushed upon him, when he heard the truth! His mother, the only parent he had ever known, lay ill--it might be, dying--within one mile of the ground he stood on; were he free and unfettered, a few minutes would place him by her side.
He rushed to the gate, and grasping the iron rails with the energy of desperation, shook it till it rang again, and threw himself against the thick wall as if to force a passage through the stone; but the strong building mocked his feeble efforts, and he beat his hands together and wept like a child. 'I bore the mother's forgiveness and blessing to her son in prison; and I carried the solemn assurance of repentance, and his fervent supplication for pardon, to her sick-bed.
I heard, with pity and compassion, the repentant man devise a thousand little plans for her comfort and support when he returned; but I knew that many months before he could reach his place of destination, his mother would be no longer of this world.
'He was removed by night.
A few weeks afterwards the poor woman's soul took its flight, I confidently hope, and solemnly believe, to a place of eternal happiness and rest.
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