Six days passed, then came more news.  The old couple were dying.  Richards’s mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess.  Burgess said: 

“Let the room be cleared.  I think he wishes to say something in privacy.”

“No!” said Richards; “I want witnesses.  I want you all to hear my confession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog.  I was clean —­artificially—­like the rest; and like the rest I fell when temptation came.  I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable sack.  Mr. Burgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in gratitude (and ignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me.  You know the thing that was charged against Burgess years ago.  My testimony, and mine alone, could have cleared him, and I was a coward and left him to suffer disgrace—­”

“No—­no—­Mr. Richards, you—­”

“My servant betrayed my secret to him—­”

“No one has betrayed anything to me—­”

—­“And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of the saving kindness which he had done me, and he exposed me—­as I deserved—­”

“Never!—­I make oath—­”

“Out of my heart I forgive him.”

Burgess’s impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man passed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a wrong.  The old wife died that night.

The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory.  Its mourning was not showy, but it was deep.

By act of the Legislature—­upon prayer and petition—­Hadleyburg was allowed to change its name to (never mind what—­I will not give it away), and leave one word out of the motto that for many generations had graced the town’s official seal.

It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.

MY FIRST LIE, AND HOW I GOT OUT OF IT

As I understand it, what you desire is information about ’my first lie, and how I got out of it.’  I was born in 1835; I am well along, and my memory is not as good as it was.  If you had asked about my first truth it would have been easier for me and kinder of you, for I remember that fairly well.  I remember it as if it were last week.  The family think it was week before, but that is flattery and probably has a selfish project back of it.  When a person has become seasoned by experience and has reached the age of sixty-four, which is the age of discretion, he likes a family compliment as well as ever, but he does not lose his head over it as in the old innocent days.

I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember my second one very well.  I was nine days old at the time, and had noticed that if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usual fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a most agreeable way and got a ration between meals besides.