After cooling a little, he called for
his servant, who had been in the habit of acting for him in the capacity
of second, and began, with his assistance, to make preparations for
to-morrow's battle.
CHAPTER VII.
Nothing now could exceed the sympathy which was felt for young Lamh
Laudher, yet except among his immediate friends, there was little
exertion made to prevent him from accelerating his own fate. So true
is it that public feeling scruples not to gratify its appetite for
excitement, even at the risk or actual cost of human life. His parents
and relations mourned him as if he had been already dead. The grief
of his mother had literally broken down her voice so much, that from
hoarseness, she was almost unintelligible. His aged father sat and wept
like a child; and it was in vain that any of their friends attempted to
console them. During the latter part of the day, every melancholy stroke
of the death bell pierced their hearts; the dead march, too, and the
black flag waving, as if in triumph over the lifeless body of their only
son, the principal support of their declining years, filled them with
a gloom and terror, which death, in its common shape, would not have
inspired. This savage pageant on the part, of the Dead Boxer, besides
being calculated to daunt the heart of any man who might accept his
challenge, was a cruel mockery of the solemnities of death.
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