MARGERY’S REVELATION--CONCLUSION.
The aged earl, when he had come to a realizing sense of the horror of
the situation, sank back with a groan of the deepest, bitterest agony,
and covered his face with his hands as though to shut from his sight the
terrible thing before him.
And then arose the voice of the pirate, coarse, brutal and cruel, even
though the hand of death lay heavily upon him.
“Oho! my dear grandpapa! You will have a happy thought--a beautiful,
blissful memory--through the remnant of your life. Your own hand took
your grandson’s life!”
“Oh, Heaven have mercy!” the stricken old man groaned. “It needed but
this to fill the cup of my misery to the brim!”
“Aye,” pursued the wretch, with a withering sneer, “and you killed me to
save the beggarly life of a smuggler’s brat! Oho! may the memory give
you joy! Oh, I am burning up!”
“Dear, dear grandpa!” Cordelia exclaimed, hastening to her guardian’s
side and winding her arms about his neck. “Oh, do not notice him. Look
to us who love you, and who--”
“Love one another!” Oakleigh broke in, madly. “Oho! Aha, old man! what
did I tell you? A thousand guineas to a pewter sixpence you give your
consent yet to the marriage of the baronet’s daughter with the spawn of
the--oh, how it burns!”
The priest, a man whom Oakleigh had been able to buy, after confession
to him who and what he was, proved to be a handy surgeon, and he at once
proceeded to examine the wound. It was in the left side, toward the
breast and near the heart, and it was very quickly pronounced fatal,
though the clerical leech said the patient might live several hours. If
he was to be moved, the sooner it was done the better.
“Let me die at the castle,” said the wounded man. “If I am to live for
hours, let my good, kind grandfather be blessed with the sight of his
handiwork!”
At this point Percy and Cordelia, who had found opportunity for a word
together--she had sprung to him at the very first, in the fullness of
her heart, to bless him for having come to save her. “Oh,” she had
cried, “I knew you would come!”--these two came to the old man’s aid and
led him away.
“The man is mad,” said Maitland. “You shall not suffer the cruel torture
more.”
“Come, dear grandpa! Come with us.”
They led him to the entrance, where he promised to go with his darling,
after which Percy returned and attended to the arrangements for moving
the wounded man; but he finally gave the work into the hands of old
Michael, the priest having promised to accompany them to the castle.
Meantime Mr. Tisdale, with two of his men, had gone on to the outer
cave, toward the face of the slope, where he was just in season to meet
others of his men, who informed him that they had captured ten of the
pirate crew outside. And this completed the work. They believed they had
taken all who had left the brig.
Under these circumstances, as the constable could not be wanted at the
castle, he returned to the cave with a few of his men and took in charge
all the prisoners, saving only the wounded chief; and while the servants
of the earl conveyed him forth, by way of the old chapel, he and his
force would take the others down over the slope of the crag, outside.
On their way through the long and devious subterranean passage Matthew
Brandon did not once open his lips; but when they had reached the
chapel, and he saw our hero start to move the altar back against the
wall, thus uncovering the secret pass, he burst forth, though weakly:
“Oho! So it’s you? Viper! You have found the secret. Oh, may the fiends
of--” He stopped, with a shoot of pain in his side, and was forced to
hold his tongue for a time.
Cordelia was strongly tempted to tell him that the sight of himself, one
stormy evening, entering the chapel, and disappearing beneath the altar,
had led to the discovery. But Percy told him the same later, and he
confessed that he had come in on that night wearing a monk’s robe.
And then in astonishment Percy looked at what had never before attracted
his attention. In profile the face of Lord Oakleigh was an exact pattern
of what Hugh Maitland’s face had been.
Sure, it was curious; and yet not at all wonderful that he had not
before noticed it. With the full beard of Ralph Tryon on his face, his
profile was hidden; while with the face of Matthew Brandon he had not
been familiar. On that stormy evening he had not worn his beard nor his
wig.
A very good litter had been found in the chamber beneath the chapel, and
on this the wounded man was placed and so conveyed to the castle. And
there a new surprise awaited them.
Standing in the court in company with old Donald Rodney was Margery
Maitland, looking pale and wan--not the Margery of the olden time. In
truth she looked like a woman not long for this lower life.
Percy, when he saw her, felt his heart bound with a thrill of
regret--almost of remorse.
Had his forsaking her caused this sad change? He could not believe it.
She had never loved him deeply enough for that. Yet he hastened to her
and put forth his hands.
“Mother! Oh, why are you--”
“Hush, boy! You know not to whom you speak. Where is the other--Ralph
Tryon? Where is he?”
“Mother! Oh, did you know? Of course you did. There he is,
wounded--dying.”
“Dying! dying, did you say?”
“Yes. He was shot in the flurry of capture.”
“Shot in attempting your life, was he not?”
“You are right. Whoever told you, told the truth.”
“Nobody told me, boy. My own instinct so impressed me. Ah, he is on
yonder litter! Oh, this is judgment! This is the vengeance of heaven!
Matthew Brandon!” going to the side of the litter, “your hand was not
red enough with pirating, but you must steal defenseless girls away from
their homes!--Oh, boy! boy--your crimes have found you at length!”
“How now, beldam! What do ye here?” cried the wounded man. Presently,
with a fiendish gleam in his eye, he added: “Oh, Margery, give yonder
old man joy! His hand it was that shot me down! aye! he shot me to save
the life of the smuggler’s spawn! What d’ye think of it?”
“Was it the earl’s hand that did it?”
“Aye, verily.”
“And to save--”
“The smuggler’s brat! the spawn of an outlaw!” the wretch broke in upon
her.
“Fool! Fool! How long can he live?” she suddenly asked, turning from the
litter to the priest, who stood nearest.
“Not many hours.”
“Then carry him in, and I must go with him. I have that to say which he
must hear.”
“Ho! ho! Will ye tell them how ye tried to do the very work they shot me
for attempting, Margery?”
“Yes, I’ll tell with all my heart. Don’t think I fear.”
“Don’t let her come! Don’t let her come!” the fallen chieftain howled.
And he tried to speak further, but his strength failed him and pain
overcame him.
Something in the woman’s look, in her manner, and in the sound of her
voice attracted the earl’s attention and interested him, and he
determined that she should have her way.
At any rate it should be as Percy said, and so he told her. And she
besought her son to suffer her to go in with them, and he could not find
it in his heart to refuse her.
They bore the litter to the foot of the steps of the main vestibule, and
thence took the wounded man in their arms.
They carried him into the great hall and into the principal
drawing-room,--took him in there because there was in the apartment the
largest and softest sofa in the castle, and upon that sofa they laid
him, and then brought pillows for his head and pillows for his
shoulders.
The pseudo-priest, really a surgeon, having found a suitable instrument
for a probe, thought to find the location of the bullet, but the pain he
caused was so great, with a threatened flow of blood, that he desisted,
deciding at once, with perfect assurance, that it could do no good to
find the missile and might hasten the fatal end.
“How long do you give me to live?” the patient asked, when he had
recovered from the pain that had been given him by the probe.
“You may live an hour; you may live longer, and you may not live so
long.”
“Oh! Aha! ha! ha! Where’s the earl? Ha! old man! Don’t forget the joy
that is to be yours in the memory of this day’s work! Say--did you love
my father?”
“Oh, boy! boy! Why were you not like him?”
“Ha! He was a saint, was he? Well, if I should chance to meet him in the
great hereafter--and who shall say what may happen?--I may meet him, you
know. If I do, be sure I’ll tell him who shot me. Aye, and I’ll tell him
for why his own father shot his boy. It was to prevent him from dealing
out justice to a traitor! Ay!” the pirate shouted in a sudden outburst
of fury and mad passion, “where is the traitor?--the low-lived,
false-hearted spawn of a low-lived, outlawed smuggler. Where is he? Ho!
Earl of Allerdale, will ye mate your fair ward with the--”
“Hush!--Poor fool! You know not what you say.” So spake Margery
Maitland, advancing to the mad man’s side, and laying her hand over his
mouth. She saw that his own weakness would keep him quiet for a time;
and she brought a chair and sat near him.
And so she sat for a full minute, and during that time the only sound
that broke the air was the stertorous breathing of the wounded man. At
length she raised her head and looked around, her eyes presently resting
upon our hero.
“Percy,” she said, her voice low and tremulous. “I have but little to
say, especially to you. I did--I did, with my own hands attempt your
life! I offered you the death which another had prepared--you know
him--let us call him Ralph Tryon. No, I’ll call him by his true name--”
At this point the man to whom she had thus alluded offered to interrupt
her, as he did several times later; but his weakness and his pain held
him quiet.
“Matthew Brandon is his name. He had gained a hold upon me, and he knew
it. As you are aware, he made the acquaintance of my husband little more
than a year before his death; and he sailed with him in three or four
trips to France--sailed thus while they at the castle thought him safely
at Oxford at school. You know how, at length, he joined the brig and
finally took command, having taken another name, together with a
disguise so cunningly contrived that no one could detect or mistrust it.
So he came to the command, and he contrived to keep the momentous secret
safe. He worked upon me. He sought my confidence. He flattered me. He
appeared to be kind to me. You will wonder how it could be. That I will
explain by and by.
“Percy, not long ago he came to me and solemnly swore that you had
entered into an agreement with the officers of the law to deliver up--to
betray--himself and the brig and the whole crew into their hands. At
first I refused to believe it, but he swore so solemnly and I saw you
coming here, and I knew how your heart was not with us--that finally, I
came to accept it as a fact, and then I felt bitter toward you. What
would become of me, if the smuggling was stopped? And so, when he
brought to me the wine, and bade me to give it to you, swearing that if
I did not he would clear out and never look upon me again,--then I
yielded.
“Oh, Percy! On that morning when you went away--when you blessed me and
left me--then, Percy, my eyes were opened, and I felt in my heart what
you had become to me. I felt then all the difference between you and
him; and I sat down and wept--wept as I had not wept before since my own
Hugh left me. After that I saw Matthew Brandon again, and he had the
face to ask me to help him get Lady Cordelia Chester away from the
castle, that he might marry her. If he had asked me that six months ago
I might have listened; but other feelings had come to me. I told him no;
and I told him further, if he persisted in the purpose evil would come
of it; but he laughed at me, and went his way. This morning I saw Donald
Rodney, and asked him what was being done; and when he knew how I
felt--when he had seen the desire of my heart--he told me all; and then
I persuaded him to come up here with me, being sure that Brandon would
be taken.
“I will say nothing about his piracy, only I assure you that I fought
against it as long as I could, feeling sure that it could end but in one
way. But he was headstrong, and he conquered. Percy, do you believe me?”
“Yes, mother, with all my heart.”
Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes, but she put them back; and again there
was silence, the significant breathing of the sufferer on the sofa
becoming more and more weak and labored. By and by she looked up again,
this time turning to the earl. She gazed upon him for a few moments,
evidently in deep thought, and at length spoke.
“Lord Allerdale, please do not interrupt me. I have a strange story to
tell to you--one that I think will interest you. Will you let me tell it
in my own way?” She paused for a little time, looking at him curiously,
and then glancing toward the sofa, and, anon, toward where Percy and
Cordelia sat near together. Finally she went on:
“My lord, you have not forgotten when I was a servant in your family.
Ten years--from the age of twelve to two-and-twenty--I was a member of
your household. I see that you remember.
“You remember too, that when your son George, then Lord Oakleigh,
brought his young and beautiful wife home I was detailed to wait upon
her, and I became, after a time, her especial servant. I had no other
duties but to wait on her. She was kind; and she was, in her own way,
just, but she was proud, and a strict observer of what she deemed the
proprieties of life.
“I had served Lady Oakleigh not quite a year when she discovered that I
was soon to become a mother. She asked me who was my husband. At first I
hesitated, and she misunderstood me; and finally, when I told her that I
had been lawfully married to Hugh Maitland, she would not believe me.
“But that was not all. She broke out into a harsh and bitter
denunciation of my lover, as she called him. He was a smuggler and an
outlaw, liable at any time to be gibbeted; and she would suffer me no
longer to remain in her service. She cast me out, coldly, and, I felt,
cruelly.
“You, my lord, were away at the time, traveling on the continent. Had
you been here I should have appealed to you, and I believe you would
have taken pity on me, but there was no pity in the bosom of my lady;
and her husband would not have crossed her for his life; for she, too,
was about to become a mother.
“And now, my lord, a curious thing happened. When I had been turned
away, my lady, being so near to her motherhood, wanted a wet nurse in my
place, and she found one; and who do you think it was?
“My own sister!--the only relative of blood I had in the world. She was
a widow; her husband dead only a few months; and was living in Burton.
Huldah--that was her name--Huldah came; and the mistress liked her. She
was plump, and strong, and healthy, with rosy cheeks and bright black
eyes.
“She was obedient, and meant to do her duty; but she was indignant at
the way in which I had been treated; and, to make the matter worse, Lady
Oakleigh so far forgot herself as to denounce me and terribly abuse my
husband. It so happened that Hugh was a favorite with Huldah; and when
she heard her lady so berate him she was very angry.
“And now, my lord, you may be able to understand what followed. It was
evident that her ladyship and I would become mothers at very nearly the
same time; and my sister joined me willingly in a plot not only for
vengeance, but for placing a child of our blood on the way to rank and
station. If the children should happen to be of the same sex there would
not be much trouble.
“Do you ask me if I had not a mother’s heart of love for her own
offspring? I answer you--by the plan we proposed I should be near my
child all my life. Should it be a boy, which I was sure it would be, I
should find real joy and pride in seeing him grow up, rich, proud,
noble, and honored. But, oh, heavens! what a fall of all my glowing
anticipations have I found in the reality!
“My lord, everything happened to help on our plan. The children were
born within six hours of each other and were both boys. My child was
born in your woodman’s cottage, just in the edge of the walnut grove, at
six o’clock in the evening, Lady Oakleigh’s six hours later.
“The old physician left me and went to her. He left the castle at two
o’clock; and the only human being who had fairly examined the infant was
the nurse, Huldah.
“An hour later, my lord, when the nurse had got rid of the last
hanger-on, and her ladyship had gone to sleep under the influence of an
opiate, Huldah took the infant in her arms, wrapped snugly in warm
blankets, and brought it to me; and she carried my child--the child of
Hugh Maitland and Margery his wife--back to the castle, back to the arms
of Lady Oakleigh; and the cheat was not discovered--was never
mistrusted.
“When the daylight came, those who saw the infant nestling in the
nurse’s arms, or resting on her ladyship’s bosom, wondered where it got
such black eyes and such black hair; but it was a fine, healthy child,
and they were proud of it.
“Ah! my lord, it was a healthier, heavier child than was brought to me;
and I verily believe had Lady Oakleigh been permitted to keep her own
offspring, she would not have reared it to even early youth.
“The free air of our woodland cottage; the out-of-door sports; the
sailing; and the rough-and-tumble; and, above all else, the plain,
substantial food, gave health and strength and vigor; and he grew up as
pure and beautiful in mind as he was in body.
“I may remind you here that my husband--Hugh Maitland--smuggler though
he was, was a Christian gentleman; and from him the boy never received a
precept nor an example that was not good, setting aside, of course, the
one matter of his profession.
“And now, my lord, do you ask me why I did not love the child--the
beautiful boy--with all my heart? I will tell you.
“I was jealous of him! I had robbed him of rank, and wealth, and high,
brilliant life, and given, as I had fondly believed, those things to my
own son. But look at the result! I looked upon the boy under my roof,
and saw him all that Heaven itself could ask a perfect boy to be.
“Then I looked upon the boy to whom I had given every opportunity for
high and noble life, for wealth and luxury and power, and what did I
see? I looked upon the child of my own blood, in whose greatness I had
promised myself so much pride and joy, and what did I find? Alas! my
evil deed had recoiled upon myself. I saw my boy, him to whom I had
given all the world at the cost of my own soul, going down, down, down,
a poor worthless stick! Had I kept him to myself and thrown him at an
early age upon his own resources for a livelihood, he might have been
different. But I can not complain.
“Percy! Percy!” turning to the half-stupefied youth, with tears starting
down her shrunken cheeks. “On that morning when you blessed me--when,
after I had raised my hand against your life, and you knew it, you asked
God to give me blessing, now and ever more--in that hour, Percy, I
resolved that you should be restored to your rights; that, so far as I
could effect it, you should, for the time to come, enjoy the rank and
wealth that is lawfully your own.
“I can not speak more. Yet--one word--Oh, my lord!--Lord Allerdale! look
upon this boy--look into his face--and tell me what you see. Oh, how
have you been so blind? He is his own father over again! Do you not see?
Ah, your heart has told you! You have loved him, even when you thought
him the smuggler’s child.”
“Percy! Oh, I will always call you so! Can you doubt the truth of this?”
So asked the old earl, holding the handsome youth by the shoulders and
gazing eagerly, through bright tear-drops, into his face.
“My lord,” Percy answered, trembling at every joint, “how can I doubt
it? I do certainly believe it true.”
“Doubt!--Believe!” cried Margery, springing to her feet with arm
outstretched. “Look at that face--the face on those pillows! Oh, Heaven,
have mercy! Is it not my own face made masculine, and hardened and
brutalized? Your face, boy, is the face of your father. Had it been your
mother’s, I do not think I should have endured you. Forgive me! I will
say no more.”
At this point the pirate chief, who had been thus far held in check by
the surgeon, started to a sitting posture, with fury in his face and a
literal flame in his sunken eyes. He raised his maimed right hand toward
Margery, and his lips moved. He gasped, and flecks of foam started out,
but he did not speak. Another effort resulted in a low gurgling howl,
and he sank back on his pillows--dead.
Margery stood for a time at the sofa side and gazed down upon the swart,
dead face. By and by she turned toward the earl.
“Lord Allerdale,” she said, with a steady, earnest look into his
watchful eyes, “I will tell you how you can prove to me your undoubting
faith in the story I have told you. Give to the men whom I shall send,
this body, and allow me to bury it by the side of the grave wherein I
laid the mortal remains of his father. Will you do it?”
The earl looked at the stark form on the sofa and shuddered. The sight
was a horror to him. Then he turned and looked upon the other--the truly
noble, handsome, gallant lad, who had already, against heavy odds, found
the way to his heart.
A single moment he gazed upon that face--Oh, so like the face of his
dead son--and then he turned back to the woman.
“Yes! yes! Take it, for I know it is yours! And may the Father of us
all, in His infinite mercy, give you peace and comfort for the remainder
of your life! Heaven bless you, Margery, for the restitution you have
this day made!”
“I am glad I have made it. I feel better--I feel less of unhappiness
than I have felt for years. The gain is mine as well as yours. Percy
could have been never any more to me, while to you he will be a new joy,
a new life.”
“And now, my lord, before I leave you, I have an earnest petition to
offer. There are, of the brig’s crew, a full score of men--I think
two-and-twenty of them--at all events, Percy can give you their names.”
“I know them,” said the young man, as she hesitated and glanced toward
him.
“They are men, my lord,” she went on, “who never willingly committed
crime. I have to beseech you, that when you come to lift the sword of
justice against the pirates, these men may be spared. They--”
“My good Margery,” interrupted the earl, with a benignant, happy look on
his aged face, “I am pleased to tell you that the promise you ask I have
already given to another. The only consideration on which Percy would at
first agree to assist me in capturing the chief of the pirates was that
I would give free passage, whithersoever they would go, to the men of
whom you have spoken. Rest you easy, for I give you my word, not one of
them--not one, in short, who can prove that he possesses your avouchment
for his character--shall be molested.”
Margery bowed low as she thanked him; then turned and left the room.
Percy followed her out, but she had nothing more to say to him.
“Go back, boy, to those who have a right to your love and your care.
Yes, Percy, you are indeed and in truth that old man’s grandson. Go back
to him, and let your love make some little return of joy to him for the
many, many hours of pain and grief my sin has cost him.”
The youth murmured a fervent blessing upon her, and left her. She found
old Donald in the hall, and with him she returned to her cottage.
An hour later four stout men, with a written order from her hand,
appeared at the castle for the body of Ralph Maitland. That was the name
which the mother had written.
It was delivered to them, and they bore it away; and the whole castle,
in every part, and the whole household, seemed brighter and better when
it was gone.
With the coming of evening a calm and tranquil joy had settled upon the
household of the castle; for there was not a servant on the broad estate
who did not heartily rejoice in the knowledge that the brave and
handsome youth, whom they had so long esteemed and loved for himself
alone, was indeed and in truth their young lord and master.
“Ah,” said the old earl, later in the evening, as he took the hand of
his beautiful ward and gave it into the loving grasp of his grandson,
“If your parents are permitted to look down from the celestial abode,
and can behold the things we do here on earth, I believe, in my deepest
heart, they will bless me for that which now I do!”
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note
Silently corrected typographical errors and inconsistencies; retained
non-standard spelling.
Italic text in the original is delimited by _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Smuggler of King's Cove, by Sylvanus Cobb