"Oh God! how changed my nature with all this!
I, that had been all love and tenderness--
The truest and most gentle heart till now
That ever beat--grew suddenly a devil!"
_Lord Ivan and his Daughter._
What pen can portray, what language describe the feelings of the haughty
Lester, as he rode at furious speed towards Castle More? He could
neither think nor reflect! His thoughts were confused and tempestuous.
He could not realize that he had actually listened to the accursed tale
with his own ears. He felt rather as if he had passed through some
dreadful dream, and the idea flashed on his mind that she had thrown a
dark spell upon his senses, and that the whole was an illusion, and
altogether the result of her art.
By degrees his thoughts became more settled and run in a direct channel.
He checked his headlong speed and began to reflect: to recall, word by
word, the narrative of Elpsy; weigh each sentence; match fact with fact;
each circumstance with its fellow; and trace the unbroken thread to the
last damning proof. The result was irresistible. A thousand
circumstances to corroborate the tale of infamy rose like phantoms to
his shrinking memory.
He remembered how, in childhood, a neighbouring baron, who had been out
against the insurgents, playfully laid his hand upon his head, and told
him he looked so much like Hurtel of the Red-Hand that he must take good
care, when he became a man, he did not lose his head for the likeness:
he remembered, too, how his childish spirit took fire at the similitude,
and that he resented the insult with a blow! He further called to mind
how, later in life, the more aged country people, in passing him, would
shake their heads significantly; and often the whispered words, "Hurtel
of the Red-Hand," would reach his ears. He recollected, also, how Lady
Lester (alas! no longer, if this tale were proved true, to be regarded
as his mother, yet whom he had loved hitherto with the intensest filial
affection) had reproved him in his angry moods, and forbade him to frown
so like Hurtel of the Red-Hand. He called to mind, too, how that, in
childhood (unthought of again till too faithful memory brought it back),
it had more than once reached his ears through the menials, that Lady
Lester, in her youthful days, had been made a prisoner in some old
castle by a rebel chief; and he could remember he had listened with
childish interest to its recital as to a tale of enchanted castles and
cruel giants. _Now_ he could invest it with a too vivid reality! He had
heard, also, he knew not how, and what, at the time, left no distinct
impression on his mind, a scandal which said that Lady Lester did
penance for unfaithfulness in her early marriage days: this cottage
gossip he could now easily trace to her imprisonment by--could he speak
it?--_his father!_ He, too, had been twice called by spirited peasants,
who, on certain occasions, had resented his arbitrary will--a _bastard_!
All these things rushed to his mind. There was something in it beyond
mere idle gossip--something independent of mere accident! The tale he
had listened to was to him a key to the whole. The inference was
overpowering! It was as plain to his mind as the noonday sun, that the
story he had heard from the lips of Elpsy was founded in truth.
"'Tis true! 'tis _true_! 'tis TRUE!" he groaned, covering his face with
his hands.
Oh, was not this an appalling and harrowing reflection for a proud
spirit like his? Was it not a bitter, bitter cup that was presented to
his lips? Alas, how cruelly barbed and how skilfully directed--how
fatally sent, was the shaft of inexorable fate! It pierced the spot
where alone it could penetrate; where its wound would be deepest, and
the smart the keenest. Struck down from its high seat to the very ground
was that pride of birth which constituted the basis of his character;
and withered, dead, bruised in the dust lay the haughtiness of spirit,
which, springing from that soil, had flourished like the green bay-tree.
"Not only lowborn--I could bear that, I could bear that! but, oh God! a
_bastard_! Mercy! mercy! mercy!"
He hid his face as he gave utterance to these words, and sobbed audibly.
He gave way for a few moments to the full tide of his strong and
afflicting grief in the most agonizing manner! His soul was rent! his
heart was broken! and, altogether, he presented a picture of moral
desolation and mental wretchedness that was appalling to contemplate.
What thoughts must then have passed through his mind and wrung his proud
soul! The reflection that he must abandon all his plans and hopes as
Lord of Lester; take leave of the luxuries to which he had been
accustomed; descend from the rank of a noble to that of a peasant; be
called "fellow" by the lowest hind; bear the scorn of the highborn and
the jeers of the low; and, most of all, that he must for ever abandon,
without hope, the love of Kate Bellamont, filled him with wo such as the
heart of man hath seldom known.
"And need I forfeit all these?" he exclaimed, suddenly checking the
current of his grief, his features lighting up at the same time with
guilty exultation, and assuming an expression of deep determination;
"need I make this sacrifice? May I not still be Lord of Lester?" he
cried, rising in his stirrups and almost shouting with the force of his
thoughts. "Ay, and _will I_! Ay, and _will I_! 'Tis but to silence,
either with gold or true steel, this beldame, who is the sole depositary
of the secret of my birth!"
For a moment after giving utterance to this guilty idea he rode silently
along; his honourable nature and his inflexible pride both having
instantly risen at the criminal suggestion, and revolted at a deception
so vast. But there were two strong motives which threatened to weigh
down these better promptings, though honour pointed to the course he
should alone pursue. He could not bear--his proud spirit could never
brook, that the despised fisher's lad--the humble, low-nurtured
peasant--for such he was, notwithstanding his noble birth, should stand
in his place, and _he_ himself--oh, it was madness to think of it--sink
into the fisher's boy!
"No! perish honour--perish truth--perish all that is noble or virtuous
in my nature first!" he cried, with the reckless decision of one who has
resolved to sustain wrong at the expense of right.
There was a second motive, the love of Kate Bellamont! Should he resign
her for ever? Could he endure the scornful disdain with which he
believed she would regard him? Above all, could he bear to have the
handsome fisher's lad, whom he already looked upon, in some sort, in the
light of a rival, sue successfully as Lord of Lester for her hand? Could
he endure all this and be human? Could he resign all to become what he
dared not contemplate, and live?
"No!" he cried, vehemently, "away with all justice and truth! let my
heart be wrapped in a mesh of falsehoods first! But need there be
falsehood? Silence, _silence_ will effect it. Is there injustice when
the victim is ignorant of his rights?" he asked, mentally, as if he were
arguing with his own soul. "Yes, most foul! and silence will be a living
tongue to torture me--a never-ending falsehood to degrade--and will cast
over the soul a night that can never know a dawn! Shall I incur this
load of guilt? Will what I gain by the purchase repay me for the
sacrifice of truth and honesty? Shall I not even be happier, ay, and
more noble, as the poor fisher's lad, having done justice, than as Lord
of Lester and Castle More, convicted at my soul's tribunal of guilt, and
knowing who and what I am?"
Such was the train of reasoning that insensibly passed through his mind,
and to which he gave utterance at this extraordinary crisis of his fate,
and which promised to overthrow his former criminal resolutions.
"But should I do as my better nature prompts," he continued, after
galloping forward a few moments, reining up and pursuing his former
train of reasoning, "I need not be compelled to take the place of this
Lester in his fishing hut, nor need I to remain within the atmosphere of
Castle More, to meet the scorn of the noble, the insults of the lowborn.
The world is all before me; I have a ready spirit, and a hand to sustain
it, and can carve my own way through it; and with honour, too! Ay, I may
yet win a name with the noblest born!"
Suddenly in the midst of this expression of his laudable and honourable
purpose he stopped; a gleam of terrible fire shot from his eyes, while
his face glowed with crimson shame.
"Ha, ha, ha! _honour!_ Ha, ha, ha! a _name_! I had forgot," he repeated,
with an accent bitter, sarcastic, and scornful beyond expression, yet
with a wretched look of hopeless despair and misery; "what has a bastard
to do with _honour_? What is it to him? I had forgotten I was more than
lowborn! I'faith, 'twas well thought of! So all my lofty feelings go for
nothing." His manner now changed, and his voice rang with passion. "What
have _I_ to do with lofty aspirations, with honour, or a name among men?
Am I not branded with infamy? infamous by birth; attainted by my
father's--yes, for I will acknowledge him--_my father's_ blood! base
through my mother's! What have I to do with honour? 'Tis not for me. I
know it not. Henceforward I will forget its sound and meaning. What have
I to do with honour? Ha, ha, ha! A name? Yes, I will win a _name_; I
will show myself the true son of Hurtel of the Red-Hand. He shall not be
ashamed of his blood. No, no! I will win a name that, be he on earth or
in hell, shall make him smile and own me as bone of his bone and flesh
of his flesh."
The scornful energy, fierceness of spirit, and stern determination with
which this guilty resolution was spoken, showed that at a single blow
was crushed all pride of character; that the highborn loftiness of
spirit in which he had been educated had fallen, and that honour was
forever shipwrecked. He felt himself, in anticipation, already an
outcast from the world; a shunned and despised alien; an object of the
scorn and pity of mankind. And such he was. He felt it to his heart's
core. Eventually, perhaps, he might have forgiven the lowness of his
birth, and risen superior to this contingency; but he could not forget
its illegitimacy. What had a bastard to do among men! What had he to do
with the love of highborn maidens? What was to him the luxuries, the
pleasures, the social joys of life? Nothing. The honours of earth were
not for him; "a bastard shall not enter even into the kingdom of
heaven." Who, then, shall condemn the resolution of a proud youth like
Lester, without due cultivation of the moral sense; unrestrained by
religious principle, and thinking, feeling only as a man? Who shall
judge and not pity? Who shall censure and not sympathize with him in his
terrible human trial, and regard with charity even the darkest
aberrations from morality and virtue to which it might lead him;
remembering that he had the moral heroism and godlike virtue to resolve
to become his own executioner; the voluntary herald of the sentence that
should cut him off from rank, title, wealth, yea, love, and brand him as
an exile from his species?
Notwithstanding the array of proofs to substantiate the narrative of
Elpsy; notwithstanding the irresistible connexion existing in his own
mind in support of its truth, yet there lingered in his heart a faint
hope that it might not be as he believed. It became so dreadful when
calmly contemplated, that he began to conceive that it was impossible
for it to be true. There was but one way of confirming it, viz., to
confront Lady Lester, and learn from her lips the truth of what Elpsy
had related in reference to herself. If it should prove correct, then he
resolved finally to decide on the method he should pursue. Gathering up
the reins and pressing his armed heels into his horse's flanks as he
came to this determination, he said, as he dashed forward to Cattle
More, the towers of which were now full in sight,
"From her lips--Lady Lester's (if I may not call her mother), will I
have corroboration of this foul witch's words. Fly, my good horse; we
will soon learn whether thou and I are to part! But, if it must be so,
no other shall back thee after me, my faithful animal; my own hand shall
slay thee first!"
The fleet hunter brought him in a few moments to the gate that led into
the courtyard surrounding Castle More. At the sound of his approach it
flew wide open, and, as he passed through, the porter removed his cap
and bent low with servile respect.
"Ay," he muttered, "'tis so _now_! but he will be the first to scoff
with a high head, and turn the key upon my back, when it shall be noised
abroad that Robert of Lester is the brat of a peasant--the left-handed
offspring of Hurtel of the Red-Hand!"
He threw himself from his horse, and cast his bridle to his groom,
giving him orders to hold him in readiness for him to remount at any
moment, and entered beneath the lofty arch of the castle, over which
were elaborately sculptured in stone the ancient arms of Lester. He
rapidly mounted the spacious stairs to a large and lofty hall, hung with
armour, and adorned with figures of mailed warriors, ancestors of that
warlike house. From childhood he had looked upon these with awe and
pride. Now he curled his lip with haughty despair, and strode past them
with a bitter smile. At its farther extremity he tapped lightly at a
door, partly concealed by tapestry of velvet fringed with gold, and
adorned with needlework representing figures and scenes of a scriptural
character. He was commanded to enter. With a beating heart, and choking
with the anticipated confirmation of what left scarce room for a doubt,
and which he had already begun to contemplate as if there were _no_
question of its truth, he obeyed.
The room into which he was admitted occupied a small octagonal wing of
the building, and from its single Gothic window commanded a prospect of
the mere below, the distant forest, and a blue, wavy line of hills
skirting the northern horizon. It appeared to be used partly as a
boudoir and library, partly as a chapel: a small altar; a marble font
containing water; a crucifix at one end, with two lighted wax tapers
burning before it, appertaining to it in its more sacred character. It
was hung with brown silk tapestry, on which was worked, in yellow silk,
the history of the martyrdoms of the apostles. Immediately about the
altar the hangings were of black velvet, giving that part of the room a
religious and gloomy character. A rich, but soft, light poured in
through the stained glass of the window, and shed a pleasing glow over
all.
Near the window, working with her needle flowers of gold on an
altar-piece of snow white satin, sat the mistress of Castle More--"the
Dark Lady of the Rock!" She was of a tall and stately figure, with an
innate air of high birth and breeding: her features were strikingly
noble, and still bore traces of eminent beauty. Her eyes were black and
piercing; and her brows very dark and thick, yet not masculine, but
giving rather softness and intellect to the expression of the eyes. Her
hair was jet black, and confined beneath a close nun's cap, and her
complexion was deep brown, which, with the general dark tinge of her
face and features, had got for her from the peasants the appellation by
which among them she was more commonly designated. The lustre of her
fine eyes had given place to a melancholy hue; and the smile, which in
youth had fascinated the gallant Lord of Lester, was sad and pensive.
Calmness, gentle resignation, and devotion were now the characteristics
of her countenance. She was evidently one who regarded this world as the
path to that of a happier, and looked to that happier for the enjoyment
which, without her deceased lord, she could not find in this. Twelve
years had passed since the news was brought her that he had fallen
before the walls of Saragossa, breathing her name in his last sigh. From
that hour she seldom had been seen to smile; but, shunning all
intercourse with those around her, she communed only with her priest and
her God.
"I thought I knew the footfall of your horse, Robert, but did not expect
you so soon," she said, in a quiet, subdued tone; "there is a quarter of
an hour yet to sunset, and you seldom return from Castle Cor till it is
very late. And Kate's birthday, too! How is this?"
She knotted her thread as she spoke, and looked up, showing a
countenance chastened by widowed sorrow, and wearing, as she gazed upon
him, a kindly look, rather than a smile, of welcome. The troubled
expression of his features; his flushed brow; his excited manner, and
nervous tread as he crossed the floor to the window, struck her with
surprise and alarm.
"What has happened, Robert? your feelings are wounded, I fear. Come and
tell me what that saucy maiden, Kate Bellamont, has been saying to give
you such uneasiness."
This was spoken with maternal affection, and an approach to playfulness
of manner.
The young man stood by the window and gazed down into the placid mere,
fixing his eyes vacantly on a fleet of stately swans that sailed on its
glassy breast, and remained silent. He knew not how to commence the
subject--he knew not what to say!
"Robert, my son," she said, affectionately attempting to take his hand,
"something has gone wrong with you to-day; make a confidant of your
mother!"
"Would to God thou _wert my mother_!" he cried, almost suffocating.
"Thy mother, Robert! what do these words mean?"
"That my future happiness and misery depend on your lips," he replied,
turning towards her and grasping her hands with strong emotion.
"Explain!" she said, alarmed and deeply moved by the distress and
earnestness of his manner.
"Did you ever--(sustain me, Heaven, at this moment," he gasped) "ever,
face to face, meet Hurtel of the Red-Hand?"
"Robert, what motive, so terrible in its effect on your mind, can have
led you to ask this?"
"Answer me, my mother--speak, Lady Lester!"
"Yes!" and she shuddered, as if some painful incident of the past seemed
to press upon her memory.
"Where? Speak, and tell me truly, if you love me!" he eloquently
entreated.
"Heaven and the blessed saints preserve you, my son! 'Tis a sad story!
Why would you seek to know this now? Be calm; you are ill--very ill!"
"No, I am not. Answer me--_where_?"
"He took me prisoner, and bore me on horse-back--"
"Whither?" he cried, impatiently interrupting her.
"To his tower."
"And, ere thy husband rescued thee, I was born there?"
"Yes. But how heard you this? I knew not that it was known to you,
though I had no motive, surely, in keeping the knowledge of it from
you," she said, with surprise. "Is it this, then, that has so strangely
excited you, my son?"
"Who attended on thee at that crisis?"
"Robert--boy!"
"Answer me, Lady Lester, I conjure thee! in the presence of this holy
symbol of our religion!" he added, with stern solemnity, taking a small
diamond crucifix from her worktable and holding it up before her.
"A pale young woman: I fear me, a leman of that evil man."
"Was she a mother?"
"Who has taught thee to put such questions as these, young man?" she
said, with something of severity in her voice.
"Answer me, Lady Lester, I pray thee!"
"She had an infant of three days' old."
"Was it with her in thy room ere thou becamest a mother?"
"It was."
"Did you see it?"
"No; she kept it swathed up, as if from shame."
"Who first gave your infant to your arms?"
"No one. I had fainted, and, when I came to my senses, I found my babe
lying on the bed beside me; and," added the lady, with a mother's light
rekindling in her eyes, "with all a young mother's first love, I clasped
it to my bosom."
"And this woman and her child?"
"I never saw them more. That day my noble lord rescued me; and after he
had seen and kissed the babe, I remember he pleasantly said to those
around, 'In losing one I have gained two.' My poor, departed Lester!
Heaven be merciful to his soul!"
"And I am that babe?"
"Thou art, my son!" she said, affectionately.
"I am not!" he cried, fiercely.
"Not my son?"
"_Not thy son!_"
"What mean you, insolent boy?"
"In one word, I will tell thee. The guilty paramour of that woman having
resolved to put out of the world the living witness of the wrong he had
done her, threatened also her life when she refused to surrender it.
Prompted by the instinct of maternal love to save it, she laid it, while
thou wert in a state of insensibility, by thy side, and gave thine to
him, palming it off as her own, which, by this stratagem, was saved--and
still lives. _I am_ HE!"
"Robert of Lester!" cried the lady, rising up and fixing her piercing
eyes, bright with unwonted fire, upon his face, "mock me not; spare thy
mother's heart!"
"Before God I speak truly. I am _not_ thy son."
"Holy Virgin! Mercy, Heaven! mercy!" shrieked the lady, and fell nearly
lifeless into his arms.
For a few seconds there was a deep silence, like that of death,
throughout that little chamber. He had not anticipated this! Absorbed in
the contemplation of his own misery, he had not thought of the blow he
should inflict, by the disclosure of the dreadful secret, upon the mind
of Lady Lester. It suddenly occurred to him that there was yet a balm in
the existence of her true son which might heal the wound he had made.
Filial affection caused him immediately to address, and, by touching
this chord, endeavour to restore her once more to life and hope.
"Lady!" he said, in a hoarse tone, that--so deep were the feelings that
governed it--startled even himself.
"Ha! Robert! my son!" she cried, standing up and looking wildly in his
face; "what is this I have heard? Is it a dream--some terrific dream?"
"Thou hast not dreamed, lady," he said, sadly.
"No, I have not," she cried, with energy, and with the sudden return of
all her faculties; "no, I have heard thy lips deny me. Thou hast said I
am not thy mother--that thou art not my own child!"
"Do you remember the tale I have told you, lady?" he asked, calmly.
"Remember? each word is seared into my heart!"
"And do you believe me to be your son?"
"Believe? believe! I know not what to believe. What should I believe! I
believe thou art my own boy--mine, mine, _mine_!"
As she spoke she threw her arms with frantic wildness about his neck,
and hugged him convulsively to her bosom.
"Lady, 'tis vain to shut your eyes to the truth. I am not your son--but
your son lives!"
"He does, he does live, and I clasp him to my heart," she cried,
energetically, folding him closer to her bosom.
"Nay--"
"Nay--_nay_, but I _will_ hold thee! they shall not tear thee from me!
No, no! they must take my heart too, for its strings are bound all about
thee, and thou art tied too long and too strong to it by the thousand
chords of a mother's love to be parted from it now. Ha, ha! They shall
not part us! Shall they, boy?"
He looked up into her face and saw that her mind wandered; that reason
was falling from its throne!
"Mother!" he said, in tones of gentle persuasion: "mother!" and he
affectionately kissed her cheeks; "mother!" he repeated a third time, in
the most touching tones of filial love--"I am, I will be, your own dear
son!"
The softer feelings of her soul came back; all the mother rushed from
the heart to the eyes; and dissolved, melted by his appeal, she burst
into tears, and wept freely and long upon his shoulder.
At length she became composed; when, embracing his opportunity, though
he had been severely tempted in the interval to let it rest for ever, he
spoke again with cautious delicacy upon the fatal subject. She listened
in silence. She heard him with calmness as he went on and explained to
her the successive steps by which the exchange was effected, and
unfolded to her, link by link, the connected chain of the witch's
narrative. He convinced her--not of its probability, but of its
possibility. Collecting all her strength of mind, she tried to
contemplate the subject with composure. She succeeded: weighed it well,
in all its parts and bearings; nicely balanced each particle, and sifted
each doubtful circumstance. Suddenly she turned to him, and said
eagerly, and with an eye kindling with hope,
"It may not be so, Robert! She may, in the agitation of the moment, when
both were swathed, have caught up her own child!"
"At such a moment, above all, would a mother know her own!" he said,
firmly, but looking as if he would, if he dared, still cherish a hope.
"Yes, yes; and she must, too, have seen it afterward," she said, in a
tone of deep despondency. "But who told thee this fatal tale?" she
asked, quickly.
"Elpsy, the sorceress!"
"Ha!" exclaimed the lady, turning pale. "I fear, then, it is too true!
This fearful woman has knowledge of hidden and wondrous things through
her unholy art. Oh, God! that she had used it to a better end! But,
then, there may have been a mistake! Malice--her hatred of her species
may have caused her to give the facts this frightful turn! Dreadful
being! thus to loose, even by raising a doubt of thy birthright, my last
hold on earthly happiness, and wreck all my hopes in thee. Her face ever
has haunted me as if for evil! It seems to me as if I had seen it in the
dreams of my childhood. I know not how it is, but I never looked upon
her without presentiments of evil and vague sensations of suffering, as
if her very presence was associated with scenes of terror. Now are they
all, indeed, realized! But I will not give thee up, Robert, my son--my
own son!" she cried, frantically! "I will cling to the hope that the
fatal exchange was not made!"
He suffered her to embrace him again and again, and then, after a few
moments' silence, and speaking in an indifferent tone, he said,
"Lady Lester! Was thy noble husband of fair complexion?"
"No, dark as the Spaniard's, yet it was exceedingly rich to the eye with
its bright blood!" she said, with conjugal pride.
"Were his eyes blue?"
"Black as night, large and staglike, yet soft as a fawn's in the
gentleness of their expression--but terrible as the eagle's when
roused."
"Were his locks golden?"
"The plumage of the raven not more black and glossy!"
"Was he tall of stature and strongly-framed?"
"Scarce even as tall as thyself now; his frame was light and elegant,
but manly: to sum him up in all," she said, carried away by the prideful
recollections awakened by these allusions to him, "he was a statesman; a
patron of letters and the arts; a gallant knight, a brave soldier, and
an accomplished scholar: he was called the handsomest man of his time:
above all, he was a Christian!"
"_Am I like him?_" asked Lester, startling her with the depth of his
voice, and at once showing her the drift of his seemingly aimless
questions. "Is my stature slight? are these locks raven? are these eyes
black? is the hue of the Spaniard on my cheek?"
The lady shrunk from his words, covered her face with her hands, and
despairingly shook her head.
"Say," he added, with increasing energy, "is there the faintest
lineament in my face--a scarce perceptible cast of the eye--a bend of
the brow--a movement of the lip--a motion of arm or finger--aught in my
carriage, walk, or voice, that reminds thee of thy noble husband?"
"No, no, no! Stop, stop, you will kill me!"
"One word more! Answer me truly, Lady Lester, as you stand before
Heaven, have I not the same fair skin--the same light flowing hair--the
same blue eyes--the stature, the very voice--ay, the very selfsame frown
of Hurtel of the Red-Hand?"
"Ha! now I see it! Oh, Jesu Maria! Thou art his very image! Mercy,
mercy, mercy!" and, with a shriek wrung from a breaking heart, she fell,
as if dead, upon the floor.
For a few moments he stood gazing upon her with the cool, decisive smile
of a man for whom fate has done her worst, and who defies and laughs to
scorn her farther triumphs over his soul. His fixed countenance was more
fearful than phrensied agitation or tremendous wrath. It was the dark,
still cloud that rests upon the crater ere the volcano bursts into
flame. Gradually, as he gazed on that beloved countenance, pale and
deathly in its aspect, he sunk on his knees beside her, took her
insensible hands within his own, and kissed her unconscious brow, while
fast and thick dropped the heavy tears upon her face.
"Mother, for mother thou art, indeed!" said he, feelingly, "I would not
have struck this blow to thy heart; but I could not stand before thee a
deceiver, an impostor! I could not encounter the affectionate glance of
thy pure eyes, meet thy gaze of maternal love, and know they were not
mine. Yet thou art my mother! all the mother I have ever known. Have I
not drawn life from that breast? Has not my infant head been pillowed
from the first on that maternal bosom? Didst thou not hear me when my
infant lips first lisped thy maternal name? Hast thou ever known other
son than me--I other parent? Thou _art_ my mother! I _am_ thy son,
though the blood of strangers, whom I have never known, flows in my
plebeian veins! Mother, we must part! The house of Lester may not have a
baseborn lord! Would to God I could have turned aside this stroke from
thee! But it is past! Henceforward thou art nothing to me--I nothing to
thee. Farewell, farewell, my own, my beloved mother!"
He bent over her, and affectionately and passionately embraced her,
pressing his lips to hers, and bathing her face with his hot tears. She
seemed to be awakened to sudden consciousness by the act; and throwing
her arms about him, she faintly articulated, "My son! my son!" and
relapsed into insensibility. He clasped her unconscious form in one more
long embrace, kissed her for the last time, and gently disengaged
himself from her arms.
His movements became now direct and decided. He approached the
escritoir, and hastily wrote on a leaf of her missal,
"Lady Lester--nay, _mother_--_dearest_ MOTHER! I have just
taken my last leave of you. I go forth into the world and
commit my fortune to its currents.
Baseborn--guilty-born--attainted by my father's crimes, I am
unworthy your love or a place in your thoughts. Henceforward
let me be nothing to thee! Forget that I have ever existed.
Though I depart, yet is Lester not without an heir! you not
without a son! _Thy_ child thou wilt find with the fisherman
Meredith, at Castle Cor. He is the perfect semblance of thy
husband, Robert, Lord of Lester, as you have described him to
me; and, when your eyes behold him, your heart will at once
claim him. He is proud and high-spirited, and worthy of the
name he is destined to bear. Seek him out; and may he fill the
place in your heart from which I am for ever excluded.
Farewell, my mother, for other mother than thee have I never
known--will never know!
"ROBERT,
"_Son of Hurtel of the Red-Hand_."
He placed the paper open before the crucifix, where she was wont to
pray, and was himself unconsciously in the act of kneeling to seek a
blessing from Heaven, when he hastily recovered his erect attitude,
saying, with a thrilling laugh of reckless hopelessness,
"Never more do I bend the knee to Heaven! What have I to do with
prayer?"
He approached the door, and then turned back to gaze an instant with a
melancholy look on the prostrate form of Lady Lester:
"Nay, I must not leave thee so!" he said: returning, he tenderly raised
her up, and used means to restore her.
After a few moments she revived and gazed wildly around her.
"Robert, is it you? are you beside me? Oh, my son, I have had _such_ a
tale of horror revealed to me as I slept."
She pressed her fingers upon her eyelids as if to recall what appeared
to her a dark dream. As she did so he stole from her towards the
door--lingered--turned back--severed a bright lock from his temples,
pressed it to his lips, and placed it within her hand; he then hastily
kissed her pale forehead, saying, half aloud,
"_Here I bury all human feelings!_"
The next moment he precipitately fled from the room.
Roused by the sound of the closing door, she shrieked his name, and,
hastening through the dark hall, called in tones of distressing anguish,
"Robert, my son! my boy! my dear boy! leave not your mother desolate!"
He stopped his ears to the sounds, quickened his steps, and threw
himself into his saddle.
"'Tis full late, my lord, to ride forth alone," said the groom, as he
held the stirrup.
"Lord me not, Tyrell. If thou hast chanced to be born in wedlock, thou
hast better blood in thy veins than I!"
"How mean you, my lord?" said the astonished menial.
"Didst ever hold stirrup for a fisher's son?"
"No, my lord!"
"Thou liest. For thou hast but now done so. Your lord has found out that
he is but a fisher-woman's brat; and a fisher's brat is about to find
out that he is a lord."
"You speak in riddles, my lord."
"Set thy wits, and those of yonder gaping fellows, to work to unriddle
them," was the reply of the degraded youth as he buried his spurs deep
in his horse's flanks. "Give the compliments of the son of Hurtel of the
Red-Hand to your new lord, knaves, and say he has taken the liberty to
borrow his hunter for a time!" he cried, turning round in the saddle as
he rode off.
The next moment he dashed across the drawbridge and disappeared in the
twilight gloom of the forest, leaving the wonder-stricken retainers to
pick the kernel from the difficult nut he had left them to crack; and,
by putting their sage heads together, with the aid of some expressions
dropped by the frantic Lady Lester, they were not long in arriving at a
shrewd guess at the truth.