_Alonzo._ "I long
To hear the story of your life, which must
Take the ear strangely."--_Tempest._
"And this, my comrade, is that very one
Who was an infant then."--_Sophocles_, translated.
"To begin, then, at the commencement I must sail back many years. I am
an old man now, and have had a rough cruise through life. I was then a
young lad just ready to be launched out on the sea of life; it is forty
years gone by now, but I remember all as if it had happened yesterday.
The Earl of Wentworth, your father, was then but just of age, and had
been celebrating his majority with great merry-making. On his estates
the chief retainer was a man named Hermiston, the bailiff of the Dun
Edin farm; he was a stout, well-to-do sort of man, and had one only son
and two daughters: that son was me--my name was William Hermiston. My
mother had died in giving me birth, and my father and sisters spoiled
me,--never contradicting me in anything, and letting me grow up as wild
a young scapegrace as was in all the country round. I got into bad
company when I was about eighteen; idleness is the mother of all
mischief, and so it was with me. I drank, betted, swore, and as I had
plenty of the rhino, and was hail fellow well met with every companion
that knew me, I grew worse and worse. My old father used often to say a
word: he would shake his head and tell me he feared I would come to no
good with such companions, but I heeded not what the old man said, and
went on the same. In the publics I became acquainted with some
horse-racing fellows, and was soon at home in the betting way, and could
make a book with any man. I ran into debt--or as we say at sea,
outstripped the constable--they were debts of honour, and had to be
paid. My father steadily refused to refund me any more; I applied to
your father, he helped me out easily, but warned me not to expect any
future aid. Again I got head over ears--money must be got, and I became
acquainted with a set of wild fellows--smugglers. I had always been fond
of the sea, and took to the trade readily. Full of risk and danger, it
was exactly what I liked; I rapidly made headway, paid my score, and
rose to be one of the leading men.
"By the time I was five-and-twenty, or thereabout, I was captain of a
lugger craft, and well known as a desperate fellow. When my old father
heard of my evil doings he sternly reprimanded me for the first time in
my life. I was not able to brook censure, and told him so; he tried
entreaty, all was vain. I left him and brought down his gray hairs with
sorrow to the grave. My voyages were never very far, Holland was the
extent of them at that time, and I had a magnet at home which kept me
ever coming back; this was a young and pretty girl, who lived near
Musselburgh; her name was Agnes Macgregor, and a finer lass I never saw.
I had known her for years, and she had long been my sweetheart; she had
no father or mother, and her grandmother was an old, decrepit, blind
woman of seventy, so the girl was under little restraint. Many's the
time I have walked and talked with her for hours in the evenings when I
was ashore; she did not care a straw about the illicit course of life I
led, nay, I think she thought all the better of me for it. I left her,
as I was to go to Flushing first before our marriage, and promised to
bring home lace enough to deck her out like a queen. I remember well how
she waved her kerchief to me as our craft put off at moonlight. I
thought on her all the way over the rough German Ocean--it was winter
time, and a bitter nor'-easter blew in our teeth, with driving sleet and
hail. I reached Holland; I got the very finest lace for Agnes. I left
again with a rich cargo, and landed in the old country. I had been
absent some three months, winter had changed and spring set in; more
than winter had changed, too--I found woman as variable as the seasons.
I went to seek her at the old house--it was empty. I inquired--they had
removed to a cottage near the Towers. I followed, I found her out--the
hussy would have nought to say to me. In vain I argued, in vain I tried
to get back her heart, it was all no go. I tried to find a reason for
the change; she only gave one I would not receive--my manner of life, my
being a smuggler. I loved that girl as I loved my own life; I offered to
give up all, and seek an honest livelihood; all to no purpose, the wench
had no more to say to me, and I was miserable.
"My Lord, you may look at my old weather-beaten features, and wonder any
woman would look at me, but I was a well-favoured youngster then. I
could put the stone, toss the caber, leap, run, and vault against any
young fellow in the county. I was not the sour-faced, hard-featured
seaman I am now, and I knew the girl once did love me, and dearly, and I
resolved to wait and see what the cause of quarrel really was. But I had
to put again to sea. I was away from home nearly a year and a half, but
when I came home my ears were assailed right and left with the very
thing I had feared--the girl I had promised myself for a wife had been
deceived by one in the upper ranks of life; she had fallen, unable to
resist the temptation of following one rich, handsome, and with a proud
name--he was to be preferred as a lover, before William Hermiston as a
husband. He gave her money, handsome dresses, jewels, everything but an
honest name and fame, but she could well afford to want them if she had
all the conceits a girl's head runs on. In a word she was the dupe of a
nobleman. I sought the cottage where I had seen her last: the old woman
was there, not the granddaughter; from her I learned who her beguiler
had been, and where she then lived. My Lord, it was your father, the
young Earl of Wentworth; and he had given her well-furnished apartments
near Edinburgh. The Earl had been married more than three years, and he
had two children, a little girl and a boy about two years: he visited
Agnes on the sly, and only occasionally.
"When I learned all this I almost died with passion. I felt a very devil
of vengeance enter into my heart. The pride of my soul, the light of my
eyes, my love, my destined wife, had been tempted, betrayed, and was now
living in guilty splendour. My Lord, see the misery that light loves in
high rank bring on the lower class. Your father was rich, powerful,
noble by birth and name, possessed of lands, wife, children,--and his
evil conduct robbed the poor man of all; surely this was a case of the
rich man who took the poor man's lamb--the tale I used to hear of
sometimes when I was a boy. And mark the consequences--ah! you great
people little think the pretty and innocent girl you pick up, and deck
out in finery, is perhaps the only love of some honest, poor man, whose
whole life is altered by their crime. Such was the case with me. Owing
to your father's choice, I was made a very demon, and the cause of
misery untold, not only to the hapless girl herself, but to your own
family. Oh! I loved that girl as I once loved heaven. I lost my heaven
in her, and lose Heaven by her."
The old man here paused to rub away the unbidden tear with his rough
sleeve. The Earl, deeply interested, and feeling a home thrust in the
narrative of his father's folly, bent forward, but spoke not.
"When I found out the true reason of her change, I hurried to see her.
Your father had rented a cottage a short way from Edinburgh for her
home; I went there,--it was a Saturday night, I remember; I watched and
saw the Earl's carriage drive from the door. I did no more that
night,--her guilt was now sure, and her deceiver too. On Sunday morning,
when her servant was at church, I called: she opened the door, and when
she saw me would have shut it in my face, but I pressed in. Her room was
elegantly furnished; she was splendidly dressed; her dress enhanced her
beauty; she never looked more lovely; and when I thought she might have
been mine a demon rose in my breast. I know not what I said, save that I
called her every vile name I could think of, and she bandied high words
too, and bade me begone and leave her to mind herself and her baby. I
had not dreamed of that. I turned and saw a cradle, and therein her
firstborn child; it was a fair boy, but the devil was in me. The house
was lone, every one at church, no human being near. I rushed to the
cradle, and seizing the hapless babe, I dashed its infant brains out
against the grate."
He paused: the Earl's face grew pale as he exclaimed, "Inhuman monster!
you avow such a deed!"
"Ay, my Lord, reproach me, I deserve it; but see what came of stolen
affections. I shall never forget the harrowing scream of Agnes, it was
the most awful shriek of heartbroken agony I ever heard, it rings in my
ears still. She then fell in a senseless swoon on the floor. The foul
fiend prompted me--I heard him speak as though he was beside me--I
looked for a weapon--the first I saw was a carving-knife on the
sideboard. I whetted it against the fender in diabolical rage--I knew
not what I did--I rushed on my prostrate victim, and--"
The wretched old sinner paused again, the drops stood on his brow, his
face was contorted with evil passions as he thought on the deed.
"You cruelly murdered her, you bloodthirsty villain," said the Earl.
"I did; I nigh severed her head from her body. Ah! that was sweet
revenge. When I had done the deed of hell I rushed from the spot as if
all the fiends chased me. There was no need--no mortal saw me, and ere
the double murder was found out I was miles away. I ran for the Towers,
intending to go and tell your father what I had done, and give myself up
to the gallows. Life had nothing more endurable. I reached the Towers
about three in the afternoon; I asked to see the Earl on important
business. He was at church; I said I would stroll about the grounds till
he came home. I wandered by the dell at the side of the park, and,
sitting down on a fallen log, began to think on my cruel deed, and its
inevitable result--the gallows. Presently I heard voices, and saw a
servant-girl leading a little boy, of perhaps two years old, by the
hand. She came on till she was nearly opposite me, when I heard a
whistle, and saw the girl leave the child, and run to speak with a young
forester some hundred yards off, who had given the signal. A plan of
terrible revenge entered my head. I knew it was the little Viscount, the
only son of him who had wrought my misery: it was the work of a second,
the thought suggested by the Evil One, and putting it into prompt
action, like a boa I rushed on my prey, seized the child up in my arms,
choked its cries with my kerchief, and dived into the copse-wood towards
the burn, which was then swollen with flood: I then--"
"Hold!" said the Earl, "you were then the murderer of my eldest brother,
and despite the consequences, you die for it."
He sprung up as if to wrestle with his foe. The old man moved not a
muscle of his face, but exclaimed, "Are you mad? A cry from me brings a
score of ruffians. Are you crazed? I did _not_ murder your brother, I
harmed not a hair of his head."
"Then, in God's name, what did you do?"
"Patience and you shall hear; interrupt me no more."
"I could listen for ever--it rivets me. Go on--I am breathless."
"I then plunged into the burn with my burden, and waded for a hundred
paces or so; then I hid in a hollow tree and awaited the result. I heard
the nurse cry, and saw her and the youth seek everywhere in vain. They
passed and repassed my hiding-place, and then sought down the opposite
way. I came forth and again proceeded a quarter of a mile, when I
reached an old ruin, where I stayed till gloaming came on, and then
hurried to a ken where my smuggling friends lurked. I told them nought
of the murder, but said the child was only the son of a nobleman who
wished me to get rid of it. That evening I started with the boy, and was
taken on board a privateer, then in Leith Roads. My character was well
known, and I got a place as master on board. The vessel's name was the
'Black Mail.' We weighed anchor and sailed for America. It was then the
time of the French Revolution, and all the countries of Europe were
leagued against France. We kept up a half privateering, half smuggling
business for some years, in which I gradually rose to become the captain
of the 'Black Mail.'
"About that time our country declared war against Spain, and we had a
rare time of it. I cared neither for my own life nor the lives of my
men; and under the name of Mad Helder--for I changed my name--I gained a
bloody notoriety amongst the privateering gentlemen. Our vessel was well
named; she was a smart little schooner, with raking masts and heavy
ordnance, and exacted black mail on friend and foe for seven years. Then
our vessel grew a common nuisance; we were a set of desperadoes. Young
Viscount de Vere, under the name of Dick Foundling, grew up amongst such
a set a proper young rascal; he lisped oaths ere he could speak plainly;
he drank gin when he should have drunk milk. He was the pet of all the
crew, had a deal of pluck in him, and learned to use knife and pistol,
ere he could have reached the age of eight, as if he had been an old
hand! When he was nine, one evening we were running down for Cuba under
full sail, a British frigate, the 'Arethusa,' hove in sight, and
immediately gave chase. The 'Black Mail,' had the wind continued steady,
would have laughed at her, but the breeze failed us, and the 'Arethusa'
being a taller rigged vessel, caught it later than we did, and soon bore
down on us. She fired a round shot across our bows, and ordered us to
show our colours. Up went our black flag, and we gave them a dose of
black shot with it; but she was game at that, my Lord; and shot and
shell she poured into us till we began to settle down. Knowing we should
get no quarter, we stuck out, and determined to die to a man. They
boarded us, and a terrible hand-to-hand fight we had of it. I got the
slash whose scar you see across my figure head there; it stunned me; I
fell as they thought dead, and remember no more till I awoke from my
swoon, found myself in the water, struck out, and soon ran foul of a
piece of the wreck of the 'Black Mail,' and dragged myself aboard of it.
It was a dark night, but I saw the lights of the 'Arethusa' half a
league to leeward; they had not seen me, and I had drifted away. There
was a strong current there.
"All night I sat on the wreck; it was a warm night, and I took off part
of my soaked clothes and spread them to dry. Morning came, the frigate's
top-gallants just peeped over the horizon. The sun rose hot; the blood
clotted on my brow; I was hungry, faint, parched with thirst. I drank
the salt water, it only made me worse. I strained my eyes in vain to
catch a sail. I picked up a spar during the day, and had sufficient
strength to set it up on the part of the stern on which I was left. I
spread my sailor's coat for a sail, and soon began to move! I knew nor
cared not where, so I drifted ashore or bore down in sight of a vessel.
All that day and the next night I was left without food or water: the
thirst was like fire. I began to think all was up, and I should have to
give in, and actually thought of drowning myself. I had almost despaired
when a vessel appeared; I had just strength to take off my shirt and
hang it up as a signal of distress, and attracted their attention. They
picked me up in the last extremity of existence. She proved a British
ship, a merchantman, bound from Vera Cruz to India. I told a tale of
having been a captain of an English ship knocked to pieces by a
Spaniard, and was believed. My wound and wants were attended to, and as
the master had lately died of Yellow Jack, I got his place, for my
knowledge of seamanship was great, and I knew all the currents and
pilotage of the West Indian isles well, and this was what they needed
then.
"It was an evil day they took me aboard. Wild at the loss of my ship and
men, specially of young Dick Foundling, I burned to revenge it on
British ships. I could not abide too being under orders, and I soon
stirred up the sailors to mutiny. I got nearly the whole crew on my
side, and we murdered the captain, officers, and all who would not join
us. Some we hung, some we tossed to the sharks, some we made walk the
plank, and we pelted the skipper to death with glass bottles! I was
unanimously chosen captain. I put in at a French port under French
colours, sold the cargo, and in return got aboard guns, cutlasses, and
all kinds of warlike gear. Terribly did I revenge my loss. Many a noble
vessel went to the bottom. We led a wild life of it for fourteen years,
and then all was lost by shipwreck.
"War with America had again broken out, and I was trying to cut off
English vessels going up the St. Lawrence. We were chased by a
man-of-war, and overtaken in one of those dense fogs. It was near
winter, and the icebergs were frequent; the cold was awful! every sea
that broke over us turned to ice; the decks were like glass. The
man-of-war sheered off, and we were tossed amidst the ice-fields, and
wrecked on Labrador. We made a fire of drift-wood, and got what
provisions we could from the wreck, but my men were frozen at the fire;
a hurricane of wind almost blew away the very embers, and we commenced a
march over the frozen plains. The wolves and the frost thinned our
numbers, and I and another man only reached civilized country. The devil
seemed to uphold me through everything for his own purposes, and my
strong frame seemed invincible. We, the sad relics of a crew of two
hundred brave fellows, reached Nain, a small settlement, where we stayed
out the dreadful winter. There was a small English man-of-war wintering
there. One of the sailors happened to have been a lad on board the
'Arethusa:' we got great chums, and amongst other yarns he told me the
fight they had had with the 'Black Mail,' little knowing I had been its
captain. I did not undeceive him, but I learned what I least expected,
and that was the boy, your brother, had been picked up. 'He fought,' he
said, 'like a fiend incarnate;' but by-and-by was tamed and kindly
treated by our Captain, who took a great fancy to him, and adopted him
for his own son, giving him the name of Edward L'Estrange."
"Impossible!" cried the Earl. "Edward L'Estrange my lost brother? I know
his history now. Ha! that accounts for the singular resemblance he had
to the Captain. Heaven above! this is indeed wonderful. But go on."
"Well," said Bill, "I determined to find the youngster out; for my mate
could tell me no more, as he had been drafted to another ship. So I set
off as soon as I could to Canada, intending to take a passage home, and
find if he still lived. I reached Quebec; several regiments were then
wintering there, and I thought perhaps I might learn something about
him. There was also another reason I had for going thither. Many years
before I had overhauled a Spanish ship; there was on board a rich Don,
Ramond, a passenger, and he had an only child with him, Carlotta, a
pretty, black-eyed little wench of five years old or so. The old Don,
when dying,--for he got mortally wounded,--commended this girl with his
dying breath to me, the captain of the enemy that had conquered his
ship. I had a liking to the girl, and took her to America when I next
sailed there, and left her to be brought up by a sister of mine, who was
living there with her husband. I had not seen this girl for twelve
years, and I was anxious to see if she had grown up handsome. I was then
known by the name of Bill Stacy, or Dare-devil Bill, and the girl had
been called Antonia Stacy.
"Part of the Rifle Brigade was then at Quebec, and I heard there was an
officer, Lieutenant L'Estrange, there. On inquiries I found out it was
the same one I was seeking. He had been educated by the Commodore
L'Estrange, who had bought him a commission in the army; and he had
already fought in the Peninsula. I found Antonia grown a handsome girl
of seventeen; and I thought I should like to bring about a marriage
between them. I enlisted in the same regiment, and in two years had
risen to be a serjeant. I told L'Estrange so much of my history as to
let him know I only was able to give him a clue to his early life, wrapt
in mystery; and I introduced him to Antonia. But the two did not cotton
together. There was another young man in the same regiment, named George
Ravensworth, who greatly admired my protegee. He had picked her out of
the St. Lawrence when her boat couped one evening. I told him she was of
the very best blood in Spain; and, as I was anxious to get a good
husband for her, and the two loved each other so well, I should not have
minded their getting spliced. But our battalion was ordered to New
Orleans, where we made an unsuccessful attempt to take the place; and
there young Ravensworth took Yellow Jack and died. He and L'Estrange
were the greatest chums possible; and his death nigh broke two hearts.
He begged L'Estrange to carry a few relics to his bereaved family; and
he said he would.
"War was then over; peace with America declared; and our men reached
Europe in time for the grand final success of Wellington at Waterloo.
After the Peace of Paris we came home. I got my discharge and settled
near Brighton. I got to my old ways, and Bill Stacy's cabin was as well
known as the Pavilion. L'Estrange had exchanged into the 7th Hussars
before Waterloo; they were quartered at Edinburgh. He took the sword of
George Ravensworth to his sister, a fine girl of sixteen. By-and-by they
were engaged to marry; but your Lordship best knows why that marriage
never came off! Part of the 7th were at Brighton. Amongst other
officers, whom my tobacco, wines, or Antonia magnetized, was John de
Vere, who now lies dead beside us. He met me in a row in Brighton, in
which Sir Richard Musgrave joined, and used to get wines and tobacco to
a great extent from the cabin.
"When L'Estrange found Ellen Ravensworth had jilted him for your
Lordship, he was very miserable, and came one night to ask my counsel on
his best proceedings. That night Captain de Vere was with me, and I
could have laughed in my sleeve to see the brothers sitting so near, and
yet not knowing their relationship. They were so like that it was a joke
in the regiment; but the Captain was the firmest in character, and soon
overcame L'Estrange's scruples, and we made our first plot to prevent
your Lordship's union with the present Countess. Our plan was to set
Antonia in your way; we knew your weakness for the other sex, and
determined to storm you on the salient angle. Your marriage was gall and
wormwood to your brother De Vere; and this was his reason for combating
it. Antonia was dressed, and taught her part; apartments opposite your
house chosen; and the Captain drew your attention to her. You know the
rest. Under the name of Juana Ferraras she was imposed on you. It was a
double cheat; she was assured she would become a Countess, or would
never have submitted; and we hoped your Lordship would take such a fancy
to her as to take her with you to Scotland, when we would threaten to
prove a Scotch marriage; and we knew you would rather remain unwed than
acknowledge it; so that Ellen Ravensworth would be free to return to
L'Estrange, and the Captain would have no family to cut him out of the
title. We then put a paragraph in the papers, stating your marriage
would soon take place with Lady Alice Claremont, the Marquis's sister,
thinking it would disgust Miss Ravensworth. The bait took; and she
nearly died, as you know; but, unluckily for us, she met the Marchioness
abroad, and all the murder came out. Your Lordship, too, grew tired of
Juana, and the first plot proved a total failure. But the Captain had
more than one string to his bow, and we began a second one."
The old man paused, and again had recourse to the pigskin of wine. The
Earl hid his face in his hands to conceal his emotions, at thus finding
out what a system of deceit, treachery, espionage had been carried on by
those he had loved, and did not even dream capable of such duplicity!
The mystery was gradually being cleared up; the complications
unravelled; and he saw things in a new light. He felt angry at having
been made, as it were, a catspaw; sorry that he had given zest to their
wickedness by his own weakness; and a feeling of uncontrollable disgust
at the narrator was only veiled by his interest in the story, and his
desire to know how all would end. He dared not speak his suspicions, and
yet he felt sure they would all be verified; so he determined to listen,
but ask no questions.
After a slight pause, as if to rest, the old man resumed his story; but
as his yarn is altogether too long for one chapter, we must divide it
into two, being well aware, from personal experience, that long chapters
weary the reader, whilst the same amount of narrative, subdivided with
discretion, is less apt to pall, or become tedious to the peruser.