It was with a sense of waking from a dream that Brace Norton opened his
eyes to gaze upon lights and faces dancing around him; but it was long
before he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to reply to questions
that were asked. By degrees, though, he could make out that it was Sir
Murray Gernon who was speaking, and then there arose a loud, wailing
woman's cry, followed by a voice Brace recognised.
"Ye're reet, lassie--it is, sure enew. It's Jock Gurdon come back to
get his deserts."
"Blast you!--a doctor--I'm--I'm dy--Here, quick!--a doctor, or I shall
bleed to death!" groaned the wretched man.
"Has any one gone for a medical man?" said a stern voice.
"Yes, Sir Mooray, I've sent for a doctor and the police, too. It's gude
for us that the loons were quarrelling over the spoil."
"Isa, my child, this is no place for you!" exclaimed Sir Murray.
"That's right," cried Lord Maudlaine, who was also present; "I've been
asking her to go. My dear Miss Gernon--Isa--what are you about? Don't
go near him!"
Lord Maudlaine might well exclaim, for Isa Gernon, pale and scared, was
slowly advancing towards where Brace Norton lay. The eyes of love were
more piercing than those of the bystanders; and in those swollen and
bleeding features Isa had recognised those of the man who had told her
again and again of his love.
"Brace!" she cried, in a low, husky voice, as, falling upon her knees at
his side, heedless of all present, she laid her hands upon his; for this
could be no burglar, as they had told her--there must be some horrible
mystery here.
"Isa!" he whispered, as his eyes met hers for an instant, ere they
closed.
"Quick!--quick!" cried the agitated girl. "Father--dear papa--oh, what
is this? You have shot him, and he is dying. Oh, quick!--quick!--a
doctor!"
Her cries seemed to drive away the fainting sensation that oppressed
Brace Norton; and as Sir Murray--astounded at his daughter's words--
hurried to her side, the young man's eyes again unclosed, for his lips
to part in a faint smile.
"No, no," he whispered--"not shot--that man--Gurdon--I followed him--
stabbed, I fear--perhaps to death--the cross, Sir Murray; look! Lady
Gernon's--my father's innocence--left for me to prove--I know--old
story--take it, Isa, love--if I pass away, recollect--not--son--
dishonoured man--saved--"
"The brae laddie has fainted, and, Gude save us! it's young Brace
Norton. Here, quick!--some water, and don't all stand staring like daft
fules!" cried McCray. But, at the same moment, with his mind a chaos of
wild thoughts, Sir Murray Gernon had sunk upon his knees by the young
man, whose hands still clutched the sparkling cross, the jewels
glittering brightly yet, though partly encrusted with soot. It was some
few minutes, during which he had been striving to stanch the young man's
wound, before he could arrange his thoughts into something like their
proper sequence.
This man, then--this Gurdon--had, indeed, stolen the cross; picked it up
the night of the great party--more than twenty years ago--and concealed
it here, behind the stove; for it was plain enough from whence it had
been taken. Here, then, was the key to Gurdon's attempted burglaries--
the man who, with the knowledge of a hidden treasure, had never been
able to take it from the spot where it had been placed. Had he, then,--
he, Sir Murray Gernon,--been wrong in his suspicions, and was this young
man's father, after all, innocent? No; impossible! he was clear of one
foul stain, but the other mystery was unsolved.
The unwonted feeling of gentleness that had come upon him, for a few
minutes, as he knelt by the injured man, soon passed away, and the old,
hard frown came fiercely back.
There was no one there he could speak to, and say that he was glad the
jewels were found, and that he hoped the other mystery might be cleared
up; but he rose, with a half-shudder, from his knees, as Jane McCray
came forward, pale and trembling, her eyes fixed on his; and as the
recollection of the past came back, he would have turned and left the
room. But Jane's hand was on his arm, and, in a voice that was only
heard by Isa, she said, beseechingly:
"Oh, Sir Murray, don't be hard upon your poor child, as you were on my
own dear lady! I'll never say a word--I'll take all with me to the
grave; only, now that it has pleased Heaven to make all this clear, and
to show you what you would never believe, try and repent, and ask
forgiveness of those you so cruelly wronged! You can't do much now--
it's too late; but oh! Sir Murray--dear master--do something! Twenty
years and more ago, now, since the wrongs were done; and yet, you see,
how judgment comes at last for the wicked. You know now how cruelly
wrong you were; there it all is. You thought, between them, there had
been something done with that cross, and now you see. I hoped that man
had died repenting, in a far-off land; but it was to be his fate to come
and clear this up first--to show you how ill you treated my poor, sweet
lady--to show you her innocence and--"
"Loose your hold, woman!" whispered Sir Murray, hoarsely.
"No," she said, holding his arm tightly--"not yet. You know how I
promised her, Sir Murray, that I'd be, as far as I could, a mother to
that child; and I've tried to. Haven't I, for her sake, sealed my lips,
and kept hid a secret that has made the white come in my hair? Am I not
an old and faithful servant? After what I have done, can you not trust
me when I say that I will carry all I know to the grave? But, Sir
Murray, you will try--you will make right what you can. Don't break
their hearts. Look at that brave boy. You know how he loves her; you
know how you injured his father. Promise me that you will repent of it
all, and try to make them happy."
"Confound the woman!" cried Sir Murray, angrily--"she is mad! Lord
Maudlaine, this is no place for your betrothed; take her away. Ha! here
is the doctor at last."
As Jane McCray covered her face with her hands, and fell back with a
groan, Lord Maudlaine advanced to where Isa, who had heard all that had
passed, still knelt by Brace Norton's side.
"Miss Gernon--Isa," he said, anxiously; "let me lead you away. Sir
Murray wisely says that this is no place for you."
"No place!" she cried, her soft eyes flashing into light. "Is it not a
woman's place beside the man she loves, when he is stricken down and
helpless? Keep back, sir! I do not require your forced attentions!"
The aspect of Lord Maudlaine's face was a mingling of the ludicrous and
the enraged; but no one seemed to heed it, for, evidently violently
agitated, Sir Murray had left the room, while all eyes were now directed
to the doctor, whose ministrations were rapid, and orders issued
sharply, as if he meant to have them obeyed.
"Gude-sake, sir!" said McCray, at last, unable to restrain his feelings,
for he had read the anxiety in his young lady's countenance--"Gude-sake,
sir, tell's how they all are!"
"Burglar--bad shot through shoulder, but not dangerous; Mr Norton--
serious stab, knife pierced the--"
"Gude-sake, sir, never mind that!" exclaimed McCray. "Tell's the warst
at once: is he likely--"
McCray did not finish his sentence in words, but with his eyes; while,
with an anxious troubled look, the doctor glanced towards the figure of
Isa Gernon, before he replied:
"Well, McCray, I--There, I'll give you my opinion to-morrow."
Book 2, Chapter XXV.