Chapter XVIII: 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.

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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