CHAPTER XVI.
“What new wonders? What new misfortunes, Ellinor?” said I, as Ellinor, with a face of consternation, appeared again in the morning in my room, just as I was going down to breakfast: “what new misfortunes, Ellinor?”
“Oh! the worst that could befall me!” cried she, wringing her hands; “the worst, the very worst!—to be the death of my own child!” said she, with inexpressible horror. “Oh! save him! save him! for the love of heaven, dear, save him! If you don’t save him, ‘tis I shall be his death.”
She was in such agony, that she could not explain herself farther for some minutes.
“It was I gave the information against them all to you. But how could I ever have thought Owen was one of them? My son, my own son, the unfortunate cratur; I never thought but what he was with the militia far away. And how could it ever come into my head that Owen could have any hand in a thing of the kind?”
“But I did not see him last night,” interrupted I.
“Oh! he was there! One of his own friends, one of the military that went with you, saw him among the prisoners, and came just now to tell me of it. That Owen should be guilty of the like!—Oh! what could have come over him! He must have been out of his rason. And against you to be plotting! That’s what I never will believe, if even I’d hear it from himself. But he’s among them that were taken last night. And will I live to see him go to gaol?—and will I live to see—No, I’d rather die first, a thousand and a thousand times over. Oh! for mercy’s sake!” said she, dropping on her knees at my feet, “have pity on me, and don’t let the blood of my own child be upon me in my old days.”
“What would you have me do, Ellinor?” said I, much moved by her distress.
“There is but one thing to do,” said she. “Let him off: sure a word from you would be enough for the soldiers that are over them on guard. And Mr. McLeod has not yet seen him; and if he was just let escape, there would be no more about it; and I’d I engage he shall fly the country, the unfortunate cratur! and never trouble you more. This is all I ask: and sure, dear, you can’t refuse it to your own Ellinor; your old nurse, that carried ye in her arms, and fed ye with her milk, and watched over ye many’s the long night, and loved ye; ay, none ever loved, or could love ye so well.”
“I am sensible of it; I am grateful,” interrupted I; “but what you ask of me, Ellinor, is impossible—I cannot let him escape; but I will do my utmost.”
“Troth, nothing will save him, if you would not say the word for him now. Ah! why cannot you let him off, then?”
“I should lose my honour; I should lose my character. You know that I have been accused of favouring the rebels already—you saw the consequences of my protecting your other son, though he was innocent and injured, and bore an excellent character.”
“Christy; ay, true: but poor Owen, unlucky as he is, and misguided, has a better claim upon you.”
“How can that be? Is not the other my foster-brother, in the first place?”
“True for him.”
“And had not I proofs of his generous conduct and attachment to me?”
“Owen is naturally fonder of you by a great deal,” interrupted she; “I’ll answer for that.”
“What! when he has just been detected in conspiring against my life?”
“That’s what I’ll never believe,” cried Ellinor, vehemently: “that he might be drawn in, may be, when out of his rason—he was always a wild boy—to be a united-man, and to hope to get you for his captain, might be the case, and bad enough that; but, jewel, you’ll find he did never conspire against you: I’d lay down my life upon that.”
She threw herself again at my feet, and clung to my knees.
“As you hope for mercy yourself in this world, or the world to come, show some now, and do not be so hard-hearted as to be the death of both mother and son.”
Her supplicating looks and gestures, her words, her tears, moved me so much, that I was on the point of yielding; but recollecting what was due to justice and to my own character, with an effort of what I thought virtuous resolution, I repeated, “It is impossible: my good Ellinor, urge me no farther: ask any thing else, and it shall be granted, but this is impossible.”
As I spoke, I endeavoured to raise her from the ground; but with the sudden force of angry despair, she resisted.
“No, you shall not raise me,” cried she. “Here let me lie, and break my heart with your cruelty! ‘Tis a judgment upon me—it’s a judgment, and it’s fit I should feel it as I do. But you shall feel too, in spite of your hard heart. Yes, your heart is harder than the marble: you want the natural touch, you do; for your mother has knelt at your feet, and you have denied her prayer.”
“My mother!”
“And what was her prayer?—to save the life of your brother.”
“My brother! Good heavens! what do I hear?”
“You hear the truth: you hear that I am your lawful mother. Yes, you are my son. You have forced that secret from me, which I thought to have carried with me to my grave. And now you know all: and now you know how wicked I have been, and it was all for you; for you that refused me the only thing ever I asked, and that, too, in my greatest distress, when my heart was just breaking: and all this time too, there’s Christy—poor good Christy; he that I’ve wronged, and robbed of his rightful inheritance, has been as a son, a dutiful good son to me, and never did he deny me any thing I could ask; but in you I have found no touch of tenderness. Then it’s fit I should tell you again, and again, and again, that he who is now slaving at the forge, to give me the earnings of his labour; he that lives, and has lived all his days, upon potatoes and salt, and is content; he who has the face and the hands so disguised with the smoke and the black, that yourself asked him t’other day did he ever wash his face since he was born—I tell ye, he it is who should live in this castle, and sleep on that soft bed, and be lord of all here—he is the true and real Lord Glenthorn, and to the wide world I’ll make it known. Ay, be pale and tremble, do; it’s your turn now: I’ve touched you now: but it’s too late. In the face of day I shall confess the wrong I’ve done; and I shall call upon you to give back to him all that by right is his own.”
Ellinor stopped short, for one of my servants at this instant came into the room.
“My lord, Mr. McLeod desires me to let you know the guard has brought up the prisoners, and he is going to commit them to gaol, and would be glad to know if you choose to see them first, my lord.”
Stupified by all I had just heard, I could only reply, that I would come presently. Ellinor rushed past the servant,—“Are they come?” cried she. “Where will I get a sight of them?” I stayed for a few minutes alone, to decide upon what I ought to say and do. A multitude of ideas, more than had ever come in my mind in a twelvemonth, passed through it in these few minutes.
As I was slowly descending the great staircase, Ellinor came running, as fast as she could run, to the foot of the stairs, exclaiming, “It’s a mistake! it’s all a mistake, and I was a fool to believe them that brought me the word. Sure Ody’s not there at all! nor ever was in it. I’ve seen them all, face to face; and my son’s not one of them, nor ever was: and I was a fool from beginning to end—and I beg your pardon entirely,” whispered she, coming close to my ear: “I was out of my reason at the thought of that boy’s being to suffer, and I, his mother, the cause of it. Forgive all I said in my passion, my own best jewel: you was always good and tender to me, and be the same still, dear. I’ll never say a word more about it to any one living: the secret shall die with me. Sure, when my conscience has borne it so long, it may strive and bear it a little longer for your sake: and it can’t be long I have to live, so that will make all easy. Hark! they are asking for you. Do you go your ways into the great parlour, to Mr. McLeod, and think no more of any thing at all but joy. My son’s not one of them! I must go to the forge, and tell Christy the good news.”
Ellinor departed, quite satisfied with herself, with me, and with all the world. She took it for granted that she left me in the same state of mind, and that I should obey her injunctions, and think of nothing but joy. Of what happened in the great parlour, and of the examinations of the prisoners, I have but a confused recollection. I remember that Mr. McLeod seemed rather surprised by my indifference to what concerned me so nearly; and that he was obliged to do all the business himself. The men were, I believe, all committed to gaol, and Joe Kelly turned king’s evidence; but as to any further particulars, I know no more than if I had been in a dream. The discovery which Ellinor had just made to me engrossed all my powers of attention.