“My son!” exclaimed the old man, with great vehemence,—“the reprobate!—the dishonoured!—the infamous!—the accursed—”
“Hush! you revile the dead!”
“Dead!” muttered the wretched father, tottering back to the seat he had quitted,—“dead!” and the sound of his voice was so full of anguish, that the dog at his feet, which Morton had not hitherto perceived, echoed it with a dismal cry, that recalled to Philip the awful day in which he had seen the son quit the father for the last time on earth.
The sound brought Fanny to the spot; and, with a laugh of delight, which made to it a strange contrast, she threw herself on the grass beside the dog and sought to entice it to play. So there, in that place of death, were knit together the four links in the Great Chain;—lusty and blooming life—desolate and doting age—infancy, yet scarce conscious of a soul—and the dumb brute, that has no warrant of a Hereafter!
“Dead!—dead!” repeated the old man, covering his sightless balls with his withered hands. “Poor William!”
“He remembered you to the last. He bade me seek you out—he bade me replace the guilty son with a thing pure and innocent, as he had been had he died in his cradle—a child to comfort your old age! Kneel, Fanny, I have found you a father who will cherish you—(oh! you will, sir, will you not?)—as he whom you may see no more!”
There was something in Morton’s voice so solemn, that it awed and touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly on his knees, said—
“Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny.”
“Is it his child—his?” said the blind man, sobbing. “Come to my heart; here—here! O God, forgive me!” Morton did not think it right at that moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child’s true connexion with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to his breast, said—
“Sir, forgive me!—I am a very weak old man—I have many thanks to give—I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in want,—did he?”