Captain Kyd; or, The Wizard of the Sea. Vol. I

by J. H. Ingraham

What pen can portray, what language describe the feelings of the haughty Lester, as he rode at furious speed towards Castle More? He could neither think nor reflect! His thoughts were confused and tempestuous. He could not realize that he had actually listened to the accursed tale with his own ears. He felt rather as if he had passed through some dreadful dream, and the idea flashed on his mind that she had thrown a dark spell upon his senses, and that the whole was an illusion, and altogether the result of her art.

By degrees his thoughts became more settled and run in a direct channel. He checked his headlong speed and began to reflect: to recall, word by word, the narrative of Elpsy; weigh each sentence; match fact with fact; each circumstance with its fellow; and trace the unbroken thread to the last damning proof. The result was irresistible. A thousand circumstances to corroborate the tale of infamy rose like phantoms to his shrinking memory.

He remembered how, in childhood, a neighbouring baron, who had been out against the insurgents, playfully laid his hand upon his head, and told him he looked so much like Hurtel of the Red-Hand that he must take good care, when he became a man, he did not lose his head for the likeness: he remembered, too, how his childish spirit took fire at the similitude, and that he resented the insult with a blow! He further called to mind how, later in life, the more aged country people, in passing him, would shake their heads significantly; and often the whispered words, "Hurtel of the Red-Hand," would reach his ears. He recollected, also, how Lady Lester (alas! no longer, if this tale were proved true, to be regarded as his mother, yet whom he had loved hitherto with the intensest filial affection) had reproved him in his angry moods, and forbade him to frown so like Hurtel of the Red-Hand. He called to mind, too, how that, in childhood (unthought of again till too faithful memory brought it back), it had more than once reached his ears through the menials, that Lady Lester, in her youthful days, had been made a prisoner in some old castle by a rebel chief; and he could remember he had listened with childish interest to its recital as to a tale of enchanted castles and cruel giants. Now he could invest it with a too vivid reality! He had heard, also, he knew not how, and what, at the time, left no distinct impression on his mind, a scandal which said that Lady Lester did penance for unfaithfulness in her early marriage days: this cottage gossip he could now easily trace to her imprisonment by—could he speak it?—his father! He, too, had been twice called by spirited peasants, who, on certain occasions, had resented his arbitrary will—a bastard!

All these things rushed to his mind. There was something in it beyond mere idle gossip—something independent of mere accident! The tale he had listened to was to him a key to the whole. The inference was overpowering! It was as plain to his mind as the noonday sun, that the story he had heard from the lips of Elpsy was founded in truth.

"'Tis true! 'tis true! 'tis TRUE!" he groaned, covering his face with his hands.

Oh, was not this an appalling and harrowing reflection for a proud spirit like his? Was it not a bitter, bitter cup that was presented to his lips? Alas, how cruelly barbed and how skilfully directed—how fatally sent, was the shaft of inexorable fate! It pierced the spot where alone it could penetrate; where its wound would be deepest, and the smart the keenest. Struck down from its high seat to the very ground was that pride of birth which constituted the basis of his character; and withered, dead, bruised in the dust lay the haughtiness of spirit, which, springing from that soil, had flourished like the green bay-tree.

"Not only lowborn—I could bear that, I could bear that! but, oh God! a bastard! Mercy! mercy! mercy!"

He hid his face as he gave utterance to these words, and sobbed audibly. He gave way for a few moments to the full tide of his strong and afflicting grief in the most agonizing manner! His soul was rent! his heart was broken! and, altogether, he presented a picture of moral desolation and mental wretchedness that was appalling to contemplate. What thoughts must then have passed through his mind and wrung his proud soul! The reflection that he must abandon all his plans and hopes as Lord of Lester; take leave of the luxuries to which he had been accustomed; descend from the rank of a noble to that of a peasant; be called "fellow" by the lowest hind; bear the scorn of the highborn and the jeers of the low; and, most of all, that he must for ever abandon, without hope, the love of Kate Bellamont, filled him with wo such as the heart of man hath seldom known.

"And need I forfeit all these?" he exclaimed, suddenly checking the current of his grief, his features lighting up at the same time with guilty exultation, and assuming an expression of deep determination; "need I make this sacrifice? May I not still be Lord of Lester?" he cried, rising in his stirrups and almost shouting with the force of his thoughts. "Ay, and will I! Ay, and will I! 'Tis but to silence, either with gold or true steel, this beldame, who is the sole depositary of the secret of my birth!"

For a moment after giving utterance to this guilty idea he rode silently along; his honourable nature and his inflexible pride both having instantly risen at the criminal suggestion, and revolted at a deception so vast. But there were two strong motives which threatened to weigh down these better promptings, though honour pointed to the course he should alone pursue. He could not bear—his proud spirit could never brook, that the despised fisher's lad—the humble, low-nurtured peasant—for such he was, notwithstanding his noble birth, should stand in his place, and he himself—oh, it was madness to think of it—sink into the fisher's boy!