“Yes, now, my love,” continued the colonel, “or I fail in my duty. I go shortly to stand face to face with your parents, my children; for the man who, dying, expects not to meet worthy Hugh Griffith and honest Jack Plowden in heaven can have no clear view of the rewards that belong to lives of faithful service to the country, or of gallant loyalty to the king! I trust no one can justly say that I ever forgot the delicacy due to your gentle sex; but it is no moment for idle ceremony when time is shortening into minutes, and heavy duties remain to be discharged. I could not die in peace, children, were I to leave you here in the wide ocean, I had almost said in the wide world, without that protection which becomes your tender years and still more tender characters. If it has pleased God to remove your guardian, let his place be supplied by those he wills to succeed him!”
Cecilia no longer hesitated, but she arose slowly from her knees, and offered her hand to Griffith with an air of forced resignation. Katherine submitted to be led by Barnstable to her side; and the chaplain, who had been an affected listener to the dialogue, in obedience to an expressive signal from the eye of Griffith, opened the prayer-book from which he had been gleaning consolation for the dying master, and commenced reading, in trembling tones, the marriage service. The vows were pronounced by the weeping brides in voices more distinct and audible than if they had been uttered amid the gay crowds that usually throng a bridal; for though they were the irreclaimable words that bound them forever to the men whose power over their feelings they thus proclaimed to the world, the reserve of maiden diffidence was lost in one engrossing emotion of solemnity, created by the awful presence in which they stood. When the benediction was pronounced, the head of Cecilia dropped on the shoulder of her husband, where she wept violently, for a moment, and then resuming her place at the couch, she once more knelt at the side of her uncle. Katherine received the warm kiss of Barnstable passively, and returned to the spot whence she had been led.
Colonel Howard succeeded in raising his person to witness the ceremony, and had answered to each prayer with a fervent “Amen.” He fell back with the last words; and a look of satisfaction shone in his aged and pallid features, that declared the interest he had taken in the scene.
“I thank you, my children,” he at length uttered, “I thank you; for I know how much you have sacrificed to my wishes. You will find all my papers relative to the estates of my wards, gentlemen, in the hands of my banker in London; and you will also find there my will, Edward, by which you will learn that Cicely has not come to your arms an unportioned bride. What my wards are in persons and manners your eyes can witness, and I trust the vouchers in London will show that I have not been an unfaithful steward to their pecuniary affairs!”
“Name it not—say no more, or you will break my heart,” cried Katherine, sobbing aloud, in the violence of her remorse at having ever pained so true a friend. “Oh! talk of yourself, think of yourself; we are unworthy—at least I am unworthy of another thought!”
The dying man extended a hand to her in kindness, and continued, though his voice grew feebler as he spoke:
“Then to return to myself—I would wish to lie, like my ancestors, in the bosom of the earth—and in consecrated ground.”
“It shall be done,” whispered Griffith, “I will see it done myself.”
“I thank thee, my son,” said the veteran; “for such thou art to me in being the husband of Cicely—you will find in my will that I have liberated and provided for all my slaves—except those ungrateful scoundrels who deserted their master—they have seized their own freedom, and they need not be indebted to me for the same. There is, Edward, also an unworthy legacy to the king; his majesty will deign to receive it—from an old and faithful servant, and you will not miss the trifling gift.” A long pause followed, as if he had been summing up the account of his earthly duties, and found them duly balanced, when he added, “Kiss me, Cicely—and you, Katherine—I find you have the genuine feelings of honest Jack, your father.—My eyes grow dim—which is the hand of Griffith? Young gentleman, I have given you all that a fond old man had to bestow—deal tenderly with the precious child—we have not properly understood each other—I had mistaken both you and Mr. Christopher Dillon, I believe; perhaps I may also have mistaken my duty to America—but I was too old to change my politics or my religion—I-I-I loved the king—God bless him—”
His words became fainter and fainter as he proceeded; and the breath deserted his body with this benediction on his livid lips, which the proudest monarch might covet from so honest a man.