The old woman had now recovered her light, and holding it up to the face of Mr. M————, she instantly recognized him; he had been a popular favourite with the poor followers of Inismore: she was among the number; and her joy at having her terrors thus terminated, was such as for an interval to preclude all hope of obtaining any answer from her. With some difficulty the distracted and impatient M———— at last learnt from a detail interrupted by all the audible testimonies of vulgar grief, that an execution had been laid upon the Prince’s property, and another upon his person; that he had been carried away to jail out of a sick bed, accompanied by his daughter, Father John, and the old nurse; and that the whole party had set off in the old family coach, which the creditors had not thought worthy taking away, in the middle of the night, lest the country people should rise to rescue the Prince, which the officers who accompanied him apprehended.
The old woman was proceeding in her narrative, but her auditor heard no more; he flew from the castle, and, mounting his horse, set out for the town where the Prince was imprisoned. He reached it early next morning, and rode at once to the jail. He alighted and inquired for Mr. O’Melville, commonly called Prince of Inismore.
The jailor, observing his wild and haggard appearance, kindly asked him into his own room and then informed him that the Prince had been released two days back; but that his weak state of health did not permit him to leave the jail till the preceding evening, when he had set off for Inismore. “But,” said the jailor, “he will never reach his old castle alive, poor gentleman! which he suspected himself; for he received the last ceremonies of the church before he departed, thinking, I suppose, that he would die on the way.”
Overcome by fatigue and a variety of overwhelming emotions, Mr. M———— sunk motionless on a seat; while the humane jailor, shocked by the wretchedness of his looks, and supposing him to be a near relative, offered some words of consolation, and informed him there was then a female domestic of the Prince’s in the prison, who was to follow the family in the course of the day, and who could probably give him every information he might require. This was welcome tidings to Mr. M————; and he followed the jailor to the room where the Prince had been confined, and where the old nurse was engaged in packing up some articles, which fell out of her hands when she perceived her favourite and patient, whom she cordially embraced with the most passionate demonstrations of joy and amazement.
The jailor retired; and Mr. M————, shuddering as he contemplated the close and gloomy little apartment, its sorry furniture, and grated windows, where the suffering Glorvina had been imprisoned with her father, briefly related to the nurse that, having learnt the misfortunes of the Prince, he had followed him to the prison, in the hope of being able to give him some assistance, if not to effect his liberation.
The old woman was as usual garrulous and communicative; she wept alternately the Prince’s sufferings and tears of joy for his release; talked sometimes of the generosity of the good friend, who had, she said, “been the saviour of them all,” and sometimes of the Christian fortitude of the Prince; but still dwelt most on the virtues and afflictions of her young lady, whom she frequently termed a saint out of heaven, a suffering-angel, and a martyr. She then related the circumstances of the Prince’s imprisonment in terms so affecting, yet so simple, that her own tears dropt not faster than those of her auditor. She said that she believed they had looked for assistance from their concealed friend until the last moment, when the Prince, unable to struggle any longer, left his sick bed for the prison of ————; that Glorvina had supported her father during their melancholy journey in her arms, without suffering even a tear, much less a complaint to escape her; that she had supported his spirits and her own as though she were more than human, until the physician who attended the Prince gave him over; that then her distraction (when out of the presence of her father) knew no bounds; and that once they feared her senses were touched.
When, at a moment when they were all reduced to despair, the mysterious friend arrived, paid the debt for which the Prince was confined, and had carried them off the evening before, by a more tedious but less rugged road than that she supposed Mr. M———— had taken, by which means he had probably missed them. “For all this, (continued the old woman weeping) my child will never be happy: she is sacrificing herself for her father, and he will not live to enjoy the benefit of it. The gentleman is indeed good and comely to look at; and his being old enough to be her father matters nothing; but then love is not to be commanded, though duty may.”
Mr. M. struck by these words fell at her feet, conjured her not to conceal from him the state of her lady’s affections, confessed his own secret passion, in terms as ardent as it was felt. His recent sufferings and suspicions, and the present distracted state of his mind, his tears, his entreaties, his wildly energetic supplications, his wretched but interesting appearance, and above all the adoration he professed for the object of her own tenderest affection, finally vanquished the small portion of prudence and reserve interwoven in the unguarded character of the simple and affectionate old Irish woman, and she at last confessed, that the day after his departure from the castle of Inismore, Glorvina was seized with a fever, in which, after the first day, she became delirious; that during the night, as the nurse sat by her, she awakened from a deep sleep and began to speak much of Mr. Mortimer, whom she called her friend, her preceptor, and her lover; talked wildly of her having been united to him by God in the vale of Inismore, and drew from her bosom a sprig of withered myrtle, which, she said, had been a bridal gift from her beloved, and that she often pressed it to her lips and smiled, and began to sing an air which, she said, was dear to him; until at last she burst into tears, and wept herself to sleep again. “When she recovered,” continued the nurse, “which, owing to her youth and fine constitution, she did in a few days, I mentioned to her some of these sayings, at which she changed colour, and begged that as I valued her happiness I would bury all I had heard in my own breast; and above all bid me not mention your name, as it was now her duty to forget you; and last night I heard her consent to become the wife of the good gentleman; but poor child it is all one, for she will die of a broken heart. I see plainly she will not long survive her father, nor will ever love any but you!” At these words the old woman burst into a passion of tears, while Mr. M———— catching her in his arms, exclaimed, “I owe you my life, a thousand times more than my life;” and throwing his purse into her lap, flew to the inn, where having obtained a hack horse, given his own in care to the master, and taken a little refreshment which his exhausted frame, long fasting, and extraordinary fatigue required, he again set out for the Lodge. His sole object was to obtain an interview with Glorvina, and on the result of that interview to form his future determination.
To retrace the wild fluctuations of those powerful and poignant feelings which agitated a mind alternately the prey of its wishes and its fears, now governed by the impetuous impulses of unconquerable love, now by the sacred ties of filial affection, now sacrificing every consideration to the dictates of duty, and now forgetting everything in the fond dreams of passion, would be an endless, an impossible task; when still vibrating between the sweet felicities of new-born hope, and the gloomy suggestions of habitual doubt. The weary traveller reached the peninsula of In-ismore about the same hour that he had done the preceding day. At the drawbridge he was met by a peasant whom he had known and to whom he gave his horse. The man, with a countenance full of importance, was going to address him, but he sprung eagerly forward and was in a moment immersed in the ruins of the castle; intending to pass through the chapel as the speediest and most private way, and to make his arrival first known to Father John, to declare to the good priest his real name and rank, his passion for Glorvina, and to receive his destiny from her lips only.
He had scarcely entered the chapel when the private door by which it communicated with the castle flew open. He screened himself behind a pillar, from whence he beheld Father John proceeding with a solemn air towards the altar, followed by the Prince, carried by three servants in an arm chair, and apparently in the last stage of mortal existence. Glorvina then appeared wrapt in a long veil and supported on the arm of a stranger, whose figure and air was lofty and noble, but whose face was concealed by the recumbent attitude of his head, which drooped towards that of his apparently feeble companion, as if in the act of addressing her. This singular procession advanced to the altar; the chair of the Prince re posed at his feet. The priest stood at the sacred table—Glorvina and her companion knelt at its steps. The last red beams of the evening sun shone through a stormy cloud on the votarists all was awfully silent; a pause solemn and affecting ensued; then the priest began to celebrate the marriage rites; but the first words had not died on his lips, when a figure, pale and ghastly, rushed forward, wildly exclaiming, “Stop, I charge you, stop! you know not what you do! it is a sacrilege!” and breathless and faint the seeming maniac sunk at the feet of the bride.