“Madam, I command you to rise.”
“Never, never! while my son is in chains! Oh, my lord, you do not know, you never can dream, how I have loved that boy! I had no one else in the wide world to love; not a drop of kindred blood ran in any human heart but his; and I loved, I adored, I worshiped him! Oh, Earl De Courcy, I have suffered cold, and hunger, and thirst, and hardship, that he might never want; I have toiled for him night and day, that he might never feel pain; I have stooped to actions I loathed, that he might be happy and free from guilt. And, when he grew older, I gave him up, though it was like rending soul and body apart. I sent him away; I I sent him to school with the money that years and years of unceasing toil had enabled me to save. I sent him to be educated with gentlemen. I never came near him, lest any one should suspect his mother was a gipsy. Yes; I gave him up, though it was like tearing my very heart-strings apart, content in knowing he was happy, and in seeing him at a distance at long intervals. For twenty-three years, my life has been one long dream of him; sleeping or waking, in suffering and trial, the thought that he was near me gave me joy and strength. And now he is condemned for life—condemned to a far-off land, among convicts and felons, where I will never see him again! Oh, Lord De Courcy! mercy, mercy for my son!”
With the wild cry of a mother’s agony, she shrieked out that frenzied appeal for mercy, and groveled prone to the floor at his feet.
A spasm of pain passed over the face of the earl, but he answered, sternly:
“Woman, your son is guilty. I cannot pardon him!”
“He is not guilty! Perish the soul so base as to believe such a falsehood of my high-hearted boy!” cried the gipsy, dashing fiercely back her wildly-streaming black hair. “He my proud, glorious, kindly-hearted Reginald, stoop to such a crime! Oh, sooner could the angels themselves be guilty of it than he!”
“Woman, you rave! Once again I tell you, rise!
“Pardon, pardon for my son!”
“Madam, I cannot. I pity you. Heaven knows I do! but he is guilty, and must suffer.”