I resolved to do what is sometimes called “taking the bull by the horns.”
“Yes, you are right, mother,” said I. “If you mean Mr Leary, he was hung innocently; for the men who did the deed were guilty of no wrong. Mathew Leary deserved the fate that has befallen him.”
My mother’s intellect appeared to have been sharpened by her affliction, for she seemed to remember every word of the article she had read.
“Rowland!” she screamed, “you have come from California. You aided in murdering him. Ha! It was you who insulted him in the hour of death, by calling him father. O God! it was you.”
The idea of my insulting Mathew Leary, by calling him father, seemed to me the most wonderful and original conception, that ever emanated from the human mind.
“Ha!” continued my mother, hissing cut the words. “It was you that gave the word to the others—the word that brought him to death? You are a murderer! You are not my son! I curse you! Take my curse and begone! No, don’t go yet! Wait ’till I’ve done with you!”
As she said this, she made a rush at me; and, before I could get beyond her reach, a handful of hair was plucked from my head!
When finally hindered from farther assailing me, she commenced dragging out her own hair, all the while raving like a maniac!
She became so violent at length, that it was found necessary to tie her down; and, acting under the orders of a physician, who had been suddenly summoned to the house, I took my departure—leaving poor Martha, weeping by the side of a frantic woman, whom we had the misfortune to call mother.
How long to me appeared the hours of that dreary night. I passed them in an agony of thought, that would have been sufficient punishment, even for Mr Leary—supposing him to have been possessed of a soul capable of feeling it.