A very long, deep breath disturbed the silence. It startled Mr. Castlemaine. He looked up, and for a moment loosed the hand he held.
"Harry!"
Harry Castlemaine, his eyes wide open now, raised his head from the pillow. He seemed to be staring at the windowpanes with a fixed look, as though he could see the sea that lay beyond, and found something strange in it.
"Father, dear father, it is she!" he burst out in his natural tones, and with a deep, exulting joy in them. "It is my mother: I know her well. Oh, yes, mother, I am coming!"
The Master of Greylands was startled. Harry had never seen his mother to remember her; he knew her only by her picture, which hung in one of the rooms, and was a speaking likeness of her. Harry had fallen back again, and lay with a smile upon his face. One more deep respiration came slowly forth from his lips: it was the last he had to take in this world.
The bereaved father saw what it was, and all his bitter sorrow rose up within him in one long overwhelming agony. He fell upon the unconscious face lying there; his trial seeming greater than he could bear.
"Oh, Harry, my son! my son Harry! would God I could have died for thee, my son, my son!"
[CHAPTER XXXVII.]
ANTHONY.
Little explanation need be afforded in regard to the smuggling practices, so long carried on with impunity. Some ten or fifteen years before, Commodore Teague (commodore by courtesy) had taken the Hutt of old Mr. Castlemaine, on whose land it stood. Whether the Commodore had fixed on his abode there with the pre-intention to set up in the contraband trade, so much favoured then and so profitable, or whether the facilities which the situation presented for it, arising from the subterranean passage to the beach, which Teague himself discovered, and which had been unknown to the Castlemaines, first induced the thought, cannot be told. Certain it is, that Teague did organize and embark in it; and was joined in it by James Castlemaine. James Castlemaine was a young and active man then, ever about; and Teague probably thought that it would not do to run the risk of being found out by the Castlemaines. He made a merit of necessity; and by some means induced James Castlemaine to join him in the work--to be his partner in it, in fact. Half a loaf is better than no bread, runs the proverb, and the Commodore was of that opinion. His proposal was a handsome one. James Castlemaine was to take half the gross profits; he himself would take the risk, the cost, and the residue of the profits. Perhaps James Castlemaine required little urging: daring, careless, loving adventure, the prospect presented charms for him that nothing else could have brought. And the compact was made.