You have allowed me, Mr. Devereux, said our hero, to witness a domestic scene, revealing secrets, which my honour never will permit me to violate, and inspiring me with an admiration of your lovely daughter, and a respect for you and my friend your son, which nothing can exceed.
CHAPTER VII.
A Chapter, which disposes of one of the principal Characters in the History, and concludes the second Book of the third and last Volume.
The next morning early, as soon as John De Lancaster had risen and was dressed, a note from Cornet Roberts signified, that he was waiting, and requested leave to be admitted to him in private for a very few minutes. This was instantly granted, and his visitor introduced the business he was upon by premising, that it concerned a guilty but repentant object, whom he was sensible it did not become him even to name in Mr. De Lancaster’s hearing, unless he had his free permission so to do.
Assure me only, said De Lancaster, that the person you allude to is really penitent, and I shall then think it my duty to hear and attend to any thing, you have to tell me of Sir David Ap Owen, or from Sir David.
That he is truly penitent, replied Roberts, I most seriously believe, and, as one proof of it, I have received from his hands this bond, which with contrition he returns to you by mine.
He considers himself as a dying man, and from what he hinted at respecting his avoidance of a public execution, I cannot but suspect that he has taken means to intercept that punishment. I understand from my kind friend Major Wilson, that you are apprised of my connection and peculiar situation with respect to this unhappy man. I therefore flatter myself you will not be displeased when I inform you, that I have here in my hand a full confession, every word of which was dictated by him, and signed in his own hand-writing with his name, of the dreadful crime, which has made you fatherless, and also of another infamous proceeding of a complicated nature, respecting a much-injured young woman, daughter of his uncle’s bard Ap Rees, and now deceased. Under the dreadful consciousness of these atrocious deeds he is now approaching to his last hour. Condition more calamitous than this, is not in mortal man to suffer or conceive.—In a trunk, of which I have the key, there is a considerable sum of money, raised and amassed by him before and since his leaving England, as a resource I should suppose against events, which he had reason to foresee and dread. Out of this money he has directed me to purchase an annuity for the joint lives of the father and brother of the poor girl, who was the victim of his cruel and flagitious passions. Of his mother he speaks with bitterest abhorrence, accusing her as the incendiary, who inflamed his animosity against you, and spurred him on to the late horrid act to satisfy her malice and revenge. She has thrown herself into the convent of Saint Barbara, and by a letter I am charged with he solemnly adjures her to devote the remnant of her days to repentance and atonement. This sir, is the sum of what I am commissioned to report to you, except the last most anxious wish of his heart, a wish however, which he justly fears you cannot be induced to grant, though he credits you for charity of the sublimest sort; namely, that you would condescend to look upon him in his extreme distress, and suffer him to humble himself before you, though despairing of forgiveness.
Sir, replied De Lancaster, with the lessons and example of our Heavenly Master ever before me, it is not in my heart, wounded although it be, to turn away from this repentant criminal, and not comply with his request, however painful it must be to grant it. Tell him I’ll come to him within this hour; nay, if you rather wish it, I am ready at this very minute to go with you. Perhaps what you conjecture may be true; and, if it be, no time is to be lost.
This said, the generous youth, without a moment’s loss, took his visitor by the arm, and with a ready mind, prepared for every trial, hastened to the melancholy abode, where, upon giving in his name to the officer upon guard, he was admitted to the wretch, who had been his unrelenting enemy through life, and had at length completed the full measure of his malice and atrocity by the murder of his father.
Upon entering the room, John De Lancaster had no sooner come within the centinels, than he stopped, and, addressing himself to the prisoner, said—Sir David Ap Owen, I am come at your desire to convince you that I am incapable of withholding from you any thing on my part, that can facilitate and further your repentance, which I truly hope may be so perfect and sincere, as to atone for your offences, grievous as they have been, and, through the intercession of your Redeemer, recommend you to the mercy and forgiveness of your God.
The prisoner had been reading; he raised his eyes from the book, and fixing them with wild amazement upon the person of the man he had so deeply injured, now beyond all his hopes presenting himself at his call, and addressing him with these solemn and impressive words, when struck on a sudden to the heart (the mortal dose conspiring with his conscience to arrest and stop its pulses) he gave a hideous shriek and fell into a swoon.