At the bed-side of the dying Falconer he found his father's daughter. His sister!—With what strange and contradictory emotions he received the hand of the being, to whose unhappy hostility he owed the long series of sufferings and indignities that had brought him almost to the grave. And she,—with what feelings she must have herself seen in the object of her greatest hate, one to whom nature had given the strongest claims on her love. But the place in which they met called for other than selfish emotions: it was at the death-bed of their common parent.
It is not our design to pursue further in detail the history of this unfortunate man. The bullet of Oran Gilbert (for it was now known that the shot could have been fired by no other, all the members of his band having been either killed or captured,) had been well aimed, though he who fired it deemed it was speeded against the breast of his own brother. The better victim lingered but a few days, and then expired; so that the same grave which received his unlucky son closed over the guilt and sorrow of the parent. He lived long enough to remove the veil of shame from the sepulchre of the betrayed wife, and to do her reparation in the person of her son; but it was, as he had before declared, at the expense of his daughter. She never more lifted up her head. A sense of her parent's baseness, and the disgrace now attached to her own origin, with perhaps the bitter consciousness that her cruel design upon the happiness of her friend had caused the ruin that surrounded her, weighed her to the earth; and two years after her father's death, she was herself borne to the grave, the last victim of the retribution which so often visits the sins of the father upon the heads of his children.
It remains but to reveal the fate of two other prominent persons in the story, before exchanging the gloom pervading the last act of the tragedy, for the sunshine that should mark the close.
The prisoner Sterling, notwithstanding his own expectations of a speedy dissolution, lingered a full month before he expired; and in all that time displayed the workings of the hallucination which had been the consequence of his crime. He saw before him continually—for day and night were now alike to him—the ghastly figure of young Falconer, frowning at his bed-side; and frequently the phantom of the elder brother was added, in imagination, to the terrors of the other. He died in this fearful frame of mind; and thus carried to the after-tribunal the guilt which escaped the punishment of man.
The fate of Oran Gilbert remained for many months wrapped in obscurity. He must have fired the shot that struck a bosom he had so often coveted to pierce, from the open square behind the prison; yet he effected his escape from the village without pursuit and almost without observation, the discharge of the rifle having excited but little notice at a moment when all the crowded throngs in the streets were rushing towards the court. The alarm, however, being soon given, many men armed themselves and started in pursuit, though without any knowledge of the direction in which he had fled, and, indeed, without at first being aware whom they followed. The first traces of him were discovered in the Hollow, at Elsie Bell's cottage, which it seems he had entered before day, and there rested for awhile, to the great terror of the little negro girl Margery, who was at that time the only inmate of the hovel, and to whom he appeared little short of a demon, his countenance being wild and dreadful, and his words and actions, at least in her opinion, distracted. It was from the circumstances developed here, that the pursuers found they were upon the track of Oran Gilbert himself, now deprived of all followers, and flying with the dreadful persuasion at his spirit, that his hand had slain the last of his father's children.
It appeared from little Margery's account, that, after wildly searching the house over, he asked for Elsie, and being told she was in the village, sat down upon a chair, whence the girl soon saw blood fall upon the floor; and, in fact, upon examination, it was found that a considerable quantity of gore still lay by the chair on which he had rested. He then called for water, and a napkin, the latter of which he put upon his right side, securing it under a leathern belt; after which he drank freely of the water, and going into Elsie's private apartment, he took from the wall a little sampler, a relic, as it appeared, of his deceased sister, tore it to pieces, and scattered it over the floor. He then proceeded to the chamber so long inhabited by Hyland, where finding many little sketches, and other neglected scraps, he destroyed them in like manner. After this, he descended to the room below, took up his gun, which he charged with great care, and hunted about until he had found a strong and sharp-pointed knife, which he stuck in his belt; and then, drinking again from the pitcher, he left the hovel, without uttering a single word, and Margery heard him ride away, apparently towards the mountain.
This was enough for the pursuers, whose numbers had been increased by volunteers along the way; and they instantly resumed the road, though with no great hope of coming up with the fugitive, who had foiled them so many times already. They knew, however, that the land was full of parties still in search of him, none of which had perhaps been so close upon his track as themselves. They were also inspired by a discovery that was made when they came to examine the marks of his horse's feet in the moist earth bordering the runlet in the oak-yard, and this was, that the animal had cast a shoe; for which reason, they supposed, the rider would be soon compelled to abandon him, and seek shelter in some fast place among the woods, where he might be surrounded, and perhaps taken alive. They rode on therefore with new spirit, and coming at an early hour in the morning upon the river bank, led by the tracks of his horse, which did not seem once to have left the road, they descried him, or at least a horseman they supposed to be him, riding along the bluff, at a slow gait, indicative of the daring or recklessness of his character.
He rode a black horse, apparently of great native strength and spirit; but, it was now obvious, the animal had been of late taxed severely, and beyond his powers; for which reason, it was not doubted, the fugitive could be overtaken, before he reached the mountain, which was still distant three or four miles. The party proclaimed their discovery and their hopes, by setting up a great shout. At this, to their surprise, the refugee checked his wearied steed, and turned round, as if for the purpose of making battle,—a display of audacity and resolution that went far to cool the ardour of many who had been, a moment before, the bravest of the whole party. They saw him fling the rifle he carried into the hollow of his left arm, and then, with his right hand, remove from his visage the long locks of black hair that had, a moment before, swung wildly in the wind; and they fancied they beheld, even at the distance which separated them from him, a smile writhing over his pallid features, like that of the panther at bay.
"Well done, old Oran the 'Awk!" cried one of the party, taking a long rifle from his shoulder, and advancing to the head of the others, who had come to an universal halt. He was a man of middle age, with a face as bleak and weather-worn as the rocks at the river's edge, tall and gaunt of frame, but sinewy, and of a certain bully-like look about the fists and eyes, that showed him to be no inconsiderable man in his degree. "Well done, old Oran the 'Awk!" he cried; "I up'old you to be game, chock-full; and so, if you're for a pull ag'in current, why, I'm clear for showing fair play. So men, just 'old by, like honest fellers; and, my logs 'gin' his, I'll show him what long shots is; for he and me was good friends of old."
"Go it, Dan Potts, the raftsman!" cried several of his companions, handling their own arms, as if to try their virtues at a distance, while others cried out, to advance in a body without further delay, but set no example themselves, the appearance of the outlaw being uninviting to all save the bold raftsman, who continued to move onwards, though slowly and cautiously, as if well aware of the danger of a personal contest with one who had been, as he said, his good friend in old times. But the refugee, without regarding the challenge of the raftsman, took advantage of the hesitation of his companions to change his own plans, and by suddenly turning his horse and spurring off with unexpected speed, he gained a considerable space before they could recover from their surprise and follow. They darted after him, however, with what activity they could; and cheering one another with their voices, they rode on at such a pace that, in a few moments, the whole party was sweeping betwixt the yawning jaws of the Gap, up the course of which he directed his flight.