"Aye, that a' wull wi' my heart in my hand," cried Rushmere, grasping the nobleman's outstretched hand, who could have dispensed with at least one half of the energetic pressure that compressed his thin white fingers within the strong grip of the honest tiller of the soil.
"Dear, dear!" he continued, "if a' had only known that afore, I should ha' thought a deal more o' your Lordship."
"I have something to tell you which will surprise you much more, Lawrence. This little girl, Dorothy, whom you adopted as your own, is descended from him too."
"Now, my lord, you be surely making fun o' me; for nobody in the world knows who Dolly's mother was, still less her father. I ha' been puzzling my brain about that secret for the last sixteen years, without finding it out. It was the want of knowing who she was, that has ruined both me and my son."
"She is my daughter, Lawrence. The poor woman that you found dead on Hadstone Heath, was Alice Knight, a beautiful girl, whom you may remember was adopted by my mother, Lady Dorothy. She was my wife, and the mother of our Dorothy."
"The Lord a' mercy!" cried Rushmere, starting to his feet. "An' you let the poor lass die for want, an' her child work for her bread, in the house of a stranger. You may call yourself noble, an' all that, Lord Wilton, but I should feel prouder of the relationship of a poor, honest man."
"I do not blame you, Rushmere. My conduct, from the view you take of it, must appear atrocious indeed. But I was as ignorant of the facts as you were."
"But how could your lawful wife come to such a state o' destitution? Did a' play you false?"
"I will tell you how it all happened," returned Lord Wilton, "and you will be more ready to forgive me, as the unfortunate worship of the golden calf, which I find is an hereditary sin, brought about this unhappy affair."
Drawing his seat beside the old yeoman, he told him the story the reader has just learned from the preceding chapter, patiently submitting to his blunt cross-questioning on many points, that could not fail to be very distressing to his feelings.