“And now, my lord, before I leave you, I have an earnest petition to offer. There are, of the brig’s crew, a full score of men—I think two-and-twenty of them—at all events, Percy can give you their names.”
“I know them,” said the young man, as she hesitated and glanced toward him.
“They are men, my lord,” she went on, “who never willingly committed crime. I have to beseech you, that when you come to lift the sword of justice against the pirates, these men may be spared. They—”
“My good Margery,” interrupted the earl, with a benignant, happy look on his aged face, “I am pleased to tell you that the promise you ask I have already given to another. The only consideration on which Percy would at first agree to assist me in capturing the chief of the pirates was that I would give free passage, whithersoever they would go, to the men of whom you have spoken. Rest you easy, for I give you my word, not one of them—not one, in short, who can prove that he possesses your avouchment for his character—shall be molested.”
Margery bowed low as she thanked him; then turned and left the room. Percy followed her out, but she had nothing more to say to him.
“Go back, boy, to those who have a right to your love and your care. Yes, Percy, you are indeed and in truth that old man’s grandson. Go back to him, and let your love make some little return of joy to him for the many, many hours of pain and grief my sin has cost him.”
The youth murmured a fervent blessing upon her, and left her. She found old Donald in the hall, and with him she returned to her cottage.
An hour later four stout men, with a written order from her hand, appeared at the castle for the body of Ralph Maitland. That was the name which the mother had written.
It was delivered to them, and they bore it away; and the whole castle, in every part, and the whole household, seemed brighter and better when it was gone.
With the coming of evening a calm and tranquil joy had settled upon the household of the castle; for there was not a servant on the broad estate who did not heartily rejoice in the knowledge that the brave and handsome youth, whom they had so long esteemed and loved for himself alone, was indeed and in truth their young lord and master.